Books

Not much time to blog, today, and I've been occupied with teaching my son to ride a bicycle (success!). That's sort of a peak moment.

I finished off the Carnacki The Ghost Finder stories today (a different edition than the one I link to here). These are really and truly seminal stories for the Lovecraft genre. They're in some ways a bit weak (in "the Hog," which is phenomenal, Hodgson creates an anticlimax with an explanation at the ending). But these should really be read by anyone who wants to see the historical sweep of the horror literature that led to Lovecraft's mythos.

I also read The Coffee Trader which isn't Gothic horror or relevant to this site. I give it an 8: it was absolutely awesome until the ending, where the author seems to have chosen to write "literature" by making people stay unhappy rather than "pop fiction," where the good guy wins and everyone is happy. I think the happier ending would have been better for this particuar book. But it's an awesome and exciting read until the ending falters.