Old Time Classic Weird Short Story Challenge

[Dan]

I saw a category on our group home page called Challenges. I have never actually looked at one before, so I may be doing this all wrong. Nevertheless I like the GoodReads concept of a challenge and thought I would try my hand at creating one.

The challenge I have created is to read thirteen (number selected because this is Weird Literature after all) early classic weird authors--the thirteen I consider the most prominent--or at least the first thirteen that came to my mind who wrote mostly in the earlier decades of the twentieth century.

The Thirteen Old Time Classic Weird Authors to choose from:
1. Vernon Lee
2. Arthur Machen
3. Algernon Blackwood
4. William Hope Hodgson
5. H. P. Lovecraft
6. Robert E. Howard
7. A. Merritt
8. C. L. Moore
9. Frank Belknap Long
10. Fritz Leiber
11. Clark Ashton Smith
12. Howard Wandrei or Donald Wandrei
13. August Derleth

I hope you will find this challenge not only fun but worthwhile. I didn't create a challenge for the sake of just doing it. There are actual benefits. Once you have completed this challenge, you will have met thirteen different people's thought, and have some notion or idea about each of them. You are that much closer to becoming an expert in that wonderful literary genre known as Weird.

When you finish, please post your list to this topic. This first post will contain the names of finishers of this challenge in order (which I'll update):

1. Suki 10-28-19
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

There is no prize. Learning more of our genre is reward enough, I think. Oh, and the distinction of being recognized as an expert because your name made this list.

[Dan]

Quirkyreader wrote: "Good luck to everyone who tries the challenge and I hope you like Dan’s challenge.

I am automatically disqualified for obvious reasons. 🐸"

???

Not obvious to me. As far as I'm concerned all are welcome. I can't in fact prevent anyone from taking this challenge, nor would I wish to.

[Dan]

Short stories by each of them? Short stories all of which you remember well enough to accurately assess their quality down to the tenths of a decimal point and place in order? If so, then you can create a list right away and have your name be entered first.

Another option is to choose to read 13 stories you haven't read before. Or you can do both. There's no limit on numbers of times you can do this challenge. If you do it twice and post two lists of 13 different stories, your entry will look like "1. Quirkyreader (2)."

P.S. I'm really impressed you have already read something by all 13 of these authors. I haven't read anything by almost half of them.

N.B. I need to clarify that a story with multiple authors like the first one we all read for this group DOES NOT count for purposes of this challenge. That would make it too easy.

[Dan]

That has five of our 13 authors, by my count.

You know a book I would have expected to have more stories by our 13 authors? The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. But by my count, only six of our authors are represented.

[Dan]

I found seven of our authors in this anthology: Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror.

[Suki]

This challenge sounds like a lot of fun! I was able to find most of the authors in my own collection, but I did have to turn to www.gutenberg.org for a couple of them.

I'm currently doing the 31 Classic Horror Stories Every Fan Should Read in October: A Literary Advent Calender for Halloween Challenge
https://www.oldstyletales.com/single-...
as well, so the Weird Fiction Challenge will go nicely with that. A couple of the authors overlap, but I will read different stories for each challenge.

[Suki]

Dan wrote: "You know a book I would have expected to have more stories by our 13 authors? The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. But..."

That surprised me too! It was the first book I pulled off the shelf.

[Dan]

What a wonderful October challenge! I really like the publisher too. Thanks for sharing.

[Dan]

I go here for back issues of Weird Tales: http://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/ Weird Tales was not the only purveyor of Weird Fiction. They had a lot of competition, some of them of comparable quality, and one (see this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...) of even higher quality.

P.S. For those interested in doing the challenge, you couldn't pick three better stories than those available in this issue for three of our authors.

[Ed]

Dan wrote: "What a wonderful October challenge! I really like the publisher too. Thanks for sharing."

I agree on both counts!

[Suki]

Dan wrote: "I go here for back issues of Weird Tales: http://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/ Weird Tales was not the only purveyor of Weird Fiction. They had a lot of competition, some of them of comparable qual..."

