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@buserror5.bsky.social
170 followers 140 following 380 posts
Interested in games, fantasy and sci-fi books/art/TV/movies, poetry, music, and natural history.
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#BookWormSat

Gnomes (1976 Dutch/1977 English) written by Wil Huygen and beautifully illustrated throughout by Rien Poortvliet. A fascinating field guide to gnomes and similar beings. One of my childhood favorites.
The cover of Gnomes with a painting of a male gnome in a red cap and blue tunic surrounded by hand-written notes.
November 15, 2025 at 12:26 PM
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#BookWormSat

The closing poem of Flower Fables (1854) by Louisa May Alcott. This text is from an 1898 reprint as part of the Altemus' Young People's Library. I don't have a definite credit for the art.
Fairy Song. The moonlight fades from flower and tree, And the stars dim one by one; The tale is told, the song is sung, And the Fairy feast is done. The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers, And sings to them, soft and low. The early birds erelong will wake: 'Tis time for the Elves to go. O'er the sleeping earth we silently pass, Unseen by mortal eye, And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float Through the quiet moonlit sky; For the stars' soft eyes alone may see, And the flowers alone may know, The feast we hold, the tales we tell: So 'tis time for the Elves to go. From bird, and blossom, and bee, We learn the lesson they teach; And seek, by kindly deeds, to win A loving friend in each. And though unseen on earth we dwell, Sweet voices whisper low, And gentle hearts most joyously greet The Elves where'er they go. When next we meet in the Fairy dell, May the silver moon's soft light Shine then on faces gay as now, And Elfin hearts as light. Now spread each wing, for the eastern sky With sunlight soon will glow. The morning star will light us home: Farewell! for the Elves must go. As the music ceased, with soft, rustling sound the Elves spread their shining wings, and flew silently over the sleeping earth; the flowers closed their bright eyes, the little winds were still, for the feast was over, and the Fairy lessons ended. THE END.
November 15, 2025 at 12:18 PM
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#WyrdWednesday

The King in Yellow (1895) by Robert W. Chambers.
Cover of the 2015 Stark House Supernatural Classics collection that includes part of The King in Yellow and The Mystery of Choice. The cover art is by Robert Chambers and was first used for the 1895 F. Tennyson Neely hardback edition of The King in Yellow. "Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies, But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. Song of my soul, my voice is dead, Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa." Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow." Act 1. Scene 2.
November 12, 2025 at 12:18 PM
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#BookWormSat

There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) by Ray Bradbury. Published in Collier's. Revised for The Martian Chronicles.

"The five spots of paint—the man, the woman, the boy, the girl, the ball—remained. The rest was a thin layer of charcoal."

The 1918 Sara Teasdale poem central to the story:
This text is from The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale (1996). "THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS" (War Time) There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.
November 8, 2025 at 12:27 PM
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#WyrdWednesday

Fire Demon by Frank Frazetta.

Used as cover art for the 1977 anthology Swords Against Darkness with stories by Robert E. Howard/Andrew J. Offutt, Poul Anderson, George W. Proctor, Bruce Jones, Manly Wade Wellman, Richard L. Tierney, Raul Garcia Capella, David Drake, Ramsey Campbell.
A demon with horns and tail is seen from the back, standing over a flaming abyss and raising its hands while a person in the background is falling.
November 5, 2025 at 12:53 PM
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#BookWormSat

This collection of Karl Edward Wagner's early novellas has one story with a werewolf and one with ghouls, ghosts, and a vampire. Plus an excellent quasi-Western, but in a sword-and-sorcery setting.

