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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

#WyrdWednesday Song of the Necromancer (Weird Tales, Feb 1937) by Clark Ashton Smith. This text is from The Complete Poetry and Translations V2 (2012).

Song of the Necromancer

I will repeat a subtle rune—
And thronging suns of Otherwhere
Shall blaze upon the blinded air,
And spectres terrible and fair
Shall walk the riven world at noon.

The star that was mine empery
Is dust upon unwinnowed skies:
But primal dreams have made me wise,
And soon the shattered years shall rise
To my remembered sorcery.

To mantic mutterings, brief and low,
My palaces shall lift amain,
My bowers bloom; I will regain
The lips whereon my lips have lain
In rose-red twilights long ago.

Before my murmured exorcism
The world, a wispy wraith, shall flee:
A stranger earth, a weirder sea,
Peopled with shapes of Faëry,
Shall swell upon the waste abysm.

The pantheons of darkened stars
Shall file athwart the crocus dawn;
Goddess and Gorgon, Lar and faun,
Shall tread the amaranthine lawn,
And giants fight their thunderous wars.

Like graven mountains of basalt,
Dark idols of my demons there
Shall tower through bright zones of air,
Fronting the sun with level stare;
And hell shall pave my deepest vault.

Phantom and fiend and sorcerer
Shall serve me . . . till my term shall pass,
And I become no more, alas,
Than a frail shadow on the glass
Before some latter conjurer.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

#WyrdWednesday The Searching Dead (2016) by Ramsey Campbell. Three young people in post-WW2 England discover a plot to materialize ghosts and awaken a great evil. A blend of weird fiction, supernatural detective tale, and coming-of-age story. Art credit in alt text.

Part of a painting by Les Edwards that was used as the slipcase art for The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell. A white flower looks like an eerie face.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

#SpookySunday An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1886) by Ambrose Bierce. "A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as I sprang to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in the rosy east. I stood between the tree and his broad red disk—no shadow darkened the trunk!"

Cover of The Hastur Cycle: Second Revised Edition (1997, 2006, 2014). First edition 1993. Cover art by Victor Manuel Leza Moreno. A robed and hooded man with a pallid face stands in dark water, surrounded by tentacles. Industrial equipment is in the background, and a large moon is overhead.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

#BookWormSat The Events at Poroth Farm (1972) by T. E. D. Klein. A man rents a room for the summer on a quiet farm, as he prepares to teach a class on supernatural and weird fiction. Strange happenings create an increasing sense of dread, peril, and paranoia. Art credit in alt text.

Cover art by Ashley Cser for the 2021 Pickman's Press reprint of Reassuring Tales (2006), which collected this story. The cover is painted to look like a creased, tattered trade paperback with a red border. In the center is a dark feline with glowing yellow eyes and crescent-shaped ears sitting on a split-rail fence.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#WyrdWednesday Conan and Valeria battle a dinosaur in an early scene from Red Nails (1936) by Robert E. Howard. This image is from the 1973/74 Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor-Smith adaptation, colored for The Barry Windsor-Smith Archives Vol. 2 (Dark Horse, 2010).

The head of a large, red dinosaur pokes through the leaves of a tree, as it lunges with open mouth at Conan and Valeria. Conan prepares to attack it with a poison-tipped spear.

Text:

BUT, THE CIMMERIAN HAS JUDGED HIS DISTANCE WITH PRECISION.

SOME FIVE FEET BELOW HIM, THAT MIGHTY HEAD CRASHES TERRIBLY BUT FUTILELY THRU THE LEAVES.

AND, AS THAT MONSTROUS MOUTH GAPES LIKE THAT OF A GREAT SERPENT--

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

#SpookySunday The wraith appears ere the staid magicians. The question is asked, the answer is told.... Outside, the kingdom is shrouded in twilight. The ghoulish wraith departs, and a great cold Chills the fearful men. Soon all ambitions Will be lost into the ultimate Night.

One sorcerer sits in an alcove in front of a large, open book. Many other books are on a table. Another sorcerer stands and points with a long staff or wand. A human skull is on the floor, and magical symbols are drawn on the walls.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

#BookWormSat After Man: A Zoology of the Future (1981) by Dougal Dixon. A speculative science book where humankind is extinct, and other species have continued to evolve following known principles. Rabbucks evolve from the rabbit/hare family and replace hoofed mammals as large, grazing herbivores.

