The Clan Novel Saga: Toreador

Show Notes

This blog series starts here: https://pseudopod.org/2018/10/25/the-clan-novel-saga-a-revisitation/

Clan Novel: Toreador covers events that happen on and around the attack on Atlanta on the evenings of June 20-22, 1999. It is Book 1 in the original clan novel saga, and was published in February 1999. It was written by Stewart Wieck, who also wrote the Malkavian novel (please let that one be stronger).

This story is divided into three parts. Part 1: Leopold primarily follows a very young Toreador vampire, and events related to the planning of a big Summer Solstice party at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Part 2: Victoria spends more time with the leading Toreador vampire in the city, and the early political machinations of this Summer Solstice party. Part 3: The Eye focuses on the unfriendly Sabbat vampires attacking the party, along with a subplot related to an artifact of great power, The Eye of Hazimel.

I started my read-through with the first section of the Nosferatu book, followed by the first section of the Tzimisce book, which brought me to the Toreador novel. There must have been something in the water in 1999. Because clearly what we wanted in a Star Wars film that opens a multi-part epic was a plotline about trade negotiations. Just like the opener to a Vampire series about the end of the world should be about party preparation and existential ennui. Practically nothing happens until section 3. It’s good that I didn’t start here, because Leopold is more annoying than peak whining-Louis. I know that he is the neonate vampire mechanism for us to be introduced to the World of Darkness, but if I started here, I would not have the fortitude to continue. I cannot wait until the soft and squishy angsty vampire Leopold dies horrifically. Please let it be sooner rather than later. (Continue Reading…)

Pseudopumpkin

PseudoPod 619: The Ghost Guide’s Tale & The Halloween Parade

“The Ghost Guide’s Tale” first appeared in Quantum Theory for Cats which is available in both print and audio.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:13 — 22.3MB)

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The Ghost Guide’s Tale

by Ian Stuart

Outside the Minster, every eventide,
You’ll see him wait- the smiling Ghostly Guide.
Top hat on head, dressed in Victorian fashion,
He’ll tell you stories full of gore and passion.
“For just three pounds I’ll chill your blood,” he cries.
And people pay him, though they know he lies.
At half past seven by the Minster clock
He’ll gather them to him, like a dog his flock
And fleece them.Then when all have paid him money,
He’ll charm them with a voice as sweet as honey.
Dead Romans,phantoms, corpses limp and gory
Drag bloodstained footprints through each shocking story.
From Minster on to Bedern and the Shambles
He’ll lead his nightly paranormal rambles.
Then, at the end, he’ll finish with a joke-
A jolly, cheerful, normal sort of bloke. (Continue Reading…)

VTG-HALLOWEEN-GREETINGS-GOBLINS-1910

PseudoPod 618: Goblins & Little Orphant Annie

“Goblins” was first published in order to add an original story to the deluxe hardcover edition of my first collection NEVER BET THE DEVIL, which was release last year (2017) by Strix Publishing.

“Little Orphant Annie” is an 1885 poem written by James Whitcomb Riley and published by the Bowen-Merrill Company. First titled “The Elf Child”, the name was changed by Riley to “Little Orphant Allie” at its third printing; however, a typecasting error during printing renamed the poem to its current form.

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Show Notes

Goblins: “I don’t remember why my friend Reyna and I ended up having a discussion about a creepy undertaker pickling kids and turning them into goblins, but we did, and the idea was so perfect that I knew immediately that it had to turn into a story someday. So she deserves at least some of the credit for this one.”

Little Orphant Annie

by James Whitcomb Riley

Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other childern, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!
							 
Onc’t they was a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,--
So when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wasn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the rafter-room, an’ cubby-hole, an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an’ ever’wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found was thist his pants an’ roundabout--
An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!
							 
An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,
An’ make fun of ever’one, an’ all her blood an’ kin;
An’ onc’t, when they was “company," an’ ole folks was there,
She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!
An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,
They was two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,
An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!
An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!
							 
An’ little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parents, an’ yer teachers fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns’ll git you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!

Goblins

by Orrin Grey

The undertaker lived with his wife in a long, low house in the farthest corner of the cemetery, built of dark brown stone that looked perpetually damp and covered almost completely with trumpet vines and creeping ivy. It had been the town’s mortuary once, before the mortuary facilities moved into a larger and more modern building a few blocks down the street. (Continue Reading…)

The Clan Novel Saga: A Revisitation

The Clan Novel Saga: A Revisitation

In 1999, White Wolf embarked on their most ambitious fiction project to tie in to their Vampire: the Masquerade game line. Over the course of a year, they released thirteen novels – each focusing on a different clan – that presented the events of a major war between the two primary vampire factions. The events coincided with the awakening of a great old vampire, for whom the stars had aligned. These 13 books in the Clan Novel Saga were followed by an anthology to help tie up some loose ends. All of this was repackaged in 2003 as a set of four chunkier books that followed the events in chronological order. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 617: The Culvert

PseudoPod 617: The Culvert is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:19 — 27.0MB)

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The Culvert

by Maxwell Price

Jamie had been visiting the thing that lived in the culvert for about three weeks now. He spent more time with it than he ever had with anyone his own age, or even anyone outside of immediate family members. Jaime was a curious child, but not particularly social. Friendships existed in the abstract. The companionship of even a strange culvert-dwelling thing was not easily cast aside. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 616: Flash On The Borderlands XLIV: Objectification

PseudoPod 616: Flash On The Borderlands XLIV: Objectification is a PseudoPod original.