Art credit in alt text.
The cover of the 1978 reprint of Death Angel's Shadow (1973), a collection of three novellas by Karl Edward Wagner that feature the character Kane. The Frank Frazetta painting used as cover art, titled Cave Demon, was unrelated to the stories and character. But, it was available for use and made a nice eye-catcher in the book carousel. A warrior battles a huge demon on a small cliff edge.
October 25, 2025 at 12:03 PM
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#PhantomsFriday

Some One (1913) by Walter de la Mare. Text is from Collected Poems (1921). I like to think of this poem as a counterpart to his more well-known spooky poem The Listeners. Which side of the door was the phantom on...🤔
SOME ONE Some one came knocking At my wee, small door; Some one came knocking, I'm sure — sure — sure; I listened, I opened, I looked to left and right, But nought there was a-stirring In the still dark night; Only the busy beetle Tap-tapping in the wall, Only from the forest The screech-owl's call, Only the cricket whistling While the dewdrops fall, So I know not who came knocking, At all, at all, at all.
October 24, 2025 at 11:39 AM
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#PhantomsFriday

Strindberg's Ghost Sonata (2008) by Tanith Lee. A very moving novella with a tie-in to August Strindberg's play. A man, saved from suicide, is trapped in the household of his rescuers. His destiny intertwines with that of a ghost woman with a strange and traumatic past.
Cover of Strindberg's Ghost Sonata and Other Uncollected Tales (Immanion Press, 2019) by Tanith Lee. Cover art by John Kaiine shows an insubstantial, ghostly image of a woman. She glanced away from Blya, who stood there speechless, not four feet from her, unable himself to move. In a blank despair, a sort of horror, he watched her further descend the wooden steps. She had given off no human warmth; the skirt of her dress, brushing by him, had been insubstantial. At the bottom of the stair, in the split second before she turned the corner, she vanished. There could be no doubt she did this. You could not tell yourself you had imagined it. One breath she had been there, then she had exhaled herself back into some dusk otherness, with the smooth down stroke of a soundless sigh.
October 17, 2025 at 11:09 AM
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#WyrdWednesday

Oh foolish fire, encased in lantern skin,
Bleed out this night and light my way
With elemental grin.
Reveal the Horns of Deviltry,
Show me the Mask of Death;
I'll gaze beyond the dead-grin glow,
Beyond the dead-leaf flesh.

From: Lantern by Juan J. Gutiérrez

Art credit in alt text.
Headless Horseman I by Frank Frazetta. The headless horseman holds his pumpkin head in one hand. A large yellow-orange moon is in the background. Commissioned for a magazine ad, but was deemed not scary enough. He painted a second version with more menacing pumpkin, no moon, and horse positioned differently on the canvas.
October 1, 2025 at 10:07 AM
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#BookWormSat

From a Train Window (1934) by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Text is from Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (1990).
From a Train Window Precious in the light of the early sun the Housatonic Between its not unscalable mountains flows. Precious in the January morning the shabby fur of the cat-tails by the stream. The farmer driving his horse to the feed-store for a sack of cracked corn Is not in haste; there is no whip in the socket. Pleasant enough, gay even, by no means sad Is the rickety graveyard on the hill. Those are not cypress trees Perpendicular among the lurching slabs, but cedars from the neighbourhood, Native to this rocky land, self-sown. Precious In the early light, reassuring Is the grave-scarred hillside. As if after all, the earth might know what it is about.
September 27, 2025 at 11:08 AM
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#PhantomsFriday

One Night of the Year (1980) by Tanith Lee, who was born on this day in 1947. Cyrion is a sword-and-sorcery character, private detective, and master of disguise. In this story, a family of ghosts lures him into a sepulchre. To survive, he must solve a 1200-year-old mystery.
"It was midnight in Teboras. Midnight all across the quiet and ancient city, perfumed with its oleanders, ghostly with its magnificent ruins, harped through with the faint strumming of its deep blue lake. In this quarter, high in the fine streets above the old Remusan Forum, you might expect falling blossoms, the occasional well-to-do courtesan with her litter and attendants, even a stray phantom, perhaps, from one of the arcane temples... "
September 19, 2025 at 11:13 AM
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#WyrdWednesday

The Lord of Cities by Lord Dunsany (1908). Collected in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories. A rarely mentioned little story with some great passages. Here a spider speaks about the transient nature of humans and all of our works, which it will inherit.
Ten years to a hundred it takes to build a city, for five or six hundred more it mellows, and is prepared for me; then I inhabit it, and hide away all that is ugly, and draw beautiful lines about it to and fro. There is nothing so beautiful as cities and palaces; they are the loveliest places in the world, because they are the stillest, and so most like the stars. They are noisy at first, for a little, before I come to them; they have ugly corners not yet rounded off, and coarse tapestries, and then they become ready for me and my exquisite work, and are quite silent and beautiful. And there I entertain the regal nights when they come there jewelled with stars, and all their train of silence, and regale them with costly dust.
September 17, 2025 at 10:05 AM
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#BookWormSat

