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Spectral Realms #5
Spectral Realms No. 5: Summer 2016
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Poems
Carmilla / K. A. Opperman
Borean Soul / Jeff Burnett
Sin Eater / Jennifer Ruth Jackson
The First Haunting / M. F. Webb
The Second Haunting / M. F. Webb
The Serpent Borne of Helios / Nathaniel Reed
Coda / Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Grin / John J. Mundy
Graveyards of the Living / G. O. Clark
Only in Dreams / Darrell Schweitzer
Angry Gods / Mary Krawczak Wilson
The Forest of Horror / Frank Coffman
The Egregious Error of Werner Witherbye / John Shirley
All Masks Are Mirrors / Ann K. Schwader
The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner / Adam Bolivar
Dark Poet of My Heart / Ashley Dioses
Dark House of Hunger / D. L. Myers
The Ghoul's Dilemma / W. H. Pugmire
The Resurrection of Death / Gregory MacDonald
The City of Dreadful Life / Richard L. Tierney
The Waves of Fear / Leigh Blackmore
Underwater / Ian Futter
Sylvan Blood / Jeff Burnett
Myths and Legends / Charles D. O'Connor III
Beyond the Stones / Liam Garriock
Cast Away / Oliver Smith
Temple of the Flame / David Barker
Me / Ross Balcom
Dies Irae / Carole Abourjeili
The Alchemist's Disease / Nathaniel Reed
Transylvanian Darkness / K. A. Opperman
The Sayings of the Seers / Wade German
Antagonist / F. J. Bergmann
Heaven in Your Arms / Jennifer Ruth Jackson
Fallow Fields / Mary Krawczak Wilson
Season Spirits / Juan J. GutiErrez
Redux / John J. Mundy
Death and a Locket / Jonathan Thomas
The Cold Fog of Regret / John Shirley
The Endless Night / Christina Sng
An Existence / Ian Futter
Postcard from the Night Desert / G. O. Clark
Other Humans / Gregory MacDonald
The Festival / Chad Hensley
The Summons / D. L. Myers
A Traveler to the City / Frank Coffman
Fallen Atlantis / Ashley Dioses
Mari Lwyd / Liam Garriock
Yesterdawn / Jeff Burnett
In Nether Pits / David Barker
Dancer / Christina Sng
Alive / Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Origins / Nathaniel Reed
Atu II: The High Priestess / Leigh Blackmore
Visitor / Fred Phillips
The Fetch / John J. Mundy
R'lyeh / F. J. Bergmann
Whisper / Oliver Smith
Beauty's Veil / Gregory MacDonald
Ever Fair / Ashley Dioses
Agents of Dread / David Barker
Classic Reprints
The Song of the Sea / Edgar Saltus
Voodoo / Annice Calland
Articles
The Poets of Weird Tales: Part 2 / Frank Coffman
Reviews
The Generalist and the Specialist / S. T. Joshi
Leaves Grown Heavy with Omens / Wade German
Sex and Sin / Sunni K. Brock
Notes on Contributors
Poems
Carmilla / K. A. Opperman
Borean Soul / Jeff Burnett
Sin Eater / Jennifer Ruth Jackson
The First Haunting / M. F. Webb
The Second Haunting / M. F. Webb
The Serpent Borne of Helios / Nathaniel Reed
Coda / Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Grin / John J. Mundy
Graveyards of the Living / G. O. Clark
Only in Dreams / Darrell Schweitzer
Angry Gods / Mary Krawczak Wilson
The Forest of Horror / Frank Coffman
The Egregious Error of Werner Witherbye / John Shirley
All Masks Are Mirrors / Ann K. Schwader
The Rime of the Eldritch Mariner / Adam Bolivar
Dark Poet of My Heart / Ashley Dioses
Dark House of Hunger / D. L. Myers
The Ghoul's Dilemma / W. H. Pugmire
The Resurrection of Death / Gregory MacDonald
The City of Dreadful Life / Richard L. Tierney
The Waves of Fear / Leigh Blackmore
Underwater / Ian Futter
Sylvan Blood / Jeff Burnett
Myths and Legends / Charles D. O'Connor III
Beyond the Stones / Liam Garriock
Cast Away / Oliver Smith
Temple of the Flame / David Barker
Me / Ross Balcom
Dies Irae / Carole Abourjeili
The Alchemist's Disease / Nathaniel Reed
Transylvanian Darkness / K. A. Opperman
The Sayings of the Seers / Wade German
Antagonist / F. J. Bergmann
Heaven in Your Arms / Jennifer Ruth Jackson
Fallow Fields / Mary Krawczak Wilson
Season Spirits / Juan J. GutiErrez
Redux / John J. Mundy
Death and a Locket / Jonathan Thomas
The Cold Fog of Regret / John Shirley
The Endless Night / Christina Sng
An Existence / Ian Futter
Postcard from the Night Desert / G. O. Clark
Other Humans / Gregory MacDonald
The Festival / Chad Hensley
The Summons / D. L. Myers
A Traveler to the City / Frank Coffman
Fallen Atlantis / Ashley Dioses
