All about books!

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.

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Both arrived today, both massive!

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.

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That’s cool :slightly_smiling_face: interested to see what you think of it and which stories stand out.

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Will post something here, everytime I feel something is worth mentioning :slight_smile:

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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!

More here:

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Apparently, you can read that (and likely others of the early stories, though I have not checked) at Project Gutenberg.

Yeah, I saw that the wikipedia article linked to that. The story is 111 years old, so no surprise that it´s available. :slight_smile:

Sounding really good :slightly_smiling_face: be great to read on a stormy night :cloud_with_lightning_and_rain:

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As @kaiman said, it´s available online and it´s not really very long. Very moody, I enjoyed it a lot. :slight_smile:

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The author died only 67 years ago, so the pre-1970s 28 years after death + 67 year renewal would still put it squarely under copyright.

So I’m guessing it’s already been out of copyright for almost 40 years due to a lack of renewal.

Next story I will be reading is a story from Japan called “The Town of :cat: :cat2:”. Stay tuned for my thoughts on that :writing_hand:

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The Town offff… Two Cats? Big-headed Cats? Decapitated cats? :scream:

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The Town Of Cats (I didn´t know how else to pluralise with emojis).

And this just made me think of Arthur “Two Cats Sheds” Jackson

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Also try The Human Chair. :slight_smile:

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I also got a story collection by Junjio Ito.

Is this something for @milanfahrnholz and/or @PiecesOfKate?

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Doesn´t sound bad! Plus people say that arthritis might be the number one rock guitarist illness of the future, so that is a good thing too! :+1:

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That’s a lot of horror! :open_mouth:

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