People’s Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos: Cosmic Horror, Lovecraft, Weird Fiction

Reading 48: Call of Cthulhu part 1

Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberThe VoicesMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading #46: Imprisoned with the Pharaohs by HP Lovecraft (audio Fixed)

(AUDIO FIXED!!!)"Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" (called "Under the Pyramids" in draft form, also published as "Entombed with the Pharaohs") is a short story written by American fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft in February 1924. Commissioned by Weird Tales founder and owner J. C. Henneberger, the narrative tells a fictionalized account in the first-person perspective of an allegedly true experience of escape artist Harry Houdini. Set in 1910, in Egypt, Houdini finds himself kidnapped by a tour guide, who resembles an ancient pharaoh, and thrown down a deep hole near the Great Sphinx of Giza. While attempting to find his way out, he stumbles upon a gigantic ceremonial cavern and encounters the real-life deity that inspired the building of the Sphinx.
Lovecraft accepted the job because of the money he was offered in advance by Henneberg. The result was published in the May–June–July 1924 edition of Weird Tales, although it was credited solely to Houdini until the 1939 reprint. Despite Lovecraft's use of artistic license, Houdini enjoyed the tale and the two men collaborated on several smaller projects prior to the latter's death in 1926. "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" has been suggested as an early influence on author Robert Bloch and as anticipating the cosmic themes in Lovecraft's later work, including "The Shunned House".
Produced and edited my DB SpitzerMember of the Dark Myths Collective, find a podcast at darkmyths.orgSponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberThe VoicesMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
story found in public domain resources  
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Episode 709: Robert Blake & The Weird

In Providence, Rhode Island, Robert Blake, a young writer with an interest in the occult, becomes fascinated by a large disused church on Federal Hill which he can see from his lodgings on the city's Upper East side. His researches reveal that the church has a sinister history involving a cult called the Church of Starry Wisdom and is dreaded by the local migrant inhabitants as being haunted by a primeval evil.
Audio by Sara Fee & DB Spitzer
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberThe VoicesThe HiveMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading 43: The People of the Black Circle

"The People of the Black Circle" is one of the original novellas about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in three parts over the September, October and November 1934 issues. Howard earned $250 for the publication of this story.
It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan kidnapping a regal princess of Vendhya (pre-historical India) and foiling a nefarious plot of world domination by the Black Seers of Yimsha. Due to its epic scope and atypical Hindustan flavor, the story is considered an undisputed classic of Conan lore and is often cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales. It is also one of the few Howard stories where the reader is treated a deeper insight on magic and magicians beyond the stereotypical Hyborian depiction as demon conjurer-illusionist-priests.
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberThe VoicesMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Episode 713: NW Peaslee & PHFF

 
The Shadow Out of Time indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended spatial or temporal destination. The story implies that the effect, when seen from the outside, is similar to spiritual possession. The Yithians' original purpose was to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. Ultimately the Yithians use their ability to escape the destruction of their planet in another galaxy by switching bodies with a race of cone-shaped plant beings who lived 250 million years ago on Earth. The cone-shaped entities (subsequently also known as the Great Race of Yith) lived in their vast library city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert (22°3′14″S 125°0′39″E).
The story is told through the eyes of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, an American living in the first decade of the 20th century, who is "possessed" by a Yithian. He fears he is losing his mind when he unaccountably sees strange vistas of other worlds and of the Yithian library city. He also feels himself being led about by these creatures and experiences how they live. When he is returned to his own body, he finds that those around him have judged him insane due to the actions of the Yithian that possessed his body. While he was experiencing a Yithian existence in Earth's ancient past, the Yithian occupying his body was experiencing a human one in the present day.
The narrator at first believes his episode and subsequent dreams to be the product of some kind of mental illness. His initial relief at discovering other cases like his throughout history is withered when he discovers that the other cases are too similar to his own to be without a connection. The narrator's dreams become more vivid, and he becomes obsessed with archaeology and ancient manuscripts (as was the Yithian) - but lacks any sort of proof that would demonstrate whether he was (or is) simply mad.
He discovers that the Yithians on Earth died out eons ago, their civilization destroyed by a rival, utterly alien pre-human race described as "half-polypous" creatures, but the Yithian minds will inhabit new bodies on Earth after humanity is long gone. His tenuously held sanity is challenged when he discovers the proof he seeks—and that not only do remains of the Yithians' past civilization still exist on Earth, but also still remaining are those who destroyed them. It is also mentioned that the current appearance of the Yithians is not the original, but one acquired during a previous mass-projection of the minds of their race when disaster beckoned, leaving the original inhabitants to die in the bodies of the Yithians.
We also talk about the radness of the PHFF.
Audio by Sara Fee & DB Spitzer
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberThe VoicesMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading 45: At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft

At the Mountains of Madness is a science fiction-horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931 and rejected that year by Weird Tuales editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length. It was originally serialized in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories. It has been reproduced in numerous collections.
The story details the events of a disastrous expedition to the Antarctic continent in September 1930, and what was found there by a group of explorers led by the narrator, Dr. William Dyer of Miskatonic University. Throughout the story, Dyer details a series of previously untold events in the hope of deterring another group of explorers who wish to return to the continent.
 
