This post is brought to you by The Book of the Black Sun, a classic Mythos collection by G. W. Thomas. Originally published in 2002, it is the oldest tome we have at RAGE m a c h i n e Books, and it still sells well. Of course, it sports a different cover these days with its second edition thanks to the talented M. D. Jackson. This gathering of short-short, short and novella length tales is a kind of self-referring mandela of Lovecraftian weirdness. A sequel of sorts appeared later with The Book of the Black Sun II: The Book Collector. A third volume, The Book of the Black Sun: Black Millennium will happen some day…
Every so often I like to offer readers here something to listen to instead of eyeball. Here are fifty tales from the original Weird Tales for your listening pleasure. Some are classics while others may be new to you. Plenty of Lovecraft and Mythos since those appeal to Youtubers. I think for me the biggest surprise here is how many I selected from 1933. What a bumper crop that year! Farnsworth Wright’s tenure dominates as it should with the 1930s being the largest grouping. That isn’t to say there aren’t gems in other decades. I only included three stories edited by Edwin Baird, with the very first story “Ooze” by Anthony M. Rud leading us off. Dorothy McIlwraith has some later doozies even in the 1950s by Robert Bloch and Joseph Payne Brennan. We end off with Dorothy Quick’s “More Than Shadow” from the second last issue.
The 1920s
“Ooze” (Weird Tales, March 1923) by Anthony M. Rud
“Beyond the Door” (Weird Tales, April 1923) by J. Paul Suter
“The Sunken Land” (Weird Tales, May-June-July 1924) by George W. Bayly
“The Stranger From Kurdistan” (Weird Tales, July 1925) by E. Hoffman Price
“The Werewolf of Ponkert” (Weird Tales, July 1925) by H. Warner Munn
“The Horror on the Links” (Weird Tales, October 1925) by Seabury Quinn
“The Woman of the Wood” (Weird Tales, August 1926) by A. Merritt
“The Red Brain” (Weird Tales, October 1927) by Donald Wandrei
“The Eighth Green Man” (Weird Tales, March 1928) by G. G. Pendarves
“The Devil Plant” (Weird Tales, September 1928) by John Murray Reynolds
“The Copper Bowl” (Weird Tales, December 1928) by Lt. George Fielding Eliot
“The Hounds of Tindalos” (Weird Tales, March 1929) by Frank Belknap Long
“Warning Wings” (Weird Tales, September 1929) by Arlton Eadie
The 1930s
“The Life-Masters” (Weird Tales, January 1930) by Edmond Hamilton
“The Thought Monster” (Weird Tales, March 1930) by Amelia Reynolds Long
“The Boat on the Beach” (Weird Tales, December 1930) by Kadra Maysi
“The Thing in the Cellar” (Weird Tales, March 1932) by David H. Keller
“The Horror From the Mound” (Weird Tales, May 1932) by Robert E. Howard
“The Ghoul Gallery” (Weird Tales, June 1932) by Hugh B. Cave
“The Lair of the Star -Spawn” (Weird Tales, August 1932) by August Derleth and Marc R. Schorer
“No Eye-Witnesses” (Weird Tales, August 1932) by Henry S. Whitehead
“The Letter” (Weird Tales, March 1933) by S. Gordon Gurwit
“Revelations in Black” (Weird Tales, April 1933) by Carl Jacobi
“The Beast of Averoigne” (Weird Tales, May 1933) by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Horror in the Museum” (Weird Tales, July 1933) by Hazel Heald & H. P. Lovecraft
“Shambleau” (Weird Tales, November 1933) by C. L. Moore (Read by C. L. Moore!)
“The Accursed Isle” (Weird Tales, November 1933) by Mary Elizabeth Counselman
“The Closed Door” (Weird Tales, December 1933) by Harold Ward
“The Distortion Out of Space” (Weird Tales, August 1934) by Francis Flagg
“Vine Terror” (Weird Tales, September 1934) by Howard Wandrei
“What Waits in Darkness” (Weird Tales, March 1935) by Loretta Burrough
“The Toad Idol” (Weird Tales, September 1935) by Kirk Mashburn
“The Mask of Death” (Weird Tales, August-September 1936) by Paul Ernst
“In the Dark” (Weird Tales, August-September 1936) by Ronal Kayser
“The Crawling Horror” (Weird Tales, November 1936) by Thorp McClusky
“The Disinternment” (Weird Tales, January 1937) by Duane W. Rimel & H. P. Lovecraft
“The Salem Horror” (Weird Tales, May 1937) by Henry Kuttner
“Murder Mask” (Weird Tales, June 1937) by Edgar Daniel Kramer
“Far Below” (Weird Tales, June-July 1939) by Robert Barbour Johnson
The 1940s
“The Mystery of Uncle Alfred” (Weird Tales, November 1941) by Mindret Lord
“The Werewolf Howls” (Weird Tales, November 1941) by Clifford Ball
“The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (Weird Tales, January 1942) by H. P. Lovecraft
“Death in a Gray Mist” (Weird Tales, September 1943) by Frank Owen
“House of Hate” (Weird Tales, January 1944) by Allison V. Harding
“The Letters of Cold Fire” by (Weird Tales, May 1944) Manly Wade Wellman
“The Thing From the Barrens” (Weird Tales, September 1945) by Jim Kjelgaard
“The Antimacassar” (Weird Tales, May 1949) by Greye La Spina
The 1950s
“Notebook Found in a Deserted House” (Weird Tales, May 1951) by Robert Bloch
“Slime” (Weird Tales, March 1953) by Joseph Payne Brennan
“More Than Shadow” (Weird Tales, July 1954) by Dorothy Quick
Conclusion
I know not all of these recordings are of the highest professional standard but over-all I found them easy enough to listen to. I know my own prejudice when I listen to Horror. I like a British accent, male or female. I also like a narrator that doesn’t over-exaggerate too much. Those Lovecraftian italics shouldn’t necessarily be expressed vocally. All that being said, I did want to remind listeners that two of my Book Collector stories are available at Pseudopod: “Goon Job” and “Merlin’s Bane”. Check them out. (Ben Phillips does a nice job of it.) “The Suit” is more Weird Talesy stuff. “Wekka’s Gold” is Fantasy but Horror, too. Sit back, relax, and be horrified!
Mythos Horror at RAGE m a c h i n e
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