#philip stevenson

[nightworldrecords]

Mountain Prints shipping with Philip Stevenson's box set, “A Complete History of Dreams” 2023

Woodblock prints

Physical sets are nearly sold out

orders now shipping

[the-irreverend]

You know how you know when an animated film/show is really really good?

When it's smart enough to not redeem a character that's completely beyond redemption (and actually face consequences for their actions).

[abybweisse]

Book haul at HPB

First, here's a pic of everything.

Here, you can see each of the P. G. Wodehouse titles I got. Never bought Jeeves and Wooster books before, but this should be a great read. The BBC series was hilarious, what I recall seeing when I was a kid. Always adored Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry; in fact, I already have books written by them, too. Also got a couple Jane Austen titles and a Fyodor Dostoevsky that are part of a special edition series.

Then I got a bunch of books in this gorgeous special edition collection by Chiltern Publishing. I already had Jane Eyre and a couple other titles in this series, so I hope I don't have any extra copies of anything. I don't think so, but I'll have to unbox my books to find out for sure. I'm a bit worried that I might already have a copy of Wuthering Heights....

And then these books that are more random. I already had books 1 and 2 of Parasyte, so now I also have book 3. Then I already had Baking Yesteryear by B. Dylan Hollis, but this is a signed copy! The Philip Pullman book is a collection of his essays about the writing process. The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce is considered by some to be one of the 100 greatest masterpieces of American literature. And then Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the one book I actually went there for. 😅 Too bad they didn't have a pretty copy, but that's ok. Maybe Chiltern will release one later. 🤔

[jaypillerva]

OC Portrait Sketches — Screenshot Progression

For my book page: jaypillerva.com/books

[dialoogid]

Philip Brophy, Jayne Stevenson, Brian Parrish, David Chesworth, Ralph Traviato, Leigh Parkhill and Anthony Montemurro

[seeinganewlight]

2024 books read

2024 goal: 150 books

january: 1 - heartstopper vol. 1 → alice oseman (reread) 2 - heartstopper vol. 2 → alice oseman (reread) 3 - heartstopper vol. 3 → alice oseman (reread) 4 - heartstopper vol. 4 → alice oseman (reread) 5 - heartstopper vol. 5 → alice oseman 6 - a fragile enchantment → allison saft 7 - some shall break → ellie marney (audiobook) 8 - only if you're lucky → stacy willingham (arc) 9 - over my dead body: a witchy graphic novel → sweeney boo 10 - notes on an execution → danya kukafka (physical & audiobook) 11 - murder on the orient express → agatha christie (reread) 12 - our wives under the sea → julia armfield (physical & audiobook) 13 - the invocations → krystal sutherland (arc) 14 - red string theory → lauren kung jessen 15 - the breakup tour → emily wibberley & austin siegemund-broka (arc) 16 - the name drop → susan lee 17 - the secret of the old clock → carolyn keene (reread) 18 - bright young women → jessica knoll (audiobook) 19 - last call at the local → sarah grunder ruiz (audiobook) 20 - no one can know → kate alice marshall

february: 21 - worst wingman ever → abby jimenez 22 - drop, cover, and hold on → jasmine guillory 23 - with any luck → ashley poston 24 - the atlas six → olivie blake (reread, audiobook) 25 - that's not my name → megan lally 26 - not here to stay friends → kaitlyn hill 27 - this golden state → marit weisenberg 28 - today tonight tomorrow → rachel lynn solomon (reread, annotation) 29 - past present future → rachel lynn solomon (arc, annotation) 30 - the atlas paradox → olivie blake (reread, audiobook) 31 - the guest list → lucy foley (audiobook) 32 - in the market for murder → t.e. kinsey (audiobook) 33 - the neighbor favor → kristina forest 34 - in the mix → mandy gonzalez 35 - everyone in my family has killed someone → benjamin stevenson 36 - the seven year slip → ashley poston 37 - veronica ruiz breaks the bank → elle cosimano (audiobook) 38 - finlay donovan rolls the dice → elle cosimano (audiobook) 39 - the simmonds house kills → meaghan dwyer (arc)

march: 40 - the mysterious case of the alperton angels → janice hallett 41 - the book of cold cases → simone st. james 42 - what the river knows → isabel ibañez (audiobook) 43 - cut loose! → ali stroker & stacy davidowitz 44 - how i'll kill you → ren destefano 45 - the reappearance of rachel price → holly jackson (arc) 46 - when no one is watching → alyssa cole (audiobook) 47 - outofshapeworthlessloser: a memoir of figure skating, f*cking up, and figuring it out → gracie gold (audiobook) 48 - julius caesar → william shakespeare (rerad, audiobook) 49 - the family plot → megan collins (audiobook) 50 - if we were villains → m.l. rio (reread) 51 - alone with you in the ether → olivie blake (physical & audiobook) 52 - disappearance at devil's rock → paul tremblay (audiobook)

april: 53 - shakespeare: romeo and juliet graphic novel → martin powell & eva cabrera 54 - shakespeare: macbeth graphic novel → martin powell & f. daniel perez 55 - shakespeare: julius caesar graphic novel → carl bown & eduardo garcia 56 - shakespeare: a midsummer night's dream graphic novel → nel yomtov & berenice muniz 57 - twelfth knight → alexene farol follmuth (arc) 58 - kill for me, kill for you → steve cavanagh 59 - murder road → simone st. james 60 - everyone on this train is a suspect → benjamin stevenson 61 - listen for the lie → amy tintera 62 - king cheer → molly horton booth, stephanie kate strohm, jamie green 63 - twelfth night (musical adaptation) → kwame kwei-armah & shaina taub 64 - in juliet's garden → judy elliot mcdonald 65 - fat ham → james ijames 66 - death by shakespeare → philip l. nicholas, jr 67 - a good girl's guide to murder → holly jackson (reread) 68 - good girl, bad blood → holly jackson (reread) 69 - as good as dead → holly jackson (reread) 70 - dark corners → megan goldin (audiobook) 71 - the one that got away with murder → trish lundy (audiobook) 72 - funny story → emily henry 73 - imogen says nothing → aditi brennan kapil 74 - people we meet on vacation → emily henry (audiobook, reread)

may: 75 - episode thirteen → craig dilouie 76 - the girls i've been → tess sharpe (reread) 77 - the girl in question → tess sharpe (arc) 78 - wild about you → kaitlyn hill (arc) 79 - just for the summer → abby jimenez 80 - my best friend's exorcism → grady hendrix 81 - second first date → rachel lynn solomon 82 - the ballad of darcy & russell → morgan matson 83 - the good, the bad, and the aunties → jesse q. sutanto (audiobook) 84 - truly, madly, deeply → alexandria bellefleur 85 - your blood, my bones → kelly andrew 86 - amy & roger's epic detour → morgan matson (reread) 87 - romancing mister bridgerton → julia quinn (reread) 88 - the viscount who loved me → julia quinn (reread) 89 - bittersweet in the hollow → kate pearsall 90 - to sir phillip, with love → julia quinn (reread) 91 - when he was wicked → julia quinn (reread) 92 - it's in his kiss → julia quinn (reread) 93 - on the way to the wedding → julia quinn (audiobook, reread) 94 - emma → jane austen (audiobook, reread)

