Still Researching Lovecraft

Posted on June 24, 2025 by Mark Hayes

I am still engaged in a project involving a book about the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. I originally mentioned this just over a month ago, in a post called Researching Lovecraft… This as you may have guessed is a follow on from that post, as people liked it and because I failed my sanity rolls, so had to crack on with writing the book….

Part of the brief is a short biography of Howard, between 5k and 10k, which covers his life from birth to death and everything in-between. While I have a copy of S T Joshi’s biography on old tenacle hugger (which I recommend for those of an academic lint), somewhere in the upper library, otherwise known as the spare bedroom where men fear to tread. It has been some years since I read it and I felt it would be cheating to borrow heavily from it. it felt more important to start afresh, keep it lighter than Joshi, while not skipping over anything important. I have my own style which any reader of my non-fiction will recognize. One perhaps less worthy in an academic sense, but one would hope more readable.

Besides which, a short biography is supposed to lean into the ‘short’.

That all said, there has been no shortage of research involved. What is included in the final cut maybe 20% at most of the notes I took double checking things I already know and fresh research into anything I didn’t. There were some fun little facts thrown up along the way, which may make the cut in one way or another but the rabbit holes were deep, the warrens winding and there was many a twist back on oneself along the way. So here are some of the more… unusual notes, or entertaining little factoids, depending on the way you look at them.

Howard with his mum and dad age 2 (that’s Howard at age 2, his mum and dad were older, obviously)

Young Howard wore a dress, this was not unusual, it was in fact very normal for young boys in the 1890’s, even if it does seem a little odd from a modern perspective… He also wore pink which was considered a very manly colour. Any conclusions you draw from this says more about you than it does about Howard…

Lovecraft’s maternal Grandfather had the wonderful name, Whipple Van Buran Phillips.

Whipple was a freemason and successful businessman. He also owned much of the land around a small town called Greene in the west of Rhode Island state.

When Lovecraft first met his later wife Sonia Greene, he defiantly didn’t say , “Ma Grand pa Whipple used to own him a town called Greene.”

The above is not because it would have been a terrible chat up line… But because it would have made Howard sound like a backwoods racoon-hunter, which would have horrified him.

When he got himself appointed as chairman of the UAPA’s Department of Public Criticism he embarked on a campaign to advocate the use of ‘British English’ over ‘American English’ which he believed, in his typically xenophobic way, to be a bastardised version of the language, watered down by immigrants from Russia, the Slavic nations and Jews.

Irony flag: American English is far closer to the English of Shakespeare than modern British English…

This was also why ‘The Colour from Outer Space’, using the British spelling, because xenophobia…

Second Irony flag: Sonia Greene, Lovecraft’s wife, until he died as he never filed the papers for his devoice, was actuality a Ukrainian of Jewish stock, though she came to New York as a young child. She was therefore exactly the kind of immigrate he thought were ruining New England.

Speaking of Sonia , Howards aunts disapproved of her, not because of her heritage, or even that she was a widow with a teenage daughter, but because they thought she was a gold digger…

Third irony flag: Once they were married Sonia Greene supported Howard finically for years, as he was quite unable to get a job…

Sonia became an unintentional bigamist when she remarried in 1936, because she believe Howard had filed the devoice papers. he had, but he had field them in his desk draw rather than with the county clerks office. She did not learn she had still been married to him until 1945, when she also found out he had been dead for eight years…

Sonia later wrote a short memoir entitled ‘The Private Life of H. P. Lovecraft‘ in which she said he performed ‘satisfactorily’ as a lover. Damn girl…

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Maybe Tuesday

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Mark Hayes

In another universe, where a man in a small lab in China didn’t drop a non-descript vail on the floor (allegedly) on a Tuesday in late 2019, the release of my 2020 novel ‘Maybe’ might have gone differently. It must have been a Tuesday when he dropped the vial, these things always happen on a Tuesday. No one ever accidently changed the course of history on a Monday.

As it was Maybe was released in mid March 2020 just before the world was shutdown. Of all the issues Lockdown caused, the release of a novel by a indie author been scuppered is a fairly minor one I know. The only person truly affected by this bit of lockdown fall out was me, but affected I was. I had a grand list of 10 events I was going to do from the end of march onwards. I had never done many events at the time, only a couple in fact. but I was going to brave the world and throw myself into it that spring. I was full of energy and Maybe was my totem. I planned to write two more novels in the Maybe series, I planned to write them both over the course of that year, fueled by the energy of hope and passion.

Lockdown happened, and while it has been six years now since that first lockdown, the events scene has never really recovered. Several large events were wiped out. Promoters lacked the energy to start over. Sci-fi conventions, steampunk gatherings and other events just do not get the same footprints they got pre-covid.

