Literary Horror discussion

I consider the story "Endless Night" a classic in the weird tale.

I just wanted to say that I'll probably not be contributing all that much to the discussion of Barbara Roden's Northwest Passages . It's not that I don't appreciate the collection — I do. In fact, I believe that the title story, "Northwest Passage", is one of the best of its kind to have appeared in the last 5 or 10 years. My problem is that I re-read the book not quite a year ago — long enough to make my memories of many of the stories rather fuzzy, but too recent to justify re-reading them at this time. I may, however, chime in on occasion if I have anything relevant to say.

Just read the first 2 stories. Not come accross this author before, but I am quite enjoying things so far. I'm a sucker for a story set in a bookstore, so things got off to a good start.

The first story was pretty good.

Yeah, it wasn't great, but I liked the way the build-up was written.

I too have only read part of the second. I like it so far but it was late at night when I started and I got sleepy.

Randolph wrote (in part):

I read the first story and part of the second. I have to admit I was eh? about this first one.

I think the first story you are referring to, Randolph, is "The Appointed Time". I admit to remembering virtually nothing about this one, but in my sketchy notes for the collection, I have it listed as my least favorite story.

I think that stories of arctic or Antarctic expeditions (there's another one later in the collection) are always going to remind me of At the Mountains of Madness, regardless of what actually happens in them.

I'm about halfway through this book, and while none of the stories have blown me away yet, I am enjoying the atmosphere and authentic settings very much.

Randolph wrote (in part):

(view spoiler)[In Endless Night I liked the idea of the headcount always being off but only sort of vaguely so (hide spoiler) but Roden never did much with it.

My thought was that this was Roden's tip of the hat to the sequence involving the canal-boat trip in M. R. James' "Count Magnus" (1904). (hide spoiler)]

Randolph wrote (in part):

I really liked Northwest Passages. There was enough left unsaid that it was really my kind of story.

"Northwest Passage" was for me without a doubt the best thing about this collection. There were other entries that were good — even very good — but none that had the quality or panache of the title story. The presentation of nature as being beautiful, yet also isolating, unknowable, and threatening resulted in a story that I saw as a kind of updated Blackwood tale.

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I think that was my favorite story so far as well. Two more to go! Will probably finish this afternoon.

Finished, didn't really grab me. It was competently written, for sure, but there was nothing in it that surprised me or caught my imagination, somehow. Each story had the feel of a long, careful approach to something unknown and frightening, but each time I felt like I had made only the faintest contact before the curtain was closed.

My favorite of the bunch was "Out and Back," because it made me jumpy and because the idea of the (view spoiler)[house with all the relatives left behind (hide spoiler)] was interesting and weird. The title story was good, too, except I couldn't get a handle on the Robert character.

But, still, not sorry I read it.