Supernatural Tales

Hello again. Just a quick update on the back issue, erm, issue. I still have plenty of more recent issues, and they still cost a fiver each (inc. p&p) if you're in the UK. If you're overseas it's a mere ten USD or your local equivalent. I'll have to do a bit more to jazz up the blog page on this, however, giving listings of stories, cover pics etc. But from issue 8 onwards, ST is still available.

Work on Supernatural Tales 20 continues apace at Valdemar Towers. Plus, there's a bit of a surprise in store for subscribers later in the year - not a nasty one, or at least I hope not. I'll got out on a partially sawn-through limb and say some of you will be delighted. A bit. Probably. Anyway, let's focus here and mention American author Brian Day, whose story 'Good for the Gander' is just one of the treats in store in the next ST. Brian has his own site, Disturbing Daydreams, which offers you  the chance to read several of his short stories. There are also longer works, and Brian informs me that he's just uploaded a 'novella' of nearly 200 pages. Sounds like a novel to me, Brian! Anyway, it's called Red Horse and it's right there, just waiting to be read, or ridden. The place to go is here .

Yes, the website is exactly what you'd imagine. Some I spotted lately: RETURN OF THE NEANDERTHAL FOG GHOSTS CULT OF THE DELINQUENT SEA VAMPIRES CEMETERY OF THE PREHISTORIC VOODOO GIRLS ASSAULT OF THE HIDEOUS ANIMAL CREATURES Put another way, if you want to waste time, this is yet another way to do it.

I've not been reading much lately, but must report on two new poetry pamphets from the indefatigable Cardinal Cox. Codex Ulthar is, as the title suggests, from Lovecraft's story 'The Cats of Ulthar', and the overall tone is more fantastical than horrific. We're in the realms of Dunsany, or very nearly, the Irish fabulist who HPL admired but who is almost unknown today. From my brief perusal these poems are well up to the Cardinal's usual high standard - fine bedtime reading for the whimsically disposed. There's also Ludone, a fascinating collection of steampunk poems, giving glimpses of a parallel universe where Wells Martian invasion happened - and a Martian stumbled upon Griffin's invisibility formula! This and other wonderful conceits make for a feast of verse-shaped fun. I particularly enjoyed 'Last Notes of the Imperial British Expeditionary Force to Mars'. There's also the surprising 'Bunter's Uncle', which offers a compel...