ROLLIN' SHORTIES READATHON BOOKS IN PLAY

 HERE IS THE SPOT WHERE I'LL POST MY PROGRESS ON THE ROLLIN' SHORTIES CHALLENGE.  As I said before, I'm cheating and reading "THE HERO WHO RETURNED".  Since the first book read was bespoke, I've done spun the wheel and rolled the die for the second story.  So here's what my progress will look like;  stories have not been read by me until they are marked as read.  Ya git me?

1. 
   "The Hero Who Returned" by Gerald W. Page from ISAAC ASIMOV'S MAGICAL WORLD OF FANTASY 4:  SPELLS /Not Read
   
   
   
2. "The Shifting Growth" by Edgar Jepson & John Gawsworth from THE THIRD PAN BOOK OF HORROR STORIES / Not Read

MY 2ND READATHON: ROLLIN' SHORTIES (No it doesn't mean THAT!!!)

AS IF I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH READATHON / WATCHATHON STUFF GOING ON, I'M ALSO ADDING YET ANOTHER ONE!

This one I also stole lock, stock and barrel from youtuber Jake of PULP MORTEM.  He calls this one ROLLIN' SHORTIES (and no, it doesn't mean THAT)!  In an attempt to get some short stories read from ALL the short story collections he (and, of course, I) have in a TBR pile.  So Jake's idea, which I stole outright, is to use a 20-sided die (the exact one you see up there and the exact same one Jake is using - yes, I boughted it offa Devilzon and I ain't ashamed - and roll it to generate a random number.  Then, looking at the contents page of a particular book, you read that story i.e. if the number rolled is 6, you read the 6th story in the book.  Now,  I don't think Jake has a particular method of choosing which book in the first place from which he's going to choose a story.  Therefore, I am going to use the Wheel of Names to randomly choose which book I'm going to then roll the die to pick a random story. 

Got that?  I hope I do.  So as you can see from the wheel, I've picked a bunch of short story collections to choose from.  These be them:   

CLASSIC HORROR TALES by Canterbury Classics

Spells: Isaac Asimov's Magical Worlds of Fantasy 4

The Best of C.L. Moore

High Adventure #200

The Dark Domain by Stefan Grabinski

The Surgeon of Souls and Other Tales of Terror by Robert Leslie Bellem

It's Always Raining Corpses in Chinatown

Footprints On A Brain:The Inspector Allhoff Stories by D. L. Champion 

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

Pleasant Dreams by Robert Bloch

At the Stroke of Midnight by John K. Butler

Midnight Pleasures by Robert Bloch

The Angry Dead by Rosemary Pardoe

Strange Tales 10/32

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard

Martians Go Home by Fredric Brown

Hostesses In Hell and Other Stories by Russell Grey

My Touch Brings Death and Other Stories by Russell Grey

Pulp Adventures #47:  C. Auguste Dupin

Hitchcock's Suspense Stories

The Third Pan Book of Horror Stories

Cuba: Sugar, Sex & Slaughter

Occultation by Laird Barron

My Dreadful Dreams by Hokunani Sorci

Dead and Done For: Complete Cases of Cellini Smith

Ellery Queen Calendar of Crime

Beware by R.L. Stine

Tales of Chinatown by Sax Rohmer

Miss Darkness: The Great Short Crime Fiction of Fredric Brown

Weasels Ripped My Flesh by Robert Deis

Weird Tales #1 Facsimile

Mr George & Other Odd Persons by August Derleth

Shot in the Dark by Judith Merrill ed.

Marple: 12 New Mysteries

Criminolly Presents Garbology

A Nest of Nightmares by Lisa Tuttle

It's Raining More Corpses in Chinatown

Fear & Trembling selected by Alfred Hitchcock

Western Stories selected by Gene Autry

Monsters Galore  by Bernhardt J. Hurwood, ed.

Devilish Tales: A Collection of Droll, Teasing and Very Wicked Fantasies by Jerome Bixby

Masters of Horror, Vol. 5:  Thorp McClusky, Weird Tales Nobility

Dr. Gangrene's Tales From Parts Unknown 

Pulp Adventures #45 

My Touch Brings Death and Other Stories by Russell Grey 

The Third GALAXY Reader by H.L. Gold, ed.

 As in the case of my previous post about MY MARVEL MONSTER PLAN, I will bump this post up to the top every time I have a new addition to this readathon. 

To kick this off, though, I am going to cheat unreservedly.   The second story Jake randomly read on his ROLLIN' SHORTIES was "THE HERO WHO RETURNED" by Gerald W. Page and I'm going to start with that story because Jake raved about it so much and it inspired me to try out this wacky readathon thang so I'm choosing that story to read first!  After that, though, I will play by the rules and let the spin of the wheel and the roll of the die decide for me.  

