10 Short Stories I Read in 2018

When it comes to short stories, I'm mostly about horror, but I'm also a sucker for a Christmas Western. Here are the short stories (and a novella or two) that I read last year:

"The Captain of the Pole-Star" by Arthur Conan Doyle



As a Sherlock Holmes fan, I was disappointed by this mediocre ghost story. Or maybe I just expected more from Conan Doyle. "Captain of the Pole-Star" is great at creating a mood, it just never pays off with a satisfying revelation about why these events are happening.

My favorite ghost stories are always also mysteries: learning why a haunting is taking place so that it can be resolved. Conan Doyle is usually great about pulling back the curtain on a mystery, so that's what I wanted here, too. Instead, he leaves the details vague, which is perhaps meant to be unsettling, but I just found frustrating.

"The Canterville Ghost" by Oscar Wilde



Diane and I saw a theatrical version of this story earlier in 2018 and that sparked interest in seeing the TV movie with Patrick Stewart as the Ghost. I decided I needed to finally read Wilde's story over Halloween.

There are some truly spooky elements, but Wilde is more interested in the satirical contrast of American and British cultures than he is in creating dread. It's a fun and funny story, but I prefer the gothic tone and philosophical exploration of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

"Lot No. 249" by Arthur Conan Doyle

This was more like it. After being discouraged by "Captain of the Pole-Star," I loved the mystery and growing horror of "Lot No. 249." It's easy to figure out what's going on ahead of the main character, but that doesn't diminish the extremely cool Old Oxford setting, the excitement of the main character's finally figuring it out, and a crazy great description of his being stalked by a truly dreadful creature.

"The Doll's Ghost" by F Marion Crawford



Unnerving and emotional. A doll "doctor" sends his daughter out into the London streets to make an evening delivery, but she doesn't come home. As a parent, I found it extremely unsettling. As a lover of ghost stories, I found it beautiful. One of my favorites of the year.

"Room in the Dragon Volant" by J Sheridan Le Fanu



A fun setup with a mysterious room in an inn that people keep disappearing from. Unfortunately, the protagonist is stupidly gullible and delivered from the threat against him by exactly 0% of his own ability.

"The Empty House" by Algernon Blackwood



In November, the little bookstore I go to put out a display of little books of Christmas Ghost Stories designed by the cartoonist Seth. After helping read a Christmas ghost story for the Weird Christmas podcast, I was all for following the advice on the books' covers and reviving the Christmas tradition of reading spooky stories for the holiday.

The first one I read was "The Empty House," a simple, but effective story about a woman and her nephew who decide to investigate an allegedly haunted house in their neighborhood. There aren't any mysteries or twists, but Blackwood's descriptions are super creepy and stuck with me after I finished the story.

"The Diary of Mr. Poynter"by MR James



I'm not sure that the story about a hair monster totally makes sense, but dang James conjures some creepy imagery.

"The Crown Derby Plate" by Marjorie Bowen



So good. Probably my favorite of the year. It's about a woman who goes to an old house to inquire about a missing plate from a set she bought at an estate sale. It's spooky and humorous with a great ending.

"Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk" by Frank Cowper



The final ghost story of the season for me. It's about a guy who goes fishing and winds up stranded on a spooky, derelict boat. It's nicely atmospheric with great details and I like how it leaves the backstory ambiguous. The narrator bugged me though, both in his defensiveness about his story being disbelieved and his foolishness in getting into the mess he got into in the first place.

"A Journey in Search of Christmas" by Owen Wister



I finished out the year with this sweet story of a cowboy on holiday who starts out looking for drink and maybe revenge (though not the kind you'd expect), but finds Christmas instead.

Ghost Story, Or, I'm not THAT kind of pirate

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about an episode of the '70s horror anthology TV show Ghost Story that (pardon the pun) haunted me for a long time as a kid. I wrote about it because I'd finally found a place to buy a bootleg copy of the episode and was nervous about revisiting it 38 years later.

I meant to follow that post up with a review of the actual episode and my experience watching it, but frankly, it was underwhelming. It's still a creepy show, but I was far more thrilled to be revisiting a lost piece of my childhood than I was reminded of those old fears.

The reason I'm even bringing it up now is because of a different topic: bootlegs and piracy. I said at the time that if Ghost Story episodes were available commercially I'd buy them that way instead, which applies to everything I have bootleg copies of: stuff like The Star Wars Holiday Special and Song of the South. Usually I never have to make good on that promise, but Warner Brothers Archives has now released Ghost Story (aka Circle of Fear): The Complete Series. My copy is on its way and maybe this time I'll actually write about it after I've seen it.

Graphic Classics' Halloween Sale

Graphic Classics is a great line of comics anthologies that uses top-notch artists to adapt stories by classic authors. Each volume contains one or two familiar stories as well as obscure ones that you may have never read. None of the volumes I've read - and I've got most of them - have failed to entertain and educate me at the same time.

Several of the volumes are horror-related, so from now through Halloween Graphic Classics are on sale for 20% off when you buy them through the publisher's website. I'm not getting paid to advertise for them; I just really like these books and know some of you will too. Now's a perfect time to try them out.

Confronting an old Ghost Story

When I was five-years-old, I was terrified of fire. I couldn't even be in the same room with birthday candles, much less a candlelit dinner (which burned longer) or - God forbid - around a campfire. I had horrible visions of our house (or campground or whatever) burning down.

I knew exactly where that fear came from too. It was an episode of a horror anthology show on NBC at the time called Ghost Story. I'm not sure what possessed my parents that they allowed me to watch it. They were usually very careful about what I watched and erred on the side of strictness, but we were faithful Ghost Story viewers.

I couldn't remember the name of the show until several years ago when I described the episode to a friend who had great Web Fu and figured it out for me. The episode was called "House of Evil." It was written by Robert Bloch and developed by Richard Matheson and IMDB describes it this way:

When Grandpa (Melvyn Douglas) arrives for a visit, he has two special gifts for his granddaughter, Judy (Jodie Foster), a deaf mute. One is a very special doll house that is an exact replica of the one Judy lives in with her family. The other is the ability to "hear" his thoughts without speaking. But Grandpa's intentions aren't as benign as they seem.

Outside of the creepy, mute granddaughter and her malevolent grandfather, the only things I remember about the episode are the dollhouse (I think I remember that they made voodoo dolls out of cookies or something, one for each member of the family) and what happens to it at the end. Whatever happens to the dolls and the dollhouse also happens to the corresponding family member (Richard Mulligan is also in the episode, perhaps as the father?). Somehow, the dollhouse catches fire, which of course spreads to the real house. The last thing I remember from the episode was the image of the burning house. That was the one that seared itself into my mind and made me pyrophobic for the next year or so.

I bring this all up now because I just found a place that sells old Ghost Story episodes on DVD. I'm sure they're bootlegs, but if they were available commercially I'd buy it that way instead. I've ordered the "House of Evil" one and I'm frankly a bit nervous about watching it. I can't imagine that it'll renew my phobia, but it made such a huge impression on me 38 years ago that I still recall certain images from it. Psychologically, watching it again - confronting it again - will be a pretty big deal. So, before I do that, I wanted to jot down these memories about it in the interest of comparing notes afterward.

They're shipping it to me tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have it by the end of the week.