june: 95 - first lie wins → ashley elston 96 - we got the beat → jenna miller 97 - firekeeper's daughter → angeline boulley 98 - chlorine → jade song (audiobook) 99 - what stalks among us → sarah hollowell 100 - hollow fires → samira ahmed (audiobook) 101 - part of your world → abby jimenez 102 - the road trip → beth o'leary 103 - yours truly → abby jimenez 104 - finally fitz → marisa kanter 105 - the last love song → kalie holford

july: 106 - dead girls walking → sami ellis (audiobook) 107 - home is where the bodies are → jeneva rose 108 - we used to live here → marcus kliewer 109 - the children on the hill → jennifer mcmahon (audiobook) 110 - what moves the dead → t. kingfisher 111 - my throat an open grave → tori bovalino 112 - dashed → amanda quain (arc) 113 - asking for a friend → kara h.l. chen (arc) 114 - beach read → emily henry (reread, audiobook) 115 - book lovers → emily henry (reread, audiobook) 116 - happy place → emily henry (reread, audiobook) 117 - you have a match → emma lord (reread, annotation) 118 - bonnie & clyde musical script → ivan menchell (reread) 119 - such charming liars → karen m. mcmanus (arc) 120 - she left → stacie grey (audiobook) 121 - let the games begin → rufaro faith mazarura (audiobook) 122 - death at morning house → maureen johnson (arc)

august: 123 - cleat cute → meryl wilsner (audiobook) 124 - i wish you would → eva des lauriers 125 - the break-up pact → emma lord (arc) 126 - water for elephants → sara gruen 127 - when you get the chance → emma lord (reread, annotation) 128 - come out, come out → natalie c. parker (arc) 129 - my lady jane → cynthia hand, brodi ashton, jodi meadows 130 - the lies of alma blackwell → amanda glaze (arc)

september: 131 - the spare room → andra bartz 132 - late bloomer → mazey eddings (audiobook) 133 - savor it → tarah dewitt (audiobook) 134 - triple sec → t.j. alexander (audiobook) 135 - the skeleton key → erin kelly 136 - the examiner → janice hallett (arc) 137 - the dark we know → wen-yi lee (audiobook) 138 - pretty girls → karin slaughter 139 - a good girl's guide to murder → holly jackson (reread, annotation) 140 - lady macbeth → ava reid

[ddarker-dreams]

☾ book recommendations: *✲⋆.

my all time favorites:

the brothers karamazov by fyodor dostoevsky

notes from underground by fyodor dostoevsky

the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde

frankenstein by mary shelly

the plague by albert camus

we have always lived in the castle by shirley jackson

others that i'd recommend:

break the body, haunt the bones by micah dean hicks

tomie by junji ito

uzumaki by junji ito

berserk by kento miura

the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson

i have no mouth, and i must scream by harlan ellison

the tell-tale heart by edgar allen poe

the cask of amontillado by edgar allen poe

rebecca by daphne du maurier

wuthering heights by emily brontë

dune by frank herbert

a shadow over innsmouth by h. p. lovecraft

the color out of space by h. p. lovecraft

the dunwich horror by h. p. lovecraft

crime and punishment by fyodor dostoevsky

demons by fyodor dostoevsky

the idiot by fyodor dostoevsky

jane eyre by charlotte brontë

animal farm by george orwell

do androids dream of electric sheep? by philip k. dick

a long fatal love chase by louisa may alcott

the stranger by albert camus

the metamorphosis by franz kafka

the trial by franz kafka

dragonwyck by anya seton

discipline and punish by michel foucalt

the castle of otranto by horace walpole

faust by johann wolfgang von goethe

the fall by albert camus

the myth of sisyphus by albert camus

the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde by robert louis stevenson

blood meridian by cormac mccarthy (do look into the content warnings though, there's heavy violence/depictions of 1840s-1850s racism)

the death of ivan ilyich by leo tolstoy

the dead by james joyce

the overcoat by nikolai gogol

dead souls by nikolai gogol

hiroshima by john hersey

useful fictions: evolution, anxiety, and the origins of literature by michael austin

no exit by jean paule satre

candide by voltaire

white nights by fyodor dostoevsky

notes from a dead house by fyodor dostoevsky

the shock doctrine by naomi klein

the 100 year war on palestine by rashid khalidi

blackshirts & reds by michael parenti

[bracketsoffear]

Stranger Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Stranger Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse Blish, James & Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc. Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There? Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Dahl, Roald: The Witches Damico, Gina: Wax Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

French, Tana: The Likeness

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

King, Stephen: Battleground King, Stephen: The Outsider Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

Martin, Ann M. & Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host) Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall Poe, Edgar Allen: William Wilson Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld Robinson, Justin: Everyman Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: Harold Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet Sleator, William: Among the Dolls Sleator, William: The Duplicate Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Shy high school junior Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest tech companies. She joins five student volunteers, a company-approved chaperone, and an impartial scientist to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse… something that looks human.

Riley has anxiety--ostracized by the kids at school because of panic attacks--so when she starts to feel like something’s wrong with their expedition leader, Greta, she writes it off. But when Greta snaps and tries to kill Riley, she can’t chalk it up to an overactive imagination anymore. Worse, after watching Greta disintegrate, only to find another student with the same affliction, she realizes they haven’t been infected, they’ve been infiltrated--by something that can change its shape. And if the group isn’t careful, that something could quickly replace any of them.

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate

Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist, has always had her eye on world domination, and she has to start somewhere...like her class elections! If people vote for her, they’ll be giving her all the control she wants.

But Franny’s platform doesn’t have the same appeal as her competitors who are offering new playground equipment, so she creates The Frandidate. Made of DNA samples from a dog, a chameleon and a parrot, along with a scrap of carpet (so she’ll know where people stand), Franny’s special suit helps her say and do exactly what people want! But when The Frandidate starts making promises she knows she can’t keep, Franny realizes she might have gone too far…

Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse

On her thirteenth birthday, Sarah wishes that she would wake up inside of her dollhouse -- and her wish comes true. The book follows her throughout her day, with pictures that show the increasingly disturbing nature of the world in which she now exists.

Blish, James and Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man

The central premise of this novel concerns a cloning device that requires six different people, one for each duplicate to be created, to be hooked into the machine. Turns out while the memories are copied the personalities and appearances are affected by the subjective views of the various individuals. E.g., one copy is actually a bit shorter and more cowardly than the original because that's how its creator perceived the original while another due to her hero worship was a physically and mentally perfected version of the original.

Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc.

A man acquires a robot to stand in for him at home while he goes away. (A very sophisticated robot that eventually develops sentience, but still one that, if you place your head to the chest, you can hear a clock ticking instead of a heart beating.) However, the robot decides that he likes the original man's life and doesn't want to be stored away in a box in the basement. The solution? He betrays his owner by locking HIM in the box forever while he (the robot) lives the life of the owner, his family completely unaware of the switch. Meanwhile, another man considers doing the same, only to discover that his wife has already replaced herself.

Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

As this post--https://www.tumblr.com/bracketsoffear/718600953914327040/wasnt-here-in-time-for-the-stranger-poll-but--says, "Alpharius is the Primarch of the [...] Alpha Legion, and aside from the ones that have been fully expunged from all Imperial records, he's the primarch we know the least about. We're fairly confident he's actually two twin brothers pretending to be the same guy, Alpharius and Omegon, and that he specializes in infiltration. Beyond that, all bets are off. Literally every event in his life has at least two versions that have been printed in official books and directly contradict each other. The book that compiles his backstory in a neat and sensible manner that doesn't have any internal or external contradictions opens with the blatant admission that all of it is a complete fucking lie. Supposedly, he died at the battle for Pluto, but then he is reported to have been killed several centuries later somewhere else by a completely different guy. Only complicating matters is that pretty much every member of his legion undergoes extensive plastic surgery to look exactly like him. Most of them introduce themselves as Alpharius. It might very well be that both of the times he supposedly died, it was actually just a body double and he's still out there, pretending to be a normal legionary. Every single member of the Alpha Legion is Alpharius, and an alarming number of them actually believe themselves to be him." Anyway, this is the backstory book in question.