MY MARVEL MONSTER PLAN

 FOR THE SECOND HALF OF 2025, I'M INSTITUTING MY MARVEL MONSTER PLAN!  

This is an idea I've totally stolen offa youtuber Michael K. Vaughan (the creator of the JUNE ON THE RANGE readathon I participated in during June.  Totally stole it!  Like him, I am re-reading some of the classic 1970's Marvel Comics monster/horror titles.  Nothing is better than the 1970s, as we all know.  And Marvel Comics had an awesome horror decade not only with their comic books but also with their black-and-white horror magazines like DRACULA LIVES, VAMPIRE TALES and TALES OF THE ZOMBIE.  Luckily, I not only have many of the OG issues of the comix but I also have many reprint collection which I'll be perusing for the remainder of the year - ESPECIALLY when it gets to spooky season.  So far in June, I'm over halfway through the Marvel Essentials collection of TALES OF THE ZOMBIE with out ole moldy friend Simon Garth!  After that one, I plan on starting with TOMB OF DRACULA and hope to read the entire run; the Marvel Essentials books also include the B&W magazine-sized TOMB OF DRACULA as well as the aforementioned DRACULA LIVES!  Stay tuned to this same BAT channel for updates during the rest of the year when I'll probably bump this post up to the top each time I complete another Merry Marvel Monster read!

Currently Reading

NEXT UP!

MAY 2025 Top Ten List

 HERE ARE MY TOP TEN FAVOURITE MOVIES THAT I WATCHED FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER IN MAY.

1. THE CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE  (1971) 
2. FERN BRADY:  POWER & CHAOS  (2021)
3. THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE  (1973)
4. LOST ANGEL:  THE GENIUS OF JUDEE SILL  (2022)
5. A DEADLY AMERICAN MARRIAGE  (2025)
6. WATCHMEN:  CHAPTER II  (2024)
7. HELL'S HALF ACRE  (1954)
8. THE PACKAGE  (1989)
9. JANIS IAN:  BREAKING SILENCE  (2024)
10. MYSTERY IN THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE  (1979)

And here is everything else I watched during the month:

THEN THERE WERE THE BOOKY-BOOKS I READ DURING THE MONTH OF MAY: 

Oh yeah . . . and this month was the HORROR MAYHEM: DECADES OF DREAD readathon; to read short horror novels or short stories. 

And here is my piss-poor showing:

• THE MONKEY by Stephen King - a 52 page short story which, I think, was originally in SKELETON CREW but I read it in the MAMMOTH BOOK OF SHORT HORROR NOVELS hardcover.  I was gonna read the whole hardcover but this is as far as I got!
• BOWLING WITH CORPSES by Mike Mignola & Dave Stewart.  The stories in this were a little under-baked but the artwork was pretty good.
• SPICY MYSTERY STORIES - 01/36 -- This reproduction of the pulp from January of 1936 contained a bunch of nice, trashy thirties horror stories:  Medusa’s Kiss by Hamlin Daly, Death’s Head by Charles A. Baker, Jr., Cat That Killed by Mort Lansing, Labyrinth of Monsters by Robert Leslie Bellem, Satan’s Daughter by E. Hoffman Price, Dark Night of Doom by Justin Case, Fall of A Fiend by Cary Moran, Portrait of Terror by Jerome Severs Perry, and Design For Death by Colby Quinn.  Robert Leslie Bellem has become a favourite of mine over the last couple of years due to his bonkers writing style which is on display here as well as in his detective Dan Turner stories.
• THE OPENER OF THE WAY by Robert Bloch - this collection of 21 short stories was originally published by the legendary Arkham House in 1945 and features his early pulp stories; some in a Lovecraftian vein.  This gloriously beautiful edition is one of the new Valancourt Books line of Robert Bloch books and I read this from cover to cover.  It contains probably his most well-known short story "YOURS TRULY, JACK THE RIPPER" (which was a re-read for me) as well as the title story, THE SHAMBLER FROM THE STARS and the interesting "ONE WAY TO MARS".
• UNIVERSAL MONSTERS:  FRANKENSTEIN by Michael Walsh.  I finally got around to reading one of the hardcover "UNIVERSAL MONSTERS" graphic novels (I've got them all to date -- DRACULA, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and THE MUMMY) and, if this is any indication, the others I have are also going to be awesome sauce!  The art is, needless to say, absolutely incredible but the writing was also top notch.  I loved this!  

Um . . . and I hate to break it to you but . . . next month is YET ANOTHER readathon I will be participating in:  JUNE ON THE RANGE!!!!  So saddle up, pilgrim!