Credited artists for this book are Diz Wallis, John Butler, Brian McIntyre, Philip Hood, Roy Woodard, and Gary Marsh. The image is a page from the book with color illustrations for four species—common, mountain, desert, and arctic rabbuck. They all have a head that looks like a rabbit or hare, long neck, large body, and hooves. Each has other specific adaptations to help it survive in its environment.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

#WyrdWednesday Harvest In Over the Garden Wall (2014), Episode 2: Hard Times at the Huskin' Bee, Pottsfield is the site of a rather curious harvest festival. A link to a recording of the shape note singing from this episode is in replies.

Screen capture from this episode. Pumpkin figures dance in a barn while circling a central pole and holding ribbons that dangle from the pole.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

#SpookySunday Image from a 1973 adaptation by Roy Thomas and Ralph Reese of Skulls in the Stars (1929) by Robert E. Howard. More info in alt text. Solomon Kane encounters a violent ghost on the moor, solves the mystery of a man's disappearance, and brings grim justice to a murderer.

Part of a panel from the adaptation of this story in Monsters Unleashed, No. 1, 1973. Script by Roy Thomas. Art by Ralph Reese. A black-and-white drawing of the ghost and Solomon Kane. The ghost is huge and winged with sharp teeth and talons. Solomon Kane is wearing a wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat and a cloak and has a pistol and a sword in his belt.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

#WyrdWednesday From: Jaguar Woman (Shimmer No. 10, 2009) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A woman strives to retain the memories of her former life and will herself back into her original form. Collected in This Strange Way of Dying: Stories of Magic, Desire & the Fantastic (2013).

"She forgot how to be a jaguar but the knowledge sometimes returns in her dreams and she wakes to the dark room and the shape of the man next to her and the distant smell of jungle and night.
Bound inside the stiff dresses, under layers of velvet, ruffs, embroidered roses, it is easy to forget how to shift her shape, how to move sleek and elegant on four legs.
They speak new words to her and the words drive away the words she used to know. They even give her a new name and she watches as her old name is trampled under the hoofs of their horses. The magic is lost."

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

#WyrdWednesday The Tale of Hauk (1977) by Poul Anderson. When a Norseman returns from sea, he finds that his angry father has risen from the grave. He must find a way to bring his father peace and end a reign of terror. Reprinted in Anderson's 1981 collection Fantasy and many anthologies since.

Front cover of the first edition of Fantasy, a Jim Baen Presents book. No artist is credited. A bearded figure raises a hammer.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

More research: He used a variation of Euclid's Elements of Geometry, Book 1, Proposition 15. I'm surprised that it worked, since he didn't precisely follow the incantation from this 1661 copy 🧐 The preface was even by John Dee 😲 I shall now call this Dunsany's Euclidean Spell of Dismissal.

A geometry proof showing that if two straight lines AB and CD cut one another at E, the opposite angles AED and CEB are equal, and the opposite angles AEC and BED are equal.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

#SpookySunday The Ghosts by Lord Dunsany. First collected in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories (1908). When a man is assailed by the manifested sins of ghosts, he fends them off and restores his reason and sanity by reciting a geometry proof. Illustrations by Sidney Sime from this story.

Title: Oneleigh

A tall mansion closely surrounded by dark woods.

Title: A Herd of Black Creatures

Ghosts in elegant, old-fashioned clothing chat with each other. Below them are dark creatures that look like strange dogs. These are the manifested sins of the ghosts.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Post a Diagram/Blueprint/Cutaway or Map from Comics! Francesca Baerald's excellent wraparound Hyborian Age map.

Conan the Barbarian #1 (2023) back cover showing the west side of the Hyborian Age map.

Conan the Barbarian #1 (2023) front cover showing the east side of the Hyborian Age map.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

#WyrdWednesday Prince of Darkness (Oct 1987) might have my favorite atmospherics of any spooky movie, with foreboding opening shots of campus and sky, great soundtrack by Carpenter, the dream broadcasts, mirror scenes, the ending... "We are using your brain's electrical system as a receiver..."

A dark figure emerges from a doorway in a dream broadcast.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

#SpookySunday An illustration by Matt Fox of his own sighting of an apparition. This image is from his art collection book The Chillingly Weird Art of Matt Fox (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2023).