Other things happened too. From a mental health point of view Lockdown was isolating for many people. For me personally a little more so as I live alone. While you might think been forced to stay at home would be ideal for a writer, the ‘great Lockdown Novel’ really isn’t a thing, most writers I know struggled, as did most of the other artists I know. Turns out when you must stay home, the last place your want to be is home.

As a book Maybe struggled to get off its feet. People weren’t reading in the summer of 2020, I have the sales figures to back up that statement for all my books. Sales did not pick up till we came out of lockdown. The ‘book tour’ of conventions never happened. And I could not write the sequel because I could not write. By the time we got passed it all and I found the will to write again in late 2021, it felt like Maybe needed to sit a while. I needed to write other things until I found the headspace for the lost covid novels

Despite all this ‘Maybe’ has been among my most successful novels aside the Hannibal Smyth books. It is very well reviewed and very well liked, not only by my readers, but also by me. I reread it over the winter while I was writing Lucifer Mandrake, and found I wanted to get back to Eliza Mayabee, and Benjamin West. I also had around 30000 words in abandoned drafts that were not quite the way I wanted to go with the next novel. The ballad of Maybes needs two more books, and I need to write them. I have vague outlines for them both that keep changing and at some point I will get down and write them , and nothing is ever thrown away. Even if I never use any of those 30000 words, they exist in my internal cannon. I know this, I will get to it…

Which brings me to ‘On a Different Tuesday’ the latest Harvey Duckman Anthology. This one is a collection of Alternate History. Everything from Steampunk to Ancient Reme (a version of Rome if it was founded by the other twin), dark visons of a Sherwood than never was, or, well, anything. Stories set in alterative versions of the past where something is a little different. So, right in the middle of my wheel house…

Typically I had an abundance of ideas, and typically I struggled more with writing a story for this anthology than I did for the previous four combined. I am in the middle of a complicated project taking much of my writing brain, and coming off a new book in Lucifer Mandrake. I struggled with half a dozen stories and none of them were working, and the deadline came and went as I struggled with the last idea I had. I was in fact close to just abandoning it and for the first time not writing a story for a Harvey Anthology. I would not submit anything I wasn’t happy with. I refuse to half ass a story or just throw something together that would devalue the anthology. I had a duty of care to the Harvey project, to the editor, to other writers involved, and frankly to myself. Because I would have to look at the book and know I wasn’t happy with my own contribution.

Then on the Tuesday after the deadline had passed* I remembered the 30000 abandoned words of the second maybe novel, and that in the midst of that manuscript there was a couple of chapters that worked as a short story. Not could work if I nailed them together with a few nouns and taped over the cracks with an adverb or three. Did work. And not just in a ‘oh this is part of a bigger thing’ kind of way, but as a self contained piece.

*Yes it had to be a Tuesday because it always is, and yes I was passed the deadline, but I look cute in a kilt so what are you gonna do?

So I dug them out, put the two chapters together in a separate word documents, read it through twice, then made notes as I read it a third time. Then spent six hours rewriting it so it actually worked.

‘An Infatuation of Maybe’ was the result. Its a short story in the Maybe cannon , set between book1 and what will eventually be book 2. It is the first new Maybe story since the release of the novel way back in march 2020, and so it is at least five years late… But hopefully those readers of mine that loved Maybe and want more Eliza Mayabee stories will be pleased. Also hopefully it will drive me to write the second and third novels. If the world doesn’t fall apart next Tuesday.

On A Different Tuesday is available now on preorder and will be fully released on kindle and in paperback and hardback on the 4th of July. With 17 stories by 17 authors, and I am proud to be among them once more. It is and will be fabulous, because Harvey collections always are and I am very proud to be among them, as I almost wasn’t, and because I found the story worthy of joining this talented and delightfully divergent procrastination of authors.

Harvey Duckman is back with a fabulous collection of stories examining alternate histories, from the Romans, to the middle ages, through the 1600s to the Victorians and the 20th century and beyond… what if history wasn’t quite as our records remember?

Looking for original, wonderfully imaginative stories from a bunch of fantastic writers? Sit back and enjoy a glimpse into our weird and wonderful worlds.

Featuring funny, poignant, dark, thought-provoking and always entertaining short stories from Liz Tuckwell, Steven C. Davis, John Holmes-Carrington, Anna Atkinson-Dunn, Darren Goossens, Hugh Alan, Mark Hayes, CK Roebuck, Mary F. Carr, Keith Errington, Reino Tarihmen, Zachary Taylor Branch, Ben Sawyer, Phil Sculthorpe, Davia Sacks, Will Nett and Michael A. Clark.

