The nights wax longer…

The winds blow colder…

The veil between the world of the living and the dead grows thin…

The blog posts come more frequently…

Finally, a good use for Dianetics

Well, that last one is a bit of a twist but it is true – October is the season for frequent posting her on the Sentinel Hill Press blog.  For two years (and part of a third) it was the delightful “October-ganza”; last year we narrowed our focus to tombstones for “Grave-tober”.  This October, I thought we would take a more literary turn and embark upon what I am calling “Book-tober”

But what, pray tell, is this Book-tober of which I speak? For the month of October I will feature one short horror* story that has influenced me in some way, wherein I’ll talk about my relationship to the story, how it impacted me, what others have said regarding the story, and where possible link to the story itself (or reading and adaptations of it) so you can experience it for yourself.

Obviously my focus will include role-playing game elements but I won’t always keep things so narrow or cleanly defined. Also, since is an opinion piece. I’m fully expecting disagreements among the readership. Likewise I want to acknowledge up from that in putting together a list I noticed how many stories I’d come to thanks to the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast – I’m a long-time listener to the show and highly recommend it (and fully endorse backing them on Patreon).

Finally, yes, I realize the title “Book-tober” suggests I’ll be reading whole books and while I’d love to do something so vast, most of my long-form reading is non-fiction. Horror especially seems best suited to shorter works (sorry Stephen King) in my personal opinion

So, let’s set the stage with a bit of short and scary story-telling with John Houseman and the opening scene from The Fog…