THE DEEP ONES: Autumn 2021 Planning Thread

This thread is for nominations and voting on stories for inclusion in the October-December reads in this group. Please feel free to draw on the ongoing brainstorming thread for nominations, but don't limit yourself to items discussed there. There is no further obligation--even to participate in the resulting discussion if a nomination is selected! It's perfectly okay to gamble on stories the nominator has never read, although also welcome for nominators to put up stories they've enjoyed and would like to revisit. In all these years, we've never been known to dog anyone for nominating a story where readers end up taking a dim view of it.

As in past rounds, any story that gets more "No" than "Yes" votes won't make the cut; otherwise they'll be prioritized according to net-yes-minus-no, and the final list will be in OPD sequence. Ties will be broken in favor of author and period variety.

To propose a story for voting, place the title and author between HTML-style angle-bracket tags. The open tag says vote (in brackets); the close tag says /vote (ditto). Multiple polls need multiple posts. If you put the name of the author in double square brackets, it will make it a linked "touchstone" for the LT database, and first publication dates of nominated stories are appreciated. Also welcome are remarks about the story, the author, and your nomination motives, and/or a link to an online version. Here is an example (from the first nomination of this thread):


A useful resource for general bibliography info including OPD and inclusion in collections is ISFDB.

You can see a sortable list of all previous discussions here. The persistent brainstorming thread is here. Nominations repeating old discussions will be disqualified, but revival of dormant discussion threads is always welcome. "That is not dead which can eternal lie," etc.

VOTING is scheduled to END on the Autumn Equinox: Wednesday, September 22.

First published in Dark Forces and extensively anthologized thereafter. Kirby McCauley notes, "Wagner has set this story in his native Knoxville, Tennessee, and focuses chillingly on an increasingly familiar aspect of the Southern landscape."

First published posthumously as "Twilight of the Grey Gods" in the Arkham House collection Dark Mind, Dark Heart, and subsequently in various collections. T. E. D. Klein writes of this story, "Left unpublished at the time of his death, the tale is the fruit of Howard's deep interest in Celtic Britain. With typical Howardian vigor it recounts the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, that final apocalyptic struggle in which the Viking overlords were pushed forever from the green and bloody meadows of Ireland."

Praised by Joanna Russ as "one of the most interesting stories of the supernatural I have ever read," this story appears in our standby collection The Weird, as well as dozens of other publications. An unremarkable middle-aged lawyer begins to translate an odd Latin book he discovered on his bookshelf. ...

I rather liked this week's read by Tuttle, so here's an essentially random pick of another of her stories that's available online.

A very short, late CAS tale, rather different from the decadent fantasies we mostly know him for. Widely anthologized and available online.

In twenty-first century New York City, head-hunting is the key to social advancement. Available online.

Last we did a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story, I said I ought to read more of them. Maybe nominating one here will do the trick?

Available online.

A man takes up a career as a wino only to encounter the titular bus-borne horror.

Online here.

(Also published without the # in the title.)

A quasi-sequel to "At the Mountains of Madness" set in the 21st century.
Available in a few collections, including good old New Cthulhu.

Ok, so this group has 513 members. If you are a Lurker at the Threshold, why not nominate a title or two? Format instructions are up above, and it's pretty easy. You might know of that one story that hardly anyone else does! Frankly, after 10 years (!) of nominating, I'm at about the bottom of my "weird" bag of story suggestions, unless we're going to bring in broader classification horror stories. I just need a breather to recoup. If I do think of something in time, I'll put it up. I'm enjoying the nominations so far, however! So, if you've never nominated a story before, now's your chance!

First published (to the best of my knowledge) in Black Wings of Cthulhu 1.

A story told as a series of letters to HPL from one of his more unsettling correspondents.

>12 housefulsfilmtv:

Sorry, posted from my "other" account for DVDs & stuff...it's a housefulofpaper nomination...

>12 housefulsfilmtv:

Found an audio version:

https://theweirdtalespodcast.podbean.com/e/the-correspondence-of-cameron-thaddeu...

I note that elenchus has mentioned quite a few possible stories in the brainstorming thread, but he seems curiously hesitant to actually nominate them.

>15 AndreasJ:

I'm just crushed at work and at home, schedule-wise! I fully support anyone making nominations from my various notes. I still hope to get around to it, but not sure I will given my schedule.

Looking at a few titles listed by elenchus on the "Brainstorming" thread.

Available online and in several AB collections.

http://algernonblackwood.org/Z-files/The_Touch_of_Pan.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiDlqzzqWec

Another elenchus suggestion. An excerpt from The Phantom Ship. Available online and well-anthologized.

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606061h.html#s1

>17 semdetenebre:
>18 semdetenebre:

Thanks for making those nominations, @KentonSem. My schedule is only getting more frantic so I'm pleased these titles get a shot.

A couple more entries from elenchus' brainstorming:elenchus described it as a story of "sylvan dread". Seems to be complete online here.

Another "sylvan dread" story, online in this Gutenberg collection.

isfdb quotes this synopsis: "A young boy appears to go mad on a holiday in Italy after possibly becoming possessed by Pan."

Yet more "sylvan dread". A Neopagan ghost story, acc'd WP.

Online here.

English author Leslie Poles Hartley isn't best known for horror writing, but produced several volumes of such stories. This one is repeatedly collected.

"But," protested Marion Lane, "you don't mean that we've all got to dance the cotillon in masks? Won't that be terribly hot?"

Much collected, including in The Weird, where the VanderMeers remark that this story "fuses weird science with Harrison's usual devotion to place and character."

A sequel by other hands to Arnold's "The Night Wire", which we did a couple years ago. Mentioned by KentonSem in the brainstorming thread.

Online here.

Bump! Lurkers, are you thinking of voting? Please do! There are just a few days left!

Last chance to vote; I will tally in the morning.

Starting the tally now.

Schedule posted in its own thread as usual: AUTUMN SCHEDULE