vivdunstan

My next short story collection read is The Haunted Trail: Classic Tales of the Rambling Weird. Another in the British Library "Tales of the Weird" series. This one is edited by Weird Walk.

Just finished this today, another in the British Library's "Tales of the Weird" series of short story collections, gathering together generally older tales, as well as sometimes more recent ones. This collection was edited by Edward Parnell, and focuses on East Anglia, such a rich setting for spooky and weird fiction.

There are 17 short stories in this collection, including a couple by MR James (such as "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come To You, My Lad"). But also stories by many others, including E.F. Benson, Marjorie Bowen, and even Robert Aickman.

Stories range from medieval through to the present day, though many are in the Victorian or early twentieth century era. Many are written in the MR Jamesian style, of old manuscripts and strange places. Others take a different approach.

Overall most of the stories are strong, but three were absolute standouts for me. Firstly "The Dust-Cloud" by E.F. Benson, the atmospheric tale of a ghostly car crash. This left me unnerved for some time after, as did "The Seventeenth Hole at Duncaster" by H.R. Wakefield, the story of a haunted golf hole. Which started almost PG Wodehouse like, but soon became something darker. The third story that wowed me was John Gordon's "If She Bends, She Breaks", a tale of winter in the fens, that I very much regretted reading just as I was about to go to sleep, because it spooked me so extremely much! But in a good way.

A couple of the stories felt workmanlike. There was only one story that I disliked, indeed viscerally so: "Possum" by Matthew Holness. This was one of a few more modern stories in the book, and felt tonally completely out of place, and phenomenally unpleasant to read. But otherwise it was a strong collection.

Recommended. 4/5 stars.

Something I stumbled across the other night.

Just binge watched - at a bit of speed in places! - the last 3 episodes of Wednesday season 1. Martin is also now watching it, though a bit behind me. It's been odd for him seeing snippets that he'd already seen me watching, and learning where they fit into the story! Anyway yes, I'm all watched up. He should be soon. A second season has already been filmed.

It's very much a teen drama, but I liked an awful lot about it. Especially the gothic feel. Jenna Ortega did a great job. I was also surprised just how dark the last few episodes were in terms of content. But yes, very much enjoyed, and looking forward to the second season.

I've just finished my marathon viewing of a large bunch of videos on catchup from the Glasgow Worldcon this summer. Watching on catchup I missed out the chance to take part in the live Q&As. And I also found the user interface rather cumbersome, that I had to watch on my laptop, which limited how frequently I could do so. But I still managed to get through quite a large number of talks.

Here are the events I watched, each one about an hour long, typically with 45 main minutes of discussion, followed by 15 minutes of audience Q&A:

• AI and Work - Do Androids Dream of Taking Your Job?
• ENIAC and the Post-War Dawn of the Computer age
• The Horror Out Of Space
• *Scot-ish: The Influence of Scotland on Fantasy Worldbuilding
• It's Life, Jim, but Not as We Know It
• *Iain Banks: Between Genre and the Mainstream
• All the Shakespeare: the Bard's Influence on SFF
• The Untold History of Worldcons
• Inadvisable Rocket Science
• A Fireside Chat with Samantha Béart
• Guest of Honour Interview: Ken MacLeod
• *The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space
• 50 Years of TTRPGs
• Comics Can Save Your Life
• Faeries in Fantasy Literature

I've marked out above those with asterisks that I especially enjoyed. To pull those out specifically these were:

• Scot-ish: The Influence of Scotland on Fantasy Worldbuilding
• Iain Banks: Between Genre and the Mainstream
• The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space

The first two of these had obvious Scottish connections, which I unsurprisingly appreciated. But I also found them particularly rewarding in other respects. But I enjoyed something in everything I watched, not just these particular highlight talks.

Martin and I had originally hoped to be at the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon in person. We had low cost attending memberships in place. But things didn't work out that way. However I was able to watch on catchup, and have very much enjoyed that. I was also active in the Discord during the convention, and treated myself to some purchases inspired by the Dealers' Hall.

I am continuing to watch these on ITVX. Though generally in spread out spurts, rather than more steadily.

Tonight I was watching the latter half of "Lord of the Trees", all of "The Enchantment", and starting on the first half of "The Swords of Wayland". All episodes from season 2.

One thing that's striking me a lot is how sanitised it is, both in violence, but also in sexual relations. The fight scenes - heavily signposted by the start of the "fight music" each time - are pantomime like a lot. Older me fast forwards through many of them. They also often go on for a very long time. But they're also rarely too gory (*). Nor is there anything like as much sexual violence or menace as you would expect for the time, and would be shown in a more adult aiming programme. Even Lilith's seduction (of a sort) of Robin is remarkably asexual, especially from Robin. And as for Robin and Marion, well that's minimal too.

Against that mythology is heavily used throughout. And it's often very dark. As are the frequently threatening visuals. I've just got to the start of "The Swords of Wayland" two-parter. The images at the start of riders on horseback and menacing people is very visceral and scary. Not in a light Hammer way. Watching "Lord of the Trees" tonight I wondered what Mary Whitehouse would have made of it all! Checking on Wikipedia it seems that she did have views, and "objected to the [show's] relentless slaughter and blasphemous religious elements". No big surprises there!