A strange, greenish, ghostly figure wearing a hat is emerging from a closet. A man sits up in bed staring with at it with fear. The title reads: I Have Seen This Intruder. The text reads: At our apartment 339 East 118th Street, Manhattan, 1931. I was not asleep at that time. Signed by Matt. Fox Norfolk Ct. 1974.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

#BookWormSat Whirling, wheeling into westward, Fled they in their phantom flight; Was it but a wing-beat music Murmured through the star-gemmed night? Or the singing of a ghost clan Whispering of forgotten night? Credits in alt text.

Lines from The Song of the Bats (Weird Tales, May 1927) by Robert E. Howard.

A woodblock print Bat and Moon (1928 - 1930) by Takahashi Bihō. Ink and color on paper. A flying bat is silhouetted against a full moon.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

#BookWormSat Let the Patterns Break by Lilith Lorraine, pseudonym of Mary Maud Wright (Dunn), is an omnibus volume of 400+ poems through 1947. She wrote mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and weird fiction poems, plus stories, essays, and a textbook. She also edited, published, and promoted others' work.

The book cover. Brown leather with gold lettering.

First collected in Beyond Bewilderment (1942).

Strangeness Is a Shadow Cloak

Strangeness is a shadow-cloak
Spun in a witches lair;
It hides me from reality,
It shades me from its glare.

It wraps me in a moonless mist
No eye can penetrate,
It makes my dreams invisible
Lest vandals desecrate.

And when my shafts of song assail
Their smug and ordered spheres
They dare not cast their poisoned darts
Because of ancient fears.

I would not have it otherwise,
I would not drop my shield;
Strangeness is a shadow-cloak
That hides the sword I wield.

Stalker of Dreams

Great fish devour the smaller ones
Whose radiance lights the ocean's gloom,
Beneath the glare of desert suns
The hawk describes an arc of doom.

Swift-leaping from her jungle lair,
The jade-eyed panther drinks the wine
Of warm, rich blood—but what dark snare
Is laid to trap your soul and mine?

There is a snare, I know it well
For something waits with eyes agleam,
And something weaves a serpent-spell,
And something stalks me as I dream.

A shadow hounds my steps and lies
In wait by many an opening door;
For I have seen too many eyes
From which the soul looks out no more.

First collected in Banners of Victory (1937).

In Aztla's Ruined Gardens

In Aztla's ruined gardens
Where secret fountains croon
The lovely languid ladies
Come out beneath the moon.

The lovely languid ladies,
All perilously fair,
From the arches of their insteps
To the shadows in their hair.

With slow and graceful gestures,
Their listless jewelled hands,
Are weaving nets of madness
For men of many lands.

And he who walks by moonlight
Where Aztla's lilies swoon,
Where lovely languid ladies
Come out beneath the moon,

Is sure to wake by dawnlight,
As every dreamer must,
With bony arms about him
That crumble into dust.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

#WyrdWednesday Diving Suit, interior artwork by Eduardo Valdés-Hevia. "How he had stared down into that blackness...drawn by some impulse he himself could not hope to fully understand—the sound of a sunken bell, he called it. Bells from some drowned church, calling me to worship." See alt text.

From: The Dagon Collection (2024), an authentic-looking auction catalog with highly detailed descriptions of items recovered from Innsmouth. Each real contributor to the book wrote as a fictitious expert in their field to describe the history and condition of the auctioned items. Edited by Nate Pedersen.

Image:

A black-and-white photo of a diving suit made from leathery, scaly, foul-smelling material of unknown origin. The front of the helmet is crafted into the shape of a disturbing face. The descriptive text for this item was written by Gemma Files.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

#WyrdWednesday A drawing from a Stephen Fabian art collection book. It was originally used as an interior illustration for The Return of the Sea-Farer by Robert E. Howard in Weirdbook 13, 1978.

A black-and-white drawing of a partially skeletonized warrior with a broken sword. He is floating towards the turbulent surface of a sea and a damaged dragonship. The margin is decorated with seahorses and human skulls.

0208

bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

#WyrdWednesday Nightfall (1941) by Isaac Asimov. On a planet with six suns, the first full solar eclipse in two millenia may be approaching. A news person, a psychologist, a religious leader, and a group of astronomers debate the outcome in an observatory. Art credit in alt text.

