Weird Fiction discussion

I will take nominations for April's group read, Weird fiction written before 1990, through March 10.

I nominate Night & Demons by David Drake. Before he became a science fiction writer (think Hammer's Slammers) David Drake wrote weird fiction. Good weird fiction. Eighty percent of these stories were written before 1990. The collection even includes Drake's first published work, a weird story titled "Denkirch" that was published by August Derleth in a 1967 Arkham House anthology.

This book is available for free on Internet Archive. Print copies are also plentiful and inexpensive, under $5 pre-owned and including shipping, or brand new for $8. And you really get your money's worth: 784 pages!

Lies & Ugliness by Brian Hodge

Excellent pick, Scott. But I think most of Hodge's work comes 1990 or later, making it modern. So I'd like to place the nomination in this topic: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/....

Drake is still with us and writing, which might make one think his work I nominated is modern. But he has written almost entirely in the science fiction realm since 1990. Before then he was as much a Weird writer as SF writer. The collection of his I nominated mostly has stories of his written before 1990. It is almost entirely Weird fiction--Drake cites Lovecraft and old Weird Tales magazines as a major influence--with some dark fantasy thrown in.

Oops, didn't notice the date required. I'll post in the other thread.

So far, we have had only one nomination for classic Weird book for April's group read. There are still up to eight days remaining for posting of other nominations.

The only old school Weird nomination was mine in message #2. Therefore, Night & Demons by David Drake is the Weird book for April.

I think this is going to be an excellent choice. David Drake really knows how to tell a story and he was a Weird writer before he sold out and became a military SF writer. Weird Tales the magazine was his passion growing up until it stopped publishing in 1953.

Drake's collection of the many Weird stories he has written is a huge though reasonably priced one. Did I mention it has a lot of stories and a lot of pages, many more than is usual for a collection? My advice: be sure to have your copy on hand by April 1. You will need the whole month to read this many pages. 576 paperback pages, 784 Kindle pages.