Stalking, Assault

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Show Notes

FEINSTEIN: How did you decide to come forward?

FORD: Ultimately because reporters were sitting outside my home and trying to talk to my dog through the window to calm the dog down, and a reporter appeared in my graduate classroom and I mistook her for a student, and she came up to ask me a question, and I thought she was a student and it turned out that she was a reporter.

So at that point, I felt like enough was enough. People were calling my colleagues at Stanford and leaving messages on their voicemails and on their e-mail, saying that they knew my name. Clearly, people knew my address because they were out in front of my house.

The Stripper

by Heather N. Thomas

narrated by Nika Harper

She was living in squalor. At least, that’s what her friends had said and now she never saw them anymore. Their looks of disapproval with undertones of disgust were displaced, undeserved. It was bullshit.

She’d let some things go. Her apartment certainly needed a clearing of clutter and a good bleaching to get rid of the smell. Empty boxes and rancid food containers piled up along each wall. She couldn’t remember the last time she had taken out the garbage. She couldn’t be bothered. The place had been a shit-hole long before she’d signed the lease.

The pale blue glow of her computer screen was the only source of light. Her shuttered windows covered by thick black curtains blocked out the rest of the world. Her time was consumed with packages. So many packages. All she had to do was point, click, and they’d be taken away.

This had all started with her panties. A friend had once mentioned that she knew of girls that sold theirs for serious money. The idea was so absurd and degrading that they’d just laughed it off. Later her curiosity got the best of her and she searched online. Turns out lots of women did this and they were making serious money indeed.

(Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 615: The Shrike

PseudoPod 615: The Shrike is a PseudoPod original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:04 — 57.0MB)

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Show Notes

This episode is brought to you by The Darkest Night podcast. Follow them on Twitter and add them to your feed at http://www.darkestnightpod.com/

 

Sound effects used:

https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/400632/

https://freesound.org/people/straget/sounds/412308/

https://freesound.org/people/Ohrwurm/sounds/64416/

The Shrike

by Cameron Suey

By the time she’s thrown herself upright and grasped for the remote with shaking hands, it’s too late. She’s seen it. She’s heard the words. Instead, she stumbles for the kitchen sink, feeling her throat clench with acrid, stinging horror. The vibrant green and brown hues of the nature documentary wash the inside of her darkened apartment, sonorous tones of the narration hanging in the air. She tries not to listen as she hunches over the filthy, dish-choked sink, retching and gasping for air, but the words still come. Thorns. Impale. Butcher.

Coupled with ambien and supermarket gin, the nature documentaries had been the only thing that helped her fall asleep for the last month, but that’s over now. Ruined in a single fusillade of frames and words. She shuts her eyes tight, presses her face to the cracked tile of the kitchen counter as sobs rock her wasting frame. Behind her eyelids, she sees what she always sees. Trinity on the spike, wide and terrified eyes going glassy with blood loss as her little mouth struggles and fails to form a plea for help. But now the jagged spar of rusted iron in the little girl’s throat has a name, christened by the late night documentary on the cruel hunting habits of predatory birds.

Shrike. It repeats in her ears, a ringing bell striking midnight. Shrike. In the cold clarity of the moment, she feels a silver thread of relief. She knows the name of the thing, now. It is no longer just a factor, one link in the chain of her fatal, unforgivable mistake. The Shrike is an entity. It is something outside herself she can blame. Something she can hate. (Continue Reading…)

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PseudoPod 614: WEIRD SCIENCE HORROR ISSUE #2: Figure 8

“Figure 8” originally appeared in the February 2017 issue of Gamut

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:51 — 28.4MB)

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Show Notes

Spoiler

“A friend and I were talking and he idly wondered where all the Ripleys had gone, and that got me to thinking about Ripley from Alien Resurrection, where she discovers clones of herself. This story was born from that tiny seed.”

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The Drabblecast is being Re-Animated, and they are funding via Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/drabblecast/the-drabblecast-reborn?ref=user_menu

The Kickstarter runs till October 10th, and while they already hit their goal (yay!), but check out those stretch goals!

Figure 8

by E. Catherine Tobler

There were seven before you. You’re number eight, perfect in every way, because they rooted out each imperfection across the seven who came before.

But they left you, your makers. They left you without a hint as to where they’d gone. You were old enough, smart enough, built well enough to withstand anything that might come, so they left you, and you—you hunt.  If you’re perfection, the others cannot stand. (Continue Reading…)