All this means A ballad of Maybe’s (of which maybe was always intended to be the first book) has grown a little larger, at last. Which pleases me a great deal. If you have never read Maybe this may be a good time to grab a copy. Of course there is no bad time to grab a copy, but one feels this is perhaps a good time to mention it exists.

Because Eliza told me to tell you, and one does not argue with Eliza Mayabee if one knows what good for you.

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Dear Edgar – 32 : Never Bet the Devil Your Head

Posted on June 18, 2025 by Mark Hayes

“I’ll bet the devil my head” as the expression goes...

Or rather doesn’t, because no, I have never heard the expression either.

However as our dear Edgar wrote this story in 1841 there is a fair chance it was an expression at the time, but one that has long since fallen into disuse. But if so then it was a bit of a silly expression, even used colloquially, because as we all know, if you make a bet with the devil, there is a good chance he is gonna turn the odds against you. So may be there is a moral to this story… Or may be there isn’t… Because after a number of serious stories, deep philosophies, and complex tales, with this story Poe goes back to irreverence, satire and has a little dig at those who say every story should have a moral.

As this is satire, our dear Edgar did not hold back. Subtle went out the window from the start. The narrator of this little tale is Poe himself, who starts with mention of the critique that every tale should have a moral or be without worth. Looking back at the most recent stories Poe wrote prior to this one you would be hard pressed to find one with a moral as such. Something our narrator takes a moment to decry.

It is then the real tale begins, as Poe tells us of his good friend Toby Dammit. A man of more than a few vices. This is apparently, according to Edgar in the guise of the narrator, because Toby’s mother was sinister handed and used to flog him with her left hand. Apparently, this is considered to be most improper. This unfortunate parenting has driven Dammit to become overly fond of making spurious bets and the expression “I’ll bet the devil my head”.

Now, Poe being a man of fine morals, no matter what the critics say about his stories, does his best to break his friends bad habits. But Toby is, well Toby and sometimes you just have to let your friend be who they are.

So one day the two friends are traveling somewhere or other and they come across a bridge with a canopy over it, a gloomy sort of bridge but Toby Dammit is not a man to be affected by such things and is in a fine mood. So across the bridge they go. until at the midpoint there is a small turnstile and Toby doesn’t feel like paying a penny to go through it. “I’ll bet the devil my head I can jump over that.” says Toby with a grin…

It is then Poe spots a odd little man stood near the turnstile grinning. A very odd little man , with something off about him, why could it be he is the devil himself, come to take that bet?

At this point I’ll step away from telling you the tale itself, so as not to ruin the series of increasingly farcical jokes that are told as the tale progress. Lets just say Toby loses his bet, very defiantly loses his bet. And what happens to him after that is, well I am not sure deserved is the right term. What does happen is Poe gets all that seriousness out of his system because when he goes for satire and humour, he very much goes for satire and humour. It is all very over the top but it isn’t pretending not to be. In the process Poe takes shots across the bows of homoeopathy, which to his great surprise doesn’t cure his decapitated friend. Transcendentalism takes a couple of punches too as do sophists. But mostly this is a kick to the groin of those that believe a story only has worth if it has a moral at the end.

Poe is very definitely venting his spleen here, but doing so with humour. In your face, subtle as a house brick through a window humour, but humour none the less. My own tastes tend to run a little more subtle I will be honest, but there is a ribald silliness about this which is clearly Poe getting some stuff off his chest. It is also fun, which makes a change after a lot of serious worthy Poe stories, that were serious and worthy but not overly fun.

THREE RAVENS WATCHING AS FOOLS MAKE BETS WITH THE DEVIL…

Should you read it : Its short light relief and should make you smile, and hopefully i have not spoiled any of the jokes too much

Should you not read it: Its not exactly cerebral, and suffers form a lot of Poe’s satire does in that it either hits or misses depending on your mood

Bluffers fact: In 1957 a radio play of this story Toby Dammit was played by Daws Butler, a voice actor I suspect you have never heard of, but you have heard his voice (or versions of it) a million times. Among his many many roles, he was Hucklberry Hound, Droopy, Hair Bear (of the hair bear bunch), Bingo (of the banana splits), Snap, Crackle and Pop (of rice Krispies), and Yogi Bear…

This means Yogi Bear and Hair Bear are the same person… Oh and for a short time (in the original pilot episode) he was both Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone, which must have confused Wilma and Betty.

