First of all, I just want to say a massive thank you to Glenn and Brandon for an excellent year of weird fiction stories! I've been trying to listen along as much as possible (I think I've only missed a couple of stories/episodes so far), and your discussions have always given me lots to think about and things to appreciate, even about stories that I didn't necessarily enjoy.
Next, the good. My favourite discoveries as a result of the podcast are definitely Thomas Ligotti and Caitlin R. Kiernan, neither of whom I had even heard of, let alone read before (actually, I might have heard of Kiernan, I'm not sure). In fact, I'm going to say that Kiernan's "The Ammonite Violin" is probably my favourite story of the year (though already not my favourite of her stories having read a few more since). And I have to say that, of the two Ligotti stories, I preferred "The Frolic" to "Purity". It's a close call, but even though the word-smithing in "Purity" is better, it had too many elements I thought weren't explored thoroughly enough, and I felt the ending kind of fell flat. "The Frolic" is probably more my sort of story anyway, but I thought it worked a bit better as a self-contained episode, whereas "Purity" could have done with a bit more room to breath, or with being part of a wider mythos.
There were some unexpected gems by authors I already knew, for example "The Insanity of Jones" by Algernon Blackwood. I had Blackwood pegged as a wilderness/nature weird fiction author, so it was really interesting to read a story by him with an urban setting, and such a seemingly mundane subject matter (I don't mean mundane in a bad way either). And of course, having an excuse to re-read stories I've read before is great. Reading Chambers's King in Yellow stories is always a treat, and I'm glad to see "The Mask" finally got the votes it needed! Also, Lovecraft's "The Festival", which I knew I'd read but had no memory of - now it will always stick in my mind as a really evocative mid-winter tale.
Then, unfortunately, the bad. I must say that I have yet to be convinced by either William Hope Hodgson or Clark Ashton Smith. These authors are both new to me (although obviously I'd heard of CAS before), but I haven't enjoyed their stories so far - especially disappointing for a titan of the genre like CAS. I trust that you're on to something with these two, though, so I'll keep reading in the hopes that we get to some stories more to my taste. I was also a bit disappointed by the Machen stories, which just didn't do as much for me as the other stories of his I've read in the past.
I'm not going to dwell on the negative, though, and I think I've probably said my piece about various themes in my posts here. Overall it's been a great year, and even the stories I didn't enjoy I don't regret having read. Here's to a great 2020 - I'm really excited for what's coming up!
Oh, and one last thing. Glenn, I'm not just saying this as your friend, but I've read quite a few of your stories, and none of them have prose anywhere near as bad as Smith's in "The Door to Saturn", so you don't have anything to worry about on that front!
First thing so I don't forget: If you email us at claytemplemedia@gmail.com, I'll send you a PDF of The Quality of Mercy -- it's out of print now, which means I own the rights again and can share it however I please! And thanks for checking it out!
That medieval writer is John Mandeville, though John Mandible is way cooler and is definitely the name I will adopt if I'm ever transformed into an ant. It's unlikely to happen, of course, but it's always best to be prepared.
I share your sentiments about James -- I think he's highly atmospheric, and he's always been great around a campfire or a fireplace, and I hope we'll get more of him in 2020 ... but patrons have been less than eager for his return, so we'll see. But we can happily report that we've recorded two episodes on the Algernon Blackwood novella A Psychical Invasion (spoiler: I LOVED it), and we'll have at least one novella on each ballot this year.
I'm glad that we were able to help you get to some of your to-be-reads. I mean, that's kind of the main impetus of the show, and it's been really great for Brandon and I to leave what we're reading up to listeners. It's gotten us out of our own comfort zones and it's been wonderful.
Thanks for being such a great participant on the forum in 2019 -- this really makes the whole project for us!
... and joined with Karanthir are my thanks for the great year full of weird stories (and one romantic one that turned out not be weird at all)! Before I listened to Elder Sign I always got stuck with reading and rereading Lovecraft and his examples like Machen and Dunsany (next to Ligotti, and the world classics I read for my own reading group) and the 'wise words' of S.T. Joshi about them.
I had a long to-read list of other horror/weird writers, and because of the podcast I finally read some tales of most of them.
(Apart form Lovecraft) Poe and Ligotti were and still are among my favorite writers. As Karanthir said: I like some of Machen's tales, but the ones in the podcast were a bit disappointing to me. The two great surprises for me were M.R. James (after the episode I read more of him and I think it's the most scary and atmospheric ghost tale writer I know of) and Caitlin R. Kiernan (of whom I will read a lot more when I have the time). But there were lots more of great tales and great episodes and discussions on the forum, so I'm really looking forward to the 2020 episodes - among them the table top games episode: one of my friends is a professional maker of board games, and he also likes Lovecraftian tales, so I will demand him to listen to that episode! The mental helath bonus episode of course had to be there after the conclusion that madness and insanity is one of the main themes in weird fiction. I'm also glad that the episodes will be more often about novella's because of the depth of these longer tales. I also hope the question about what 'weird' actually is, will be discussed even more this year.
Glenn: Santa Claus and his Dutch cousin 'Sinterklaas' (5th of December) were very stupid NOT to give me The quality of Mercy (and I DID behave this year), so I will buy it myself. But I thought The Lion that Stalks by Night was really great - although I can't compare it, not yet, with the apparently really bad Door to Saturn, because the book I ordered (and that contains this tale) was about 3 months (!) overdue, so I haven't read that one yet.
The 'final first draft' of my own first story collection is now in the hands of my proof readers, but soon I have to edit these for the last time, and I keep on writing for some book (novel?) in the future; I really make good use of the good and bad cases of writing techniques that are discussed in the episodes and the forum (like 'kill your darlings'), thank you so much for that!
... and last: a happy and weird new year to all! (with finally some weird monsters in it?)
ps: what was the name of the writer that was mentioned when you talked about Tsathoggua, CAS, fan fiction and headless people? I thought I heard 'John Mandible', but I don't think that's a real name... (the disadvantage of not having subtitles on a podcast and not being a native speaker of English, I suppose...)
Haha, well thank you for that! That'll stave off at least one impostor-syndrome-fueled nightmare. I'm so glad you've been reading and listening along with us, and I hope you caught the attribution to your forum posts there at the end of the episode. I'm also happy to report that we've gotten another bonus episode commissioned, this one about mental health in weird-fiction -- so we'll be revisiting the theme with Valerie, and also revisiting both "The Insanity of Jones" and "The Frolic."
We've already begun recording the early 2020 episodes, and I'm very excited to get your comments on the next Algernon Blackwood story and the next Hodgson story.