Lean Times in Lankhmar (1959) by Fritz Leiber. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser clash when Fafhrd becomes deeply devoted to the obscure god Issek of the Jug, while the Mouser works for a thug extorting priests. A night of drinking and kidnapping ends with an accidental ascension to divinity.
The cover of the 1999 Millenium/Orion omnibus volume Lean Times in Lankhmar, containing the collections Swords in the Mist and Swords Against Wizardry. Cover art by Geoff Taylor, based on the story Stardock, shows two tiny figures standing amid a large mountain range. And if anything else were needed (truly, it hardly was) to convince them that here was the god, the divine Issek, they had summoned with their passionately insistent cries, then it was supplied when that nearly seven-foot-tall apparition called out in a deep voice of thunder: "Where is the jug? WHERE IS THE JUG?"
September 13, 2025 at 11:43 AM
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#WyrdWednesday

The Death of Malygris (1934) by Clark Ashton Smith. A cabal of sorcerers believes that Malygris is dead and seeks to usurp his position. But even in his current state, he demonstrates why he was the most feared sorcerer in Poseidonis.
THE DEATH OF MALYGRIS At the hour of interlunar midnight, when lamps burned rarely and far apart in Susan, and slow-moving autumn clouds had muffled the stars, King Gadeiron sent forth into the sleeping city twelve of his trustiest mutes. Like shadows gliding through oblivion, they vanished upon their various ways; and each of them, returning presently to the darkened palace, led with him a shrouded figure no less silent and discreet than himself. In this manner, groping along tortuous alleys, through blind cypress-caverns in the royal gardens, and down subterranean halls and steps, twelve of the most powerful sorcerers of Susran were brought together in a vault of oozing, death-grey granite, far beneath the foundations of the palace.
September 10, 2025 at 11:00 AM
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#WyrdWednesday

Necromancy in Naat (1936) by Clark Ashton Smith. Zombies, a vampiric demon-weasel, patricide, a wild sword fight, and an operatic finale, all wrapped in beautiful prose. Night Shade restored much of the original text removed by Weird Tales editors.
NECROMANCY IN NAAT Dead longing, sundered evermore from pain: How dim and sweet the shadow-hearted love, The happiness that perished lovers prove In Naat, far beyond the sable main. —Song of the Galley-Slaves. Yadar, prince of a nomad people in the half-desert region known as Zyra, had followed throughout many kingdoms a clue that was often more elusive than broken gossamer. For thirteen moons he had sought Dalili, his betrothed, whom the slave traders of Sha-Karag, swift and cunning as desert falcons, had reft from the tribal encampment with nine other maidens while Yadar and his men were hunting the black gazelles of Zyra. Fierce was the grief of Yadar, and fiercer still his wrath, when he came back at eve to the ravaged tents.
September 10, 2025 at 10:58 AM
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#WyrdWednesday

The Empire of the Necromancers (1932) by Clark Ashton Smith. The opening paragraph establishes the setting for this first story of Zothique.

In their hubris, two necromancers raise an empire of the dead from the distant past. But the newly arisen have their own prophesy to fulfill.
THE EMPIRE OF THE NECROMANCERS The legend of Mmatmuor and Sodosma shall arise only in the latter cycles of Earth, when the glad legends of the prime have been forgotten. Before the time of its telling, many epochs shall have passed away, and the seas shall have fallen in their beds, and new continents shall have come to birth. Perhaps, in that day, it will serve to beguile for a little the black weariness of a dying race, grown hopeless of all but oblivion. I tell the tale as men shall tell it in Zothique, the last continent, beneath a dim sun and sad heavens where the stars come out in terrible brightness before eventide.
September 10, 2025 at 10:55 AM
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#BookWormSat