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Cogkneys, Minoan’s and Devilish Preludes

Posted on June 11, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Anyone following this blog over the years will be aware my taste in reading can be a tad ecliptic. Well buckle up buttercup, ecliptic was three turns back.

Completely Ribald : for your pleasure. By Mr Arthur Foot and Miss Tilly Maydme

The Cogkneys are one of the alter egos of Karl & Andrea Burnett who have been entertaining steampunks and others for over fifteen years with ridiculous songs, ribald jokes and props that are fully in keeping with the music hall traditions, mixed with all kinds of modern pop culture refences. This book contains those fifteen years of lyrics and poetry with such delights as

‘Hot Glue Gun Blues’ which if you have ever tried to put together a cosplay costume’ of any kind you will recognise.

‘Oh those naughty Tentacles’ because lets face it why not

And the seminal work ‘My Childhood Sweetheart is Featured in an Erotic Daguerreotype I Purchased From the Tabacconists’ (something of a nod to the 80’s classic ‘Centrefold’ by the J Giles band)

Fifteen years is a long time, and there is a lot of this sort of thing… and a wonderful thing it is too. But there are also several short prose stories and a novella which feature the Burnetts alter egos, and the same music hall style risky humour and interplay that anyone who has seen the Cogkneys live will recognise and laugh along with.

This is a very silly book, a heavy tomb as well as it was fifteen years in the making, it is also not a book you sit down to read, its a book you leave on the coffee table and pick up occasionally while you drink your tea to peruse for a couple of minutes… An hour later you will remember you acctually intended to do something else, and you will , the moment you stop giggling…

You should buy a copy for that reason alone, and if you get a chance to see the Cogkenys live, or any of their many alter egos, pop along. You will be entertained, I promise you this.

A final note, Karl Burnett once appeared in a play called ‘The Drag King in Yellow’ this was his finest achievement as the play is one of the greatest works in the history of human civilization. He fails to mention it this at all in this book, which seems something of an oversight…

Labrys & Horns: An Introduction to Modern Minoan Paganism By Laura Perry

I am the worlds worst pagan. I say this because I follow no particular tradition but my own. I have a self constructed belief system based on a heady mix of paganism and quantum physics. You can read something of this here if you wish. Because of this I read a fair amount of physics journals as well as modern pagan books. I also have little rituals, that I don’t even recognise as rituals. But as I say I am the worlds worst pagan, but I am open to pagan thought.

Laura Perry is someone who came into my orbit (on face book , blue sky and blogs) because of Nimue Brown. Laura is not the worlds worst pagan… She is an expert in Minoan culture and a practising member (and one of the leaders/founders) of Ariadne’s Tribe, a world wide pagan group following the tradition and practises of Modern Minoan Paganism.

Partly this book explores the history and culture of the Minoan civilization that flourished on Crete between 1900 and 1400 BCE. Before the Mycenaean Greeks, and a thousand years before the classical Greeks. To put that in perspective, if we were now classical Greece around the time of Plato, the Minoan’s culture for us ended before the Norman invasion… Minoan culture was a long… time ago, Old Kingdom Egypt ago. What we know about them is based mainly on archology, luckily there is a lot of archology.

What we know about Minoan religious practises is also based mainly on archology, and not a little guess work, though very educated guesses informed by the archology and what was recorded by the ancient Greeks a thousand years later which would also have been guess work and biased by their own beliefs which to an extent grew out of Minoan culture.

It is an interpretation of Minoan belief systems based on years of research that forms the other part of this book, along with guidance and practical advice, for those that may want to follow the path of Ariadne’s Tribe, or incorporate aspects of Minoan ritual into their own lives.

This book is on every level fascinating no matter if you feel a personal connection to Minoan belief or you just wish to explore one of the most ancient Mediterranean cultures and walk the footsteps of our forbearers. It is also written with an accessible richness of humanity to it that makes it a joy to read, no matter what you may believe, or be open to believing…

A final note. Above my front door, on the inside of the house, facing into the house, is a greensman mask, hand painted by me, that I hung there several years ago because it felt the right place to hang it. I reach up and touch it when ever I leave the house to go out into the world for a while. It is not a conscious thing, and before I read this book I had no idea why I did so, indeed barely realised I did. Now I know why, because even the worlds worst pagan needs little rituals to ground themselves in this world…

Devilish Preludes by Ben Sawyer

Ben Sawyer is a lovely fellow author from York who writes about Holly Trinity, a sleeping protector of the city who awakens when she is needed to fight monsters and ghosts, with an umbrella and a Kate Bush mix tape. I know Ben because he writes for the Harvey Duckman anthologies and I have shared many a table with him at conventions trying to convince people to buy dead trees covered in ink.

