Monthly Archives: August 2015

Rob Around Books Sillyverse The Story Reading Ape Blog

For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic authors.

4 Comments

Filed under fiction, haunted mind, horror, horror blogs, phantoms, short stories, short story blogs, tales of terror

Tagged as Guy de Maupassant, phantoms, psychological horror story, The Horla

August 22, 2015 · 9:42 am

If Whales Could Be Ghosts

If whales could be ghosts.

What would be their song?

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We normally don’t think of whales as ghosts. But, why not? Science theorizes that ghosts might be remnants of the naturally occurring electromagnetic fields of the physical body. If there are parallel dimensions, and science cannot prove there isn’t, maybe whale ghosts can exist, and not just in fiction. This photo by Aftab Uzzaman caught my eye and inspired me to rethink the idea of whale ghosts./“One humpback blows mist. Another dips deeper. A lone gull hovers. I was there in this remote corner of Alaska to watch the drama unfold. It was a privilege. Life has been a privilege. People. Precious moments.” –Aftab Uzzaman.

Photo courtesy of Flicker, Creative Commons, by photographer Aftab Uzzaman “The Moment.”

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Would you like to meet a beluga whale in the White Sea in Russia? Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0ZucGzWAh8 (22 seconds)

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Many of you here know of my research going on the past few years: beluga whales, Russia, poems, folklore, history, a bit of mythology, and classical music. If we mix these elements with the mysterious supernatural, what kind of a story do you think would evolve? More posts to come on whales, music, and the supernatural. Meantime …

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What do you think of whale ghosts?

(Image Creative Commons)

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Filed under fiction, Ghosts, short stories, short story blogs

Tagged as belugas, whale ghosts, whale songs, whales, whales and music

August 18, 2015 · 9:34 am

A Devilish Trap

The Open Window by Saki (1910)

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror August 18, 2015

This is an ever so brief ghost tale with a dash of madness and a subtle underbelly of evil. Psychological, supernatural, and mysterious. Saki (H.H. Munro) writes this story, I think, to play with the reader’s imagination. Some readers find it humorous, others dig deeper for a more sinister force, wondering if a devilish trap is really going on. Others claim irony, in the Greek sense of “dissimulation,” a literary technique where the writer intends his meaning to be understood differently from what he overtly says. How would you interpret The Open Window?

Frampton Nuttel (love that name!) has just arrived for his stay at Sappleton House in the country for a rest because of his “nervous exhaustion.” Hopeful for a few quiet days, he meets the young Vera—a sweet and charming teen. The window, actually a door, is left open (I won’t tell you why) despite the coldness of the air, and the fireplace is burning.

In the short film below, Michael Sheen (currently on the Showtime hit Masters of Sex) gives a memorable performance.

Saki had a reputation as a master of the short story form, often compared to O.Henry and depicted as a minor satirist of the Edwardian period. He produced four volumes of short stories, most notable for their wit and surprise endings. You can read more of his works at Gutenberg.org, including The She-Wolf, Laura, and The Cobweb.

Read the short story here at EastOfTheWeb.com.

Listen to the audio by Librivox.org on YouTube.

Watch the film The Open Doors, starring Michael Sheen on YouTube.com

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Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

Rob Around Books Sillyverse The Story Reading Ape Blog

For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic authors.

WATCH FOR UPCOMING NEWS ON THE RELEASE OF MY NEW SUPERNATURAL MYSTERY

GREYLOCK

7 Comments

Filed under classic horror stories, fiction, ghost stories, Ghosts, horror, horror blogs, psychological horror, quiet horror, short stories, short story blogs, tales of terror

Tagged as Frampton Nuttel, H.H. Munro, Michael Sheen, Saki, The Open Doors

August 12, 2015 · 9:19 am

Poe Stories Read by Vincent Price

Greetings,

I couldn’t resist sharing this link with you. If you love to listen to supernatural stories, this collection from Open Culture.com (via Spotify, free) has five hours of Edgar Allan Poe stories read by Vincent Price. The Raven, The Haunted Palace, the City in the Sea, and much more. Enjoy this bonus from yours truly for August.

http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/5-hours-of-edgar-allan-poe-stories-read-by-vincent-price-basil-rathbone.html

Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

Rob Around Books Sillyverse The Story Reading Ape Blog

For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic authors.

“Have You Found the Yellow Sign?

The Yellow Sign by Robert Chambers

(The King In Yellow Collection, 1895 first published by F. Tennyson Neely.)

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror August 11, 2015

[The King in Yellow (known for its legendary kingdom of Carcosa, an ancient, cursed city beyond time on the shores of Lake Hali), was a forbidden play, which was said to induce despair, strange visions, and madness in those who read it.]

Stories have great effects on our minds, our dreams, perhaps even our very lives. Do symbols have real power or are they just harmless images?

In The Yellow Sign, artist Scott spies a figure in the churchyard below his studio window.

“At the same moment he raised his head and looked at me. Instantly I thought of a coffin-worm. Whatever it was about the man that repelled me I did not know, but the impression of a plump white grave-worm was so intense and nauseating that I must have shown it in my expression, for he turned his puffy face away with a movement which made me think of a disturbed grub in a chestnut.”

His model, Tessie, sees the churchyard figure too. She recounts a dream she had about a hearse with a driver who looks much like the figure in the churchyard. Finding affection for Scott, Tessie gives him an amulet, the “yellow sign.” Did she know this symbol was said to represent disease and decay or worse, insanity?

Did Tessie know that when she found a book on Scott’s shelf, The King in Yellow and read it, that she might be in danger?

“Song of my soul, my voice is dead;

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.”

This is probably one of the most disturbing stories yet on this blog. H.P. Lovecraft read this book in 1927 and used the motif in his Whisperers in the Dark story (Cthulhu Mythos). Countless authors (Raymond Chandler, Stephen King, Robert Heinlein to name a few) have been inspired by Chamber’s King in Yellow stories. And the highly successful True Detective HBO series ( 2014 ) had several references to The King in Yellow and Carcosa.

You can read The Yellow Sign here at EastOfTheWeb.com.

The King in Yellow is Robert Chamber’s masterpiece and most famous story. He wrote over 70 novels and other collections of short stories. Chambers took the name Carcosa from Ambrose Bierce’s story An Inhabitant of Carcosa (originally published in 1886). Some say the term “Carcosa” is a magically charmed name.

Listen to the audio of Bierce’s An Inhabitant of Carcosa

at Librivox audio at YouTube.com.

Or read it at South San Francisco Library at SSF.net

For those who wish to read short stories in The King in Yellow, go to Gutenberg.org .

Other Reading Web Sites to Visit