The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury slight spoilers and it will appear on my HPL blog as well.

  

I was reading Roger Zelazny's A Night in Lonesome October as my Halloween read, but as always, I could not read a chapter a day. Instead, I rushed ahead then read all the short stories based on this theme from the various Lovecraft eZine Megapacks. This meant that once I had decorated and left out Wagon Wheels and hand sanitizer for the little ghouls and goblins (about 12 kids and assorted parents), I needed something to read. 

Ray Bradbury was one of the most formative authors I read as a child/young adult. And there on the shelf was a title I had never read before The Halloween Tree. No one does Halloween, autumn or childhood like Bradbury. And no one illustrates Bradbury like Joseph Mugnaini. 

"Shrieking, wailing, full of banshee mirth they ran, on everything except sidewalks, " (4)

The story itself is simple; eight boys go out trick or treating in a small Midwestern town, pure Bradbury. But the boy Pip (Pipkin), who is the most vital, energetic, of the group, the very image of unbridled boyhood is missing. He has told them to go ahead, and he will catch up. But it is obvious something is not right with Pip. As loyal friends, the group follows Pip's instructions and visit the biggest, scariest, spookiest house in town.

"So, with a pseudopod thrust out here or there, the amoebic form, the large perspiration of boys leaned and made a run and a stop to the front door of the house which was as tall as a coffin and twice as thin." (19)

 Here they meet Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, probably the scariest, creepiest, spookiest person in town. They see the Halloween Tree hung with strange jack-o-lanterns and embark on a tour of Halloween's history on a giant kite formed from old carnival posters. 

"And then down they sailed off away deep into the Undiscovered Country of Old Death and Strange Years in the Frightful Past..."(54)

"And the million tiger-lion-leopard-panther eyes of the autumn Kite looked down, as did the eyes of the boys."(55) 

One and on, I read past cavemen and mummies, both Egyptian and Mexican. The Druids appeared the Roman Legions attacked, witches stirred black cauldrons and burned for it. The great cathedral of Notre-Dame appeared resplendent with gargoyles. 

And finally, '"Quiet as milkweed, then, soft as snow, fall blow away down, each and all."

The boys fell. 

Like a bushel of chestnuts, their feet rained to earth."(81)

This was my childhood, not the reality of it but some of the sense and feel of it. The books I read, the stories I was told, the movies I saw. The paper decorations, the pumpkins, cats and cornstalks decorating the houses I walked past. The autumnal sound of dry leaves underfoot, the smell of apples and the first cold brush of winter buried amid the horse chestnuts and multicoloured Indian corn. And I realize now it had continued to be my life. Reading Bradbury, I understood that the things that interested me as a child are largely the things that interest me today. I still love rocketships, dinosaurs, and books with mummies, witches and werewolves on the covers. I have been fortunate that Helen shares many of these interests; we have visited Hadrian's Wall, York Minster Cathedral., Saint Mark's in Venice. When I finished, I felt grateful that in a trying year, I had the joy of reading this book and this author. I became aware that I can enjoy my life, the people around me and my pursuits in peace and security and how rare that is. 

Having finished The Halloween Tree, I looked for another Bradbury work to at least flip though before bed. Obvious choices would have been his collection The October Country or short stories like "The Illustrated Man" or "The Pillar of Fire." But the images in one of my favourite books called to me instead. 

"The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward. Her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves. Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. "(3) Fahrenheit 451

I am posting this on both Jagged Orbit and Beyond the Walls of Sleep, cause I can. 

The Boojum universe of Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette (dedicated to Gardner Dozois, 1947-2018)

  This site serves, I think, as ample evidence that I am a dedicated Lovecraftian.  If you doubt me ask our resident couch potato Whateley.

I have indicated in earlier posts that I am aware of Howard's shortcomings both as an author and as a person. That said, I am obviously not alone in my appreciation of his work. A vast number of authors have incorporated some aspects of the mythos into their work. And some of it is wondrous. One can swim in vast seas of mythos fiction without ever reading Howard's work, although one would be the poorer for it. Some authors even can make something out of the thin gruel of (to my mind) Howard's most flawed stories like "Herbert West Reanimator" or "The Horror at Red Hook." 