Last year he released a short story in ebook on Amazon and I pointed out he could have made it into an admittedly slip, paperback, which he could put on the table at conventions and sell the way drug dealers offer dime bags for free to get people hooked… But with dead trees cover in ink. He ignored this advice, so I berated him some more when I next saw him in Leeds at a convention, after I had been drinking with my son the night before and had the worlds worst hang over having been dragged to the dive bar he manages till five in the morning.

Apparently Ben finally took my advice… This however is not that book…

This short tome holds within it three short stories that expand the Hollyverse. For a start only one of the stories features Holly herself, and only one is set in York. The first is some what chilling and involves the mystery of who puts rope swings on trees. The second involves rules, and ‘The Department’ of whom Ben could write a while series of novels I suspect (and may encourage him to do so) . The third, well I have not read the third yet for a reason but I have no doubt it will be fabulous.

If you have never read any of Bens, Holly Trinity novels, you should dip your toes in the water with this little book. If you have read both of Bens current Holly novels ( the third is due in October this year) you will need no encouragement to read this book, so get on with it.

A final note, the reason I have not read the third story in this book is I have not yet finished Bens second novel because my to read pile is rediculous…

A Final Final note: For various reason I have not completely finished (or at least finished with) all three of these books, not entirely, The Cockney’s because its a coffee table book, and I have lost my coffee table, so it is sat on my desk. I delve into it now and again when I want a smile. Laura’s because in parts it’s a refence book on practical paganism and you never finish a book like that, you return to it constantly, and Bens because I need to finish Monsters at the gate first.

I reviewed them now because it felt like the time to do so .

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Dear Edgar ~31 : The Colloquy of Monos and Una

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Mark Hayes

I generally like a little philosophical pondering. While in my own fiction I generally endeavour to write an engaging story before anything else, the odd bit of philosophical pondering and even metaphysical debate has been known to find its way in. The mysteries of existence have ever fascinated me, and I studied such for my degree. I am, technically at least, a philosopher, and have been known to read Nietzsche, Descartes, even Plato for fun. All of which would suggest that I should enjoy this, the second of a trio of dialogues our Dear Edgar wrote to engage in pondering upon matters of existence between spirits in the after life…

However, given the first of the trio was The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion which I found less than entirely engaging, I tempered my ardour somewhat in advance. The first of these tales earned a solitary raven with good reason. It was at best dull, at worst somewhat unreadable. More importantly it didn’t really have anything to say, instead the spirts in question discussed the end of the world, the inspiration for which was a doomsday cult for an Armageddon that never happened. The story of the inspiration was far more interesting that the dialogue Dear Edgar wrote.

This did not bode well… But I took an open mind into the story.

Unlike the previous dialogue this tale is acctually a philosophical and metaphysical dialogue between two characters. In this case the characters in question go by the names Monos and Una, which are in turn the Greek and Latin for one. Between them they, and by extension Poe, explore themes of life, death, the nature of existence, and the relationship between the mortal world and the spiritual.

One of the issues with this piece of philosophical meandering wrapped up and a dialogue between two spirits is however is it fails to do what the best philosophy almost always does, its fails to express anything with a succinct beauty. The quote up above ‘All that we see or seem is but a dram within a dream’ is not from this dialogue, it is from a poem Pow wrote nine years later. Yet in comparison it is a much better piece of philosophy than this laboured piece, at least in my opinion for whatever that may be worth.

Written on the footsteps of The Island of the Fay there is a general theme informed by Poe’s growing abhorrence of North Eastern states of America’s increasing drive in the 1840’s towards mechanization and a primally industrial culture. He had developed the opinion that there was a need to return to nature to redefine the soul of humanity. There is however more than a degree of hippie-dippieness going on here. There are broader themes in regards to life, death, the impermanence of existence, decay both moral and physical.

It really is a bundle of laughs….

I am in fairness doing this dialogue a disservice here, compared with its predecessors this conversation has a lot to say and explores several interesting themes. It does however suffer from the same issue as the first in that it is a conversation between two entities who have passed beyond and, importantly, not an actual story. Instead it is a frame work for our Dear Edgar to explore his idea’s and concepts. It is rich with imagery and somewhat beautiful if occasionally macabre prose. It isn’t however a narrative, which, to be fair, it was never intended to be. The characters of Monos and Una are sympathetic allegories of unity and loneliness. The conversation is interesting in the abstract, but a tad indulgent as philosophy.

The problem I have with it is it isn’t a story, and while philosophically it is interesting Poe is far better at expressing complex themes and idea through an actual narrative than in what is a forced and somewhat disappointing way.

