Scott Nicolay

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Tag: Call of Cthulhu

Stories from the Borderland #12: “The Damp Man” by Allison V. Harding

weird_4905The previous installment of Stories From the Borderland examined “The Cactus,” a tale by Mildred Johnson, an enigmatic female author who published only two known stories, both in Weird Tales. This week the author of our featured selection is another mysterious byline from Weird Tales. Allison V. Harding was not only the magazine’s most prolific contributing female author: she was its tenth most prolific contributor altogether, well ahead of many of the magazine’s better known male authors such as Ray Bradbury or Frank Belknap Long. And though we know much more about Harding than Mildred Johnson, she remains in many ways even more enigmatic. She may in fact be The Unique Magazine’s most enigmatic author of all, and its most enduring mystery. Continue reading

Dwayne Olson, Fedogan & Bremer, and Fungi From Yuggoth: Less a Dream Than This We Know | The Outer Dark: Episode 16 — OCTOBER 20, 2015

715lhhw5FiLDwayne Olson of Fedogan & Bremer discusses the authoritative new two-CD audio re-release of this legendary horror press’s first audio publication, H.P. Lovecraft‘s sonnet cycle Fungi From Yuggoth, including the back story of the bonus disk with never-before-recorded musical pieces by composer Harold S. Farnese such as “Mirage” and “The Elder Pharos“—the only musical settings of the sonnets approved by Lovecraft himself—shared roots in the discovery of Lovecraft through The Dunwich Horror in the Scholastic Press collection 11 Great Horror Stories (1969), how great Weird writers have been lost through poor estate planning or legal controversies, the early days, ongoing history, mission and camaraderie of Fedogan & Bremer, his own early involvement via publishing works by authors/brothers Howard Wandrei and Donald Wandrei (co-founder with August Derleth of Arkham House), the evolution of the sonnet cycle and Fungi from Yuggoth as an important American poetic work, other Weird Circle poets such as Clark Ashton Smith and the oft-forgotten Joseph Payne Brennan, the recurring theme of finding weird books in bookstores in weird fiction, Lovecraft’s unusual sonnet form choice, echoes of key themes and tropes from Lovecraft’s work in the sonnets, similarities between Lovecraft and Kerouac, the sublime non-horrific ending, why Fungi deserves more attention, the planet Pluto in the news, the challenges of running a specialty press, the popularity of Lovecraft today, and his reading recommendations by more obscure lost writers including Unthinkable by Francis H. Sibson, a pre-WW2 novel in which a stranded Antarctica expedition returns to a post-apocalyptic world, and The Thing from the Lake by Eleanor Ingram, which he describes as Lovecraftian fiction before Lovecraft, as well as what’s next from Fedogan & Bremer including a new John Pelan collection, an alternate Fungi from Yuggoth read by William Hart with music by Graham Plowman, an anthology based on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari edited by Joseph S Pulver Sr. and much more.

Includes: Audio clip excerpts from sonnets “The Key,” “The Window” and “Continuity,” as well as “Elegy for HP Lovecraft,” composed by Harold S. Farnese.

ALSO: Arkham Digest’s Justin Steele reviews A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes  or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

71XkyOB77GLMore Links:

https://www.yog-sothoth.com/topic/28899-fungi-from-yuggoth-deluxe-two-disc-set/

https://www.hplovecraft.com/life/friends.aspx

https://diceofdoom.com/blog/2011/05/lovecrafts-inspiration-for-at-the-mountains-of-madness-the-paintings-of-nicholas-roerich/

https://benjaminpercy.com/

Next week’s guest: CM Muller, editor & publisher of the new Weird fiction journal Nightscript.

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