A Voice From Darkness

Thank-you all for listening to our show!

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, Alex’s parents —

@blambot The modern internet is just three SPOF stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.

So, Cloudflare is down this morning (whatever that is...) and it's screwing up the internet? Is that right? I'm noticing all kinds of errors and 404s on websites that are normally probalem-free.

In 1980, I wrote the roleplaying game "Call of Cthulhu". At that time, everyone I knew who had heard about Lovecraft knew of him because I had told them personally. Lovecraft was vanishingly obscure. Lovecraft was an unknown. I expected Call of Cthulhu to sell a couple thousand copies to the few hard-core Lovecraft fans in the world, and then vanish. I put my heart into it anyway because of my own love for Lovecraft. Instead, the game turned out to promote Lovecraft and spread knowledge of his works. So many folks played Call of Cthulhu. Many more didn't play it, but knew about it. I have had literally thousands of people walk up to me at conventions and tell me that they read Lovecraft after playing Call of Cthulhu. Others (occasionally in tears) told me that they were so excited to see that someone else knew about Lovecraft. This last encounter is now rare, because everyone knows about Lovecraft. It is my proudest achievement to have been a tiny part of helping bring cosmic horror to so many.

@Weird_Friction I *just* read this. It'd been sitting on my shelf for the longest time, and I finally wanted to see what the origins of Vancian magic looked like. The book didn't disappoint. Moves at a quick, pulp pace while remaining polished like a lot of other good midcentury genre writers.

🌘

@Weird_Friction I only read a few of the Amber novels. Beautiful looking set though - hope you enjoy!

I am now the proud owner of a hardcover set of Roger Zelazny's collected stories (although it is currently in the possession of the UPS man) I haven't read a ton of his work so tell me your favorite of his short stories that I should check out first. The Weirder the better!

Harvey in Hell, an FBI horror mystery set in 1982 on the Utah-Nevada border, is coming. Check out the website and sign up for updates about upcoming kickstarter. harveyinhell.com

@BarbarianDisco My favorite cover art by Michael Whalen. Says a lot too considering how many amazing covers he's produced.

that cover is sick as fuck... Off to Ebay we go!

@DamndestBastard @orcwriter Completely agree x.com/vfdarkness/sta…

Looks like @orcwriter's slim novels idea is on target. The male readers that remain don't want Erickson or Jordan bloat. It makes sense. Life isn't getting less busy. if I can read a great novel that's 150-200 pages, why should I waste time I don't have with one that's 500?

An innocent man, picked up by “mistake,” must not be allowed to rot in an El Salvadorian jail. Mr. President. Obey the courts. Obey our Constitution. Bring him home immediately.

A tribute to author Howard Andrew Jones: lfs.org/blog/acclaimed…

I'm sorry to hear about the passing of Howard Andrew Jones. His Sword & Sorcery/fantasy is among the best of his generation. And his work bringing Harold Lamb's historic fiction back into print allowed new generations to experience some of the greatest adventure writing ever. RIP

If I were forced to pick one scene in Lynch's run that encapsulates his art (which is impossible), my pick is the Llorando sequence in Mulholland Drive. Even in the dark of our nightmares, the beauty and pain of art can reach us, even if that art is built on nightmares itself.

@Weird_Friction I've got a lot of the Wandering Star hardcover/slipcase editions. I've never even heard of the wildside editions. They look great!

Yesterday's 'featured book(s)' ⚔️

@DeLoachJW I still want there to be a few final episodes. Life just kind of got in the way.

@gjkendall You're British and you've read this. Can I ask you a dumb question? Is 'tallboy' a common term for a kind of cabinet/dresser over there? As an American, I'd never heard that. And I feel like the tallboy is mentioned a thousand times in the first 100 pages.

The Rake was created by the Cenobites and set upon destruction until the twelve forty-six from Stafford came rolling through. Clive Barker's Weaveworld is so bloody good. I've not read it in 30 years, and I'm loving this reread.

@TimothyImholt @NickyPinecone I picked those up around the same time I collected all the Thieves World. I'd read three of the Indiana Jones books in the 90s and wanted to read the rest. Great series.

@vfdarkness @NickyPinecone I have those, and many of the Indiana Jones books there on the left!!

This is my copy of Myth-ing Persons by Robert Asprin, the continuation of the series. This time Skeeve needs help to solve a mystery!!! Is he feeding a muffin to a dragon on the cover? Cover art by Walter Valez.

@NickyPinecone @TimothyImholt His Thieves World series is worth reading if you like Sword & Sorcery. It's a shared world setting that had lots of authors contributing. Read the first book when I was young, picked up the rest a few years ago and have enjoyed them as an adult.

@TimothyImholt I’ve never heard of these books or this guy, worth reading as an adult?

@DanielBGreene I've waited many years for a new Jedediah Berry novel, and I was not disappointed.

Today we remember Fritz Leiber, born 114 years ago. Lieber is the man who literally created the term "sword-and-sorcery", and created perhaps the genre's most famous pair of rogues, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.