 In these stories Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette have beautifully combined the mythos' vast apparatus with elements from Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Graham, Rudyard Kipling, and too many other authors to list. They have written three short stories, "Boojum" (2008), "Mongoose" (2009) and "The Wreck of the "Charles Dexter Ward" (2012) in a series I am referring to here as the Boojum universe. These stores can be read individually, although events that occur in one story may be referenced in the next. I would however suggest reading them in publication order. All three stories occur in the same universe; when a strangely altered/organized humanity has begun to explore the solar system. The authors do not provide great blocks of narrative exposition. Instead, terms or descriptions offer hints, leaving the reader to draw their own connections or conclusions. Names are particularly evocative in these stories and refer not just to Howard's work but also to current authors of genre literature. I love this sort of thing. 

These stories have been reprinted in numerous anthologies. I have provided full text links to two below. I read them in Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction. Boy do I miss buying these every year. 

"Boojum" 

This story is set on the live ship Lavinia Whateley. Vinnie, as the crew calls her, is an immature deep space swimmer that evolved in the high-temperature envelopes surrounding gas giants. Boojums look similar to spiny lionfish and seem to have lots of tentacles (naturally). Vinnie is crewed by pirates led by Captain Song, a leader feared even by her crew. Our protagonist is Black Alice Bradley, a junior member of the engineering team. The story begins when the Song orders an attack on the steel ship Josephine Baker. The attack succeeds, and Black Alice and her friend Dogcollar are part of the landing party. They encounter two gillies who fearfully agree to join the crew. The alternative is to remain aboard the Josephine Baker when Vinnie eaters her. They also find a cargo hold full of Mi-Go cylinders. I will not go into more detail, but we already see that Bear and Monette have created a fictional universe rich in reference and textuality. Readers familiar with mythos or general genre fiction may find more parse within the story, but it is quite enjoyable either way. The joy is that the authors are not filling in the blanks for you. It is evident that the solar system has become a very unusual place. Just how unusual it is up to the reader to find out. 

You can read Boojum here.

https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/geekdad/files/boojum.pdf

Boojum was reviewed at the Great Lovecraft reread here. (I have not yet read the review)

https://www.tor.com/2017/06/07/yo-ho-ho-and-a-bottle-of-um-elizabeth-bear-and-sarah-monettes-boojum/

"Mongoose"

Mongoose is my favourite of the three stories. Izrael Irizarry and his chesire Mongoose have come to Kadath station to deal with an infestation of insect-like tove. Toves are pests that enter stations or ships through tears in space-time. Once there, they widen the tears, which allow larger creatures, raths and eventually bandersnatch "Pseudocanis tindalosi" to enter. Once babdersnatch appear, the ship or station is doomed. The cheshire are breed by the Arkhamers, one of the several groups expanding through the solar system. Cheshires have four simple and 12 compound eyes and numerous tentacles and barbels. They are deaf but respond to vibrations and can alter their phase, appearing and disappearing at will. The relationship between Mongoose and Izrael indicates that cheshires are intelligent. They communicate reasonably well, and Mongoose can absorb the information from the stories Izreal reads her. She is currently obsessed with Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Izrael also read her Alice in Wonderland so that she would understand the origin of the term cheshire. It becomes evident that "Rikki Tikki Tavi" also made a big impression. In this story, we learn a bit more about the Boojum universe. "People did double-takes as he passed, even the heavily-modded Christian cultists with their telescoping limbs and biolin eyes. You found them on every station and steelships too, though mostly they wouldn’t work the boojums. Nobody liked Christians much, but they could work in situations that would kill an unmodded human or even a gilly, so captains and station masters tolerated them."

There are other stations, Providence, Leng, Dunwich as well as Kadath.

Israel obtained Mongoose when he intervened to help an Arkhamer girl on another station. It seems other space-faring groups distrust Arkhamers. The infestation on Kadath is larger than expected. Eventually, Izrael, Mongoose, and the station's Political officer Intelligence Colonel Sadhi Sanderson must join forces to deal with it.

