Scary stories

Just the same as most reasonable people, I like stories and games involving zombies and vampires and ghosts other scary stuff.  Also psychological horror.  I don't much like the more modern gross out or torture stuff like SAW or Human Centipede.  B-movies can be charming but they have to be witty for me to like them- I prefer Evil Dead to something like Texas Chainsaw for example.  Tops in horror however has to be metaphysical horror, I like the whole uncaring universe, madness inspiring lore about old civilizations and weird dream realms and un-knowable alien races vibe in general.  I like that kind of horror way more, including where it crosses over into Fantasy or Sci-Fi like in Karl Edward Wagner's Kane books or in movies like Pandorum or Alien.  I dig that Cthulhu style mythos - but you know I hadn't actually read much Lovecraft.

Then I got my phone.

I haven't really made the jump to reading many books in electronic format.  I have grabbed a bunch of free books from Google Play including a Japanese fairytale book, Dracula, some Mark Twain and The Backwoods of Canada by a Canadian woman written in the early 1800s. Some good stuff there for sure but I got a lot more downloaded than I have yet managed to read. I have however found that the book clients on my phone to be a perfect platform for reading short stories.  For less cost than cup a coffee, I have got a copy of the Definitive H.P. Lovecraft from Kindle and am reading along with the HP Podcraft literary podcast.  This podcast is a light-hearted look at the stories of H.P Lovecraft done in the order they were published and is well produced and has some really good readings.  The commentators generally have some post story analysis and/or historical footnotes too - so is a great way to get into the writing.  It's also pretty funny and they bring in enough analysis to place the works, but not so much as to be dry.  I'd consider reading along with the podcast a light independent study type introduction, and it's a great way to catch up on your Cthulhu.  See I'm bettering myself.

I think I'm on episode 14 now - I just finished reading The Street and I'm going to download the episode tonight so I can listen to it in my car tomorrow.  I think there are 80-90 episodes so I have a way to go yet.  Good times.


*I need to brush up on my Robert E. Howard reading too.