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller

The book is a story about reading the first chapters of multiple books that appear to be If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, but are not.

Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There?

A group of American researchers, isolated in their scientific station in Antarctica towards the end of winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They recover an alien creature from the ancient ice. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the appearance, memories, and personality of a living thing it devours, while maintaining its body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over, it tries to become a sled dog.

The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kills it midway through the transformation process. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution, and a "rule-of-four" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others. The crew realizes that they must isolate their base and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, yet they pretend that everything is normal during radio transmissions, to prevent any rescue attempts. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is found to be almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is shapeshifting and telepathic, reading minds and projecting thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections (from Copper and Garry) to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive, as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned.

Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and standing watch. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad, thinking that they are already the last human, or wondering if they could know if they were not human any longer. Ultimately, Kinner, the cook, is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent organisms. He then uses this fact to test which men have been "converted" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire. Fourteen men, including Connant and Garry, are revealed to be Things. The remaining men go to test the isolated Blair, and on the way, see the first albatross of the Antarctic spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from infecting it and flying to civilization.

When they reach Blair's cabin, they discover that he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased, as it is able to squeeze under doors by transforming itself. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady forces it out into the snow and destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards, the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing the construction of a nuclear-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world.

Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly

So, the entire propaganda section for this one will be a spoiler because to explain why this book works as a stranger Leitner is to reveal a major plot twist. So as a start here is the book's description from goodreads:

Whilst organising a mock murder hunt for the village fete hosted by Sir George and Lady Stubbs, a feeling of dread settles on the famous crime novelist Adriane Oliver. Call it instinct, but it's a feeling she just can't explain...or get away from. In desperation she summons her old friend, Hercule Poirot -- and her instincts are soon proved correct when the 'pretend' murder victim is discovered playing the scene for real, a rope wrapped tightly around her neck. But it's the great detective who first discovers that in murder hunts, whether mock or real, everyone is playing a part.

In this novel a young girl Marlene is killed during a village fete at Nasse House, a home owned by Sir George Stubbs and his wife Hattie. After the murder, Lady Stubbs goes missing just in time for a visit from her cousin, whom she hasn't seen in years. At the end of the novel, it transpired that both Sir George and Hattie were not who they seemed. Sir George being a fake identity of James Folliat, son of the family that owned the Nasse House for centuries, who was thought to be dead. His mother, Amy Folliat, introduced him to the original Hattie, a wealthy but naive girl. James stole Hattie's money and had her killed and replaced by his actual wife, who later spent years pretending to be Hattie with only Amy Folliat aware of the replacement. Due to the news that real Hattie's cousin, who could uncover the ruse, was going to visit. Fake Hattie again transformed to blend among the tourists that came to the fete. To me, this works great as a stranger Leitner due to the book antagonist both pretending to be somebody else and the strong element of kill and replace.

Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Fundamentally about alienation from one's own sense of self and how in order to become yourself you have to become someone else; the main character goes through a major identity crisis and it involves flaying people and wearing their skin

Dahl, Roald: The Witches

A dark fantasy, the story is set partly in Norway and partly in England, and features the experiences of a young English boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country.

Damico, Gina: Wax

Wax is a young adult mystery novel by Gina Damico (author of Croak). It was published in 2016.

It takes place in the fictional town of Paraffin, Vermont. Our hero is Poppy Palladino, a teenage girl who wants to be an actor, but is haunted by memories of being humiliated multiple times in the past, especially by a bully named Blake Bursaw. Paraffin is home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory, a popular tourist site. While taking a tour in the factory, Poppy wanders off into a secret workroom where she meets Madame Grosholtz, an eccentric maker of wax sculptures. Soon after, the factory mysteriously burns down, but not before Poppy is given a living wax sculpture, who she names Dud, and a candle engraved with a strange message.

Things just get stranger from there, and Poppy must save the entire town from a sinister conspiracy that stems from hundreds of years ago. She becomes unsure of who she can trust, but with the help of Dud, her best friend Jill, and her school theater club, she must make a plan.

***

Paraffin, Vermont, is known the world over as home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. But behind the sunny retail space bursting with overwhelming scents and homemade fudge, seventeen-year-old Poppy Palladino discovers something dark and unsettling: a back room filled with dozens of startlingly life-like wax sculptures, crafted by one very strange old lady. Poppy hightails it home, only to be shocked when one of the figures—a teenage boy who doesn’t seem to know what he is—jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. She tries to return him to the candle factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop—and the old woman is nowhere to be seen.

With the help of the wax boy, who answers to the name Dud, Poppy resolves to find out who was behind the fire. But in the course of her investigation, she discovers that things in Paraffin aren’t always as they seem, that the Grosholtz Candle Factory isn’t as pure as its reputation—and that some of the townspeople she’s known her entire life may not be as human as they once were. In fact, they’re starting to look a little . . . waxy. Can Poppy and Dud extinguish the evil that’s taking hold of their town before it’s too late?

Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly

"The main character, Bob Arctor, leads a double life as an undercover police agent infiltrating a drug dealing ring. As a part of his cover he starts taking the drug and becomes addicted, and the drug causes the hemispheres of his brain to function separately leading to the emergence of two separate personalities - 'Bob' when he is a drug dealer, and 'Fred' when he is a police agent. both of these personalities do not recognize each other, so for example when he is reviewing footage of him as Bob, he thinks he is spying on some other man. Also, in this world there are 'scramble suits' - special coats that make it impossible to distinguish anything about the wearer's appearance or their voice, and the protagonist is required to wear one of these when he is not undercover. That worsens his split personality, as he has no one who remembers his appearance as 'Fred', and he forgets he was undercover at all and just starts acting as a genuine drug dealer. The distortion of memories, erasure of appearance and the personality swap from Fred to Bob reminds me strongly of not!them. Fred not!themmed himself."

Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth

Short story in which a woman dies, and her boyfriend makes a deal to bring her back. Trouble is, he brings her back... too much. It'd be a funny old world if we were all the same, wouldn't it? Link

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

In Saint Petersburg, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin works as a titular councillor (rank 9 in the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great[3]), a low-level bureaucrat struggling to succeed.

Golyadkin has a formative discussion with his physician, Doctor Rutenspitz, who fears for his sanity and tells him that his behaviour is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the remedy. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for Klara Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters a man who looks exactly like him, his double. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their evolving relationship.

At first, Golyadkin and his double are friends, but Golyadkin Jr. proceeds to attempt to take over Sr.'s life, and they become bitter enemies. Because Golyadkin Jr. has all the charm, unctuousness and social skills that Golyadkin Sr. lacks, he is very well-liked among the office colleagues. At the story's conclusion, Golyadkin Sr. begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz.

***

Constantly rebuffed from the social circles he aspires to frequent, the timid clerk Golyadkin is confronted by the sudden appearance of his double, a more brazen, confident and socially succesful version of himself, who abuses and victimizes the original. As he is increasingly persecuted, Golyadkin finds his social, romantic and professional life unravelling, in a spiral that leads to a catastrophic denouement.