Beyond the Black River (1935) by Robert E. Howard. Frontier story reimagined as sword-and-sorcery in the (fictionalized) Pictish wilderness. Main character is Aquilonian, but the Picts' viewpoint is clearly explained. Dark, gloomy, and thought-provoking, with top-notch action.
Cover art by Stephen Fabian for Beyond the Black River: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 7 (Wildside Press, 2007). A band of warriors paddles a canoe, while a monster lurks in the background. Valannus shuddered. Turning, he walked to a casement and stared silently out over the river, black and shiny under the glint of the stars. Beyond the river the jungle rose like an ebony wall. The distant screech of a panther broke the stillness. The night pressed in, blurring the sounds of the soldiers outside the blockhouse, dimming the fires. A wind whispered through the black branches, rippling the dusky water. On its wings came a low, rhythmic pulsing, sinister as the pad of a leopard's foot. "After all," said Valannus, as if speaking his thoughts aloud, "what do we know — what does anyone know — of the things that jungle may hide... "
September 6, 2025 at 11:44 AM
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#PhantomsFriday

Opening Door (1959?) by Winifred Adams Burr. Text is from Fire and Sleet and Candlelight (1961). I like the analogy between a poltergeist opening a house door and Burr's imagination opening her mind to new ideas for creative works. She was also a painter.
OPENING DOOR I know an old house, grey with years Whose front door opens when no one hears... A low, worn sill, an ivied wall Report no footfall, no sound at all. When embers fade beneath the fender, When stars have turned westward in their splendor, Through draughty dark one sees them spin, Though no one went out—and none came in. Nor is there bolt—lock—key That can abate this mystery: Folk mutter, finding the door ajar, "How determined these north winds are!" And sometimes in this tent of flesh Where I must dwell alone There'll be a door that opens wide At a wandering overtone— Wind in the woodbine, Glint of moon On silvered rushes Where hylas croon: Yet who opens that door, or who comes in, Whether angel, wraith or harlequin, I never can know nor tell at all— Though vistas open where once was wall...
August 29, 2025 at 11:08 AM
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#PhantomsFriday

The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995) by Darrell Schweitzer. An outstanding dark fantasy novel with a setting loosely based on ancient Egypt. In an early scene, the main character travels up the River of the Dead, where the substantial and the ghostly worlds are reversed.
The cover art for The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995) by Darrell Schweitzer, painted by Mick (Mike) van Houten. A figure in purple robes holds fire in his hands while standing on the surface of a river. A heron perches on a tree behind him and a house on stilts burns in the background. Each of these has key associations with the plot. CHAPTER 1 The Heron Boy Surely Surat-Kemad is the greatest of the gods, for he is lord of both the living and the dead. The Great River flows from his mouth; the River is the voice and word of Surat-Kemad, and all life arises from the River. The dead return to Surat-Kemad, upon the waters or beneath them, borne by some secret current, back into the belly of the god. We are reminded of Surat-Kemad daily, for he made the crocodile in his own image. I, Sekenre, son of Vashtem the sorcerer, tell you this because it is true.
August 22, 2025 at 11:17 AM
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#WyrdWednesday

Art by François Baranger for the 2023 Design Studio Press illustrated version of The Dunwich Horror (1929). The Call of Cthulhu and At the Mountains of Madness have also been published with full-page illustrations throughout. The Shadow Over Innsmouth out in French; English out soon.
The cover of The Dunwich Horror, illustrated by François Baranger (2023). The Whateley house is seen in shadow, with one light on in the second story. Lavinia and Wilbur Whateley dance by a bonfire on Sentinel Hill at Hallowe'en, with the starry sky above. A curious formation of huge stones is nearby. The remains of Wilbur Whateley disintegrate on the floor of the Library of Miskatonic University of Arkham. Dr. Armitage, Professor Rice, and Dr. Morgan confront The Dunwich Horror, which has been made visible.
August 20, 2025 at 11:11 AM
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#BookWormSat