You can read Mongoose here

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/bear_monette_06_13_reprint/

Deep Cuts in Lovecraftian Fiction discussed these stores here. This discussion led me to the stories.

https://deepcuts.blog/2019/01/05/boojum-2008-by-elizabeth-bear-sarah-monette/

https://deepcuts.blog/2019/01/12/mongoose-2009-by-elizabeth-bear-sarah-monette/

https://deepcuts.blog/2019/01/19/the-wreck-of-the-charles-dexter-ward-2012-by-elizabeth-bear-sarah-monette/

"The Wreck of the "Charles Dexter Ward""

Dr. Cynthia Feuerwerker is a medical doctor currently living on Faraday Station. She has been abandoned there by the captain of the boojum ship Richard Trevithick. Feuerwerker was left behind for illegal experimentation. Her reputation has also prevented her from finding a berth on another ship. Now her oxygen tax is coming due, and if she is unable to pay, she will be spaced. Then Feuerwerker is offered a berth on the Jarmulowicz Astronomica, an Arkhamer ship about to leave on a salvage mission to the boojum medical ship Charles Dexter Ward. The doctor on the Jarmulowicz Astronomica has died, and they want to leave immediately. So Arkhamer professor Wandrei recruits Feuerwerker. Feuerwerker learns later that this was not a popular decision. 

The Arkhamer crews typically do not enlist outsiders. Extended families crew Arkhamer ships and crew members are exchanged between ships as need. The ships are run like a university overseen by a President and faculty counsel with senior members having tenure. This practice makes it hard for Feuerwerker to fit in, although the cheshires always numerous on Arkhamer ships, are quite cat-like and insist on sleeping with her. Eventually, one of Wandrei's students, Hester Ayabo Jarmulowicz, somewhat aggressively befriends her, much to Feuerwerker's surprise. Hester is both a pilot and an astrobiologist. The crew on Arkahmer ships have a role in running the ship but also an academic specialty. Both Hester and Feuerwerker are part of the initial away team that accompanies Wandrei to the wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward. In a lovely touch, the ship they use is named the Caitlín R. Kiernan. Once on board, the women learn this is not a simple salvage operation. 

I love science fiction that deals with the concept of posthuman societies. I am not sure whether these stories qualify in an academic sense, but they certainly had that feel for me. These stories provided a new, exciting and unexpected exploration of the solar system through a Lovecraftian lens, and I really enjoyed them. One quote summed up the mythos quality of the universe Bear and Monette have created, "Galileo, and Derleth and Chen sought forbidden knowledge, too, that got us this far." 

New Eldritch Tomes

 

I am working on some posts that will hopefully be a bit more substantive but as often happens when the world is too much with me I have retreated to the mythos and H.P. Lovecraft. Often that means I identify some more items to add the vast, already unreadable mass of books squelching around the forgotten spaces and hidden corners of the house. So here they are sitting on the Eldritch Horror game board we really need to start playing before the massive kickstarter version of Etherfields shows up. 

The Grimscribe's Puppets a homage to the works of Thomas Ligotti, cover by Daniele Serra.

So far I have only read "Furnace" by Livia Llewellyn which appears to be a tribute to the stories that appeared in Ligotti's In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land collection about a northern town. "Furnace" is brilliant, one of the most evocatively written things I have read in a long time. It's ethos is Ligotti but descriptively I also thought of the darker works of Ray Bradbury. Wow.

Dead But Dreaming 2, the cover is unattributed. The first Dead But Dreaming was great. "Salt Air" by Mike Minnis was worth the cover price. Dead But Dreaming 2 has stories by some of my favourite mythos authors, Don Webb, Darrell Schweitzer, W. H. Pugmire, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Will Murray how could I resist.

Fungi, cover by Oliver Wetter, as a William Hope Hodgson fan this was a must.

The Lurking Chronology A Timeline of the Derleth Mythos, cover by Steve Santiago.

Phantasmagoria, cover by Douglas Klauba

New Eldritch Tomes

Every time I think I am done adding Arkham House volumes I see something, in this case two somethings, that I cannot resist. I have not read any of Vincent Starrett's weird fiction. His name popped up on my radar recently as I was reading about Sherlock Holmes and the pastiche industry generated by Doyle's character. But since Im love Homes and weird tales I added this to my library.

