Jack Mackenzie’s collection of Dark Fantasy stories is now available from Rage Machine Books. From the book’s introduction: If you ever feel that you are doing well as a writer, I would recommend re-reading all of your old short stories. That will put a pin in any inflated sense of Read More
If you read anything by Jack Sullivan or Mike Ashley you will see that today J. Sheridan Le Fanu has fans. Horror fans. He has been acknowledged as the first man to make a living writing horror stories. He was the linchpin between the clunky old Gothics of Radcliffe and Read More
Hollywood changes everything. A series of successful films and the commonly-held view of things changes. ‘Vampires turning to ash in sunlight’ is a good example. In Dracula, the Count can walk in the daylight but he hasn’t the power to turn into animals or smoke. This literary rigor mortis also Read More
In “The Supernatural Horror in Literature” H. P. Lovecraft selects three novels as the offspring of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “…Dracula evoked many similar novels of supernatural horror, among which the best are perhaps The Beetle, by Richard Marsh, Brood of the Witch-Queen, by “Sax Rohmer” (Arthur Sarsfield Ward), and The Read More
I love vampires. I hate Anne Rice. Not the person Anne Rice. I don’t know her. But the institution of Anne Rice. To be perfectly accurate: I hate Anne Rice vampires. I’ve always been of the Weird Tales/Kolchak the Nightstalker vampire variety. They’re bad. You stake’em, holy water’em, burn’em with Read More
The Jules De Grandin stories by Seabury Quinn were not innovative so much as reactionary. Anyone familiar with the Horror and Mystery of the previous generation can easily glean where the author found inspiration. Quinn’s magic lies not in creating a Cthulhu Mythos, but in taking a fully modern approach Read More
Flaxman Low was one of the first “periodical” occult detectives. By that, I mean, a psychic investigator who was featured in a magazine as a recurring character. Low wasn’t the first. That honor belongs to Sherlock Holmes, who though he didn’t always chase the unknown, did on occasion face such Read More
This letter was written seven years later. The reason for it was to check on the copyright issues that might come from my selling an RPG article based on Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John stories. The article never sold but I did get a great glimpse into Karl and Francis Read More
I want to look at two stories that could argue either side of this debate: can occult detective stories actually be frightening? Ultimately, each reader must decide for themselves. Do you feel cheated when the culprit turns out to be Principal Dingwall in a rubber mask? Here’s a couple of Read More
M. R. James, undoubtedly the finest ghost story writer in the English language, disparaged the occult detective story. This is very odd for James was inspired by, promoted the works of, and virtually single-handedly resurrected the fame of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, the man who invented the occult detective (even Read More