Mari Lwyd / Liam Garriock
Yesterdawn / Jeff Burnett
In Nether Pits / David Barker
Dancer / Christina Sng
Alive / Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Origins / Nathaniel Reed
Atu II: The High Priestess / Leigh Blackmore
Visitor / Fred Phillips
The Fetch / John J. Mundy
R'lyeh / F. J. Bergmann
Whisper / Oliver Smith
Beauty's Veil / Gregory MacDonald
Ever Fair / Ashley Dioses
Agents of Dread / David Barker
Classic Reprints
The Song of the Sea / Edgar Saltus
Voodoo / Annice Calland
Articles
The Poets of Weird Tales: Part 2 / Frank Coffman
Reviews
The Generalist and the Specialist / S. T. Joshi
Leaves Grown Heavy with Omens / Wade German
Sex and Sin / Sunni K. Brock
Notes on Contributors
146 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
20 people want to read
About the author
S.T. Joshi
795 books453 followersSunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 18, 2021
Another perfect issue of Spectral Realms. There was just so much to love in this issue. The poems where outstanding and I know a poet created something fantastic if their piece makes me tear up. (The Endless Night by Christina Sng. A dying mother and daughter on a spaceship find a legendary creature isn't as legendary as they thought.)
Three poems stood out to me the most where the already named "The Endless Night" by Christina Sng, "The Serpent Borne of Helios and Origins" by Nathaniel Reed.
Others poems I enjoyed where:
Borean Soul by Jeff Burnett.
Only in Dreams by Darrell Schweitzer.
The Egregious Error of Werner Witherbye by John Shirley.
The Ghoul's Dilemma by W H. Pugmire.
The Resurrection of Death by Gregory MacDonald.
Beyond the Stones by Liam Garriock.
Temple of the Flame by David Barker.
The Sayings of the Seers by Wade German.
In Nether Pits by David Barker.
Dancer by Christina Sng.
Atu II: The High Priestess by Leigh Blackmore. (The most beautiful poem to a tarot card I've read.)
Visitor by Fred Phillips.
The classic reprints where lovely. The Song of the Sea by Edgar Saltus was my favorite of the two. I love the sea. So anyway sea themed gets a extra point from me.
The second part of Frank Coffman's article on the poets of Weird Tales was lovely and a reminder I need to read more on the poetry of Clark Ashton Smith.
The book reviews where good as always but bad for my wallet (laughing) as I always end up put a few new books onto my wishlist. Or in this issue case, made a book I have on said wishlist shoot up in priority.
Overall I loved this issue and will end up re-reading it many times over!
Three poems stood out to me the most where the already named "The Endless Night" by Christina Sng, "The Serpent Borne of Helios and Origins" by Nathaniel Reed.
Others poems I enjoyed where:
Borean Soul by Jeff Burnett.
Only in Dreams by Darrell Schweitzer.
The Egregious Error of Werner Witherbye by John Shirley.
The Ghoul's Dilemma by W H. Pugmire.
The Resurrection of Death by Gregory MacDonald.
Beyond the Stones by Liam Garriock.
Temple of the Flame by David Barker.
The Sayings of the Seers by Wade German.
In Nether Pits by David Barker.
Dancer by Christina Sng.
Atu II: The High Priestess by Leigh Blackmore. (The most beautiful poem to a tarot card I've read.)
Visitor by Fred Phillips.
The classic reprints where lovely. The Song of the Sea by Edgar Saltus was my favorite of the two. I love the sea. So anyway sea themed gets a extra point from me.
The second part of Frank Coffman's article on the poets of Weird Tales was lovely and a reminder I need to read more on the poetry of Clark Ashton Smith.
The book reviews where good as always but bad for my wallet (laughing) as I always end up put a few new books onto my wishlist. Or in this issue case, made a book I have on said wishlist shoot up in priority.
Overall I loved this issue and will end up re-reading it many times over!
February 10, 2019
Another great issue of my favorite poetry journal! There are some very fine pieces herein from G.O. Clark, Nathaniel Reed, Christina Sng and others, and the conclusion to Frank Coffman's essay on "The Poets of Weird Tales" is a fitting end to a very interesting survey of an important venue for early twentieth-century weird versifying.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews