Looking For Something To Read During The Halloween Season?
ghostsofpompeii
Master
Roger Zelany's "A Night In Lonesome October".
Here are a few blurbs on the book cover explaining what the book is about:
"In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff - gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate. Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut. And now the dead of night approaches - so let the games begin."
The players mentioned in the description include characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Jack The Ripper, Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, Dracula and a few other surprises along the way including the animal familiar of many of the characters. And don't assume Jack The Ripper is the villain of the piece just because he brutally butchers women. The tale is actually narrated by Jack The Ripper's Snuff. As well as several other scheming animals which include SNUFF's best friend - a witches cat, a snake, a rat, a bat, and a few others. I'm normally not big on books or movies featuring talking animals, but in this case it's done well enough to hold my interest. The book is tailor made to be adapted into a feature film, and would be the perfect Halloween companion piece to Tim Burton's "A Nightmare Before Christmas", as either stop motion animation or a combination of live action humans and CGI animals. Either way it would make a great movie. But as it currently stands - it's a great read for the season.
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Moore mixes William Blake's visions with Einstein's physics in an alternate reality of Northampton, UK.
Around Halloween time, I feel a pull to read one of my favorite authors of all time, M.R. James. M.R. James was the master of the Edwardian ghost story, to the point where there is a genre of ghost stories named in his honor (Jamesian ghost stories). James spent his life at Cambridge, being a fellow, and later Provost of King's College, and later Eton (where he went to school as a lad). M.R. James had two loves, Medieval Scholarship (he was an accomplished academic, and spent his life cataloguing Medieval Manuscripts), and ghost stories. James also smoked a pipe, which makes him a perfect author for fellow pipe smokers to read.
Every year on Christmas Eve, James would write and read a new ghost story he had written to a close circle of friends by candlelight. Over his lifetime, James wrote over thirty ghost stories, which were collected and printed in four volumes. The most well-known collections are Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, though I recommend reading all of his collections. Some of his stories have been adapted into short films by the BBC, as well as the classic 50's horror film Night of the Demon, which was loosely remade into the recent Drag Me to Hell.
What makes James my favorite scary story author is his ability to weave history and legend into his stories, so that they feel like real tales you'd head a local tell over a pint and a pipe. James had a wonderful mind for retaining history for the church and England, so that often you'll learn something new from his tales. Oftentimes, the stories involve an antiquarian coming across an old item that has a terrible history behind it, sometimes with disastrous consequences, but always with a good fright.
While I recommend reading all of his stories (you can find them in collections on Amazon, or in ebook form), here's a few of my favorites:
The Mezzotint- An Oxford fellow comes across an old Mezzotint of an old country home at night. However, every time the fellow looks at his Mezzotint, he discovers something sinister creeping towards the house.
Count Magnus- An Englishman visiting Sweden becomes fascinated about the local legends of a terrible, but long dead nobleman who had dealings with the Devil. Curiosity gets the better of the Englishman, who learns that not all who are dead stay dead.
Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad- While off on a golfing holiday, a Cambridge professor digs up an old whistle belonging to Templar Knights. The professor gives the whistle a blow on a windy night, and soon discovers that one shouldn't whistle carelessly into the wind, as one never knows who will answer the whistle's call.
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral- The new Archdecon of Barchester Cathedral finds himself visited at night by strange figures, including a persistent cat. And these figures happen to look like the sinister wooden decorations that sit in his stall in the cathedral.
A Warning to the Curious- A young man stumbles upon a local legend about a lost Anglo-Saxon crown buried somewhere in the woods nearby. But after digging the crown up, the man soon finds himself pursued by the last of a family line who swore to guard the crown, who happened to die a few years prior.
https://www.inverse.com/article/47143-most-terrifying-creepypasta-nosleep-stories
My favorite ghost story of all time is Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and read it at least once a year during the holiday season to get me in the proper spirit. But believe it or not there is a longstanding tradition of telling ghost stories around Christmas. You might think that ghost stories were made popular as part of the Halloween tradition - but it was the telling of Christmas Ghost Stories that was all the rage in Victorian London and beyond. I have a paperback book called "Christmas Ghosts" which is edited by Kathryn Cramer & David G. Hartwell that I pull out in December as a companion piece to Dickens' classic. "A Christmas Carol" is a ghostly tale of redemption, whereas the short stories in "Christmas Ghosts" have a decidedly different chill about them. And not all end ... "happily ever after". I discovered a few more books on Amazon concerning Christmas ghost stories:
Christmas Ghost Stories: A Collection Of Winter Tales - by Mark Onspaugh
Haunted Christmas: Yuletide Ghosts & Other Spooky Holiday Happenings - Mary Beth Crain
Ghost Stories Of Christmas - Jo-Anne Christensen
Dickens' Christmas Ghost Stories (10 seasonal ghost stories written by Dicken's which includes A Christmas Carol).
Until I bought the book Christmas Ghosts and learned of the tradition I always wondered why the lyrics to the song "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" included the line ... "they'll be scary ghost stories". Now I know.
Joe, we discussed this last year as well. I TOO have a longstanding personal tradition of reading the the Charles Dickens' classic EACH year. Additionally I have seen what I think is every renditionn of the movie, and I have also seen some plays by professional actors. My love of the story goes back to Fifth Grade where the teacher read the story to us over several weeks. I think a large part of my love for the story goes back to my childhood. As I got older it became less of a ghost story and more of a classic albeit fictional example of someone who has finally realized the value of being kind. It is definately my favorite story of all time. And to repeat myself again this year, having seen all the movie versions (including Scrooge McDuck) my favorite is the George C. Scott version where I still get goosebumps when he finds his headstone.....that scene is as good as any other scene in any other movie I have ever seen.