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Shiel's descriptions of Turkey and environs are sumptuous, decadent, really. I can tell that he was influenced by the decadents to some extent.

"The Monstrance," also a war story, is much more effective than the last. The central conceit of the captured diary of a German soldier who had died of fright is really quite clever, and the horror is palpable. An excellent story, somewhat in the mold of M,R. James. Five harrowing (and yet deserved) stars!

I would consider "The Bowmen" to be a minor story, but still a good, well-written tale of supernatural aid (or blight, depending on whose side you are on). 4 stars.

I loved "The White People," but to tell you what it was "about"? Um. No. It's essentially plotless, a labyrinthine meandering through the eyes of a young girl discovering . . . well, she can't tell you all that she's discovered. Machen does a wonderful job of using inference and redaction to tease the reader with an intentionally occulted (I use the word exactly) vision of what lies beyond, accessible, but hidden. 5*

I won't be reviewing the prose-poetry pieces The Turanians, The Idealist, Witchcraft, The Ceremony, Psychology, or Midsummer, since these are included in the collection Ornaments in Jade, which I have on order and will review by itself, rather than doing half the stories here and half there.

Okay, less than 100 pages left - there's a huge section of endnotes after the text which has been helpful.

Must I not, in time, cease to be a man, and become a small earth, precisely her copy, extravagantly weird and fierce, half-demoniac, half-ferine, wholly mystic - morose and turbulent - fitful, and deranged, and sad - like her?

This might be the central theme of this novel. All evidence so far points to this. The statement does add some gravitas to the whole, which can be boring, at times.

Dyson, in "The Shining Pyramid" had to be inspiration, at least in part, for Valentine's The Connoisseur. I love the vagaries of this story, though it is a tiny bit more pedantic than the others, Still, nothing as crude as Lovecraft's reveals (though they have their place). Five stars, nonetheless.

Jeffson turns earth into Hell. Well done, Jeffson, well done. Just when I start to get bored, Shiel seems to find a way to recapture my interest. Very up and down, this book.

Move over, Arthur Conan Doyle! You've got to share the stage with Machen. "The Red Hand" (which I keep wanting to call "The Red Right Hand" - thank you, Nick Cave) is, yes, "Sherlockian," but with a pagan magical twist of the supernatural that Sherlock would have balked at . . . and been dead wrong! I really enjoyed this neolithic, fae mystery. Fantastic breaking of genre boundaries! Five stars!

Shiel's reference to Machen and his (Shiel's) 18-year old wife being married to Machen (both dead in Machen's house, according to the narrative) might have just freaked Machen the heck out. Creeper!!!

Shiel's portrayal of the remnants of civilization (i.e., piles and piles of dead bodies) who died due to debauchery and violence, when threatened with oncoming mass extinction, presages later zombie-apocalypse scenarios where most of humanity had more to fear from each other than from the real threat. He paints a horrifying scene, without showing the actual horror as it happens. Impressive.

"The Three Imposters" is mind-blowingly awesome. Wheels within wheels, all shot through with decadence and hauntings and rotting bodies and tentacles. Oh, my, this is SO much better than just about anything Lovecraft wrote. I can see why Lovecraft admired Machen so much. Definitely seems like the type of novella that would hold up to several readings, and I intend on reading it several times! Five stars!

Well, that's the first time that's ever happened to me: corporate buyout of the company I work for means that I don't work there any more, as of yesterday. Never been unemployed in my adult life. Interesting. At least they gave me a severance package. Anyone need a Supply Chain Manager in Wisconsin? At least now I have reading time (when I'm not sending out resumes and interviewing). :)

Okay, scientific explanations, then lots more dead people, blah blah. It's actually quite good, commendable, really, that Shiel can continue to evoke some (small) emotional reaction in the reader while effectively going on and on and on about what must be dreadfully boring for the narrator. But I'm suspicious that it will get flat quick, and I'm not even halfway through.

Who says there is no more need for hard-copy newspapers? The narrator here would argue that point! Finally, getting some information!

Also, one of the more effective creep-factors here is the weight of the silence and what it must do to the man who finds himself completely and utterly alone in the world . . . because everyone else is dead!

Interesting, the apparently different reactions to impending mass-annihilation.

". . . I too burned with the lust of the chase, not pausing to consider that I knew not what we were to unshadow." - this is the sort of turn-of-phrase that I love in Machen. And that word: "unshadow," so evocative and full of implication.

Just had a story accepted for the upcoming anthology XVIII, the next installment in the Underland Press Tarot anthology series. Very excited to be a part of this, especially since I have a soft spot for this story. I've only recently begun, again, writing short stories after an absence of quite some time. This one was written back in July, just before my trip to Europe.

I'm wondering what exactly Machen means by "novel" in the context of "The Three Imposters". Everything seems to be a "novel".

Now, the truth of the disaster unfolds.

I'm enjoying "The Three Imposters," as it's a great yarn, but I'm still blind as to where this thing is going.

More desolate than desolate. Curious to see how long this can go on without getting boring. I like what I'm reading now, but after the novelty of a few discoveries wears off, what then? There is a LOT more novel to go here.

The last two pages were Moby Dick meetsRhyme of the Ancient Mariner with a touch of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, but not as well-realized as those three. Still, vivid and shocking imagery.

"The Inmost Light" has a strong kernel of dark beauty, but it's rambling narrative does not compliment its vagaries in such a way as to create a strong readerly reaction. Still, the stark shimmer of the tale's implications carry it higher than a merely average story. Four opalescent stars.

Having a tough time following "The Inmost Light". We shall see how it concludes.

Aha! After an arctic adventure: the cloud.

Also, have I mentioned that the narrator is a homicidal sociopath? Minot detail, by this point, but he is not a nice guy. At all.

The first 24 pages of this is an excellent short story in and of itself. Curious to see how it all plays into the rest of the book - will it make a good "anchor" to the novel, or is it a starting-off point that will simply be forgotten? In any case, Shiel is a capable writer!

"The Great God Pan" does not suffer from being disjointed and vague, it benefits from it! These vagaries and jagged connection points lead the reader on a frenetic, dreadful path, allowing the reader to their own conclusions. It is a dark masterpiece, jilted away from spoon-fed logic or the (boring) monstrous revelations of Lovecraft, for instance. It is both what you know and what you don't know that terrifies! 5*