Tag Archives: Horror

Cthulhu Mythos – Halloween Read 2026!

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With a little help from Gemini, I’ve put together a curated collection of Cthulhu Mythos stories. This includes some core H.P. Lovecraft canon, most of which I’ve read before, and stories by Robert E. Howard and Ashton Clark Smith, which I have not read. The three authors were in regular contact as they collaborated on these mostly in the 1930s.

DISCLAIMER: All these links seem safe to me, but use your best judgment. Also, I know there are things in Lovecraft’s writing that can be offensive to modern sensibilities, and as I have not read the other stories I don’t know how inoffensive or offensive they might be. Read them with your 1930s hat on and if you feel they are particularly bad, feel free to let me know.

I gave Gemini the title and the prompt “lots of tentacles please”. That’s all!
  1. “The Nameless City” (Lovecraft)
  2. “The Shadow Kingdom” (Howard)
  3. “The Call of Cthulhu” (Lovecraft)
  4. “The Fire of Ashurbanipal” (Howard)
  5. “The Whisperer in Darkness” (Lovecraft)
  6. “The Door to Saturn” (Smith)
  7. “The Coming of the White Worm” (Smith)
  8. “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” (Smith)
  9. “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (Lovecraft)
  10. “Worms of the Earth” (Howard)
  11. “The Mound” (Lovecraft & Bishop)
  12. “At the Mountains of Madness” (Lovecraft)
  13. “The Empire of the Necromancers” (Smith)
  14. “The Colossus of Ylourgne” (Smith)
  15. “The Dark Eidolon” (Smith)

the Overlook Hotel

Ever wonder if the Overlook Hotel from The Shining is real, and where it is? It is real, it’s in Oregon, and you can stay there. Its real name is The Timberline. The interior is not like the movie though, those shots were done in a movie studio. That’s probably good, unless you are looking for a creepy Halloween experience. There is no hedge maze, but the mountain setting and snow are real. It is most certainly not shut down for the winter, because it is a ski resort.

haunted houses

The New York Times has a roundup of haunted house stories just in time for Halloween. I have read only two on the list – The Shining, which I liked, and Slade House, which I didn’t.

I’m not too big on horror but I occasionally dabble. Sometimes you remember where you were when you read certain books, and it happens that I read these two books in Thailand two Octobers four years apart. I like Lovecraft. I am interested in reading the “laundry series” by Charles Stross, which sounds like a mix between Men in Black and Monster Hunter International (which I also read in Thailand incidentally – traveling is when I read and Thailand is a place I travel, so there.)