Cover art for Astounding Science-Fiction (Sep 1941) by Hubert Rogers. A painting of an observatory. Outside, the night sky with many stars is visible. In the far distance, a city is on fire, with red and orange flames. In the inside foreground, a frantic-looking man with a torch is running away from the view of the night sky. In the background, another group of people are running.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

#SpookySunday Sea Curse (Weird Tales, May 1928) by Robert E. Howard. When a witch's niece falls victim to a terrible crime, a curse brings down well-deserved doom on the perpetrators. This story uses a stanza from Rudyard Kipling's The Sea-Wife as an epigraph. Art credit in alt text.

Interior illustration by Greg Staples for this story from The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (2008). A crew of skeletons rows a ship.

The full poem from which the epigraph comes doesn't fit the story, but this stanza works nicely:

And some return by the failing light
And some in the waking dream,
For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts
That ride the rough roofbeam.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

#BookWormSat Hrissa the Ice Cat accompanied Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser all the way up a huge mountain range in Stardock (1965). When she gets sore paws they make small boots for her. Surprisingly, she liked the boots. The story was reprinted in the 1999 omnibus volume Lean Times in Lankhmar.

The cover of the 1999 omnibus volume Lean Times in Lankhmar, containing the collections Swords in the Mist and Swords Against Wizardry, which reprinted the story Stardock. Cover art by Geoff Taylor shows two tiny figures standing amid a large mountain range.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Better sneak out the door, Lumbergh's on his way...

Bill Lumbergh from the movie Office Space.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

#WyrdWednesday From: Barley Night (Spectral Realms No. 3, Summer 2015), a dark take on agricultural rituals by Jonathan Thomas. Six collections of his weird fiction/horror stories and poetry have been published, plus a novel. All are still available in at least one format. Art credit in alt text.

Cover art titled Tunnel Fiend 6 by Rabban. A black-and-white illustration of a hand on the ground, with the rest hidden by a dark tunnel opening.

From: Barley Night

Priest is casting holy bones
Out in front of every home.
As they fall he reads the will
Of the gods for good or ill.

Heaven only talks to him.
Barley day is always grim.
Would that fate had granted we
Should have a captive enemy.

Have no fear, you'll be all right
If you live through barley night.
Have no fear, you'll be all right
If you live through barley night.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

#SpookySunday Alulvan (1901) by Walter de la Mare. This text is from The Complete Poems of Walter de la Mare (1970).

ALULVAN

The sun is clear of bird and cloud,
The grass shines windless, grey, and still,
In dusky ruin the owl dreams on,
The cuckoo echoes on the hill;
Yet soft along Alulvan's walks
The ghost at noonday stalks.

His eyes in shadow of his hat
Stare on the ruins of his house;
His cloak, up-fastened with a brooch,
Of faded velvet, grey as mouse,
Brushes the roses as he goes:
Yet wavers not one rose.

The wild birds in a cloud fly up
From their sweet feeding in the fruit;
The droning of the bees and flies
Rises gradual as a lute;
Is it for fear the birds are flown,
And shrills the insect-drone?

Thick is the ivy o'er Alulvan,
And crisp with summer-heat its turf;
Far, far across its empty pastures
Alulvan's sands are white with surf:
And he himself is grey as the sea,
Watching beneath an elder-tree.

All night the fretful, shrill Banshee
Lurks in the chambers' dark festoons,
Calling for ever, o'er garden and river,
Through magpie changing of the moons:
'Alulvan, O, alas! Alulvan,
The doom of lone Alulvan!'

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

#WyrdWednesday Horned helmets A painting from Out of the Forests: The Art of Paul Bonner (2008). Part of his artwork for Games Workshop. Any image flaws are from my lighting, photography, and cropping, not the original artwork.

A painting of a battle in and around a small, beached boat. Some combatants wear horned helmets.

0214

bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

#BookWormSat Hell Screen (1918) by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. An artist has a very troubled relationship with his patron, and the artist's daughter is trapped between them. The artist begins a painting at the patron's behest and becomes increasingly crazed as he tries to finish it.

