Nightshade Diary

Mrs. Lorriquer is a short story by Henry S. Whitehead, published in Weird Tales in April 1932.  The narrative centers on a kind, courteous woman named Mrs. Lorriquer who is possessed by the spirit of a vicious gambler. This possession makes her hostile and unpleasant, particularly when she plays cards, serving as a supernatural exploration of identity and moral corruption.  Gerald Canevin is a fic...

A supernatural tale set in the West Indies featuring occult detective and reporter Gerald Canevin. A shuttered house with many secrets, is finally let to an unsuspecting family, that soon learn why it has remained unoccupied for decades. Gerald Canevin is a fictional character created by Henry S. Whitehead for a series of supernatural stories, first appearing in the 1926 tale "The Projection of Ar...

The Thing on the Doorstep  is a horror short story by H. P. Lovecraft, first published in the January 1937 issue of  Weird Tales . It is a key work in the Cthulhu Mythos universe, inspired by a 1928 dream Lovecraft recorded in his commonplace book.  ​ Edward Derby, a reclusive poet with a fascination for the occult, marries Asenath Waite, who is sprung from a strange family living in Innsmouth. Th...

The False Prophet  by David Drake is a short story by David Drake set in the waning days of the Roman Empire. It features his recurring classical Roman-era characters, Vettius (a ruthless soldier) and Dama (a witty merchant). The narrative follows the duo as they encounter a charlatan who is not quite what his loyal followers believe him to be, blending adventure and mystery with supernatural or s...

Dragon the Book is a short story by David Drake. A wizard pursues a book held in the arms of a rival, long dead. But everything has its price; greed for power acts as a blindfold to the actual cost. The Cloak is a short story by Robert Bloch, first published in the magazine Unknown in May 1939. The narrative follows a man named Henderson who purchases an authentic-looking cloak for a Halloween par...

"Winged Death" is a 1934 horror short story by H.P. Lovecraft (he was a ghost writer for Hazel Heald, who received partial credit for this story), featuring a scientist's revenge plot using poisonous African flies, which ties into the Cthulhu Mythos through ancient ruins and malevolent entities, blending colonial-era horror with supernatural elements. The story begins with the discovery of a corps...

Fishhead is a 1913 horror short story by American author Irvin S. Cobb, set in the bayous of Reelfoot Lake, about a monstrous, outcast man-fish hybrid and his violent conflict with two local men, noted for its gruesome atmosphere and influence on H.P. Lovecraft. It's considered a classic of weird fiction, praised by Lovecraft himself for its "banefully effective" portrayal of "unnatural affinities...

Air Raid  is a short story by John Varley that won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Short Story.  Set in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is decimated by disease and deformity, the plot follows a team of reanimated "undead" time travelers who travel back to the past to rescue victims of impending air crashes.  These "Snatch teams" extract healthy passengers from doomed fli...

Denkirch is the first published short story by David Drake, originally appearing in the 1967 horror anthology Travellers by Night edited by August Derleth.  It is described as a Lovecraft pastiche and established Drake's early career in horror and weird fiction before he became famous for military science fiction.  Excerpt: "Now I sleep only by day or when the sky is cloudy, and when the stars gle...

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale  is a compact but deeply unsettling slice of classic sci-fi—one that bends memory, identity, and reality until none of them feel reliable. Published in 1966 by Philip K. Dick, the story follows Douglas Quail, an ordinary man with an extraordinary obsession: Mars. He dreams of going there, but his life—and his bank account—keep him grounded on Earth. That’s when...

​A detective of 1857 didn’t know about fingerprints, and he had to learn a lot about human nature. | Narrated by M.P. Pellicer Frank Bonham was born into a family of writers. His grandfather, a gold camp judge, and his mother were poets. He wrote his first two stories at the age of ten. He suffered from asthma, and while convalescing from an attack, he started to write short stories and submit the...

The Shadow from the Steeple is a short story by American author Robert Bloch, first published in Weird Tales.  It serves as the third and final installment in a trilogy that began with Bloch’s The Shambler from the Stars (1935) and continued with H.P. Lovecraft’s The Haunter of the Dark (1936).  The story concludes the mystery surrounding the Shining Trapezohedron, a powerful artifact central to t...

