An absolutely packed post this time, with many wonders of the airwaves for you to try out. Yes, your minds will reel, your ears will bleed, as we look at William Hope Hodgson and audio horror, plus even some pieces of weird Hodgson-inspired music as well…
(Note to consumers: greydogtales.com accepts no legal responsibility for sanguinary orifices or other side-effects of engaging with this blog. Your blood pressure may go up or down.)
I’m always looking out for tracks and readings which bring a shiver to the spine. I collect, in a haphazard manner, audio horror. To be more precise, I collect audio unease. It doesn’t have to be that horrifying, but it has to make the back of your neck feel suddenly cold. Some of the links below certainly do that.
The Voice of Horror has many delights. We’re missing Wayne June this week, sadly, which we hope is only temporary, but we are delighted to have been joined by Morgan Scorpion, who has narrated a whole host of WHH and H P Lovecraft stories, amongst other pieces. Read her interview later in this article. And so to that question which people ask me constantly:
“Mr Linseed Grant, sir,” they ask, “You must tell us, you must. Will your legendary and terrifying tale Sandra’s First Pony ever be released as an audiobook?”
“No,” I answer, a sad catch in my voice. “The Office of the Public Prosecutor has forbidden it. However, I do have loads of William Hope Hodgson sounds which you can enjoy instead.”
You should be able to access all of the following, in various states of commerciality and interpretation. If I’m wrong on any of the details or links, then I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I’m a writer, damn it Jim, not an archivist!
- Ghost Pirates (novel)
- The House on the Borderland (novel)
- Boats of the Glen Carrig (novel)
- The Night Land (novel)
- Carnacki the Ghostfinder (collection)
- The Voice in the Night (short)
- A Tropical Horror (short)
- The Derelict (short)
- The Stone Ship (short)
- The Thing in the Weeds (short)
- Captain Dan Danblasten (short)
- Inhabitants of the Middle Islet (short)
And for you alone, dear listener, dozens of greydogtales staff have worked night and day to provide you with more details and direct links. Don’t forget that if you want to know when our next WHH blog articles are out, you can always subscribe! We’re just an e-mail address away (that’s not a threat, honest)…
Librivox, the free audio provider for public-domain works, is a good source, as Librivox provides the first seven in the list above straight away, and for nothing. Some Carnacki stories have also been recorded separately.
Of the non-Librivox recordings, The House on the Borderland is the choice pick. The incomparable Wayne June has produced an excellent version, which we recommend highly:
Wayne, of course, has narrated some fantastic Lovecraft tales as well, and his The Dark Worlds of H P Lovecraft readings are superb. You are, quite simply, missing out if you’ve not heard them.
I also thoroughly enjoyed Jim Norton‘s four part version of HoB, available on Youtube:
Or if you want a real marathon, you could check out the 18 hour (!) full audiobook of The Night Land from Dreamscape, read by Drew Ariana:
The Voice in the Night short story is also available in a number of versions. This is the Paul Wright version on Youtube:
And here’s another version from Pseudopod podcasts:
It’s a shame that more Hodgson short stories haven’t been recorded yet. A Tropical Horror has been adapted by Julia Hoverson to provide a spiffing dramatised version which can be found here:
The Derelict, a great story, is available as an audio performance by experienced narrator William Dufris and Mind’s Eye Productions:
And The Stone Ship was produced in 1980 as part of Nightfall, that wonderful old radio series (it’s worth trying other Nightfall episodes, too):
The Thing in the Weeds is available via The Classic Tales podcast from Audio Boom. Another short, creepy one:
Captain Dan Danblasten, not horror, is a Tales from the Potts House podcast (also has a podcast of The Voice in the Night):
And the last short, Inhabitants of the Middle Islet… OK, I cheated here. There is an audio version of this story, but it’s in French. I quite enjoyed it, but then I only understood about half of it. French speakers may be able to report back to greydogtales.
Inhabitants of the Middle Islet
In the process of checking sources, I also came across a great podcast site which was new to me, Tales to Terrify.
Not only do they have all sorts of audio goodies, but they have a double podcast perfect for our WHH month – The Horse of the Invisible paired with Willie Meikle‘s Treason and Plot. Willie is, of course, featured in an interview in next weeks Hodgson – The Inheritors, so this is a great link. The host is the late Larry Santoro, who gives a detailed introduction to Hodgson (before you ask, the WHH death details given are corrected on the site) and the narration is by Robert Neufeld:
Horse of the Invisible/Treason & Plot
I think you’ll enjoy both of those.
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This Hodgson blog-fest is a collaborative venture, and so our interview this week is with Morgan Scorpion, a stalwart of Librivox but more importantly for our purposes, also a lover of the weird. Morgan has narrated at least fifteen Lovecraft stories, for example, and covered many other examples of ghostly and strange fiction. Rather than rattle on, I’ll let Morgan have her say:
greydog: Welcome, Morgan, and many thanks for contributing to this week’s section. I understand that you began narrating stories for Librivox because you were already a fan of their free audio?