Thank you for sharing these links! I may try to do the challenge several times-- with the Halloween advent read, I have come to really like and look forward to at least one weird story per day, right before bedtime.

[Suki]

I found Hauntings: Fantastic Stories by Vernon Lee free on Kindle.

[Ed]

I've never participated in a "Challenge" on GR, so I'm not sure how to do it. But I think you are supposed to create a dedicated bookshelf for yourself, and then add books to that shelf. But for a short-story challenge, the stories may not have a GR "book" for the story. (GR discourages adding individual stories as "books".) I guess you'd either have to shelve a book containing the story, or else just manually keep track of your progress yourself.

[Suki]

Ed wrote: "I've never participated in a "Challenge" on GR, so I'm not sure how to do it. But I think you are supposed to create a dedicated bookshelf for yourself, and then add books to that shelf. But for a ..."

So far, I've found that all the short stories that I've read already exist in the GR library (I don't add my own, so I would shelve a book containing the story, plus keep a paper list.) A lot of the challenges I participate in have ongoing lists, where people add books or stories to their original list comment as they read them.

[Dan]

Suki wrote: "Ed wrote: "I've never participated in a "Challenge" on GR, so I'm not sure how to do it. But I think you are supposed to create a dedicated bookshelf for yourself, and then add books to that shelf...."

I could not figure out how to do the challenge properly with GoodReads' software in terms of short stories either. I'm satisfied to keep a document file. We'll track challenge completions manually.

I decided to read 13 stories I haven't read before for the challenge and just finished my first: Vernon Lee's earliest, “A Culture-Ghost: or, Winthrop's Adventure” from April 1881. I'm pretty sure no one will be able to find an earlier one. It's about 14,000 words long, making it a novelette. I corrected ISFDB's entry which had called it a novella.

[Ed]

Suki wrote: "So far, I've found that all the short stories that I've read already exist in the GR library."

When librarians find such things, they often delete them. I don't, but some do, because it is the official policy of this site.

[Dan]

I don't delete them either because many short stories are beginning to be sold alone in a way that makes them increasingly difficult to differentiate from other books, especially in e-formats. Besides, I'm a really, really big fan of short stories.

The fact that GoodReads doesn't (or isn't supposed to) contain pure short story records leads to missed reading opportunities in my opinion. The latest, most unfortunate example of this I have personally seen applies to the novel Charisma by Michael G. Coney. By all appearances it's a mediocre stand-alone book. However, it was preceded by two incredibly powerful short stories which appeared in two early 1970s issues of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Without these two stories as background, you never really understand Coney's conception of interdimensional and time travel, how the main characters came to be in love, or fully what is at stake. Reading these two stories first takes this novel to another level. Yet, looking at the GoodReads' entry you'd never know the stories existed. No reviewer mentions them and the faults they cite (except for the sexism--which is being overly sensitive IMO) all stem from it.

There has to be more unfortunate incidences like this one.

[Suki]

It would be nice if GR would start a separate listing for short stories if they don't want them mixed in with the book records. As Dan states above, many short stories are available separately in ebook format, even some in paper. Lots of the GR groups have a monthly short story read in addition to the longer books, and it's hard to track readings if they don't "exist".

[Suki]

OK-- here's my list, ranked in order from most to least favorite. There are several ties, and the ratings might have varied slightly if I had read the stories on different days. Anything above a 4.0 rating was a story that I really liked. There were only two stories that I didn't like much.

01. HP Lovecraft: The Shadow Over Innsmouth: 4.9⭐
From The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

02. William Hope Hodgson: The Thing Invisible: 4.8⭐
From The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places: The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson, Volume 2
The first Carnacki story.

