Status Updates From The Shapes of Midnight
The Shapes of Midnight by
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Mike Finn
is 96% done
THE IMPULSE TO KILL
This time the narrator is psychopath for whom only face to face killing can bring relief. What makes the story chilling is that the narrator is not crazed or out of control. He's calm, patient, cunning and completely convinced that he's only doing what's natural.
— Aug 16, 2024 12:52AM
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This time the narrator is psychopath for whom only face to face killing can bring relief. What makes the story chilling is that the narrator is not crazed or out of control. He's calm, patient, cunning and completely convinced that he's only doing what's natural.
Mike Finn
is 86% done
THE HORROR AT CHILTON CASTLE
A full-blown Gothic nightmare complete with a stranger at a deserted village inn, a thunderstorm with fierce winds and flashes of lightning that serve as the only illumination of the Norman castle that lours over the village, a chance encounter leading to a dour mission reluctantly agreed to and a monstrous secret walled-in to a room in the deep bowels of the keep.
— Aug 15, 2024 11:27PM
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A full-blown Gothic nightmare complete with a stranger at a deserted village inn, a thunderstorm with fierce winds and flashes of lightning that serve as the only illumination of the Norman castle that lours over the village, a chance encounter leading to a dour mission reluctantly agreed to and a monstrous secret walled-in to a room in the deep bowels of the keep.
Mike Finn
is 72% done
DISAPPEARANCE
The punchline to this story is telegraphed about halfway through but that doesn't really diminish the impact as the story seems really to be about how rural life works - what people accept and what they question and how eccentricity to slide into something darker unremarked.
— Aug 15, 2024 11:50AM
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The punchline to this story is telegraphed about halfway through but that doesn't really diminish the impact as the story seems really to be about how rural life works - what people accept and what they question and how eccentricity to slide into something darker unremarked.
Mike Finn
is 67% done
WHO WAS HE?
At first, the slight tale of a recuperating man's strange encounter on the cardiac ward had me shrugging and going 'Meh... not horror.'
Then I realised how jaded my tastes have become.
It's not horror in the horror-movie-made-me-jump way but, if this had happened to me, if I was the man recounting this tale, I know I'd be haunted by it. I think that's a flavour of horror that's worth preserving.
— Aug 15, 2024 08:19AM
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At first, the slight tale of a recuperating man's strange encounter on the cardiac ward had me shrugging and going 'Meh... not horror.'
Then I realised how jaded my tastes have become.
It's not horror in the horror-movie-made-me-jump way but, if this had happened to me, if I was the man recounting this tale, I know I'd be haunted by it. I think that's a flavour of horror that's worth preserving.
Mike Finn
is 58% done
THE WILLOW PLATFORM
This story had the sort of atmosphere that I expect of an M R James ghost story. Care was taken to base it in a credible contemporary rural locale populated with believable people so as to increase the impact of the supernatural event at the heat of the story. The supernatural element didn't stir me but I liked the description of the time and place.
— Aug 14, 2024 10:47AM
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This story had the sort of atmosphere that I expect of an M R James ghost story. Care was taken to base it in a credible contemporary rural locale populated with believable people so as to increase the impact of the supernatural event at the heat of the story. The supernatural element didn't stir me but I liked the description of the time and place.
Mike Finn
is 40% done
HOUSE OF MEMORY
This story walks the border between it-was-all-in-my-imagination and sometimes-wierd things happen. It's a low key personal encounter with an event that ripples the surface of reality as the person understood it and demonstrates the power of obsession.
— Aug 13, 2024 03:17PM
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This story walks the border between it-was-all-in-my-imagination and sometimes-wierd things happen. It's a low key personal encounter with an event that ripples the surface of reality as the person understood it and demonstrates the power of obsession.
Mike Finn
is 34% done
THE PAVILLION
I love the directness and simplicity of this story. The beach pavilion in a winter storm becomes not a pleasure palace but a gloomy, watersoaked, storm damaged tomb. The main character is slowly pushed from cold-blooded calm to frantic mind-voiding terror by the environment and what he finds, and doesn't find there.
— Aug 13, 2024 09:55AM
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I love the directness and simplicity of this story. The beach pavilion in a winter storm becomes not a pleasure palace but a gloomy, watersoaked, storm damaged tomb. The main character is slowly pushed from cold-blooded calm to frantic mind-voiding terror by the environment and what he finds, and doesn't find there.
Mike Finn
is 26% done
THE CORPSE OF CHARLIE RILL
A monster story about the reanimated corpse of Charlie Rill. The corpse part is important. This isn't Charlie coming back to life. This is a dead thing, unnaturally animated. It has no thoughts, no desires. It is powered entirely be an instinctive compulsive to tear apart every living thing it meets. It's a linear tale of pointless bloody destruction. It is wonderfully, perfectly horrific.
— Aug 13, 2024 07:37AM
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A monster story about the reanimated corpse of Charlie Rill. The corpse part is important. This isn't Charlie coming back to life. This is a dead thing, unnaturally animated. It has no thoughts, no desires. It is powered entirely be an instinctive compulsive to tear apart every living thing it meets. It's a linear tale of pointless bloody destruction. It is wonderfully, perfectly horrific.