Morgan: That’s true, I love audiobooks and couldn’t resist free ones. After listening to about 70 free audiobooks I began to feel I owed them something in return, so I decided to record a few chapters until I felt I had repaid them, only I discovered I enjoyed doing them. It’s good to feel useful.
greydog: I have to ask, given this month’s theme – what do you think about William Hope Hodgson’s writings on a personal level, as a reader? Or are they relatively new to you?
Morgan: I have enjoyed WHH’s stories since I was about eleven, on a personal level, I find them deliciously horrible, especially when fungi are involved. He has a great sense of the grotesque.
greydog: Yes, the grotesque and the unknowable. Which links nicely for us, as you’ve also recorded a heck of a lot of H P Lovecraft for Librivox. Can you tell us which piece of his stands out for you?
Morgan: With Lovecraft, almost all of it stands out. My love for his writing is pretty much hero worship, and I couldn’t chose a favourite of his without pointing out that a different tale would be my favourite next week. So it would be a choice between The Music of Erich Zann, The Dunwich Horror, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Rats in the Walls, or maybe…
greydog: I suppose the end result is more important to most greydogtales readers than the process, but I always ask recording artists this – do you mull over the piece first for a while and make notes to yourself, or do you throw yourself straight into the recording?
Morgan: I rarely record a story without having read it first, often several times. So although when it comes to recording, I just pick it up and read it without any notes or mental preparation. I make lots of mistakes while recording, and edit them out afterwards, I’d be terrible if I had to read out loud to an audience. Reading a story out loud is a very different experience from reading it silently to yourself, so no matter how many notes I made in advance, I doubt they’d be much use to me when it came to vocalising it.
greydog: So who is your own favourite narrator in this field?
Morgan: Vincent Price! He recorded lots of Poe, alas no Lovecraft, and you may find some online if you look. Roddy McDowall has also done a couple of horror tales by Lovecraft, and who could top Christopher Lee! I wish they had been able to do more. Of course there’s Jeffrey Combs, whose recording of Herbert West, Reanimator is wonderful. I also wish John Lithgow would record some horror tales. In a different genre, I love the audiobooks of Elizabeth Klett, so far she has done no horror that I know of, but she has recorded Edith Wharton, and done it perfectly.
greydog: Ah, the wonderful Vincent – great choice! And is there anything in the weird/occult domain that you’ve not narrated yet but which you really want to have a crack at?
Morgan: So many! In time I want to do more Lovecraft, more Poe, more E F Benson and more M R James. And there are so many that are in are in the public domain that I have been unable to get permission for, namely J B Priestley’s The Grey Ones, Anthony Boucher’s They Bite, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived at the Castle, oh and quite a few things by Thomas Ligotti or Ramsey Campbell. I’d also love to record Agatha Christie’s The Seance. Quite the nastiest short story imaginable, but I have no hope of being allowed to do that!
greydog: We should surround the Agatha Christie Estate with villagers and burning torches, demanding it. But to finish for now, a deliberately unfair question – what’s your favourite horror story of all time?
Morgan: I’d have to refer you to answer number three for that, but must also name Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, M R James’ An Evening’s Entertainment, T E D Klein’s The Events at Poroth Farm, Michael Shea’s The Autopsy and R Chetwynd Hayes The Day Father Brought Something Home.
greydog: Thank you, Morgan Scorpion, and we look forward to your next recording! In the meantime you can hear Morgan in action across a number of genres by following either of these links:
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As we near the end of this week’s offerings, here’s a couple of extras, to show how much I care about my listeners. Hodgson and Lovecraft have inspired a number of musicians, so let’s check out two entirely different pieces of work.
The first, which I must admit I loved, is Jon Brook‘s Cafe Kaput album Music for Thomas Carnacki.
“Utilising banks of oscillators, tape edits and analogue delays, Brooks created themes, cues and abstracts to depict the dark Edwardian setting of the story”.
Do call in and have a listen – it’s very atmospheric:
If that’s not to your taste, then you might prefer The Boats of the Glen Carrig by ‘funeral doom’ metal group Ahab, who take inspiration from a number of maritime sources in their albums. I’m not up on Ahab, so you’ll have to find out for yourself. I’m a Metallica fan, but not sure what ‘funeral doom’ heavy metal is, so don’t ask me. The link takes you to a review and samples from the album.
Ahab: Boats of the Glen Carrig
And that’s almost as much ear-bending as anyone can take in one post. As Morgan mentioned Vincent Price, who could charm the birds from the trees (or just knock them off their perches), I had to add one last recent find, nothing to do with WHH but new to me:
Vincent Price: A Hornbook for Witches – Stories and Poems for Halloween. This a recording from the 1976 Caedmon LP:
Love that voice.
Please join us in a few days for some audiovisual treats, and then Hodgson -The Inheritors, in which we present a two part look at those who have grasped the torch and lifted it high again, commencing with an interview with the prolific and excellent Willie Meikle. Asbestos gloves will be available at the door…
Don’t forget, by the way, we’re heading into the last day of the October Frights blog-hop. And here’s the list for the last time. Have a browse while you can…
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