Wednesday, October 7, 2015

preview; Cassilda's Song

Seeing as how I am reading various short stories from various anthologies for the month of October, wrap-up lists will make for long gaps between posts.

I thought I'd take a post to enlighten you on an upcoming release.

Cassilda's Song, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.


It contains all stories from female authors to give their spin on The King In Yellow motif.

Do I have a special "in" with Chaosium?

Nope.

They were selling these at Necronomicon Providence. Now, I am glad I bought one, because they have yet to materialize anywhere else. (Which is why I'm not providing a link - I can't. Not now, anyway.)

At the Con, I was impressed with the Robert W. Chambers panel - particularly with Joe Pulver, who is very knowledgeable about Chambers - though there is little to know about the man. Most of his estate and effects were squandered by a wayward son after Chambers' death.

I've also listened to the Lovecraft eZine Talk Show, where Joe is also one of the regular panelists.

Pulver also spoke at length about The King In Yellow being its own entity, - its own 'mythos', if you will - and should not be considered a "meteor orbiting the Cthulhu Mythos." Basically, Derleth and then later Chaosium games rolled the King in Yellow into the Lovecraftian milieu. Like another well-known character of barbarian streak, the King in Yellow had a hard time uncoupling from the pastiches for a while.

Pulver specifically cited Karl Edward Wagner's story, "The River of Night's Dreaming" as one of the first "back to basics" which took only Chambers' original tales as the foundation to build upon.

I figured after that elucidating talk, I'd be all right grabbing an anthology Pulver edited.

I've read his intro and the first tale, and I'll be working more of the stories into my October reads. And I will get to the original four Chambers' King in Yellow stories (yes, there were only four!)

3 comments:

  1. I was going to read The King in Yellow last fall and didn't manage to fit it in. I may have to see if I can work it in this year

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  2. Love the King in yellow. I will have to check this out.

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  3. I think Chambers' papers (or at least some of his books) are held in a library run by a certain mutual acquaintance of ours (Mrs. Peel :) ). Chambers only wrote two really good stories, and maybe three other okay ones, but those two stories ("the Yellow Sign" and "The Repairer of Reputations") are SO good I'm a big fan of the guy. I just wish he'd written more like them. He's a case of a guy who didn't know where his real talent lay, and I'm glad to see other people carrying it on in the right direction.

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