French, Tana: The Likeness

A detective assumes a dead woman’s identity and moves into her shared house, believing one of the housemates to be her killer. She is accepted as the victim (!!!) and becomes obsessed with her doppelgänger, trying to stay in character and live the life that she would have lived. She ends up getting psychologically consumed by the part she’s playing, losing track of her own identity. Once she’s completely confused, only person knows for sure who she is—the killer.

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

The presence of another world that resemble the one you know but different, the Other Mother whole deal and the fact that she spies on people using dolls and sews buttons in place of her victim's eyes.

***

A short novella that focuses on 9-year-old Coraline Jones as she fights to restore her family from the clutches of the evil Other Mother.

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Synopsis: "When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…"

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault

You see the hole which perfectly matched you. It haunts you. You can’t resist the urge to climb inside.

It’s your hole, it was made for you.

Once you enter, you keep going, and your limbs begin to lengthen and contort. At the other side of the mountain, you emerge. Miserable, in pain, and spaghetti’s to the point you barely look human.

It’s your hole, it was made for you. But you have to be changed to fit inside. And you will.

(People have been memeing this story but it’s actually excellent body horror. Highly recommend!)

Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

It’s about a town cursed by spirals that corrupt you and drive you mad, but can’t be ignored forever

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little dolly. Her porcelain like face was so smooth, just like a baby. Her mouth even had a tiny hole so she could eat and breathe. But her one beaded glass eye gleamed with mischief and evil. She had waited a long time in the attic for someone to set her free...

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little girl. The only place she was happy was in the attic with her dolly. If she could have seen her little doll's legs kick, she would have been frightened. If she could have felt her little doll's arms squeeze, she would have been shocked. But if she could have read her little doll's thoughts she would have run from the attic forever--for her sweet little dolly only had killing her on her mind...

King, Stephen: Battleground

A toymaker gets his revenge on his killer with a battalion of toy soldiers that invade his apartment.

King, Stephen: The Outsider

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Katie is an ordinary third-grader-except for one very extraordinary problem! She accidentally wished on a shooting star to be anyone but herself. But what Katie soon learns is that wishes really do come true-and in the strangest ways... When the magic wind blows, watch out! Katie switches bodies with someone or something else and hilarity and havoc ensues.

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

There's nothing I can say here that won't ruin the twist. Link: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/o.aspx

Martin, Ann M. and Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World

Annabelle Doll and Tiffany Funcraft are two dolls who have been best friends since they met in Kate Palmer's house at 26 Wetherby Lane. In this sequel to The Doll Peopl e, they hitch a ride in Kate's backpack and find themselves in the biggest adventure of their lives, a day at school! But when an attempt to return home lands them in the wrong house, they're in far deeper trouble than they imagined. Along with a host of new doll friends, they also encounter Mean Mimi, the wickedest doll of all. Mean Mimi is mean-really mean-and she's determined to rule all of Dollkind or else destroy it. Will the world ever be safe for dolls again?

The main horror aspect of this series is the threat of 'Permanent Doll State' -- a divine punishment that will transform violaters permanently into nonliving dolls, though possibly with their sentience still intact.

Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

This is the source material of Tiffany Korta: ""Pop star. Her image was carefully maintained and groomed by her bosses, the skull-masked Executive/Faction Paradox. She became haunted by the concept of her uber-self, the variety of ways in which her image was used -- officially and otherwise -- and the impassible divide between her identity and the perceptions that other people had of her. She began to see her image on screens moving out of sync with her, or saying things that she could not remember saying, as the image she presented to the world evolved beyond her comprehension and control. Eventually, when she confronted the Executive about their plans for her, they destroyed her and replaced her with a different version of herself that went on to destroy her credibility, Not!Them-style. Meanwhile, other versions of her went on homicidal rampages around the world."

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host)

A story about a girl who feels she has a "sister" that lives within her. She haunts her constantly and devastates her life. We never know whether that sister is real or not, but the mere thought of her drives the girl to paranoia and madness. Her main goal is to destroy her, and to do that, she must become just like her.

Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Ten-year-old Paul and his sister Julia are on vacation at the beach one day when they find a shell midden on the shore. When they climb it, they find a crow's nest with a creepy little ragdoll in it. Paul distrusts it immediately, but Julia is entranced, and brings it home, where their parents don't seem to be able to see it. The next morning, Paul hears someone moving around, and follows the sound out to find his sister, possessed by the doll, building a strange blue fire on top of the midden. She freezes him helplessly in place, then jumps into the fire and disappears. Paul rebuilds it and follows Her through, determined to rescue his sister.

So begins a quest to stop the Ragwitch and save his sister (and maybe the world he finds himself in on the side). Throughout, the narrative switches between Paul's journey and Julia Fighting from the Inside despite the Ragwitch's attempts to control her mind.

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall

Trying to escape the vicious King Kobra gang and troubled life at home, eighth graders Barnie and Teresa flee the city. With only four dollars between them, they hop a bus, hoping to find a new life at the end of the line. Destination: Paradise Park. But Paradise Park turns out to be a cement-covered suburban shopping mall--not quite the paradise they had hoped for.

With no money and no home to retum to, they are forced to stay. And paradise park takes them in--in more ways than one. Barnie and Teresa spend their days and nights in the climate-controlled consumer paradise of a large department store. And just when they think they can live there unnoticed forever, Teresa and Barnie find that even Paradise Park has its secrets. Even in the dead of night, they are far from alone...."

(Spoilers: It's not actually living mannequins, but dispossessed and mildly insane teens who dress as mannequins and stand perfectly still all day to avoid detection! Which... I'm not sure is much better.)

Poe, Edgar Allen: William Williamson or William Wilson

The story of a doppelganger. A man with William Wilson's same name and face. A man who begins to act and sound more like him over the years. A man who becomes hostile. A man who haunts him.

***

William Wilson is about a man named William Wilson (or something similar to it) who meets a man with the exact name as him. Gradually, the double begins to resemble him more and more. The double keeps being a general nuisance to him until eventually he kills his double. Only to look in the mirror to see “ mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood”.

"In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”

To me, William Wilson is a perfect example of a Stranger Leitner because it conceptualizes the fear of the other through fear of the self. There is no stranger more unknowable than the stranger in the mirror, staring back at you.

***

The story follows a man "of noble descent" who goes by William Williamson because, although denouncing his profligate past, he does not accept full blame for his actions. William meets another boy in his school who has the same name and roughly the same appearance, and who was even born on the same date. William's name embarrasses him because it sounds "plebeian" or common, and he is irked that he must hear the name twice as much on account of the other William. The boy also dresses like William, walks like him, but can only speak in a whisper. He begins to give advice to William of an unspecified nature, which he refuses to obey, resenting the boy's "arrogance". One night he steals into the other William's bedroom and recoils in horror at the boy's face—which now resembles his own. William then immediately leaves the academy and, in the same week, the other boy follows suit. William eventually goes to university, gradually becoming more debauched and performing what he terms "mischief". For example, he steals from a man by cheating at cards. The other William appears, his face covered, and whispers a few words sufficient to alert others to William's behavior, and then leaves with no others seeing his face. William is haunted by his double in subsequent years, who thwarts plans described by William as driven by ambition, anger and lust. In his latest caper, he attempts to seduce a married noblewoman at Carnival in Rome, but the other William stops him. The enraged protagonist drags his "unresisting" double—who wears identical clothes— into an antechamber, and, after a brief sword fight in which the double participates only reluctantly, stabs him fatally. After William does this, a large mirror suddenly seems to appear. Reflected at him, he sees "mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood": apparently the dead double, "but he spoke no longer in a whisper". The narrator feels as if he is pronouncing the words: "In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

‘There’s a kind of magic in masks. Masks conceal one face, but they reveal another. The one that only comes out in darkness …’

The Opera House in Ankh-Morpork is home to music, theatrics and a harmless masked Ghost who lurks behind the scenes. But now a set of mysterious backstage murders may just stop the show.