From the Wikipedia article on Starrett, "Starrett's most famous work, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, was published in 1933. Following that, Starrett wrote a book column, "Books Alive," for The Chicago Tribune. He retired after 25 years of the column in 1967. Starrett was one of the founders of The Hounds of the Baskerville (sic), a Chicago chapter of The Baker Street Irregulars."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Starrett

The same bookseller had a couple of other items I was interested in so the order got bigger. I love Donald Wandrei and poetry so how could I resist Poems for Midnight. Both Arkham House books have covers by Frank Utpatel one of my favourite Arkham House cover artists.

These Ballantine editions with covers by John Homes were the Lovecraft books I started reading as a teenager. I did not keep them when I graduated to the hardcovers Arkham House put out in the late 1980's. So now that I have decided I would like copies I can enjoy tracking down and buying vastly more expensive used copies. Other titles appear here.

https://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.com/2018/11/new-eldritch-tomes-saskatoon-2018.html

The last book in this order A Man Called Poe: Stories in the Vein of Edgar Allan Poe (cover by Josh Kirby) contained among other items the short story "In Which an Author and His Character Are Well Met"  by Vincent Starrett. Isn't this were we came in maybe but we are not quite done.

Not quite Helen and I finally went out Friday to the Inglewood neighbourhood where we like to shop. The stores were finally open again. A building that was a mere frame the last time we were there was almost finished, it has been a long time. At The Next Page bookstore which, sells both new and used books I was able to find a number of horror anthologies, something I rarely encounter. The covers were a bit scrapped up but at $4 each I was delighted to give them a home. 

I could not find the cover artist for these two books but I would love to know. 

Fast fashion, H.P.L. and me

 

I was visiting, as I often do The Online Journal of Caitlín R. Kiernan.

https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1562876.html

I noticed my heroine was wearing a really cool t-shirt, and well I had to have my own. Need you ask why? 

Once over at teepublic I had to at least see what else else they had. And my two search terms, as always were Lovecraft and Godzilla. I know but its gotten me to my mid 60's so why change now. I already have a plethoria of Godzilla, okay one HPL and four Godzilla so tempting as some of the Godzilla themed items were I went with Howard this time. One Vblogger we watch to relax does warn of the perils of fast fashion. I my own defence, my dad passed away in 2001 and I still have a couple of his shirts so I cling to clothing like a limpet. Most of my cabin clothing is from Value Village and the real gems end up in my closet here. Some stuff also heads to the charity drop boxes so I do try. But well how could I resist. This is not an endorsement, find your own road to financial ruin.

And remember when updating your investment portfolio, casting a vote or 

simply Marie Kondoing your outfits.

“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” 

Why settle for the lesser of two evils?

 

New Eldritch Tomes Lovecraft and Ian Miller Part Two

I have always wanted at least one paperback with an Ian Miller's cover for the Panther Horror editions of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Eventually I tracked down a copy on ABE which seemed affordable, in theory. I ordered it March 30th from Australia but stuff was happening and I received it today. I was delighted.

A lovely reminiscence of reading these editions and much better cover photos of all three titles can be found here.

https://unsubscribedblog.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/teeces-bit-a-shadow-over-rotherham/

Some time ago I discussed my purchase of The Art of Ian Miller here. 

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2020/06/new-arrivals-philip-k-dick-and-ian.html

In this book he offered an alternative cover illustration for The Haunter of the Dark. 

Photo above from The Art of Ian Miller

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/search?q=ian+miller

Miller's explanation.

This French edition of  The Case of Charles Dexter Ward arrived some time ago. 

I am a Canadian but I do not speak or read French. My adult self might tell my rather unambitious younger self that learning other languages would be way more valuable than 90% of the curriculum especially the woefully inaccurate and outdated information on other countries the geography teacher dispensed. Okay I got that out of my system. So why buy this? I have read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward a number of times, and each time I rank it higher among Howard's works. But I have never seem a cover that did justice to the mood of the story until now. This representation of Joseph Curwen, in my mind, looking like he is becoming more and more bestial as he advances farther and farther into his dark arts is brilliant. What do you think?

New Eldritch Tomes, HPL, Caitlin R. Kieran and Ian Miller

I got a couple of new used books from Abe as well as a new purchase I wanted to share. The first is this SFBC collection with a cover by Ian Miller. I cannot understand why who ever did the layout of the back cover butchered the Miller illustration to include the ISBN box rather than rearranging the elements. May they have an unfortunate encounter with Shub-Niggurath (The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young). I had literally been eyeing this copy for years. One thing I ask myself is do I need another HPL collection, the answer is often yes. I am a sucker for art work so Miller was a huge plus but I am happy to say the editor Andrew Wheeler rewarded my purchase with a short one page dream piece "What the Moon Brings" which I do not remember reading before. 

