I just discovered the 10th anniversary of the book includes “the author’s preferred text” which is 14,000 words longer. I only read the original version. I wonder which one you have?
It was pretty long to begin with, but I’m curious if I missed anything.
Yeah I read the 10th anniversary edition (as mentioned above), which is about 750 pages long.
I guess they may have cut some of those many world building inserts back then, that don´t really advance the plot itself, but I obviously couldn´t tell having read the first edition.
The Weird is like a phone book! It is also formatted in double columns which may be for space reasons, as an hommage to the style of the pulp magazines or both. And I like that each story starts out with a brief author biography and an explanation why the story is relevant to the collection.
Three stories in and the super creepy story The Willows (an HP Lovecraft favourite!) by Algernon Blackwood has impressed me deeply.
Not only for the story and it´s mysterious vagueness itself but for the setting. It is a story taking place in and mentioning places I often have been to myself!
It is about two canoeing adventurers going down the Danube passing by many bavarian villages and towns (Straubing the place I was born is expliciticly mentioned!) describing in great detail the landscape leading up to Passau, the place where it passes the river Inn and then going down what used to be Austria-Hungary (back in 1907 when the story was written) where they end on a sandy island in today´s Slovakia getting beached and crowded by mysterious creatures hiding between the imposing willows at night. That whole last act gives The Blairwitch Project a run for its money, and the dense atmosphere together with the detailed description of a landscape very familar to me made for a great read!