An excerpt from The Wanderer by Australian poet Christopher Brennan. Collected in Poems:1913 (1914). Text below is from The Verse of Christopher Brennan (Angus & Robertson, 1960).
I cry to you as I pass your windows in the dusk; Ye have built you unmysterious homes and ways in the wood where of old ye went with sudden eyes to the right and left; and your going was now made safe and your staying comforted, for the forest edge itself, holding old savagery in unsearch'd glooms, was your houses' friendly barrier. And now that the year goes winterward, ye thought to hide behind your gleaming panes, and where the hearth sings merrily make cheer with meat and wine, and sleep in the long night, and the uncared wastes might be a crying unhappiness. But I, who have come from the outer night, I say to you the winds are up and terribly will they shake the dry wood: the woods shall awake, hearing them, shall awake to be toss'd and riven, and make a cry and a parting in your sleep all night as the wither'd leaves go whirling all night along all ways. And when ye come forth at dawn, uncomforted by sleep, ye shall stand at amaze, beholding all the ways overhidden with worthless drift of the dead and all your broken world: and ye shall not know whence the winds have come, nor shall ye know whither the yesterdays have fled, or if they were.
August 16, 2025 at 11:38 AM
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#PhantomsFriday

Le Revenant/The Phantom by Charles Baudelaire, as translated by Clark Ashton Smith in Weird Tales, May 1929.

CAS translated most of Baudelaire's poems as prose, but only versified some. Much invention is needed to make the rhythm/rhyming work while keeping the feel of the original.
Le Revenant By Charles Baudelaire (Translated by Clark Ashton Smith) Like an ill angel tawny-eyed, I will return, and stilly glide With shadows of the lunar dusk Into thy chamber aired with musk, And I will give thee, ere I go, The kisses of a moon of snow, And long caresses, chill, unsleeping, Of serpents on the marbles creeping. When lifts again the bloodless dawn, From out thy bed I shall be gone— Where all, till eve, is void and drear: Let others reign by love and ruth Over thy life and all thy youth, But I am fain to rule by fear.
August 15, 2025 at 11:57 AM
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#WyrdWednesday
Fascinating villain

Londo Mollari in Babylon 5, at the start of the series. He and G'Kar, their story arcs, and interactions with each other are some of my favorite TV ever. Peter Jurasik and the late Andreas Katsulas did a phenomenal job playing these characters.
Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) and G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) of the TV show Babylon 5.
August 13, 2025 at 12:07 PM
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#PhantomsFriday

I posted this poem six months ago for another hash tag, but I like it quite a lot, so reposting for today.

The Ghost Kings (Weird Tales, Dec 1938) by Robert E. Howard. Published posthumously. No draft from REH exists, so the degree of editing in the published version is unknown.
The Ghost Kings By ROBERT E. HOWARD The ghost kings are marching; the midnight knows their tread, From the distant, stealthy planets of the dim, unstable dead; There are whisperings on the night-winds and the shuddering stars have fled. A ghostly trumpet echoes from a barren mountainhead; Through the fen the wandering witch-lights gleam like phantom arrows sped; There is silence in the valleys and the moon is rising red. The ghost kings are marching down the ages' dusty maze; The unseen feet are tramping through the moonlight's pallid haze, Down the hollow clanging stairways of a million yesterdays. The ghost kings are marching, where the vague moon-vapor creeps, While the night-wind to their coming, like a thund'rous herald sweeps; They are clad in ancient grandeur, but the world, unheeding, sleeps.
August 8, 2025 at 12:40 PM
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#PhantomsFriday

The Superstitious Ghost (1918) by Arthur Guiterman.
THE SUPERSTITIOUS GHOST I'm such a quiet little ghost, Demure and inoffensive, The other spirits say I'm most Absurdly apprehensive. Through all the merry hours of night I'm uniformly cheerful; I love the dark; but in the light, I own I'm rather fearful. Each dawn I cower down in bed, In every brightness seeing, That weird uncanny form of dread— An awful Human Being! Of course I'm told they can't exist, That Nature would not let them: But Willy Spook, the Humanist, Declares that he has met them! He says they do not glide like us, But walk in eerie paces; They're solid, not diaphanous, With arms! and legs!! and faces!!! And some are beggars, some are kings, Some have and some are wanting, They squander time in doing things, Instead of simply haunting. They talk of "art," the horrid crew, And things they call "ambitions."— Oh, yes, I know as well as you They're only superstitions. But should the dreadful day arrive When, starting up, I see one, I'm sure 'twill scare me quite alive; And then—Oh, then I'll be one!
August 1, 2025 at 12:52 PM