Author of the Week, Richard Matheson, Feb. 22

AUTHOR OF THE WEEK   February 22, 2020

 

Richard Matheson

(Bestselling Author of Supernatural, Ghost, and Horror)

“That which you believe becomes your world.”

“I think we’re yearning for something beyond the every day. And I will tell you I don’t believe in the supernatural, I believe in the supernormal. To me there is nothing that goes against nature. If it seems incomprehensible, it’s only because we haven’t been able to understand it yet.”

 

Richard Matheson  (1926 — 2013) was an American author and screenwriter. He is best known  for his novel What Dreams May Come, and I am Legend, a 1954 horror novel that has been adapted for the screen four times.  He sold his first story, Born of Man and Woman to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1950, followed by Third from the Sun (later adapted for the television series The Twilight Zone). From 1959–64, he wrote 14 episodes for The Twilight Zone, with two more adapted from his stories; also contributed to many Western and fantastic television series including Star Trek (The Enemy Within, 1966), His Collected Stories was published in three volumes in 2003–05. Matheson won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984 and was inducted into Science Fiction Hall of Fame 2010.

 

 

 

 

Readers, Somewhere in Time is one of my favorite ghost/time travel/romances.  Even today, this novel can hold up as a fascinating study in mystery, love, and the power of desire. The film is also an excellent choice with Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer.

 

View all Matheson’s books at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Richard-Matheson/e/B000AQ285E

 

Please join me in my reading nook and discover an author every week at Reading Fiction Blog! Browse the Index of Authors’ Tales above to find over 200 free short stories by over 100 famous authors.

Once a month I feature a FREE short story by

contemporary and classic authors.

Ghost Cat

All Cats Are Gray  by Andre Alice Norton (1953)

[aka Andre Norton]

 

Friday’s Tale of Science Fiction,  February 19, 2021

I don’t read a lot of science fiction, but this story strikes with high curiosity and mystery.  We bow before mysteries—those of us who are mystery lovers—and this story All Cats Are Gray has a fascinating hidden mystery.

Cat lovers, this is for you! The story opens on a spaceship with our heroine and hero Steena and Cliff. And a cat named Bat. We have a lost ship, the Empress of Mars, and an invisible alien aboard.  Ghost cats, warrior cats, street cats, wild cats, library cats, Bat is none of these, but will win your heart.

 

Read the short story here at Gutenberg.org

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29019/29019-h/29019-h.htm

 

You can listen to some of Norton’s other writings here at OpenLibrary.org:

https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL7099704A/Andre_Norton

 

The author Alice Mary Norton (1912 — 2005) was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy. She wrote under the pen names Andre Norton, Andrew North, and Allen Weston. She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, first to be SFWA Grand Master, and the first inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. A selection of her stories is available in Andre Norton: The Essential Collection .  She has been called the Grande Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Over the course of her career, she published over 300 published titles read by four generations.

 

“Perhaps it is because cats do not live by human patterns, do not fit themselves into prescribed behavior, that they are so united to creative people.”

“Science fiction appeals to me, as I have always enjoyed reading it, and it is a purely imaginative exercise – though one does have to do a lot of research for each book. I find that the sword-and-sorcery has the greatest appeal for myself – and it is the most fun to write.”

 

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free reading at Reading Fiction Blog. This is a compendium of over 200 short stories by more than 100 famous storytellers of mystery, suspense, supernatural, ghost stories, ‘quiet horror,’ crime, sci-fi, romance, and mainstream fiction.

Follow or sign up to join me in reading one short story every month. 

Comments are welcome!

Feel free to click “LIKE.”

 Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

Kirkus Mystery & Thrillers Reviews

Books & Such    Bibliophilica   NewYorkerFictionOnline

   Fangoria.com      Chuck Windig’s Terrible Minds

      Monster Librarian        The Story Reading Ape Blog

For Authors/Writers:  The Writer Unboxed

Literature Blog Directory   

Blog Collection

Blog Top Sites

Discover Author of the Week posted on Mondays!

Author of the Week, Lucinda Riley, Feb. 15

AUTHOR OF THE WEEK    February 15, 2021

 

Lucinda Riley

International No. 1 Best Selling Author

 

“I believe that our lives, just like fairly tales—the stories that have been written by us humans, through our own experiences of living—will always have a hero and a heroine, a fairy godmother and a wicked witch.”

