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Our reads in October 2026
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dustydigger
Posted 2026-10-01 2:50 AM (#35482)
Subject: Our reads in October 2026



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Location: UK		Roger Zelazny - A Night in the Lonesome October
.........
The rest will be favourite old weird /horror tales that fit in when I can. My reread of Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream a few days before I meant to was so hard hitting even on a third read that I am not up to anything too hair raising this month :
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daxxh
Posted 2026-10-01 12:46 PM (#35484 - in reply to #35482)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2026



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		October 2026 TBR

Dandelion Wine -Ray Bradbury
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars - Christopher Paolini
Exit Party - Emily St. John Mandel
Fallen Dragon - Peter F. Hamilton
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dustydigger
Posted 2026-11-01 2:32 AM (#35522 - in reply to #35484)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2026



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Location: UK		Didnt do much reading this month,my eyes are playing up,big deterioration,with blurred vision.Mostly read short stories which fit with my eye problems as I could only read for short periods that could be fitted in between visiting my husand who is now in a care home. He is settling in well,but its amazing how much time visiting takes up,travelling to and fro Time that I used to spend reading,so up to 2 hours less reading per each visit.The days of reading 12-15 books a month are gone. But what I did read in October for Spooky October was quality stuff so thats fine.
Many people think of Ray Bradbury mainly,as a science fiction writer because of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451,but in his short fiction he is often a very effective horror writer IMO. All of his fantastic literary skills bring the darker emotions and fears to the fore.
Reread A Sound of Thunder Brought back memories.It blew my mind when I read it in The Golden Apples of the Sun,the first book I borrowed when I got my adult library ticket in 1961,aged 13. Time travel,dinosaurs,and a cool explanation of the Butterfly Effect a decade before Edward Lorenz used the phrase in a famous lecture on chaos theory at MIT
Also read a couple of stories about a futuristic fully automated house. In The Veldt there is a VR playroom for the two children,but they are fixated only on one scenario,the african veldt which becomes ever more realistic and vivid. The parents become spooked about this,and the end is very tragic. Love the last line. Kids are in the african veldt scenario,having a picnic in the sun. Lions in the distance having finished eating are drinking at a waterhole.,vultures are landing round the bloody remains.Polite and serene the little girl smiles at the man rushing in,too late, to bring the keys to lock the playroom up for good and says ''A cup of tea?'' Great stuff
I also reread ''There Will Come SoftRains'' (1950) the penultimate tale in The Martian Chronicles Its August 2025,the devasting nuclear war that all the martian colonists had left Mars to come and fight has annihilated everything,but the automated house has somehow survived,and continues to run efficiently waiting for people to return.So sad and very moving.
Brilliant title very appropriate.Its a Sarah Teasdale poem.......

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone

Ouch. Poor old humanity


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dustydigger
Posted 2026-11-01 2:53 AM (#35523 - in reply to #35484)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2026



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Location: UK		Oh boy,Kurt Vonnegut can put you through a maelstrom of emotions with his savage satire. Harrison Bergeron is an inextricable mix of comedy and horror where you cant help giggling and then immediately feel ashamed of your cruelty.A couple of Lovecraft favourites . The Outsider was the very first HPL I ever read,and it still evokes emotion after numerous rereadings. What I like too is that it leaves lots of loose ends about the mysterious huge forest,the black ruined tower,and even his afterlife. Just an amazing tale altogether.
The other HPL was The Rats in the Walls.You first read it as a group of explorers descending to the depths physically,in time and of course psychologically,which still packs a punch on multiple rereads,but is truly a knockout on first reading. Somehow Lovecraft has managed to meld all his obsessions into one plot.
I also read a couple of Henry Kuttner tales,rather brutal,I dont think C L Moore had anything to do with them,no subtlety,but I found them interestingIn 1935 a precocious young writer,aged 17,wrote to the author he admired from stories published in the magazine Weird Tales called H P Lovecraft,politely asking if he might write a story which killed off said revered author. HPL replied warmly,actually sending the young man a document approving of the request,signed by Lovecraft and some others including the mad arab author of The Necronomican.,saying there was no one he would rather be killed by
Lovecraft also introduced the young man to others in his circle like August Duluth,Clark Ashton Smith and Donald Wandrei.The young man,Robert Bloch,later famous for writing Psycho duly produced a short story call in 1935 calledThe Shambler from the Stars,where a certain scholar translates an evil book and is hideously murdered by a demon summoned by reading aloud a spell from the book.
Lovecraft then in 1936 wrote a tale The Haunter from the Dark where a thinly disguised Bloch,a young man called Robert Blake, is killed by a wicked Elder gods creature. This is the only story HPL ever wrote a dedication for.

