rosanicus

The parents at school very kindly gifted my WIFE and I a Foyles gift card as a wedding gift (we're married) (it's great), and with it I bought several books. One such book is the Penguin Weird Fiction anthology, which I miraculously read after a horrible reading dry spell.

My taste in short stories is definitely suited to this book. There's a good mix of authors in here, stories I've heard of and a few I hadn't. In the tradition of my old Goodreads reviews I will therefore present a power ranking, least favourite to most, because I enjoy putting my opinion on the Internet.

DNQ: A Wicked Voice by Vernon Lee
The only story I completely bounced off. Something about the narrative voice really annoyed me and I couldn't get past it :( Maybe one day!

8. The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft
This is my first Lovecraft story and honestly I'm disappointed by how sane the narrator remains for the whole thing. The racism was more intertwined with the narrative than I expected which gave the whole thing an unpleasant aftertaste, unsurprisingly. I enjoyed the epistolary elements though, and it's nice to have a reference point for all the Lovecraftian media made in response.

7. Where Their Fire is Not Quenched by May Sinclair
I think this one is about the perils of retreating into piety after treating other people badly and/or being sinful, which is less effective as someone living in 2025 who thinks Oscar Wade sounds like a bit of a cunt. The protagonist's growing terror and disorientation was effective though, and I loved the gut punch of an ending.

6. Kerfol by Edith Wharton
Would've enjoyed this more if it went full Martin's Close with the historical part of the narrative. The ideas behind this were more interesting than the execution, I think, but I did like the ideas!

5. The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe
It's dramatic, it's hard to parse, it's got horribly long sentences and obvious social commentary. It's got literal death gatecrashing a party to say Fuck The Rich. It's a great time and I'm glad I read it - probably my favourite Poe I've read yet, although Amontillado is obviously close at heel.

4. The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs
I mean obviously this one is a banger. I've read it several times and every time I'm struck by how genuine the bond of love is between the parents and son before it's all destroyed by an understandable greed. Endlessly parodies and imitated but ultimately that last image of the open door - damn. Really good.

3. The Horror of the Heights by Arthur Conan Doyle
Realistically this isn't better than The Monkey's Paw but it's a speculative piece of horror sci-fi from ACD about a pilot that finds a sky jungle at 40,000 feet and then gets killed by massive sky jellyfish. So it's a yes from me, gang. I didn't realise until the pilot mentioned unscrewing his "air bag" that the aeronautics was mostly theoretical as well, so kudos to ACD for some very plausible technobabble.

2. Couching at the Door by D.K. Broster
HAUNTED FUR BOA. This is an oversimplification but it's true, so. I am yet to read Flight of the Heron despite a combination of desire and motivation so thus is my first Broster foray and I had a FANTASTIC time. It's such a potent mix of deserved retribution and undeserved manipulation, a real Jamesian wallop at the end with the return of A Creature and a wonderful amount of implication and subtext as to what exactly Augustine Marchant has been up to in Prague...

1. Oh, Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad' by M.R. James (my beloved)
We all knew this was coming. I adore MRJ and this really is one of his best. It's funny in a dry and understated way, it contains many references to MRJ's hatred of golf, and it also happens to be genuinely frightening, both in its descriptions and in the way it builds that sense of unease in the environment and the things that Parkins shrugs off and the audience Just Knows is going to go badly for the poor professor. I like Parkins! I hope he and the Colonel had a lovely assignation on the links and he returned to Cambridge a better and less cynical man.