Dec 14, 2019 | Current Ned Note, Horror, On Books, On Writing, Past Notes
The holiday season sees a million variations on Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol, yet this marvelous supernatural tale all too often overshadows the ghostly echoes that permeate Dickens’s entire oeuvre. Here’s a brief overview. In John Irving’s book of...
Oct 21, 2019 | Current Ned Note, Horror, Past Notes
Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble” BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (from Macbeth) Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of...
Oct 7, 2019 | Current Ned Note, Horror, Past Notes
“October Country . . . that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars,...
May 15, 2018 | Current Ned Note, Horror, On Writing
Last week, I picked up a book that’s been on my shelf for a long time. This was Different Seasons by Stephen King. This book is a collection of four novellas, and was his first publication that reached outside of the horror genre. The book includes the novellas Apt...
Feb 28, 2018 | Current Ned Note, Horror, On Writing, Past Notes
On this day, I’m celebrating the birthday of Tim Powers, SFF writer extraordinaire. February 29, 1952 I was on a bus in Seattle when I first read a book by Tim Powers. I’d picked up a ratty paperback of Expiration Date in some used bookstore’s...