Women frequently have very strong roles in the series, which is nice to see. Though not so much Marion, even if her agency improves in season 2 over season 1. But I'm thinking especially of villainesses, such as Lilith and Morgwyn. Though quite what that says, that it's generally the evil women who get the strong female roles, I'm not so sure. To be fair, this is set in medieval times, when things were even more limited than today.

It is a bit exasperating how certain storylines are left unfinished though. I'm thinking in particular of what happened to Gisburne at the end of season 1, the story of Baron de Belleme, and of course, and most sadly, the unfinished storylines after the series was cancelled after season 3.

The guest cast is often astonishing though. I've been marvelling at that throughout. I am looking forward to next season, and Richard O'Brien's repeated appearances. Though I'm less excited about an upcoming major cast change. On plus we will have other great guest stars to enjoy. I am especially looking forward to seeing William Russell.

Anyway yes, very happy rewatching these. A marvellous series, that first aired 40 years ago this year. And still well worth making time for.

* I know that ITVX has cut some of the violence. But I've seen enough of the series on DVD before to remember that even in the original uncut form it's not as violent as you might expect for the time. Very impressive, albeit a bit overlong for me now. But remarkably non "eek!" inducing.

Browsing the Glasgow Worldcon programme, which has finally been released. We are not going to be there in person as hoped, because of how ill I am now. But they are offering a lot of streamed and recorded for later talks. So I will get to see masses. I am now going through the programme to mark up those of interest. Thank goodness for the recordings, because I have multiple time clashes already!

I'll be blogging about this properly on my academic musings blog. But I've just finished watching my final catch up videos from the Cymera 2024 Edinburgh festival of fantasy, scifi and horror writing. Here is the list of things I got through - a rather impressive total of 18 events. Rather stunned with that, given how asleep I am constantly, and I have been mainly watching them just before bed at night. And not every night. And usually taking several nights to finish each one! These and other Cymera videos have been available for me to watch online from early June until tonight at midnight.

• From Dr. Who to Star Trek: New Stories with Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson and Una McCormack
• The Power of Books with Gareth Brown and Mark Lawrence
• Eldritch Gods and Other Uninvited Guests with Mark Stay and Charles Stross
• There’s Been A Murder with Amy Goldsmith, T.L. Huchu and Frances White
• Arctic Horrors with C.J. Cooke, Tim Lebbon and Ally Wilkes
• In Search of a New Eden with Oliver Langmead, Ken MacLeod and Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Time Travels with Poppy Kuroki & Nigel Planer
• Cassandra Clare in conversation with V.E. Schwab
• The Pleasures of Reading
• The Secret to a Successful Partnership with Megan Bannen and Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
• Many Shades of Darkness with Elle Nash, Kaaron Warren and Johanna Van Veen
• Creating Legends with Kate Heartfield and Sophie Keetch
• Past, Present, Future with Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, William Letford and EJ Swift
• Dark Encounters with Em Reed and Lorraine Wilson
• Writing the Future with Rachelle Atalla, Dan Coxon and Una McCormack
• Thrilling Futures with Lauren Beukes, Nikhil Singh and Maud Woolf
• Retellings with Joanne Harris, Lucy Holland and Shona Kinsella
• Unleashing Chaos with Jane Flett and Kelly Link

I have just DNF'd My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. It should have appealed a lot, with lots of 80s pop culture references. But I didn't find the writing style worked for me, nor were the voices of the young girls convincing. I see it was made into a movie a couple of years ago. Happy to pass on both.

Alongside other non fiction books on the go I've now started a short story fiction collection, gathering together classic spooky stories about Cornwall. Cornish Horrors is another in the British Library Tales of the Weird series. And should fill a nice slot for me.

I am leaving my fiction reading slate free after that for the middle of July, when another in Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches fantasy series is published. I particularly enjoyed the original trilogy, and am keen to read this upcoming 5th book, The Black Bird Oracle. I have it preordered on Kindle, and intend to read it right away on publication. And I also have a signed hardback copy on preorder.

I just read this for my book club, and really enjoyed it. Surprisingly I'd never read it before, though I know the 1940 Hitchcock film well, which won the Best Picture Oscar back in its day.

Rebecca is a gripping gothic thriller combined with psychological study. It has a rather leisurely pacing, which took me a while to adjust to. But then it felt more of a natural fit, and I was happy for it to have room to breathe. The story is that of a young woman, newly married and returning with her husband to his Cornish grand mansion home, only to uncover secrets from the past. I don't want to go into the plot too much, but I found it a real page turner. And even though I knew the core plot (there are very few differences between the 1938 novel and 1940 movie), it still kept me glued, through to the very end.

I have seen other movies based on Daphne du Maurier stories - Hitchcock's The Birds, and Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. But I haven't read any more of her writings. And I need to fix that.

Rating 5/5 stars. Easily.