"So I watched the tide go out under that sinking moon, and saw gleaming the spires, the towers, and the roofs of that dead, dripping city. And as I watched, my nostrils tried to close against the perfume-conquering stench of the world's dead; for truly, in this unplaced and forgotten spot had all the flesh of the churchyards gathered for puffy sea-worms to gnaw and glut upon." (395) 

Yes Howard really hated sea food. The tone of this story really brought to mind another moon related passage I had just read in his essay "In Defence of Dagon" 

"Romanticists are persons, who on the one hand scorn the realist who says that moonlight is only reflected wave-motion in the aether: but who on the other hand sit stolid and unmoved when a fantaisiste tells them that the moon is a hideous nightmare eye-watching ... ever watching..." (147)

I was looking for a copy of  Caitlin R. Kieran's short story, "The Daughter of the Four Pentacles". The same vender had Thrillers 2 a signed limited edition with that story and Kieran's "Houses Under the Sea. " so the die was cast.

 

When the pandemic began my wife and I purchased a couple of gift cards from a locally owned bookstore we frequent. Yesterday we ventured out masked and sanitized to see what they had. I had checked their online catalogue so I knew what I wanted. Helen got Monsters and Myths: Surrealism & War in the 1930s and 1940s, which I discussed briefly here. 

https://ajaggedorbit.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-arrivals.html

I got of course, was there any doubt, The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham edited by Leslie S. Klinger. I have volume one but Klinger restricted that volume to works that mentioned Arkham, the Miskatonic river valley or Miskatonic University. This excluded some of my favourite works. The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, "The Strange High House in the Mist:, "The Outsider, The Rats in the Walls", "The Lurking Fear" etc. And here they are. What no "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" I know it was cowritten with E. Hoffmann Price, but Price admits he was just nudging Lovecraft to get him to write it and that the story was Lovecraft's. 

We also have an introduction by Victor LaValle the author of the mythos related work, "The Ballard of Black Tom". I have LaValle's book on my kindle but I have not read it yet, I certainly will. So I will refer interested readers to the review of this book  at The Great Lovecraft ReRead. 

https://www.tor.com/2016/02/17/book-reviews-later-the-ballad-of-black-tom-by-victor-lavalle/

LaValle's introduction was interesting reading. He discussing finding and enjoying Lovecraft's as a ten year old only to realize at 15 that as a young black man he could not accept the racism in Lovecraft's writing. It is a perfectly understandable reaction. I did want to quote one passage from the introduction because I think it frames my experience with genre literature and why I think I still read science fiction, weird tales, Sherlock Holmes related works and the like. "Ten year old me was here for all of it: the high anxiety, waves of madness, and the terror of human insignificance. Certain writers must be encountered at a young age or else their spell will never be cast properly. Some people would say this is because an older reader has matured out of the appeal such pulp provides, but I call bullshit on that. Instead, I would say that as a child the aperture of your imagination is wide open. In adulthood we call its closure "maturity" but it hardly seems like a triumph to me. Instead, I try to embrace the bravery of such openness...," (xii) I am also trying to retain this openness since it is still the source of much of my joy, whether it is in the literature I read, my experience of the natural world or the observations we share with each other during a quiet walk or meal out with my wife. 

I have shared my own thoughts on Lovecraft's racism here.

https://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-real-shadow-over-innsmouth-odd.html

Now to the book itself. One; the cover illustration, Jacket design Steve Attardo, Jacket Art by Christina Mrozik, is one of the most striking covers based on one of Lovecraft;'s stories I have ever seen. Rats and cats, does it get better. Last night I read "The Outsider" and the accompanying annotations. I found Klinger's annotations helpful, the ones I liked were those that referred to other work that could be seen as related to this story, a poem by Hawthorne for example. But some of the most interesting referred me to critical interpretations of Lovecraft's story. I could see both types as rekindling my interest in new works in the canon and also items within my own collection that I want to revisit.