Weird Tales Magazine has been in our universe for one hundred years. That’s no small feat and quite an accomplishment. This special issue is over 18 hours long as an audiobook and 500 pages in length in print, a gorgeous hardcover that is also available on Kindle. It features stories of cosmic horror, sword & sorcery, and everything that falls under the weird umbrella. There are also essays, articles, flash fiction, and poetry. Here is the table of contents for what’s included in this massive tome:
“The Eyrie” By Jonathan Maberry
“The Third Guy” By Scott
Sigler
“Weird Tales at 100: A
Century of Weird”—an Essay - By Lisa Morton
“The Game” By Marge Simon
“Disappear Donna” By R. L.
Stine
“Up from Slavery”—a
Reprint - By Victor LaValle
“The Call of Cthulhu”—a
Classic Reprint - By H.P. Lovecraft
“The Circle: Shared
Worlds”—an Essay - By Lisa Diane Kastner
“Worms of The Earth”—a
Classic Reprint - By Robert E. Howard
“Swords and Sorcery: Weird
Tales and Beyond”—a Reprinted Essay - By Charles R. Rutledge
“Cosmic Horror”—an Essay -
By James A. Moore
“Arched Bridges”—Blackout
Poetry - By Jessica McHugh
“Black God’s Kiss”—a
Classic Reprint - By C.L. Moore
“Legal Rites”—a Classic
Reprint - By Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl
“The Scythe”—a Classic
Reprint - By Ray Bradbury
“Who Ya Gonna Call? The
Evolution of Occult Detective Fiction”—an Essay - By Henry Herz
“Blood Moon” By Owl
Goingback
“The Vengeance of
Nitocris”—a Classic Reprint - By Tennessee Williams
“Dead Jack and The Case of
the Bloody Fairy” By James Aquilone
“Slaughter House”—a
Classic Reprint - By Richard Matheson
“The World Breaker” By
Blake Northcott
“Scratch-off Universe” By
Hailey Piper
“Church at the Bottom of
the Sea” By Michael A. Arnzen
“Prezzo” By Keith DeCandido
“How to Make the Animal
Perfect?” By Linda D. Addison
“Jagannath”—a Reprint - By
Karin Tidbeck (Curated by former Weird Tales editor Ann VanderMeer)
“Bait” By Dana Fredsti
“The Damp Man”—a Classic
Reprint - By Allison V. Harding
“NecronomiCommedia: Dante,
Doré, and the Root of Lovecraftian Horror”—an Essay - By Jacopo della Quercia
and Christopher Neuman
“Lady Cataract Comes to
the Mosque” By Usman T. Malik
“Cupid is a Knavish Lad”
By Laurell K. Hamilton
“Vampire Chaser” By Anne Walsh
Miller
As you can glimpse from
the table of contents, it’s an eclectic mix of classic and newer tales. All the
articles/essays are top-notch, informative, and compelling. The selection of tales
for the most part is excellent, but as in all anthologies/collections, a
handful of them are underwhelming, but different readers may feel differently. My
only gripe is the omission of tales from Robert Bloch and Clark Ashton Smith.
Sure, it’s impossible to include every legendary Weird Tales writer, but Smith’s
influence is huge and deserved to have a spot here. Not including Bloch is even
more of a travesty since he is mentioned countless times in the various
articles and essays and specifically for his tale “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”,
which is quintessential to the genre and has appeared in Weird Tales in the July
1943 issue. On a personal level, this is one of the handful of tales that made
me want to become a horror writer many eons ago, so I’m really scratching my
head as to why it wasn’t included here.
Anyhow, nitpicks aside,
the selection of classic and more modern tales is terrific. On the classic side,
I discovered Allison V. Harding’s “The Damp Man” from the July 1947 issue, about
a large, mysterious figure dressed in black. It was an engaging listen/read
from beginning to end. As for the modern side of things, Victor LaValle’s “Up
from Slavery”, a Lovecraftian tale, absolutely blew me away. And to close
things off, I’m glad the flash fiction/poetry portion was kept to a minimum as I
really don’t care for that type of prose. Every tale, article, prose is read by
a who’s who of professional narrators. As an Audible addict, I was familiar
with the vast majority of the readers and was pleased to have them inject their
magic into it. Here’s the full list of narrators: Scott Brick, Bronson Pinchot,
Richard Brewer, Natalie Naudus, Joe Hempel, Dion Graham, Neil Hellegers, Zura
Johnson, Simon Vance, Peter Berkrot, James Patrick Cronin, Gabrielle de Cuir,
Grover Gardner, James Anderson Foster, Ramiz Monsef, Eric G. Dove, Hillary
Huber, Stefan Rudnicki, Edoardo Ballerini, Robin Miles, Kirsten Potter, Vikas
Adam, and Kimberly Alexis.
If you’re looking for some
reading/listening material for the Halloween weekend and fall season, then look
no further, Weird Tales has got you covered and then some! This is a veritable treasure
trove of strange tales to be cherished for decades to come. The Audible
audiobook is nothing short of fantastic and the collectible hardcover will
enliven your bookshelves.
Rating: Four
stars out of five
Get your copy on Audible
Weird Tales’ Official Website: https://www.weirdtales.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment