William Hope Hodgson – Page 7

The SFFaudio Podcast #212 – READALONG: The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #212 – Jesse, Mirko and Mr. Jim Moon discuss The Willows by Algernon Blackwood.

Talked about on today’s show:
Algernon Blackwood’s television show, “the ghost man”, the expansion of consciousness, the extension of human personality, ghosts, Saturday Night Story, H.P. Lovecraft’s essay Supernatural Horror In Literature, almost nothing happens, “ghoulish work”, cosmic horror, Mr. Jim Moon outlines of the story, the nameless Swede, travelogue, the Danube, a lonesome expanse, an elemental presence, the rising spirits, the shunned place, the man’s body (or the black otter), “never human in the first place”, overlapping dimensions, The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson, The Black Stone by Robert E. Howard, why is it set in Europe?, The Wendigo, Blackwood actually canoed on the Danube, Marcus Aurelius, the Black Forest, Blackwood attended school in the area, hard guys, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, “the soul chilling fury of Nature’s terrible dethroned gods”, the joke becomes unfunny, Romania, Transylvania, “looks fantastic but no-one lives there!”, evidence of human habitation, we have to keep going farther and farther to find the borderlands, their thoughts are manifested, telepathy, With Morning Comes Mistfall by George R.R. Martin, a review of Bright Messenger by Algernon Blackwood from Fantasy & science Fiction, the “Diva”, nature spirits, sprites, fairies, planetary entities, nature’s policemen, WWI, haunted tree?, occult and paranormal writing, occultist jargon, the chain of being, neo-Platonism, intermediary spirits, what did these two dudes do wrong?, sacred groves, druids, devilish places, The Children Of The Stones, the stolid Swede, red Indians, the noble savage, Guy de Maupassant’s The Horla, the drowned peasant, the conical holes, Chupacabra?, alien sampling?, footprints?, fingerprints?, Jaws, the hidden monster, “having rid himself of the morsel”, empty planet, “the sounds a planet must make driving along through space”, J.R.R. Tolkien, Old Man Willow, the Withywindle, the evil trees, Tolkien was familiar with Blackwood, Tom Bombadil is a nature spirit, Goldberry is a river spirit, “he’s got a bloody song for everything”, the Wikipedia entry for willow, the bronze skinned figures, fairy mischief, fairies fuck with you, what’s with the paddles?, a sacrifice, man where was your editor?, you didn’t really do anything wrong but show up, canoeing ghost stories, Voyageurs, a deal with the devil on Christmas Eve, La Chasse-Galerie (aka “The Bewitched Canoe” aka “The Flying Canoe“), Deliverance, leisure travel vs. work travel, the drones, the last gasp of the Grand Tour, Alien vs. Evil Dead, the punishment of the idle, reckless youth, Cabin In The Woods, The Complete Weird Fiction Of Algernon Blackwood, short stories are best enjoyed in short doses.

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

La Chasse-Galerie - illustrated by Henri Julien

Algernon Blackwood's The Willows - illustration by Sam Ford

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood FREE AUDIOBOOK (for a limited time)

SFFaudio Online Audio

My favourite audiobook narrator, Wayne June, has recorded and released as a FREE MP3 AUDIOBOOK one of the greatest horror tales ever written.

The Willows was H.P. Lovecraft’s favourite story. He wrote this about it:

“In delineating the extremes of stark fear, yet infinitely more closely wedded to the idea of an unreal world constantly pressing upon ours is the inspired and prolific Algernon Blackwood, amidst whose voluminous and uneven work may be found some of the finest spectral literature of this or any age. Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood’s genius there can be no dispute; for no one has even approached the skill, seriousness, and minute fidelity with which he records the overtones of strangeness in ordinary things and experiences, or the preternatural insight with which he builds up detail by detail the complete sensations and perceptions leading from reality into supernormal life or vision. Without notable command of the poetic witchery of mere words, he is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere; and can evoke what amounts almost to a story from a simple fragment of humourless psychological description. Above all others he understands how fully some sensitive minds dwell forever on the borderland of dream, and how relatively slight is the distinction betwixt those images formed from actual objects and those excited by the play of the imagination.

Foremost of all [his works] must be reckoned The Willows, in which the nameless presences on a desolate Danube island are horribly felt and recognised by a pair of idle voyagers. Here art and restraint in narrative reach their very highest development, and an impression of lasting poignancy is produced without a, single strained passage or a single false note.”

Get the complete audiobook of The Willows, it’s two hours in six chapters, HERE.

But hurry, the FREE version will soon become the pay version.

And if you like what you hear in The Willows be sure to check out one of the greatest novels you’ve never read, The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson – Wayne June’s reading of it is unbelievably great.

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. An illustrated |PDF| of The Willows is available too!

The SFFaudio Podcast #183 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Out Of The Storm by William Hope Hodgson

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #183 – An unabridged reading of Out Of The Storm by William Hope Hodgson (10 minutes), read by Brian Murphy) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Tamahome, and Brian Murphy.

Talked about on today’s show:
Stefan Rudnicki, Brian Murphy should peruse audiobook narration, Julie Hoverson (of 19 Nocturne Boulevard), The Frost Giant’s Daughter (aka Gods Of The North) by Robert E. Howard, William Hope Hodgson, the dragon, Gustav Dore, Leviathan, naturalistic vs. super-naturalistic, anthropomorphism, literal vs. metaphorical readings of the Bible, Thomas Hobbes, Behemoth, The Book Of Job, H.P. Lovecraft, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, wireless telegraphy, Supernatural Horror In Literature, Hodgson’s career in the merchant seaman, physical culture, photography, nautical phenomena, Edgar Allan Poe, like a nautical version of H.P. Lovecraft, Sargasso sea stories, is it merely madness?, a previously unreportable phenomenon, why doesn’t the scientist (John) respond?, an audio dramatization would be interesting, an extremely disturbing message, cosmic horror, the mother and the child, “like a foul beast”, contemplating the unimaginable, “God is not He, but It”, the universe is either cruel (Hodgson) or indifferent (Lovecraft), “her soul hideous with the breath of the thing”, spirit as breath, “this is the most horrific thing ever”, uncontrollable laughter, unstoppable, an undignified death in the face of an indifferent, the Titanic disaster, Schindler’s List, a greater good calculation, unconscionable selfishness, “to talk of foul things to a child”, the evil in itself and the evil of sharing the knowledge of that evil, Jaws, if this was a true account…, did Jaws cause Shark Week?, this guy is a little bit off, putting on a King James accent, skies the colour of mud, a sky monster?, aliens, Cthulhu, tentacles or waterspouts?, flotsam or an iceberg or a shark or just the waves themselves, “oh crap I’m nuts”, “tell her how it was”, is it like telling or not telling war stories?, clarity before death, so many ideas per square centimeter, Murf plays the Call Of Cthulhu RPG, sanity points, everybody loses, investigation vs. hack and slash, the Big Cypress Swamp, will acquaintance with Lovecraft’s stories harm or enhance your enjoyment of the game?, The Miskatonic University Podcast, “actual play” podcast, Skype of Cthulhu podcast, dice rolls on the honour system, Paranoia, Chaosium, The Horror On The Orient Express Kickstarter project, single player computer RPGs vs. pen and paper RPGs with real people, would Lovecraft play the Call Of Cthulhu RPG?, MMOs, World Of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons.

H.P. Lovecraft as Abdul Alhazred - Virgil Finlay illustration

Out Of The Storm by William Hope Hodgson - illustration by Percy E. Cowen

Posted by Jesse Willis

Out Of The Storm by William Hope Hodgson

SFFaudio Online Audio

Out Of The Storm by William Hope Hodgson

Here’s a terrific unabridged ten minute short story that’s the subject of an upcoming podcast. It was first published in Putnam’s Monthly, February 1909. Never before audiobooked, it is a William Hope Hodgson gem, a sketch that allows for two different readings (naturalistic and supernaturalistic – and both horrific).

Out Of The Storm is read for us by Brian Murphy.

|MP3|

And here’s a |PDF| version.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The House On The Borderlands by William Hope Hodgson (in CBR format)

SFFaudio Online Audio

This is handy, it’s a scan, in the |CBR| format of the ACE Books edition of The House On The Borderlands by William Hope Hodgson (D-553).

Ace D-553 - The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

It makes for a perfect companion piece to Wayne June’s narration of the classic novel, which is still available, FREE for streaming, HERE (as well as being available for purchase in MP3 format, a massive bargain at $10).

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals: AudioGo: H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of The Supernatural edited by Stephen Jones

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Recently arrived, and currently being soaked in through my skin and ears, is this giant collection of weird fiction. Assembled from a list of stories found in H.P. Lovecraft’s essay Supernatural Horror In Literature, it is a collection of well known and obscure classics by authors that H.P. Lovecraft loved.

Looking at the table of contents I noted that I’d already read several of the stories in this collection – including The Turn Of The Screw (we did a podcast about that one), the engimatic Christmas horror Markheim, the scientific ghost tale What Was It?, the unutterably creepy and horrific The Voice In The Night very recently, and many years ago, perhaps in high school, The Yellow Wallpaper. But even though I’ve read some of these stories already I’m still very excited. Each of the stories seems to be preceded by some relevant words by Lovecraft himself – and at the very least I will be listening to the mini-introductions to those stories I am well familiar with.

Until then I will content myself in listening to the unknown ones. For example, the frightful first person narrative of Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant is thrilling and wondering me in the exact same way The Horla almost exactly one year ago. It’s wonderful!

H.P. Lovecraft’s Book Of The Supernatural
Edited by Stephen Jones; Read by Bronson Pinchot, Stephen Crossley, Davina Porter, Madeleine Lambert, Mark Peckham
MP3 DOWNLOAD – Approx. 16 Hours 44 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: AudioGo
Published: August 1, 2012
Written by arguably the most important horror writer of the twentieth century, H.P. Lovecraft’s 1927 essay Supernatural Horror in Literature traces the evolution of the genre from the early Gothic novels to the work of contemporary American and British authors. Throughout, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle, each prefaced by Lovecraft’s own opinions and insights in their work. This chilling collection also contains Henry James’ wonderfully atmospheric short novel…The Turn of the Screw. For every fan of modern horror, here is an opportunity to rediscover the origins of the genre with some of most terrifying stories ever imagined.

Here’s the table of contents:
Introduction by editor Stephen Jones – Approx. 7 Minutes
Notes on Writing Weird Fiction By H.P. Lovecraft – Approx. 11 Minutes
The Tale of the German Student by Washington Irving – Approx. 14 Minutes
Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson – Approx. 49 Minutes
Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant – Approx. 34 Minutes
The Invisible Eye by Erckmann-Chatrian – Approx. 41 Minutes
The Torture by Hope by Villiers de l’Isle Adam – Approx. 15 Minutes
Ms. Found in a Bottle by Edgar Allan Poe – Approx. 29 Minutes
What Was It? by Fitz-James O’Brien – Approx. 34 Minutes
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot by Ambrose Bierce – Approx. 24 Minutes
The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James – Approx. 4 Hours 52 Minutes
The Dead Smile by F. Marion Crawford – Approx. 57 Minutes
The Wind In The Rose-Bush by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman – Approx. 38 Minutes
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Approx. 36 Minutes
The Recrudescence of Imray by Rudyard Kipling – Approx. 30 Minutes
The Hands Of Karma (Ingwa-banashi) by Lafcadio Hearn – Approx. 11 Minutes
The Burial Of The Rats by Bram Stoker – Approx. 1 Hour 7 Minutes
The Red Lodge by H.R. Wakefield – Approx. 35 Minutes
The Captain Of The Pole-Star by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – Approx. 1 Hour 6 Minutes
The Villa Desiree by May Sinclair – Approx. 28 Minutes
The Voice In The Night by William Hope Hodgson – Approx. 36 Minutes
Novel of the White Powder by Arthur Machen – Approx. 48 Minutes

Posted by Jesse Willis