Title page of The Essential Akutagawa (Marsilio Publishers, 1999), which contained this story. Edited by Seiji M. Lippit. Illustration of a kappa by Akutagawa from Nihon Kindai Bungakukan (Museum of Modern Japanese Literature).

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

#PhantomsFriday One Boon by Lilith Lorraine, pseudonym of Mary Maud Dunn Wright. This text is from Let the Patterns Break (1947), an omnibus containing all of her prior collections, plus previously unpublished or uncollected material, through 1947.

One Boon

When that Dark Star which is my soul's possessor
Shall pilot me beyond the phoenix-throne,
Where I must overcome the last Aggressor,
And face the last Adventuring alone—
I ask one boon—to sail, returning never,
On that still ocean where the ghost-ships ride,
For there is something I would drown forever
Beyond the salvages of wind and tide.
Then when the deed is done, past all recalling,
I would sail on, unfettered, strangely blest,
(Where time is like a curtain gently falling—)
To join the Pale Flotilla in the west;
To wake the sea-witch with a pirate-ditty;
And sometimes when the crescent moon swings low,
To anchor fast beside a sunken city,
And feast with Warriors of long ago;
Or when the phantom ships put into harbor,
Where wares of all the ages are displayed,
I would lie dreaming in a dark-leafed arbor,
I would drink wine from chalices of jade.

0113

bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

#WyrdWednesday The Summer People (1950) by Shirley Jackson. When a vacationing couple stay longer than usual at a lakeside cabin, disturbing things begin to happen. A subtle, spooky short story by the author of The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

This story was collected in The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011). Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Cover art by Nic Cheetham shows the hallway of a dark, Gothic-looking building in the background, with red tentacles in the foreground holding an old book.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

#WyrdWednesday Weather Damnation Alley (Galaxy, Oct 1967) by Roger Zelazny. In this novella, a man on a critical mission in a post-apocalyptic world faces massive, deadly storms (and many other hazards). A painting from Hardware: The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss (2011). More info in alt text.

Zelazny expanded the 1967 novella into a 1969 novel at the request of his agent. A variant of Foss' painting was used as cover art for the 1990 Sphere reprint of the novel. It doesn't match all details of the vehicle from the story, but it's awesome work nonetheless. A yellow armored vehicle with six wheels makes its way across rugged terrain as severe weather rages around it.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

I was lucky to find a relatively cheap copy of Let the Patterns Break (1947), an omnibus containing her prior collections plus additional material. Just now digging in. Looks to be a treasure trove of 400+ poems 👍 Not sure yet if any overlap with Wine of Wonder (1952)/Time Grows Thin (2009).

A COLLECTION INCLUDING

Trailing Clouds of Glory, consisting mostly of unpublished poems written between the ages of ten and sixteen;
Banners of Victory, copyrighted by author, 1937;
Beyond Bewilderment, copyrighted by author, 1942;
They, copyrighted by author, 1943;
The Day Before Judgment, copyrighted by author, 1944;

AND A LATER SECTION

Call on the Rocks, 1944-1947;

OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

Let Dreamers Wake, a textbook of poetry;
Lilith Tells All, a textbook of poetry;
Fighting on the Cultural Front, prose;
The Brain of the Planet, a novelette.

AVALON PRESS ROGERS, ARK.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

#WyrdWednesday Two depictions of an ocean-dwelling Deep One in its final form. I study these tomes with great interest 🧐😲 Left: S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters (1988). Right: S. Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors (2015). Art credit and book details in alt text.

Left image: Illustration from S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters (1988) by Sandy Petersen, Tom Sullivan (illustrator), and Lynn Willis.This depiction is mottled green and looks a bit more frog-like but with a deep-sea creature's head.

Right image: Illustration from S. Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors (2015). This is an updated omnibus of S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters (1988) and S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands (1989). Written by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Mike Mason. Illustrated by Loïc Muzy, Mariusz Gandzel & Claire Delépée. This depiction is black and more lizard-like, with a long tail.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

#WyrdWednesday Signum Advenit, a woodblock printing by Liv Rainey-Smith. A mermaid foresees the destruction that will occur when the stars are right and R'lyeh rises from the sea. "The rays of an inhuman eye of providence reach down to illuminate the prophetess..." Book details in alt text.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

#BookWormSat Children's fantasy books Parsifal Rides the Time Wave (1962) by Nell Chenault. A time-traveling, magical being and a special dog help a grieving child deal with loss.