 

“Spirits, ghosts, angels … whichever you wish to call them—Reader, they do exist. I’ve seem them all my life, but I’ve learned to say nothing. And for all you cynics out there, just remember, there is no proof either way. So I choose to believe. In my opinion, it’s much the best option.”

 

Lucinda Riley (born February 1965) is the New York Times bestselling author of over twenty novels (historical, romantic, and family fiction), including The Orchid House, The Girl on the Cliff, and the Seven Sisters series. Her books have sold twenty million copies in thirty-five languages globally. She was born in Ireland and divides her time between England and West Cork with her husband and four children. Visit her online at LucindaRiley.com  Simon & Schuster.

 

 

 

 

Visit Lucinda Riley’s Amazon page for all her books:

https://www.amazon.com/Lucinda-Riley/e/B006T8ZBM4

 

Please join me in my reading nook and discover an author every week at Reading Fiction Blog!  And browse the Index of Authors’ Tales above to find over 200 free short stories  by over 100 famous authors.

Once a month I feature a FREE short story by contemporary

and classic authors.

Author of the Week, Patrick McGrath, Feb. 8

AUTHOR OF THE WEEK   February 8, 2021

 

Patrick McGrath

 

 

 

“It has seemed to me that for a long time the writer and the psychiatrist have been up to very similar things in terms of the exploration of human dysfunction. The writer wants to create forms of entertainment and to give pleasure, the psychiatrist is engaged in a therapeutic task. But we are both essentially engaged in the exploration of human nature.”

 

“Houses, I have come to believe, like love, like nature herself, should not reassure, should not attempt to soothe, or give comfort, but should, rather, excite.”

 

Patrick McGrath (born February 1950) is the author of several modern Gothic novels, including Asylum and Spider, and two collections of stories. He lives in New York, where he is on the writing faculties of the New School and Princeton University.

 

 

Listen to an interview (8 minutes) at “Don’t Lecture Me” about his book Trauma 

 

Readers, if you are like me, a lover (and a writer too) of Gothic novels and especially ghost stories, you might enjoy reading Patrick McGrath’s stories. Gothic novels allow us to explore deep into the imagination in  worlds beyond the norm with a dash of horror, romance, and sometimes curses and madness. What fun!

 

 

 

View more of his books on Amazon, on Patrick McGrath’s profile page; https://www.amazon.com/Patrick-McGrath/e/B000AP7ISC

 

Join me in my reading nook and discover an author every week at Reading Fiction Blog! And browse the Index of Authors’ Tales above to find over 200 free short stories by over 100 famous authors.

Once a month I feature a FREE short story by contemporary and classic authors.

Author of the Week, Colette, Feb. 1

AUTHOR OF THE WEEK   February 1, 2021

 

Colette  (Sidonie-Babrielle Colette)

 

 

“Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.”

 

“It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses.”

 

 

Colette (1873 – 1954) was the pen name for Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. French writer of the first half of the 20th century whose best novels, largely concerned with the pains and pleasures. Her greatest strength as a writer is her sensory evocation of sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and colors. She is known for her novel Gigi (1944), the story of a girl reared by two elderly sisters to become a courtesan, was adapted for both stage and screen. She wrote the influential Claudine books. The novel Cheri is considered to be her masterpiece. Her first husband, the nefarious Willy (Henry Gauthier-Villars), took the credit for her novels and the earnings.  From 1949 she was increasingly crippled by arthritis. She ended her days, a legendary figure surrounded by her beloved cats, confined to her beautiful Palais-Royal apartment overlooking Paris.

 

 

Read more about this author at The Guardian: ‘She wrote novels, short stories, essays, memoirs and as a journalist reported on everything from domestic violence to the front lines of the first world war, from anorexia to literature, from fashion and cooking to fake orgasms.’

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/07/colette-french-novelist-movie-keira-knightley

 

 

 

Join me in my reading nook and discover an author every week at Reading Fiction Blog! And browse the Index of Authors’ Tales above to find over 200 free short stories by over 100 famous authors.

Once a month I feature a FREE short story by contemporary and classic authors.