Tagged: horror

The October Country by Ray Bradbury

General

Deal Me In Story #8: The Small Assassin by Ray Bradbury

Just when the idea occurred to her that she was being murdered she could not tell. Card: 9♦ Anthology: The October Country Story: “The Small Assassin,” 1946 “The Small Assassin” is one of Ray Bradbury’s  darkest and most disturbing stories, at least to my mind. When Alice Leiber almost dies giving birth to her baby boy, she is convinced that the baby is trying to kill her. Her husband and doctor don’t believe her–at least at first. I’m not sure exactly why this story disturbed me so much, but it...

The October Country by Ray Bradbury

Books and Reading

Deal Me in Stories #5 and #6: Two Bradbury Tales from The October Country

Card Drawn: 3♦ Anthology: The October Country by Ray Bradbury Story: “The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse,” 1954 When we first meet George Garvey he is nothing at all. Later he’ll wear a white poker chip monocle, with a blue eye painted on it by Matisse himself. Later, a golden bird cage might trill within George Garvey’s false leg, and his good left hand might possibly be fashioned of shimmering copper and jade. But at the beginning–gaze upon a terrifyingly ordinary man. So begins “The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse”...

Book Review / Books and Reading

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls. I agree with Julie Davis: the less said about The Yellow Wallpaper the better, so that you can read it fresh, without any baggage or imposed interpretations. This horror classic gave me chills. It reminded me a little bit of The House on the Borderland, and it fits right in with the Alfred Hitchcock stories I’ve been reading for my...

The House on the Borderland

Book Review / Books and Reading

Classics Club Book #2: The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

The House on the Borderland is an eerie novel that ultimately leaves many questions unanswered. Written in 1908, it is often cited as an influence on writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Terry Pratchett, and it is listed in Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, edited by James Cawthorn and Michael Moorcock. It also becomes my second finished book in the Classics Club Challenge. I really wanted this book to be good. The beginning starts off promising: two men on a fishing holiday in a remote part of Ireland discover...

Book Review / Books and Reading / General

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

There’s nothing in the living world like books on water cures, deaths-of-a-thousand-slices, or pouring white-hot lava off castle walls on drolls and mountebanks. How I just love Ray Bradbury’s writing style. After I read any of his stories or novels, the world becomes a more interesting place. Falling leaves become tears that the trees cry; rain is the cleansing power of the universe; books are portals to new worlds. Ray Bradbury takes the ordinary world and electrifies it until it shimmers with a glow that was always waiting...