Cover art by Vee Guthrie for the 1962 Weekly Reader Children's Book Club edition. A child and a dog hide under bushes as two warriors with medieval-style armor and weapons approach.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

#PhantomsFriday "I slept, and out of their ancient tombs of tissue-plasm streamed a shadowy host of Living Dead. Gliding silently across the waxed and shining floor of my soul, they breathed their breaths upon the emptied mirror of my mind: And Terror and Guilt captained that crew." See alt text.

From: Resurrection Night (1915) by Benjamin De Casseres, reformatted slightly to fit into a post.

Part of a painting by Les Edwards that was used as the slipcase art for Born to the Dark (2017) by Ramsey Campbell. In the foreground, many tendrils of black smoke topped with skulls waft across the lawn. In the background, a pale man stands in the doorway of a stone-block building with dark, latticed windows.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

#WyrdWednesday The novelette Children of the Corn (1977) by Stephen King, collected in Night Shift (1978). Summer among the cornfields and "...the power and grace of he who walks behind the rows..."

Cover of the 1986 New English Library reprint of Night Shift, the collection that contained Children of the Corn. No artist credit. Small figures brandishing farm implements chase a man through rows of corn.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

#BookWormSat Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden (1983) by Jack Vance combines coming-of-age stories, political machinations, warring kingdoms, sorceries, and the Fae. "Within and about the Forest of Tantrevalles existed a hundred or more fairy shees, each the castle of a fairy tribe..."

Cover of the 1991 Grafton reprint of Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden. Cover art by Mick van Houten. A person on horseback approaches a castle on a cliff, overlooking woods and the sea.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

#WyrdWednesday The Hanged Man (1895) by Eça de Queiroz and The Cannibals (1868) by Álvaro do Carvalhal are memorable macabre stories. They can be found translated to English by Margaret Jull Costa as part of the Dedalus Books of Fantasy series.

The Dedalus Book of Portuguese Fantasy (1995). Cover art by Jorge Garizo do Carmo. Edited by Eugénio Lisboa and Helder Macedo.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

We don't usually see each other's headers. Here's mine. Quote post with yours. Details and image credit in alt text. Also, Morgan's book (quoted below) is a great noir thriller with a big speculative twist. Well deserving of all the awesome reviews!

Banner image of IC 2118 credit to NASA/STScI Digitized Sky Survey/Noel Carboni. Part of the Witch Head Nebula illuminated by the star system Rigel. I like the image, plus Rigel is the source of a brief, obscure, but very funny incident in a Jack Vance book.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

#BookWormSat The Shadow Kingdom (Weird Tales, Aug 1929) by Robert E. Howard. Featuring Kull of Atlantis, king of Valusia. "The statecraft of the Seven Empires is a mazy, monstrous thing..." Art credit in alt text.

Painting by Roy G. Krenkel used as cover art for King Kull (Lancer, 1967 and later reprints), which included this story. Kull, riding a horse, is surrounded by a host of human and non-human beings and creatures. The buildings of Valusia are seen in the background.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

#WyrdWednesday A painting by Philippe Druillet, who co-founded Métal Hurlant. This image is from an art book, but was originally used as the cover of Pilote No. 663 (1972).

The head and top of the torso of a huge black metallic figure. Creatures are flying into the wide-open yellow/orange mouth.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

#PhantomsFriday Not Theirs the Cypress-Arch (1951) by Clark Ashton Smith.

Not Theirs the Cypress-Arch

Dream not the dead will wait,
Slow-crumbling in the allotted ground,
Nor rise except to some sonorous trump
And searing splendors of the doomsday sun:
They rise, they gather about us now,
 Crowding the quiet day.  

To us, entombed in time,
Asleep within a vaster vault,
They use a speech we seem not to have known,
Yet guide us like sleep-walkers to and fro—
By those forgotten voices drawn
With secret tacit guile.  

Not theirs the cypress-arch,
The sexton's haunt, the hallowed stones,
The charnel morris stilled by chanticleer:
Dark demons, through the forum and the street
They move, and we, their fleshly ghosts,
Like driven demoniacs are.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

#WyrdWednesday The painting Atlantis (1972) by Frank Frazetta depicts a statue of an Atlantean warrior amidst partially submerged ruins.