TWO RAVENS EXPRESSING CONCEPTS OF IMORTALITY WHILE DEAD

Should you read it : If you enjoy a philosophical meander

Should you not read it: If you are looking for a story, just avoid this as there isn’t one here.

Bluffers fact: By the time this ‘story’ was published (September 1941) Poe was several months into his stint as editor of Graham’s Magazine. Of his time at the magazine he said this.

“Perhaps the editors of no magazine, either in America or in Europe, ever sat down, at the close of a year, to contemplate the progress of their work with more satisfaction than we do now. Our success has been unexampled, almost incredible. We may assert without fear of contradiction that no periodical ever witnessed the same increase during so short a period.”

So, he was not full of himself at the time at all….

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Extra-dimensional conjurer…

Posted on May 28, 2025 by Mark Hayes

An interesting on fellow Harvey writer Ben Sawyers blog in which he accuses me of being an extra-dimensional conjurer…

I’ve been called worse ( and I may add that to my BlueSky handle…)

The Places in Between

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Dear Edgar 30 ~ The Island of the Fay

Posted on May 21, 2025 by Mark Hayes

I have something of a prelection for prose poetry, that is to say prose written with a certain poetical lint, serving to describe a scene or and idea, rather than tell a story in a more traditional manner. Those who have read my fiction will perhaps be unsurprised by this, specifically my short fiction which often adopts this style of story telling though the focus of a narrator.

Done well, and one flatters one self that one occasionally one succeeds, a reader should be drawn into a tale that is not entirely a tale. A tale that lacks dialogue beyond the internal dialogue of the narrator, is awash with description and depiction without the most common forms of narrative.

Done badly… Well you lose the readers interest long before the story is complete and they will wander off disinterested.

Also, almost every ‘rule’ expounded in modern creative writing courses rails against prose poetry of this form. This is not how you should write modern narrative fiction… Needless to say I don’t… But then I like to hang around with dead authors a lot, and prose poetry was far more common back in the day. Several Lovecraft ‘tales’ fall under this banner, Nyarlathotep been my favorite example.

Several Poe stories have elements of prose poetry to them too. Silence been a prominent example among the early tales. This should hardly be a surprise that Poe wrote short stories that were also prose poems. he was after all as much a poet as a story teller. But with the exception of Silence few other tales really fall into the category. That is until this next tale, The Island of the Fay, which is undoubtedly prose poetry in both structure and content. I should there for love it… Take this exert for example…

I observed a singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect—bright, slender and graceful—of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all; and although no airs blew from out the Heavens, yet every thing had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings

I should love this, and yet…

The trouble is ‘The Island of the Fay’, though beautifully written , haunting and indeed poetic… it lacks any actual story. Or to be more exact the story serves only to give the prose a direction, which is vague at best. There is a dream like quality to bits of it but it lacks any purpose. The main thrust is the loss of the spiritual, magical, world due to our expanding knowledge of science and mathematics.

The more we understand the world, the more of its mystery and wonder is lost to us… Which is a sentiment I don’t entirely disagree with. Yet it is lost within the narrative which wanders off track as the narrator becomes more fanciful, despite that been very much what should happen. THe narrator witnesses the last of the fay among the trees and shrubs of a isolated bit of wilderness. An island still enchanted with the older world we have move on from. The imagery and description of all this is a delight, yet somehow not what it should be.

Poes writing in this story is beautiful, and I honestly hope others feel a connection with it, yet for some reason I did not. I read this tale more times than usual when doing these pieces, wanting to love it, wanting to feel moved by it. It is prose poetry, of that have no doubt, it is wonderfully written also, have no doubt of that. But for a reason I can not define it fails to tug at my heart the way prose poetry normally does.

I can not tell you why it leaves me flat but perhaps it is because I feel it was almost something more. Every element is there to be something special, the prose, the poetic nature, the subject matter, everything… Yet some how it isn’t, for me at least. It is an almost story, almost wonderful, but falling far short of this.

The story itself has little real substance, it is there to frame the telling. But that is not uncommon in such a piece, and should be forgivable. And yet… as I say, it missed my heart.

THREE BEAUTIFUL RAVENS THAT SOME HOW FAIL TO MURDER MY SOUL

Should you read it : Despite what I have said, yes, and I hope it fills your heart with melancholy joy that I wished it would have filled mine with.

Should you not read it: There is no reason to avoid it

Bluffers fact: The Island of the Fay is also the name of the 120th release ( 29th studio album , there is a ridiculous amount of live albums) by somewhat eccentric German band Tangerine Dream. It was the first of the bands ‘Sonic Poems’ albums.