The Sentinel  is a science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke. It served as the foundational concept for Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film  2001: A Space Odyssey . The story is set in 1996 following Wilson, a veteran selenologist on a lunar expedition. While exploring the Mare Crisium region, he discovers a mysterious, pyramid-shaped structure surrounded by an invisible force-field— clearly not of...

The Fly is a science fiction horror story by George Langelaan, first published in the 1957 issue of Playboy magazine.  The story follows François Delambre, who receives a phone call from his sister-in-law, Hélène, confessing to killing her husband, André Delambre, a brilliant scientist. The narrative unfolds as François investigates the mysterious murder, eventually uncovering a shocking truth. ​...

The Hound  is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft published in the 1924 issue of Weird Tales.  It is notable for containing the first mention of Lovecraft's fictional grimoire, the Necronomicon, and is considered part of the Cthulhu Mythos.  The story follows an unnamed narrator and his friend St. John, who are obsessed with grave-robbing and have built a macabre museum in their basement fill...

Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny is a novella published in 1967. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, thirty years after a nuclear war has devastated the United States. The world is buffeted with hurricane-force winds above 500 ft. preventing air travel, and unpredictable "garbage storms" combined with giant, mutated animals and insects making surface travel extremely danger...

The Racer is a 1956 short story written by Ib Melchior. The story was first published in the magazine Escapade in October 1956. It presents a dystopian vision in which five race drivers compete in a transcontinental race where the winner is determined by a combination of finishing position and the number of pedestrians they kill, earning points for each casualty. The narrative follows Willie "The...

The Illustrated Man is a titular short story written by Ray Bradbury which framed the narrative for the book of the same title with a collection of 18 science fiction stories. It appeared in Esquire magazine in 1950, introducing the concept of the magically tattooed man whose pictures come alive, and in some cases foretell the future.  Host - M.P. Pellicer www. MPPellicer.com SUPPORT VIA DONATION...

Herbert West - Reanimator  is a horror story by H. P. Lovecraft first serialized in the magazine  Home Brew  in 1922. The story introduces Herbert West, a brilliant but amoral and narcissistic medical student at the fictional Miskatonic University in Arkham, who becomes obsessed with the idea of reanimating the dead through a chemical reagent. West's theories, which view life as a purely mechanica...

Smokie Joe is a short horror story by David Drake. The story is known for its disturbing content and is not suitable for the squeamish. It centers on a character named Smokie Joe, who operates a drug ring and engages in a chilling conversation with a dying man, revealing the deadly nature of the drugs he sells.  Awakening​ is a short story by David Drake, which speculates on the limits of denial,...

The Empire of the Ants is a 1905 short story by H. G. Wells. It follows Captain Gerilleau, a Creole naval officer, who is dispatched to the Amazon basin in South America to investigate reports of a plague of unusually intelligent and aggressive ants destroying a colony. Accompanying him is Holroyd, a Lancashire engineer, who initially views the mission as absurd, questioning what one can do agains...

Three tales of dark women, whose method is seduction, and whose end is death.  Hume Nisbet is the author of three stories. First The Vampire Maid is a classic vampire story about a traveler who takes lodgings with an apparently kind landlady and her pale invalid daughter, who instantly casts a spell upon him. The Old Portrait was first published in 1890 in Stories Weird and Wonderful. It is a supe...

The Lord of the Dead, is set in the 1930s and follows Steve Harrison, a hard-boiled detective who becomes entangled in a criminal conspiracy involving Erlik Khan, the primary antagonist and self-proclaimed "Lord of the Dead". Erlik Khan seeks to unite secret societies of the East under his rule using ancient magic and manipulation. The narrative incorporates elements of supernatural intrigue, rein...

A humorous fantasy story about what happens when the line between present reality and another place some call fantasy blurs. Host - M.P. Pellicer www. MPPellicer.com SUPPORT VIA DONATION Buy Me A Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Marlene11 Miami Ghost Chronicles: www. MiamiGhostChronicles.com Nightshade Diary: www. NightshadeDiary.com Stories of the Supernatural: www. StoriesoftheSupernatural....

Out of the sea she came, this gloriously beautiful woman, to compass a weird revenge that had been too long delayed—a sage of Heldra the lovely, Heldra the wicked. The Sea-Witch is a short story by American writer Nictzin Dyalhis, first published in 1937 in the pulp magazine Weird Tales. The story is set on the North Atlantic coast, where the narrator encounters Heldra after a violent storm, descr...