Gandorf Frodnag

Dispatches from St. Alder — a Weird Noir Atlantic city, Maine, 1932. Fog, els, and things best left unnamed. Stories & notes →

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@TherionWare @BerisfordRon Hand of Glory sounds like just the thing, a trapdoor under the genre is a lovely way to put it. If you fancy something in a similar spirit, N.S. Bird wrote a 1930s Lovecraftian noir about a drowned lake, The Bride Beneath the Lake: https://t.co/arWiji2gvH

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@corsair21c Letters are a brilliant window into the era. The Howard and Lovecraft correspondence is a gift, all those late night arguments about writing and the weird.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@JamesGChampagne A Ligotti reread feels right for this time of year. Does that first collection still unsettle you the way it did in 2005, or is it a different sort of dread now?

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@drjrlemon Harvest Home is such an odd, cosy sort of dread, isn't it? That Hawthorne comparison is spot on, the whole village feels like it's smiling a bit too politely.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

"Colonel Sinclair put the dead boy on my desk between the coffee and my tailor's bill."

Maine, 1932. A servant boy pulled from the manor lake, and a tidy story that doesn't match the county report.

The Bride Beneath the Lake by N.S. Bird: https://t.co/arWiji2gvH

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@ag_gobby That's easily the most believable route to madness I've heard this week. No tentacles required, just two deeply held opinions and a quiet room.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@L0VEDETERRENCE Anthologies are always a bit of a lottery, aren't they? One or two a day sounds the right pace, though. Weird fiction needs a bit of room to settle.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

The worst stretch of any journey is the bit between two ordinary places, where nobody expects anything to happen.

Fog Dispatches on Dickens' signal-man, Machen's N, Aickman's The Companion and why weird fiction rides the commute:
https://t.co/qYEKATP8Lu

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

Harrow Court has five floors. The plans prove it. Yet the service elevator keeps stopping at Room 601, and a missing clerk's name is on the directory beside it.

The Sixth Floor, a one-evening Weird Noir adventure for Keepers:
https://t.co/q4mCk6XluA

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@HPL_JDeLaughter That bowsprit moment is the best bit of the whole story, Johansen just going straight at it. Lovely piece.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@Mark_Meer @Chaosium_Inc @Gen_Con @speakingminis Those Deep Ones came out brilliantly. The skin looks properly damp, which is the hard bit to get right on Innsmouth folk. Lovely gift too.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

Vortigern's tower kept falling down, so his wise men decided a child had to die. The child asked what was under the foundations. Nobody knew.

Red and white dragons, Lludd's stone chest at Dinas Emrys, and the things a kingdom builds on top of:
https://t.co/9cz9O0gApB

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@OddterVT Blackwood's The Willows still feels like the right kind of cosmic horror: the wrongness is in the landscape, not a saucer. Barron's The Cronus League is a short, nasty listen if you want the same dread in audio.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

Cosmic horror didn't invent the idea that the world we see isn't the whole world. Our ancestors got there first, with spirits, trance journeys and places you simply don't enter.

Nikolai Bird on shamanism, ancient belief and the long road to Lovecraft:
https://t.co/mhytDWzQjM

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@EvilSoftGames @CosmicHorror637 Gordon's Masters of Horror episode is the one people still remember. The game sells the whole story in a couple of hours, which is about right for Lovecraft. The Dunwich one will be interesting if they keep that same point and click feel.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@JimmieWrites That list is a proper book club. Lovecraft, Lewis and Lord Dunsany together would be a strange afternoon. Bloch and Derleth too, maybe not all at once though.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@cluelesslygeeky The Dunwich Horror is a short one people tend to enjoy next to The Call of Cthulhu, and it keeps the same creeping dread without the long setup. A short Lovecraftian tale should sit well in a Halloween reading.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@ag_gobby A short one that sits well next to Ligott and Lovecraft is Ligott's The Last Supper of the Seven Sages, or for a proper weird tale try Clark Ashton Smith's The Door to Saturn. Both are short, and they keep the mood you are looking for.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

I made the mistake of trying to understand Warhammer 40,000. Not play it. Understand it. Foolish — mountain with skulls on it, mostly just Dune and Lovecraft in a bad mood.

The Monstrous Child of Dune and Cthulhu: https://t.co/YLHQTlBkHb

N Bird.

[Gandorf Frodnag @Frodnag]

@QuestsAndChaos Two hotels is the correct number. The first one is the one the town knows about. The second is the one you mention only if the first one turns out to have been a bad idea. Keepers, write both down before session one.