03. Fritz Leiber: The Girl With the Hungry Eyes: 4.8⭐
From American Supernatural Tales edited by ST Joshi

04. Arthur Machen: The Great God Pan: 4.7⭐
From The Three Impostors and Other Stories: The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen, Volume 1

05. Frank Belknap Long: The Space-Eaters: 4.6⭐
First published in Weird Tales Volume II, Issue 1

06. CL Moore: Shambleau: 4.5⭐
From Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith

07. August Derleth: The Return of Hastur: 4.5⭐
From The Mask of Cthulhu

08. Robert E Howard: Old Garfield's Heart: 4.4⭐
From American Supernatural Tales edited by ST Joshi

09. Algernon Blackwood: Ancient Lights: 4.3⭐
From Algernon Blackwood's The Willows and Other Tales of Terror: Premium Weird Fiction and Ghost Stories edited, annotated, and illustrated by M Grant Kellermeyer

10. Vernon Lee: A Wicked Voice: 4.2⭐
From Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales

11. Clark Ashton Smith: The Necromantic Tale: 4.2⭐
From The End of the Story: The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Volume 1

12. Howard Wandrei: Here Lies (writing as HW Guernsey): 3.7⭐
First published in Weird Tales, October 1937

13. A Merritt: The Woman of the Wood: 2.4⭐
First published in Weird Tales, November 1933
I read a review that said that this story hasn't aged well. I concur.

I had a lot of fun with this challenge. I would like to do it again because there are 11 authors I really want to read again, and 2 authors that I would like to give another chance before writing them off.

[Dan]

Wow Suki! Congratulations on being the first to complete this challenge. Accordingly, I have updated message one above.

Some of the stories you rate the highest will be ones I might look for in order to put on my list too. Merritt, I admit, is an acquired taste requiring some patience unless you read one of his very best. I started his The Ship of Ishtar a few years ago and abandoned it despite liking it well enough. It is very descriptive and there were a lot of demands on my attention then. I've been meaning to get back to it.

May I recommend your next Merritt attempt be informed by this excellent article on him (especially his work) by the pulp fiction historian even Isaac Asimov deferred to, Sam Moskowitz: http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/libra... "The Marvelous A. Merritt" article is linked to third line from the bottom. If something in that article neither sounds good nor turns out to be good, then Merritt is not for you!

[Suki]

Dan wrote: "Wow Suki! Congratulations on being the first to complete this challenge. Accordingly, I have updated message one above.

Some of the ones you rate the highest will be ones I might look for in order..."

Thanks for the Merritt recommendation. The Woman of the Wood kind of left me feeling like "WTF did I just read?!!" :-)

Howard Wandrei was a little difficult to track down, but I think I owe it to him to give him another chance-- the story I read really wasn't bad, it was just very abrupt. I'll probably read Donald too, and see who I like better.

[Dan]

I'd never heard of your particular choice of Merritt story before. I am sort of intrigued based on the descriptions I've read of it, though your disliking of it makes me want to be sure I try to find a free copy to skim a little of first.

I think Donald Wandrei is better known in science fiction circles. That's how I've heard of him. He's in Asimov's collection Before the Golden Age 3, for example.

I didn't even know he had a brother whose achievement is just as impressive, only in the field of Weird, until I got more into Weird Fiction this year. I think I need to try to find and read my first quality Howard Wandrei.

[Suki]

Dan wrote: "I'd never heard of your particular choice of Merritt story before. I am sort of intrigued based on the descriptions I've read of it, though your disliking of it makes me want to be sure I try to fi..."

Here's the link I used:
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/merr...

This is the review that links to the story:
https://www.tor.com/2016/04/06/lovecr...

I'm curious to see what you think of the story.

[Suki]

Dan wrote: "I think Donald Wandrei is better known in science fiction circles."

When I was trying to find some of Howard's stories on Google, Donald's name kept coming up. Howard seems to be much better known as an artist than as a writer.

This is the link to Here Lies, the story that I read:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32469/...

I think I may have rated the story a little low-- the ending is quite funny, in a dark way.

[Dan]

Thanks, Suki. I've not read the short story by Howard Wandrei you mention, but I have become very curious about him. I researched him and gave him his own post here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/.... I can't believe I splurged like this, but on the strength of that 4-page story I mention--I really liked it--I've also just ordered all three short story collections, even the non-genre one. I like mysteries on occasion, too, and that particular collection is less than $5 including shipping. I'll try "Here Lies" next.