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dustydigger
Posted 2026-11-01 2:55 AM (#35524 - in reply to #35484)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2026



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Posts: 1130
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Location: UK		Oh boy,Kurt Vonnegut can put you through a maelstrom of emotions with his savage satire. Harrison Bergeron is an inextricable mix of comedy and horror where you cant help giggling and then immediately feel ashamed of your cruelty.A couple of Lovecraft favourites . The Outsider was the very first HPL I ever read,and it still evokes emotion after numerous rereadings. What I like too is that it leaves lots of loose ends about the mysterious huge forest,the black ruined tower,and even his afterlife. Just an amazing tale altogether.
The other HPL was The Rats in the Walls.You first read it as a group of explorers descending to the depths physically,in time and of course psychologically,which still packs a punch on multiple rereads,but is truly a knockout on first reading. Somehow Lovecraft has managed to meld all his obsessions into one plot.
I also read a couple of Henry Kuttner tales,rather brutal,I dont think C L Moore had anything to do with them,no subtlety,but I found them interestingIn 1935 a precocious young writer,aged 17,wrote to the author he admired from stories published in the magazine Weird Tales called H P Lovecraft,politely asking if he might write a story which killed off said revered author. HPL replied warmly,actually sending the young man a document approving of the request,signed by Lovecraft and some others including the mad arab author of The Necronomican.,saying there was no one he would rather be killed by
Lovecraft also introduced the young man to others in his circle like August Duluth,Clark Ashton Smith and Donald Wandrei.The young man,Robert Bloch,later famous for writing Psycho duly produced a short story call in 1935 calledThe Shambler from the Stars,where a certain scholar translates an evil book and is hideously murdered by a demon summoned by reading aloud a spell from the book.
Lovecraft then in 1936 wrote a tale The Haunter from the Dark where a thinly disguised Bloch,a young man called Robert Blake, is killed by a wicked Elder gods creature. This is the only story HPL ever wrote a dedication for.

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dustydigger
Posted 2026-11-01 2:56 AM (#35525 - in reply to #35484)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2026



Elite Veteran

Posts: 1130
1000
Location: UK		Oh boy,Kurt Vonnegut can put you through a maelstrom of emotions with his savage satire. Harrison Bergeron is an inextricable mix of comedy and horror where you cant help giggling and then immediately feel ashamed of your cruelty.A couple of Lovecraft favourites . The Outsider was the very first HPL I ever read,and it still evokes emotion after numerous rereadings. What I like too is that it leaves lots of loose ends about the mysterious huge forest,the black ruined tower,and even his afterlife. Just an amazing tale altogether.
The other HPL was The Rats in the Walls.You first read it as a group of explorers descending to the depths physically,in time and of course psychologically,which still packs a punch on multiple rereads,but is truly a knockout on first reading. Somehow Lovecraft has managed to meld all his obsessions into one plot.
I also read a couple of Henry Kuttner tales,rather brutal,I dont think C L Moore had anything to do with them,no subtlety,but I found them interestingIn 1935 a precocious young writer,aged 17,wrote to the author he admired from stories published in the magazine Weird Tales called H P Lovecraft,politely asking if he might write a story which killed off said revered author. HPL replied warmly,actually sending the young man a document approving of the request,signed by Lovecraft and some others including the mad arab author of The Necronomican.,saying there was no one he would rather be killed by
Lovecraft also introduced the young man to others in his circle like August Duluth,Clark Ashton Smith and Donald Wandrei.The young man,Robert Bloch,later famous for writing Psycho duly produced a short story call in 1935 calledThe Shambler from the Stars,where a certain scholar translates an evil book and is hideously murdered by a demon summoned by reading aloud a spell from the book.
Lovecraft then in 1936 wrote a tale The Haunter from the Dark where a thinly disguised Bloch,a young man called Robert Blake, is killed by a wicked Elder gods creature. This is the only story HPL ever wrote a dedication for.

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dustydigger
Posted 2026-11-01 12:07 PM (#35527 - in reply to #35482)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2026



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Location: UK		Oops,triple post,dont know what was wrong with WWEnd this morning posts took forever to work so I ended up duplicating this lol.
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dustydigger
Posted 2026-11-01 12:10 PM (#35528 - in reply to #35482)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2026



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Location: UK		the teeth! the teeth!...they were here and there,and everywhere....long ,narrow and excessively white,with the pale lips writhing about them

Oh boy,dear old Edgar Allan nearly caused a riot when he published Berenice in an elegant respectable literary magazine in 1835 and actually printed a version with 3 horrifying paragraphs
removed 5 years later,which is the version you mostly find today. Ancient families in ancient ruin mansions,catalepsy,nasty illnesses,premature burial,monomania and outright madness ,....and teeth... Poe in full flow,perfect for Spooky October.:0)
And of course I did my usual reread of A Night in the Lonesome October and as usual couldnt stick to a chapter a day,its just such fun I have to rush ahead.
A very enjoyable month's reading.
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