Edited/produced by DB Spitzer
Read by Morgan Scorpion
sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberThe HiveMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading 44: the Haunter in th Darkness

"The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of Weird Tales (Vol. 28, No. 5, p. 538–53). It was the last-written of the author's known works, and is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. The epigraph to the story is the second stanza of Lovecraft's 1917 poem "Nemesis".
The story is a sequel to "The Shambler from the Stars", by Robert Bloch. Bloch wrote a third story in the sequence, "The Shadow from the Steeple", in 1950.
read by Morgan Scorpio
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
TThe ChamberThe VoicesMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading 42: The Willows

"The Willows" is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction.
"The Willows" is a novella by English author Algernon Blackwood, originally published as part of his 1907 collection The Listener and Other Stories. It is one of Blackwood's best known works and has been influential on a number of later writers. Horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature.
Two friends are midway on a canoe trip down the River Danube. Throughout the story, Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment —river, sun, wind— with powerful and ultimately threatening characteristics. Most ominous are the masses of dense, desultory, menacing willows, which "moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible."
Edited and Produced by DBSPGttCM is a member of the Dark Myths Colectivedarkmyths.org
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberPanumbreaMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading 41: Shadow out of Time

The Shadow Out of Time is a novella by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories.
The Shadow Out of Time indirectly tells of the Great Race of Yith, an extraterrestrial species with the ability to travel through space and time. The Yithians accomplish this by switching bodies with hosts from the intended spatial or temporal destination. The story implies that the effect, when seen from the outside, is similar to spiritual possession. The Yithians' original purpose was to study the history of various times and places, and they have amassed a "library city" that is filled with the past and future history of multiple races, including humans. Ultimately the Yithians use their ability to escape the destruction of their planet in another galaxy by switching bodies with a race of cone-shaped plant beings who lived 250 million years ago on Earth. The cone-shaped entities (subsequently also known as the Great Race of Yith) lived in their vast library city in what would later become Australia's Great Sandy Desert (22°3′14″S 125°0′39″E).
The story is told through the eyes of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee, an American living in the first decade of the 20th century, who is "possessed" by a Yithian. He fears he is losing his mind when he unaccountably sees strange vistas of other worlds and of the Yithian library city. He also feels himself being led about by these creatures and experiences how they live. When he is returned to his own body, he finds that those around him have judged him insane due to the actions of the Yithian that possessed his body. While he was experiencing a Yithian existence in Earth's ancient past, the Yithian occupying his body was experiencing a human one in the present day.
The narrator at first believes his episode and subsequent dreams to be the product of some kind of mental illness. His initial relief at discovering other cases like his throughout history is withered when he discovers that the other cases are too similar to his own to be without a connection. The narrator's dreams become more vivid, and he becomes obsessed with archaeology and ancient manuscripts (as was the Yithian) - but lacks any sort of proof that would demonstrate whether he was (or is) simply mad.
He discovers that the Yithians on Earth died out eons ago, their civilization destroyed by a rival, utterly alien pre-human race described as "half-polypous" creatures, but the Yithian minds will inhabit new bodies on Earth after humanity is long gone. His tenuously held sanity is challenged when he discovers the proof he seeks—and that not only do remains of the Yithians' past civilization still exist on Earth, but also still remaining are those who destroyed them. It is also mentioned that the current appearance of the Yithians is not the original, but one acquired during a previous mass-projection of the minds of their race when disaster beckoned, leaving the original inhabitants to die in the bodies of the Yithians.
 
Edited and Produced by DBSPGttCM is a member of the Dark Myths Colectivedarkmyths.org
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
The ChamberThe VoicesMusic by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Episode 707: Albert Wilmarth

Edited and Produced by DBSPGttCM is a member of the Dark Myths Colectivedarkmyths.org
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading 40: King in Yellow part 2

Edited and Produced by DBSPGttCM is a member of the Dark Myths Colectivedarkmyths.org
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com

Reading 39: The King in Yellow

 
 
Edited and Produced by DBSPGttCM is a member of the Dark Myths Colectivedarkmyths.org
Sponsored byFoundItemClothing.combunnyslippers.com
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
 
Check out PGttCM.podbean.com & PGttCM.com