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Occasional unattributed wisdoms

Posted on May 14, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Once in a while, when least expected, I manage what could be mistaken for an intelligent thought on Blue Sky. One try’s not to get caried away by such things. Here though, for your possible amusement, are some of my own favorites, without any attribution, or indeed context in regard to why I said made them…

In the beginning there was darkness, and then the lord said “let there be light!” So, the question is, who was he speaking to?

The perfect sentence comes to you at 3am and then you can’t get back to sleep because you are thinking about it. In the morning it has gone…

I catch up with the news once a day , mid evening , for 15-20 minutes , then reward myself with a human interest story about a baby marmoset All news that is in any way important on any given day can be expressed and delivered in 20 minutes (+ human interest marmoset)

I should add the marmoset can be a flacons chick, a pig or a small horse, but never, and I mean never, a vicar in Croydon there are rules people.

Stare long enough into the void, and your eyes go a little squiffy.

Don’t have kids After a time they become adults Then they drag you out around Leeds drinking till the early hours… Don’t do this if you then have to work a table at a comic con the following day….

We left late stage capitalism for the fresh hell of corporate feudalism. As one of the peasants I am thinking of running off to the woods with a longbow, and building a tree fort.

You are never too old to follow your dreams, but as you get older, catching them becomes more of a struggle and indeed remembering what they were.

The true wealth of a society is not measured by how many of its citizens are billionaires. But by how few of its citizens live in poverty Anyone who does not understand that, has no business being in politics.

One feels compelled to point out this is perfectly normal abject terror, not some deep seated existential dread.

He thought he was but a flouncy blouse and case of syphilis away from being the next Bryon, but then I suppose aren’t we all.

‘enjoy a midnight salad’ This is doubtless an innocent activity and any less than innocent implications I may have read into those words only speak to how my mind works…

There is no name for the terror of awaiting your new novels first amazon review… The soul crushing darkness of hope and fear Somethings are too terrible to have names

What to wear on a blood moon you ask? The obvious choice is of course to wear the blood of your vanquished enemies, painted upon you with a mixture of ashes and spit, but a nice cardigan and a thick scarf are also an option.

I was about to ask “What cursed espresso macchiato song?” Then I realised this was a trap all along…

If you have enjoyed this wonder through the whimsy, you can always follow me on BlueSky, which is like twitter without the ‘twits’* by clicking on the link/picture below.

*twits been a polite term for racist, homophobic, right wing, cretinous trolls. Of which Blue Sky is delightful absent…

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Researching Lovecraft

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Mark Hayes

I am currently engaged, or more correctly have been engaged, in a project involving a book about the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. You may be aware I previously wrote a book on Lovecraft’s fiction. A bluffers guide of sorts to his writings and stories. It started as a series of blog posts and accidentally became a book, which has been surprisingly successful for a book I never originally intended to write…

The upshot of writing that book is I am perceived as something of an expert on Lovecraft in general. Which given I hung around with him for about five years while I was researching and writing the first book, is not unfair. However a book about Lovecraft’s creatures and worlds is a very different tentacle shaped handbag to one about his fiction. The brief is more restrictive, and wider at the same time. Thus it is requiring a whole lot of additional research, because of course it does…

Or at least, I am doing a whole lot of additional research, whether it is required or not, because that is generally what happens when I work on non-fiction, or on fiction come to that… But with non-fiction this tends to throw up fun little footnotes*, which I have called ‘notables’ in my current WIP folder for this one.

*where as in fiction it tends to present itself as my narrator wandering off track for a while…

So here me, back up to my neck with old tentacle hugger, getting annoyed at him. Just like old times… thus here are a few ‘notables’ which will probably find the cutting room floor in the end but have amused me for one reason or another in the meantime.

1/ There is an ancient city named Sarnath (which dates back to beyond the 5th century BCE) in the Uttar Pradesh region of India. It was there the Buddha gave the ‘Dhammacakkappavattana Sutra’ or ‘The sermon of the deer park’ not long after he had gained enlightenment. It was also where the Kassapa Buddha (the Buddha before Buddha) was born, which was why the newly enlighten Buddha travelled there to teach.

Lovecraft claimed to have never heard of Sarnath, that he invented it himself, and that this shares the name with one of humanity most ancient cities is purely coincidental.  

2/ It is more than likely that Lovecraft derived the name Shub-Niggurath from a passage in ‘Idle Days on the Yann’ by Lord Dunsany always one of Lovecraft’s favourite writers.

