Eliza Turner

I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of the upcoming anthology, Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction , and I must say that I am impressed. Amok presented with a great lineup of strange stories, all of which push the limits of the imagination (as all good speculative fiction should.) Also, many of the tales incorporated native folkloric and mythological elements into them—a detail I particularly enjoyed. Amok consists of 24 short stories, all set in Asia and the Pacific Islands, and all are in the speculative fiction genre. The editor, Dominica Malcolm, says in the introduction that she sought to have a diverse cast of characters in the anthology, and she has delivered. Each of the stories is unique and distinct from one another.                                     I noticed t...

After a few years of wanting to read this book, I finally got my hands on a copy. I have no background in astronomy or ufology but still find the basic premise of this book very intriguing—namely that the rings of Saturn are not naturally occurring but are in fact “made” by giant vehicles. In this short book, Dr. Bergrun details NASA photos from the Voyager 1 flight that he believes prove the existence of these enormous machines. He begins with a brief history of our observations of the rings, beginning with Galileo and working his way into the 19 th century. The author uses these early findings to begin building his case. Dr. Bergrun believes that these machines are electromagnetic vehicles, or EMVs as he calls them. Exactly what their purpose is (or was) is not made clear, but their size and features are detailed—very big (they are cylindrical and up to 3 or 4 times the diameter of the Earth long) and possibly very old (Dr. Bergrun suggest that they could be as much as 3 ...

I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of the upcoming anthology Allusion of Innocence from Solarwyrm Press, and I am very glad that I did. It contained a great selection of short stories, 18 in all, each one very different from the others, but all of them relating to children and childhood themes. Although it deals with children, the collection is intended for an adult audience. There is nothing YA about this one. Some of the stories deal with the supernatural, others are more psychological, and nearly all of them are dark in nature. The editors did a fantastic job of selecting not only stories that deal with the anthology’s theme, but also choosing a cast of diverse authors. Many of the stories are set in and written by writers from different cultures from around the world. This brings a wonderful flavor to each story; one gets an idea of what life is like in different countries. In a way, it is a great sampling of world literature. Like any anthology, so...

I recently came across this overlooked short story of Blackwood’s and immediately realized that it read much like a Lovecraft tale. Of course, any Lovecraft geek knows that Blackwood was a strong influence on the younger author, so such a finding is not surprising. Nonetheless, this little tale has gone unnoticed as a possible inspiration for Lovecraft’s cosmic horror. “The Messenger” is also very similar to Guy de Maupassant’s “Le Horla,” which is a known influence of Lovecraft. Both feature an otherworldly visitor. However, the messenger does not seem to be as malicious as the Horla, though the story ends before we know for sure what the messenger is here for. Also, the narrator of both tales could easily be insane, the entire thing a delusion of a fevered mind. Due to its short length, I will reproduce the tale in its entirety below. * * * * * THE MESSENGER  by  Algernon Blackwood  (1912) Illustration by W. Graham Robertson from...

Illustration from the first edition “Strange as this tale may be, my readers, do not consider it the weak wanderings of a disordered brain, nor yet as a fiction formed to please alone, but, looking deeper still, perceive the truth. The truth—what a word is that to conjure with, and yet how difficult it is for a mere man to penetrate the cloak of conventionality and custom, and behold it in all its bright nakedness! “When you have done this, you have looked into the eyes of God.” – From the author’s introduction. The Spirit of the Town (1912) is today an all but forgotten novel by an all but forgotten author. Spirit is Robbins’ second novel, but it was published the same year as his first, Mysterious Martin . The novel centers on Jim, a young aspiring author, who leaves his small hometown to seek his fortune in Manhattan. Jim has recently heard from an old friend, George, who had been living there and offered to let him stay at his apartment until Jim could get a st...

“Rasputin and the Jews” by Delin Colon is a great introduction not only to Rasputin, but to the state of the average Jew in Tsarist Russia. The author does assume that the reader has some basic knowledge of Rasputin’s story, but nothing you couldn’t find after an internet search about Rasputin. The primary source used for this book is the papers of Aron Simanovich, Rasputin’s Jewish secretary. Instead of focusing only on recounting the outline of his life, Colon instead expounds upon Rasputin’s beliefs, sayings, and the actual advice he gave to the Tsar—most of which was ignored, despite the popular belief that Rasputin somehow controlled all of the Tsar’s decisions. In fact, Colon does a magnificent job of explaining that if Tsar Nicholas II had listened to Rasputin, the entire Bolshevik Revolution would likely have been avoided. Rasputin drew the ire of the aristocracy because he believed in equal rights for all Russians, including Jews. Jews were at the bottom of the soci...

Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo” is not what I expected. Before going into the story, I knew the Wendigo was a werewolfesque creature of Native American mythology and expected that to be what the story was about. Having read Blackwood before, I should have known better. Instead, this is a deeply psychological journey into the dark recesses of the mind. The tale begins with a group of four men going on a hunting trip in northern Canada. Simpson, the young protagonist, and his uncle, the wise psychologist, Dr. Cathcart, team up with Hank and Dfago as their guides into the backwoods. The trouble begins when they split up into two groups (the doctor and Hank in one, and Dfago and Simpson in the other) to cover more ground. After behaving strangely, Dfago disappears into the night, leaving Simpson to fend for himself. No story better encompasses the dread of nature felt by the late Victorians than this novella. The ever rational, modern men of science are confronted with the unimag...

Anatole France’s novel, “Thaïs” is a story of spiritual redemption and the many pitfalls encountered along the way. It was published in Paris in 1890, and many view it as only a satirical piece. That, in my opinion, is only the surface of the story, and the reader is missing out if that is all they get from the novel. There are also plenty of philosophical discussions contained within the narrative. The protagonist, Paphnutius, the young abbot of Antinoe, is not treated very favorably. In his holy fervor, he inevitably ends up following the whims of his ego instead of the good advice he receives from the people he encounters throughout the tale. The story begins when Paphnutius decides he should leave his anchorite community in the Thebaid desert and go to Alexandria and convert Thaïs, a famous actress and courtesan. Paphnutius goes to the holy hermit Palemon for advice twice in the book. Palemon lives nearby Paphnutius’s dwelling and spends all his time tending to a small garde...

Some say that Maupassant was himself half insane at the time of its writing. He did have syphilis for some time prior and did make a suicide attempt about five years after writing it, but are those the only details we should judge the story by? Paranoia seems to drip from the pages of this short story; is that due merely to the author’s delusions or to his skill at his craft? One must separate the artist from his creation in order to be wholly enveloped in the art. Le Horla is one of Maupassant’s finest short stories. It is written as the diary of a man slowly slipping into either insanity or the grip of an invisible being living in his house. It all begins with “a beautiful three-master” ship sailing down the river near his house. Afterwards, he begins having unexplained feverish attacks over the next week. Then the unnamed narrator awakens one night during some type of vampiric encounter, which leaves him feeling even more apathetic and fatigued. These encounters continue, and e...

In this historical fiction novel, Anne Rice displays her literary prowess without any of the supernatural overtones usually found in her novels. While it is a melodrama, there is enough action to keep the plot moving without that dragging feeling books or movies sometimes get if a scene lasts too long. The story is set in the 1840s and follows the lives of a handful of young gens de couleur libre, or “Free People of Color,” a type of in-between class formed of mixed race Creoles who peopled New Orleans and Louisiana. We get to see all of the characters from many different points of view throughout the story, so you really get a good sense of the world they lived in and the myriad of cultural nuances that explain who they are and why they behave as they do. The main characters are Marcel St. Marie, the illegitimate son of Philippe Ferronaire, a rich white plantation owner who spends his time in the country with his white family and only visits the St. Maries in the city sporadica...

The Necronomicon, the accursed grimoire written in haste by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred has thrilled readers of H. P. Lovecraft for over eighty years. It is mentioned in movies, books and video games and has become a pop culture icon even to people who have never heard of Lovecraft. Naturally, many people ask the same question after their first exposure to the book: “Is it real?” This leads us to the purpose of this blog. We will cover the myths that have crept up around the book and examine them point by point in search of evidence of a real Necronomicon. Let’s begin with the author himself, the Mad Arab. Any Arabic speaker can tell you right off that “Abdul Alhazred,” while sounding very Arabic, is not a proper Arabic name. It is gibberish and nothing more. Lovecraft invented the name when he was five years old after reading 1001 Arabian Nights. He admits to this in a letter to Harry O. Fischer written in late February 1937. It has been speculated that the name was corrupted a...