A statue of a warrior with spear, shield, and crested helmet stands on a pedestal just above the waterline. The statue is bronze with green patina and has algae hanging from it. Ancient ruins are in the background. All objects are reflected in the water.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

#PhantomsFriday Traffic not with ghosts Lest if you do You find their world More real than earth to you. From: Unsought Advice (Weird Tales, May 1937) by Dorothy Quick, used as the epigraph to Requiem for a Siren: Women Poets of the Pulps (From Beyond Press, 2024). Art credit in alt text.

The cover of Requiem for a Siren, edited by Jaclyn Youhana Garver and Michael W. Phillips Jr. The cover art is a painting by Margaret Brundage, first used as the cover of Weird Tales, November 1933. A seated woman in a green gown is looking at a skull that she's holding close to her face.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

#WyrdWednesday Oh, the heart in my breast turned stone, and the brain froze in my skull— But I won through, I alone, and I poured my chalice full Of horrors and dooms and spells, black buds and bitter roots— From the hells beneath the hells, I bring you my deathly fruits. Credit in alt text.

A black-and-white drawing from a Stephen Fabian art collection book in a section titled Lovecraftian Ceremonies. It was inspired by the short story The Music of Erich Zann (1922) by H. P. Lovecraft. A man with talon-like fingers holds a stringed instrument.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

#PhantomsFriday If I can raise one ghost, why I will raise And call up doomsday from behind the east. Awake then, ghostly doomsday! Throw up your monuments, ye buried men That lie in ruined cities of the wastes! From: Doomsday (1851) by Thomas Lovell Beddoes Art credit in alt text.

The black-and-white drawing is from a Stephen Fabian art collection book. It was originally used as an interior illustration for Zach Phalanx is Vlad the Impaler (Weirdbook 11, 1977) by Brian Lumley. In the foreground is a skeleton warrior holding a lance and mounted on a horse. In the background are the ruins of a castle.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

#WyrdWednesday A Rose For Ecclesiastes (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Nov 1963) by Roger Zelazny. A future exploration of Martian history and society with spirituality, philosophy, and culture of Earth's past as backdrop. Also a personal story of lost love. Art credit in alt text.

Wrap-around cover art by Hannes Bok. One of his final paintings; one of Zelazny's earliest stories. The front cover depicts two Martian women playing instruments while a third (Braxa) dances. The back cover depicts Braxa holding a rose.

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

#BookWormSat Darrell Schweitzer wrote many stories set in a fantasy world based very loosely on the ancient Nile region. In his setting, the god of the underworld is crocodilian. Collected in The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995), Sekenre (2004) and a few in a two-volume short story collection (2020).

The covers of a two-volume short story collection by Darrell Schweitzer (PS Publishing, 2020). The titles are The Mysteries of the Faceless King (Volume 1) and The Last Heretic (Volume 2). Art by Jason Van Hollander.

Text excerpt from On the Last Night of the Festival of the Dead (1994).

"On the third and final night of the Festival of the Dead, those who had received special signs assembled in silence on the steps of the black temple of Surat-Hemad, who created the crocodile in his own image.
The temple doors formed the Devouring God's jaws. Bronze teeth gleamed by torchlight. Within the great hall, two red lanterns burning above the altar were the all-seeing eyes of Death. In the vaults beneath the altar, in the belly of Surat-Hemad, dead and living commingled freely, and the waters of dream, of Leshe, lapped against the shores of the living world those of the land of the dead. On this night, of all nights, the borders were freely crossed.
The doors swung wide. Twenty or so pilgrims entered..."

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bus_error @buserror5.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

#PhantomsFriday The text of the poem Night Terror (Weird Tales, July 1930) by Sara Henderson Hay added to a drawing from a Stephen Fabian art collection book.

The top of the image is a drawing of darkened house at night with a few windows illuminated. A full moon is overhead.

The bottom of the image is the poem text:

Lie still—the phantom stars are clear,
The moon is white against the snow—
Ah, Mary Mother, make Them fear
Even this candle's feeble glow—
Make Them afraid to enter here!

Its little gasping flame is all
We have, to guard and keep the sill
From things that wait, close-cloaked about
In darkness, where the shadows sprawl—
What should we do if it went out?—
Lie still...

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