‘I liked not to pray to a jealous God there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were being humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, ‘

3/ There is a dark elongated region along the equator of the planet Pluto that for a long time had been known as ‘the whale’ due to its shape. A NASA team involved in the New Horizons mission proposed changing the name to the ‘Cthulhu Region’, and it was given the informal name ‘Cthulhu Macula’. The International Astronomical Union vetoed the idea, possibly due to a chronic lack of whimsey

4/ Aside the version of Dagon created by Lovecraft that appears in so many Lovecraft inspired texts, the Mesopotamian version of Dagon appears in a broad suave of literature. He is mentioned both Paradise Lost by Milton, and of all things Middlemarch by George Elliot.  

5/ Nyarlathotep is not in the early Lovecraft story that predates the Dark Pharaoh, ‘The Crawling Chaos’ Lovecraft merely reused the name because he ‘liked the sound of it’  

6/ The Selkie’s in the mythologies of the Baltic and North Sea peoples. Selkies Human – seal shape shifters who also inter breed with humans. Though in Selkie tales of Orkney and Shetland it is often the humans who mistreat the Selkies. Stealing their seal skins to force them into servitude of one sort or another. The humans are usually punished in the end.

Lovecraft would certainly have been aware of Selkie legends, and possibly inspired by them.         

You may have noticed an aquatic to some of these, I have spent at least three days messing about with Deep Ones and speculating as to whether the race can not longer breed among themselves or not and so need to create hybrids to keep the race alive. And if water based lubricants are ineffective or not… It would however explain Hartlepool, and the towns obsession with hanging monkeys… Its been a strange couple of days.

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Quiddling for Quizzels

Posted on May 9, 2025 by Mark Hayes

(This is originally something I wrote for Hopeless Vendetta, in November last year. It is something of an autumn story, so entirely out of place mid spring… But I republish here because I want to, and readers of my blog and the hopeless one may over lap but not always.)

Quiddling* for Quizzels

The quills of a Quizzel have long been sought after by islanders as roasted in vinegar, they harden till the resemble long steel pins. Quills from the ridge that runs down their back in particular make fine needles.

It is said that if you cover a captured Quizzel in clay and bake the whole beast, they also make for fine eating, though if you over roast your clay packed Quizzel the clay will harden to the point you need a hammer and chisel to break it open. But on pulling the hardened clay shell apart all the quill’s will come free allowing you to devour the succulent meat of the Quizzel.

This same method can be used to cook hedgehogs, which are smaller creatures but otherwise much like the Quizzel, which some say tastes like chicken. Having tried this island delicacy only once I can say this much. Those who say it tastes like chicken have never tasted chicken.

The Quizzel is a shy beast, it is said to be about two foot long with an elongated nose, timid and known to hide in piles of leaves or other foliage. Given the propensity of Hopeless residents to bake them in a ball of clay I cannot say I blame the beast. When threatened they curl up into a ball. Quills extended. As the quills are both sharp and hard enough to go through leather soles, walking through piles of leaves is inadvisable if there is a Quizzel about. Nor is it wise to use them as an improvised football.

It is however perhaps the usefulness of the quills that has led to the age-old Island tradition on the last day of autumn, whence the islanders take down their family Quiddle sticks, hand them out to the children and send them off quiddling.

A quiddling stick is about three feet long with the bottom wrapped in old cloths to make a padded ball, this part is called the quiddle. Quiddling requires the stick to be thrust repeatedly into piles of leaves in the hopes that if there is a Quizzel in residence it will ‘spike up’ and thus be impale by its  own quills into the quiddle whence it can be removed from the leaf pile safely.

The Quiddling hunt is accompanied by much shouting, screaming and running about and normally last for the whole of the morning after which successful ‘Quiddlers’ are supposed to return with their catches. Though, more often than not, the children get bored of the hunt and use the padded quiddling sticks to beat each other. Fights erupt. And eventually the adults declare the hunt at an end and the quiddling stick is returned to its place of honor above the fireplace. 

The Quiddling hunts at the orphanage are particularly violent affairs… 

Sadly, in recent years Quizzel have become rare, indeed in my lifetime I have never heard of one being captured despite the great enthusiasm of the annual Quiddling hunts. These days of course I do not partake in the hunt itself as such is the task of children. Instead, I share the many mugs of drop apple cider with the adults who reminisce about the great quiddling hunts of old. Mostly they reminisce about the fights.

Few if any can ever recall capturing a Quizzel, though they all swear to know someone who has.   

*Authors note.  Quiddling is an 18th century word, it means to fiddle about with trivial things as a way of avoiding the important ones. It has nothing to do with sending children off to hunt large hedgehog like creatures that don’t exist while the adult’s day drink. I was just quiddling about when I wrote this… 

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