Agnes Nitt has left her rural home of Lancre in the hopes of launching a successful singing career in the big city. The only problem is, she doesn’t quite look the part. And there are two witches who would much rather she return home to join their coven.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have travelled to Ankh-Morpork to convince Agnes that life as a witch is much better than one on the stage. Only now they’re caught up in a murder mystery featuring masks and maniacal laughter.

And the show MUST go on . . .

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld

Synopsis: "Anji Kapoor has just had the worst week of her entire life, and things aren't getting any better. She should be back at her desk, not travelling through time and space in a police box with a couple of strange men.

The Doctor (Strange Man No. 1) is supposed to be returning her to Soho 2001 AD. So quite why there are dinosaurs outside, Anji isn't sure. Sad sixties refugee Fitz (Strange Man No. 2) seems to think they're either in prehistoric times or on a parallel Earth. And the Doctor is probably only pretending to know what's going on — because if he really knew, surely he would have mentioned the homicidal triplet princesses, the teen terrorists, the deadly android doubles (and triples) and the hosts of mad robots?

Anji's never going to complain about Monday mornings in the office again... "

Why it's Stranger: The setting alone is uncannily bizarre -- a theme park on one of Jupiter's moons devoted to Earth history, with research drawn from mistranslations, myths, and popular fiction. Sinister androids populate the place, and everyone is hiding the most terrible secrets. Meanwhile, Fitz Kreiner is having an identity crisis about being a clone, which is only made worse when he has to battle an Elvis impersonator to the death.

Robinson, Justin: Everyman

Ian Covey is a doppelganger. A mimic. A shapeshifter. He can replace anyone he wants by becoming a perfect copy; taking the victim’s face, his home, his family. His life. No longer a man, but a hungry void, Ian Covey is a monster.

David Tirado is a massive, hideous colony organism, a gestalt entity. The sum of Covey’s discarded parts. A roiling, chaotic patchwork of vast and varied personalities, memories, and physical forms that used to be a man − many men − David Tirado is a monster.

Sophie Tirado’s identity has been eroded by the tides of a long relationship, and now the man she gave herself up for has been stolen away and replaced by a mimic. Caught between the Doppelganger and the Gestalt Entity, she will try to save her husband, but there might be nothing left of him.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask, and evil a thousand faces.

Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: "Harold," Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill your Bones

Two cow farmers, Thomas and Alfred, were bored with their monotonous work one day, so they decided to make a scarecrow out of old sacs stuffed with straw. They based its appearance after another farmer they both hated, even giving it the name: Harold. They tied it to a pole and made fun of it, doing impressions of what his crazy voice might sound like or even just taking their cruelty out on him by kicking or punching him, or smearing food over the sac that was its face. One day they heard a grunt that could only have come from Harold. Thomas suggested throwing him in the fire, but Alfred insisted it was nothing to worry about. Then, Alfred noticed that Harold was growing bigger, but again told themselves it was just their imagination from being in the mountains too long.

Then one day, Harold stands up, walks out of the hut in front of Thomas and Alfred, then climbs up onto the roof and starts stomping around on it like a horse on its hind legs. Terrified and wanting to get away from Harold, they leave with their cows that same day, but halfway there they realize they forgot their milking stools and have to go back. The farmers convince each other that there really is nothing to be afraid of and draw straws to see who will go back. It is Thomas who drew the shorter straw, and now has to go back to to the hut, telling Alfred that he will catch up with him later. When Thomas does not return, Alfred returns to look for him, and sees Harold on the roof of the hut laying out Thomas' skinned corpse to dry in the sun.

Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet

It's a series where a boy turns into a Muppet, and things only get wilder from there. It only really hits proper mind and body horror by book 4, as the entire world begins to undergo MUPPETMORPHOSIS!

Sleator, William: Among the Dolls

When her parents give her a gloomy old dollhouse for her birthday instead of the ten speed bike she's expecting, Vicky is disappointed. But she soon becomes fascinated by the small shadowy world and its inhabitants. The hours she spends playing with the dolls is a good way to escape from her parents's arguments. As Vicky's life becomes more troubled, she starts to take out her frustration on the dolls, making their lives as unhappy as hers. Then one day, Vicky wakes up inside the dollhouse, trapped among the monsters she's created. Bewildered, Vicky is sure she's dreaming. Can she find her way out of this nightmare world?

Sleator, William: The Duplicate

When David finds a mysterious machine that can copy living things, he thinks his problems are over. Now he can be in two places at once: at his grandmother's and out on a date. While the other David is in school, the real one can spend the day at the beach. The possibilities are endless. And they turn terrifying. David's duplicate has a mind, ideas, and desires of his own--and one of them is to see the real David dead.

Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem

So, in this novel, the main character, Harvey Gotham's estranged wife, Effie, apparently joins a terrorist organisation, which causes no end of problems for him. One of the problems being that Harvey refuses to believe that the person in the organisation really is Effie. When shown photographic evidence and even when shown her corpse he remains doubtful that it's her. Nobody else, with the sole exception of his semi-crazy aunt, has any doubts that Effie really is terrorizing Europe. This could be explained by Harvey lying to himself for various reasons or maybe... maybe Effie was replaced by the Stranger and only Harvey can tell. I propose that The Only Problem is really a Stranger's Leitner describing the torment Harvey suffered at the hand of the Stranger.

Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual

Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie

Quiet, cautious Jessie had always lived in the shadow of her dynamic younger brother--her mother's clear favorite. His recent death leaves Jessie and her mother numb with grief. That is, until the morning Jessie cuts her hair and dresses in Jason's clothes, swaggering out of the house in an uncanny imitation of her brother. Her mother is visibly cheered, and for once Jessie is the center of attention at school. But each day Jason takes over Jessie more and more. Can she escape his power?

Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster. As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before - and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world. As her employer grows increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads…

Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man's nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious—during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams. More than a hundred years later, this tale of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona—the loathsome, twisted Mr. Hyde—has lost none of its ability to shock. Its realistic police-style narrative chillingly relates Jekyll's desperation as Hyde gains control of his soul—and gives voice to our own fears of the violence and evil within us. Written before Freud's naming of the ego and the id, Stevenson's enduring classic demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the personality's inner conflicts—and remains the irresistibly terrifying stuff of our worst nightmares.

Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight

Evil scarecrows terrorize a small farm.

Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Lindy Powell finds a mysterious ventriloquist's dummy and Lindy decides to call him Slappy. Lindy uses her dummy to gain popularity, and her sister Kris quickly becomes jealous. Lindy and Kris's parents ask the two girls to share the dummy. However, when Kris tries to take Slappy from Lindy, Slappy hits Kris in the face. The next morning, Mr. Powell reveals that he has bought a ventriloquist dummy for Kris from a pawn shop. She decides to call him Mr. Wood. Various strange incidents of Mr. Wood apparently doing horrible things happen, which are eventually revealed as a prank by Lindy. She was tired of Kris being a copycat, so she decided to pull this big prank on Kris. Kris finds a small card in Mr. Wood's pocket that reads, "KARRU MARRI ODONNA LOMA MOLONU KARRANO,". After reading the card out loud, Kris thinks she sees Mr. Wood blink. That night, the Powell's elderly neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, come to visit them. Lindy and Kris's parents ask that their daughters perform a ventriloquist act for their neighbors. Lindy decides to go first, and hers is a success. Before Kris can perform her act, Mr. Wood begins to insult the elderly couple, making fun of their appearances and their breath. Because of this, Kris is grounded but still allowed to attend the school's spring concert the following day. At the concert, while Mrs. Berman is adjusting a microphone for Kris, Mr. Wood begins to insult the teacher for being overweight. Mrs. Berman demands an apology, but Mr. Wood responds by spewing a green substance on the teacher and the audience. Mrs. Bergman tells Kris that she will be suspended from school for this, possibly for life. Mr. Powell announces he will return the dummy to the pawn shop on Monday. Kris locks Mr. Wood in a closet and goes to sleep. Kris is awakened by the sound of footsteps. When Kris decides to investigate, she discovers that Mr. Wood is alive. Mr. Wood tells her that she and Lindy are now his slaves and that the magic words brought him to life. Kris tries to fight the dummy, but Mr. Wood hits her fiercely in the stomach. Kris crawls away from Mr. Wood and screams for help. Lindy hears her sister and goes downstairs to find out what has happened. While Kris tells her sister that the dummy is alive, Mr. Wood surprises the girls. Lindy manages to pin the dummy to the ground and keep him from fleeing. When the girls' parents arrive, Mr. Wood stops moving. Lindy and Kris try to explain what has happened, but their parents refuse to believe the girls. Mr. and Mrs. Powell begin to question Kris's mental well-being, suggesting that they should take her to a doctor. As soon as the parents leave, Mr. Wood comes back to life, insisting that Lindy and Kris are his slaves. The girls try to decapitate the dummy, but they are unable to harm him. Next, the girls trap Mr. Wood in a suitcase and bury him in the backyard. Since they are exhausted, Lindy and Kris go to sleep. When the girls wake up the next morning, they discover that Mr. Wood has freed himself and is waiting for them. Lindy and Kris seek help, but their parents have gone out. To show how serious he is, Mr. Wood begins to choke Barky, the family dog. In an attempt to separate the two, the girls drag Mr. Wood and Barky outside. When Mr. Wood releases Barky, the girls chase the dummy into the path of a nearby steamroller being used for construction at the house next door. Mr. Wood dodges the first steamroller and tells them that both will be his slaves forever. He doesn't notice the second steamroller, however, and it crushes Mr. Wood. A mysterious green mist rises from the smashed dummy's body. The alarmed driver of the steamroller rushes out, thinking it was a kid he ran over, but the kids assure him it was nothing more than a dummy. Lindy, Kris, and Barky return home. When the girls get to their room, they find Slappy waiting for them. Slappy asks if the other dummy is gone.

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Well to start with, doctor who aside, doesn't the title just sound like a stranger leitner? And getting into the plot, it heavily features animate scarecrows made from people. And the main reason I'm submitting this is because it fucked me up real bad. It's thematically way darker and more mature in content than I was expecting from a doctor who novel when I read it at the tender age of 14.

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

The whole plot is about a woman who goes on vacation, loses her documents and decides to roll with it, acquiring new identities through a series of questionable decisions. She gets someone else's passport and credit cards, moves into a different hotel, gets hired as a double of a famous actress, introduces herself with false names, and is very paranoid about being found out. We never learn her actual name, but we do learn that she has always disliked her face and has always tried to choose activities that would draw attention away from her face, so she can pretend it's not even there.

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

The opening of "The Invisible Man" focuses on outside perspectives of the titular character, and the narrative itself refers to him simply as "the stranger". His looks are unusual: he wears large clothes and covers his eyes with tinted glasses, and underneath those, he's covered in bandages, as if he's had some sort of horrible accident. His behavior is strange, too. He's rude and reclusive, holed up in his at an inn and working with bizzare chemical concotions, causing accidents and damage constantly.

Throughout the story, the man, Griffin, becomes increasingly erratic. His attempts to reverse his condition all fail, but the things he can do when he goes unnoticed are increasingly violent and cruel.

When he finally becomes fed up with everything, he reveals himself to the proprietors and patrons of the inn, who are prepared to see anything under the bandages, any manner of injury or disfigurement, but instead, run screaming from the establishment, when he reveals nothing at all.

***

The way other characters interact with Griffin the Invisible Man really reminds me of The Stranger. Throughout the plot he's treated as some sort of impostor/invader/not human anymore. Doubly interesting since we see the uncanny-valley-assigned person's POV, meaning it could work even better as a Leitner that makes a statement giver experience something similar

[nobrashfestivity]

Uncle Steve

I had an uncle with a motorboat in hot-rod red.

His one flare eye was never vacant.

He was full of vodka and pink lemonade

And hated the woman who worked at the soft-serve.

Maybe he would rape her, I thought.

He was once a great Lothario

And could have been a portrait artist, his sisters told us.

At night he crouched in a hot halo of electric light,

Cawing at the man on the radio.

Everything was horseshit, he said.

Friends came running to seek his audience,

Coughing loud, empty laughs from the peeling porch,

Like streamers flapping at a used car lot.

He was too smart for fairy tales,

And the secrets that they hold.

-Philip Stevenson

[lilyvalerieorchard]

Sorry but I ,along with other certain leftist content creators, just can't go after Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Michael Bay, Brian Taylor, Mark Neveldine, Todd Philips, the Postal devs, the Hatred devs or any other cishet white male reactionary creators. We're just too scared of getting attacked by their channer-board fanboys.

That's why we ONLY ever stick to attacking marginalized creators like Rebecca Sugar, ND Stevenson, Dana Terrace, G. Willow Wilson, Jeremy Whitley, Sina Grace, Vira Ayala, David Gaider, Tini Howard, Leah Williams, James Tynion IV, Grant Morrison, ect. Or (if we're extra charitable) innocent, non-bigoted, non-marginalized creators just doing their jobs like Jason Aaron, Dan Slott, Donny Cates, Tom Taylor, Scott Snyder, Joshua Williamson, Greg Weisman, Bryke, Jonathan Hickman, Brian Michael Bendis, Tom King, Neil Druckmann, Rian Johnson and others. It helps us earn more woke brownie points!

[scotianostra]

John Bartholomew was born in Edinburgh on December 25th, 1831 in Edinburgh.

If, like my family, you enjoyed playing Scrabble, I think the majority of us had at hand a Bartholomew's dictionary at hand for checking spellings and some of us had one of their atlas's where we could look up exotic places far from Scottish shores that we could only dream of, the world since then has gotten a hell of a lot smaller thanks to the World Wide Web and the Internet.

He was still very young when he acquired the skills of map drawing and engraving directly from his father, John Senior.

He was then sent to London for more formal training as a geographical draughtsman and engraver. He spent two years with the noted German geographer Augustus Petermann. His love for maps and geographical work soon led him to make rapid progress as a cartographer.

Returning to Edinburgh, he continued his father’s business with great energy, and, in conjunction with Dr Petermann, he contributed most of the maps to Fullarton’s Royal Illustrated Atlas, and to the Philip’s Imperial Atlas, drawn and engraved in Edinburgh. Other important works followed including Black’s General Atlas of the World; a large topographical map of Scotland on a scale of four miles to an inch; and afterwards a companion map of England and Wales from the survey just then completed.

In 1859, John married Annie, the daughter of John McGregor, a smith of Greenock. Following his first wife’s death in 1874 he married Anne Cumming, the daughter of Primrose Nimmo, a master brass founder of Edinburgh, and his wife, Anne Philip, who was related to George Philip, the founder of the Liverpool map makers.

From his two marriages, John had two sons, and seven daughters

John was sought after as an engraver in Scotland for work outside his cartographic focus as well, including as illustrated here botanical drawings.

He is said to have had a reserved nature, which made him unwilling to enter fully into public life, but he took great interest in the reformation of the Scottish rights of way and Recreational Society and was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1857.

John travelled widely to obtain new work and introduced a programme of improvements, including the installation of lithographic printing, which brought considerable savings to the business from increased productivity.

His works attracted much public commendation, and received distinguished awards at different international exhibitions. About 1870, as the business gradually extended, several important atlases were undertaken for American and foreign publishers, the Handy General Atlas of the World being published simultaneously in England and America.

John Bartholomew Jr was also commissioned to engrave the map of Treasure Island for Robert L. Stevenson as seen in the pics

In 1888, he retired from active work, leaving the management of his business to his son, John George.

On a trip to London seeking special treatment, he died in March 1893 and was buried in Edinburgh.

[a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives]

Luke Arnold, actor: "Captain Jack Sparrow and Long John Silver would have understood each other".

by: Jacinto Antón for El País

The actor in the 'Black Sails' pirate series is also the author of the popular "Sunder City" series fantasy novels.

Australian actor and novelist Luke Arnold, Long John Silver in the series 'Black Sails'. (c) MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI

It's a thrill to be with the actor who has starred in a series that has kept you gripped for many hours in front of the screen. Luke Arnold (Norwood, Adelaide, 39) is a handsome, friendly Australian and a successful writer, but when you look at him and scrutinize his rare steel-blue eyes, you see great sails unfurled at sea, old galleons and the Jolly Roger, the pirate flag, fluttering menacingly at the top of a mast.

Arnold, who wears an earring in his left ear and sports the same beard and curly hair from the series, played a youthful and very handsome Long John Silver in Black Sails (four seasons, 2014-2017), the terrific prequel-twenty years earlier-to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The series was about the Golden Age of piracy and was centered on Captain Flint and Long John Silver, with the appearance of other famous pirates and buccaneers such as Blackbeard, Jack Rackham, Charles Vane, or Anne Bonney. The actor is also the author of a series of very popular fantasy novels (**The Fetch Philips series, published by Gamon, which begins with The Last Smile in Sunder City) about a world inhabited by humans and legendary beings that have lost their magic. Something that certainly hasn't happened to him. The interview is -where else- at the Gigamesh bookstore in Barcelona.

**Interviewer: This idea of yours of a world in which magic has vanished and fairies, elves, wizards, gnomes, centaurs, mermaids, angels and vampires languish and wither is very powerful.

**Luke Arnold: I don't know where it came from, but it is a metaphor for our environment where illusion has been abandoned and cynicism rules.

Interviewer: The loss of magic as a force that moves the world and the need to look for alternative sources also suggests our energy crisis.

Luke Arnold: Absolutely, we are running out of resources and inaction makes us accomplices. The stakes are high and we must roll up our sleeves.

Interviewer: It's very good to mix fantasy and crime novels, a Raymond Chandler-like detective in a Tolkien magic scenario.

Luke Arnold: I like the imagery of the hardened and disillusioned researcher, and if you put it together with angels, witches, gnomes or unicorns…. But I'm not the first to make those mixtures, there's Terry Pratchett.

Interviewer: And Tim Powers, who by the way also wrote On Stranger Shores, a novel that mixed magic and pirates. The fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, the one with the mermaids, was partly based on it.

Luke Arnold: That gave it that special tone.

Interviewer: Are you very interested in pirates?

Luke Arnold: Oh, yes, I find what they represent very appealing, not the peg leg and the rum, but their broad concept of freedom. I'm not someone who puts a lot of stock in dates and historical concepts, but I love the evocations. Black Sails understood perfectly the evocative power of pirates and the idea that they were exiles from society, and took that idea to another level.

Interviewer: What was it like to be Long John Silver in the series?

Luke Arnold: It was an honor to participate in Black Sails and very exciting to play the role, I was very aware of the expectations of the character. I had read Treasure Island before and seen all the film and television adaptations. Long John Silver, who in the series is closer in age to Stevenson's Jim, is a tragic character with something pathetic, more complex than a conventional pirate. And that is reflected in Black Sails.

Luke Arnold as Long John Silver in 'Black Sails'. (c) FarfarawaySite

Interviewer: What would Captain Jack Sparrow think of Long John Silver?

Luke Arnold: They would probably get along well, they would make a good team. They are both great manipulators. They're not the toughest pirates, but, on the other hand, they use their imagination very well. And they both move in a moral gray area. Villains who can be charming.

Interviewer: How was the shooting?

Luke Arnold: A dream, the scripts were fabulous, and they gave you all the toys; boats, swords, costumes. We shot for four years in Cape Town, we all got very involved and enjoyed ourselves immensely. What I liked most were the long scenes, with a lot of dialogue, especially with Flint, it was like a dance between two men.

Interviewer: Without making a spoiler, there is a moment of revelation of Flint's past that is a real shock?

Luke Arnold: Toby Stephens, the actor who played him, was the only one who knew that. We were all shocked. There in that twist, we saw that the series was going to be very different from what was expected, it was very audacious.

Interviewer: Do you long for the sea and pirates?

Luke Arnold: I'm now doing Nautilus, a prequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, for Disney.

Interviewer: Wow! Will it be Ned Land?

Luke Arnold: No, neither Captain Nemo. I'll be a soldier chasing him. And I'll also be in a thriller. And I'm still writing, I really like the series of novels.

Interviewer: Did you have to learn a lot of fencing to play a pirate?

Luke Arnold: Well, I was precisely the one who had the most experience with the sword. I studied theatrical fencing and my first job was as a fight choreographer in an adaptation of Peter Pan.

Interviewer: A premonition.

Luke Arnold: Hahaha, yes, I also played Romeo, who has to fight.

Interviewer: Better for Mercutio fencing.

Luke Arnold: Right. And Hamlet, but maybe I'm over my head for this one, for the prince. The Shakespearean character I'd like to play above all is Henry V.

Source: El País or for full version from other site: Notas de Prensa

**I changed some wording especially the bolded part also changed to make reading more easier for readers.

Translated with DeepL translator

[jaypillerva]

Pink OC Lineup (2021) 🌸

[bookmaven]

SKULL-FACE AND OTHERS by Robert E. Howard (Sauk City: Arkham House,1946) Cover by Hannes Bok.

Fantasy/horror collection. Limited to 3004 copies.

Skull-Face is a fantasy novella originally serialized in Weird Tales (October through December, 1929). Clearly influenced by Sax Rohmer's opus Fu Manchu it substitutes a resuscitated Atlantean necromancer for the Asian villain. From the center of a web of crime and deceit he means to end Western world domination in order to re-instate surviving Atlanteans (lying dormant in submerged sarcophagi) as the new ruling elite.

