Aaaaaaaand, we’re done! It’s “A Little Something For Us Tempunauts” by Philip K. Dick and “The Dark Descent” is over! PARTY HORN NOISE!
The Dark Descent – “The Hospice” by Robert Aickman
WE’RE SO CLOSE TO THE END! It’s the penultimate “Dark Descent” story and it’s a whopper! “The Hospice” is quintessential Robert Aickman: it’s creepy, offbeat, weird, strange, chilling and inexplicable. We really loved it and now… only one story to go!
The Dark Descent – “The Asian Shore” by Thomas M. Disch
What a mystery this story is! Willow isn’t sure if she likes it, or if it even qualifies as horror. I’m enamored of it, but can’t really decide what it’s about! PERFECT! It’s “The Asian Shore” by Thomas M. Disch!
The Dark Descent – “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood
This week, it’s one of the most terrifying and terribly intimate stories we’ve yet covered. The cosmic horror of “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood!
The Dark Descent – “Afterward” by Edith Wharton
This week, Willow and I take a look at the creepy effects of UNFETTERED CAPITALISM with Edith Wharton’s “Afterward!”
The Dark Descent – “The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce
Whaddaya get when you take a dead guy, an invisible monster and a heaping dose of post-Civil War Traumatic Stress Disorder? “The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce! The missingest author in the history of Weird Fiction!
The Dark Descent – “The Beautiful Stranger” by Shirley Jackson
This week, Willow and Phil take a quick look at a quick story: “The Beautiful Stranger” by Shirley Jackson. We throw out a lot of theories as to the actual nature of this story, but the one thing we can agree on? That stranger is beautiful.
The Dark Descent – “What Was It?” by Fitz-James O’Brien
Sometimes, you don’t even need to ask. “What Was It?” by Fitz-James O’Brien!
The Dark Descent – “The Beckoning Fair One” by Oliver Onions
Boy oh boy are we ever getting tired of sad men dying for their ghosts. It’s “The Beckoning Fair One” by Oliver Onions! A good story, but jeez, guys. See a therapist or something.
The Dark Descent – “The Repairer of Reputations” by Robert W. Chambers
We’ve got a big one this week! It’s “The Repairer of Reputations” by Robert W. Chambers and Willow goes OFF. If you’re looking for her sources, here they are!
de Oliveira, Hugo Mendes. “An Empire of Delusion: The Process of Alienation as Expressed by Robert W. Chambers’ ‘The Repairer of Reputations.’” Thesis, Proquest Dissertations Publishing, 2021.
Emmert, S.D. (1999), A Jaundiced View of America: Robert W. Chambers and The King in Yellow. Journal of American Culture, 22: 39-44. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1999.2202_39.x
Sulmicki, Maciej. “STUDIES IN MADNESS: REALITY AND SUBJECTIVITY IN ALAN MOORE’S PROVIDENCE, AMBROSE BIERCE’S “AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA” AND ROBERT W. CHAMBERS’ “THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS”.” (2019).
And the copy of the book I used was “The King In Yellow – Annotated Edition” with notes by Kenneth Hite.
It's Del Toro Time! - A Guillermo Del Toro-adjacent Podcast 