Wolfshead (Weird Tales, April 1926) Cover by F.M. Stevenson • The Fire of Asshurbanipal (Weird Tales, December 1936) Cover by J. Allen St. John • Shadows in Zamboula (Weird Tales, November 1935) Cover by Margaret Brundage.

Contents:

vii · Foreword · August Derleth

ix · Which Will Scarcely Be Understood (Weird Tales, October 1937)

xiii · Robert E. Howard: A Memoriam by H.P. Lovecraft (Fantasy Magazine, September 1936), as “In Memoriam: Robert E. Howard”; revised from “Robert Ervin Howard: 1906-1936” (The Phantagraph, August 1936)

xvii · A Memory of R.E. Howard by E. Hoffmann Price [A slightly different version appeared in The Ghost, May 1945 as “The Book of the Dead, Chapter 2, Robert Ervin Howard”.]

Wolfshead (Weird Tales, April 1926) [de Montour]

The Black Stone (Weird Tales, November 1931) [Cthulhu]

“The Horror from the Mound” (Weird Tales, May 1932)

The Cairn on the Headland (Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, January 1933)

Black Canaan (Weird Tales, June 1936)

The Fire of Asshurbanipal (Weird Tales, December 1936) [Cthulhu]

“A Man-Eating Jeopard” (Cowboy Stories, June 1936) [Buckner Grimes]

The Hyborian Age (LANY Cooperative Publications, 1938) [The first half was published in The Phantagraph, (February, August, & October/November 1936)]

Skull-Face (Weird Tales, October 1929) [Kathulos]

Worms of the Earth (Weird Tales, November 1932) [Bran Mak Morn]

The Valley of the Worm (Weird Tales, February 1934) [James Allison]

“Skulls in the Stars” (Weird Tales, January 1929) [Solomon Kane]

“Rattle of Bones” (Weird Tales, June 1929) [Solomon Kane]

The Hills of the Dead (Weird Tales, August 1930) [Solomon Kane]

Wings in the Night (Weird Tales, July 1932) [Solomon Kane]

The Shadow Kingdom (Weird Tales, August 1929) [Kull]

“The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune” (Weird Tales, September 1929) [Kull]

Kings of the Night (Weird Tales, November 1930) [Bran Mak Morn; Kull]

The Phoenix on the Sword (Weird Tales, December 1932) [Conan]

The Scarlet Citadel (Weird Tales, January 1933) [Conan]

The Tower of the Elephant (Weird Tales, March 1933) [Conan]

Rogues in the House (Weird Tales, January 1934) [Conan]

Shadows in Zamboula (Weird Tales, November 1935) [Conan]

Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die (Weird Tales, August 1938)

Famous Fantastic Mysteries (December, 1952) Cover by Lawrence. [reprint magazine]

Skull-Face by Robert E. Howard [Weird Tales, October 1929]

Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon [Astounding Science Fiction, November 1944]

“The Homecoming” by Ray Bradbury [Mademoiselle, October 1946]

“The Coat” by A.E.D. Smith [from POWERS OF DARKNESS edited by Philip Allan, 1934]

(London: Panther, 1976) Cover by Chris Achilleos. • (New York: Berkley, 1978) • (Japan)

[glowing-disciple]

Reading List - 2024

Currently Reading:

The Book of Dragons by Edith Nesbit

Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie

Sweet Sweet Revenge LTD by Jonas Jonasson

Books Read:

101 Famous Poems by Various Authors

A History of Chess by Jerzy Gizycki

The Abraham Lincoln Joke Book by Beatrice Schenk De Regniers

An Introduction to Linguistics by Loreto Todd

The Art of Computer Designing by Osamu Sato

The Broken Dice, and Other Mathematical Tales of Chance by Ivar Ekeland

The Cairngorms by Patrick Baker

The Codebreaker's Handbook by Herbie Brennan

The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown

The Complete Book of Kitchen Collecting by Barbera E. Mauzy

Dinosaurs, Beware! A Safety Guide by Marc Brown

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dreaming the Biosphere by Rebecca Reider

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel

Funny Number Tricks by Rose Wyler

Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Giant Sea Creatures, Real and Fantastic by John Frederick Waters

Hammer of the Gods by Stephen Davis

Hiram's Red Shirt by Mabel Watts

I don't care by JoAnn Nelson

Jaws by Peter Benchley

Jungian Archetypes: Jung, Gödel, and the History of Archetypes by Robin Robertson

Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton-Porter

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire by Howard Pyle

Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis

Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks

Reflections on Evolution by Fredrick Sproull

Roadie: My Life on the Road with Coldplay by Matt McGinn

Strange Creatures of the Ice and Snow by Edward F. Dolan

Time for Bed, Sleepyheads by Normand Chartier

Weird Islands by Jean de Boschère

Future Reading:

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

Adventures in Cryptozoology Vol. 1 by Richard Freeman

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez

Ancient Mysteries, Modern Visions by Philip S. Callahan

The Anti-Mary Exposed by Carrie Gress

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle

The Art Nouveau Style by Stephan Tschudi Madsen

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Champions of the Rosary by Donald H. Calloway

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft

Cubism by Guillaume Apollinaire

Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Evolution by Nowell Stebbing

Expressionism by Ashley Bassie

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by Hal Johnson

Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

Freaks on the Fells by R. M. Ballantyne

Freckles by Gene Stratton-Porter

Fundamentals of Character Design by Various Authors

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miquel de Cervantes Saavedra

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Humorous Ghost Stories by Various Authors

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Illuminated Manuscripts by Tamara Woronowa

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

Joan Miro by Joan Miro

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Light of the Western Stars by Zane Grey

Living by the Sword by Eric Demski

The Longest Cocktail Party by Richard DiLello

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Otis Spofford by Beverly Clearly

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

The Shining by Stephen King

The Silmarillion by J R R Tolkien

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Strange Love by Ann Aguirre

The River by Gary Paulsen

Things My Son Needs to Know About the World by Fredrik Backman

The Third Man Factor by John Geiger

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

We Are Where the Nightmares Go and Other Stories by C. Robert Cargill

The Weiser Field Guide to Cryptozoology by Deena West Budd

The White Mountains by John Christopher

[godzilla-reads]

🍁 September Reading Wrap-Up

Howdy! For the month of September I read 16 books, bringing my yearly total to 131 books! Here is what I read, along with my top 4 books, which are starred.

• Nimona by ND Stevenson

• Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry edited by Camille T. Dungy

• The Truth About Dragons by Julie Leung and Hanna Cha

• Nian: The Chinese New Year Dragon by Virginia Loh-Hagan and Timothy Banks

⭐️ One Piece Vol. 1: Romance Dawn by Eiichiro Oda

• One Piece Vol. 2: Buggy the Clown by Eiichiro Oda

• Red Bird: Poems by Mary Oliver

⭐️ The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa (trans. Philip Gabriel)

• One Piece Vol. 3: Don’t Get Fooled Again by Eiichiro Oda

⭐️ Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa (trans. Eric Ozawa)

• Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

• One Piece Vol. 4: The Black Cat Pirates by Eiichiro Oda

• Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

⭐️ Let Us Compare Mythologies by Leonard Cohen

• Kappa by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (trans. Allison Markin Powell and Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda)

• The Book of Fairies selected and illustrated by Michael Hague