Spent another fantastic day at the semi-annual, star-studded Chiller Theatre in Parsippany, NJ. This time, I was honored to meet actors Ed Begley, Jr., Nicholas Lea, Steven Weber, Raj Singh, and John Schuck. Good times!
Monthly Archives: April 2018
Book Review: The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft
This anthology of seven eerie, suspenseful tales by the legendary H.P. Lovecraft includes three that involve his famous mythology of the Ancient Ones—especially the monstrous entity, Yog-Sothoth—as well as the grimoire of black magic known as the Necronomicon. 
“In the Vault” – After finding himself locked in a tomb, a despicable, cantankerous undertaker successfully escapes by stacking six occupied coffins to create a platform, allowing him to reach a small opening above the door. However, just before crawling free, his leg punches through the lid of the top coffin, leaving him with wounds that were not merely inflicted by jagged wood…
“Pickman’s Model” – An artist of the macabre develops a new and startlingly realistic style when he begins painting demonic figures too grotesque to be displayed in public… but where did he find this latest inspiration?
“The Rats in the Walls” – After restoring the cursed, ruined estate of his ancestors, a young man begins hearing rats scurrying in the walls. An exploration of the cellar reveals an opening to a large chamber, the contents of which divulge the true and terrible history of the property.
“The Music of Erich Zann” – Each night, on the top floor of an apartment building, an elderly violinist plays a haunting, otherworldly melody… and receives a response from somewhere beyond our dimension.
“The Haunter of the Dark” – Robert Blake takes an unhealthy interest in the ruins of a long-abandoned Gothic church whose distant spires are visible from his apartment window. After venturing across town, Blake learns that local residents fear the church and do not speak of it. Undaunted, Blake presses on and finds a way inside. While exploring, he encounters an artifact that conjures frightening visions of the Ancient Ones—one of which is soon unleashed.
“The Dunwich Horror” – In the isolated, backwoods village of Dunwich, Massachusetts, the primitive Whateley family welcomes a grandson named Wilbur, born of Lavinia and an unnamed father who is believed to be the ancient creature known as Yog-Sototh. Other villagers become fearful of Wilbur’s rapid physical development and inhuman countenance—not to mention the strange growling and rumbling from the surrounding hills that began after his birth. Following Lavinia’s unexplained death, Wilbur and his grandfather begin boarding up the windows of their home as if to imprison something inside. After the deaths of Old Man Whateley, then of Wilbur, the invisible creature bursts from its confinement to wreak havoc on the village. Three professors from nearby Miskatonic University undertake a mission to destroy the creature using the Necronomicon, the grimoire of black magic that initially spawned the beast.
“The Thing on the Doorstep” – Edward Derby, an intelligent, but weak-willed young man with an interest in the macabre, marries a homely, eccentric woman named Asenath who is reputed to have a beguiling effect on others. It is claimed by some that once captured by her stare, they found themselves gazing upon their own bodies through Asenath’s eyes. It isn’t long before Derby undergoes a bizarre and dangerous change of demeanor…
Book Review: Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
It is the early 1960s and the United States is on the verge of nuclear 
war. To prepare for this, Hugh Farnham constructed a fully stocked bomb shelter beneath his house years before. On a night when Hugh’s daughter, Karen, invites her friend Barbara to the house, the local radio station in their Midwestern town begins transmitting warnings of a possible nuclear strike. Hugh’s son, Duke, is skeptical that either side would commit such an act of suicide. He considers the bomb shelter an overreaction on the part of his father—until the radio station issues its first bomb warning during a round of bridge (a game that features prominently throughout the story).
All hands rush into the shelter where the pragmatic Hugh assumes the role of a supreme commander, giving orders and demanding unswerving obedience as he tries to get the situation—and his alcoholic wife, Grace—under control.
After a series of blasts rock the shelter—resulting in minor injuries to the occupants and superficial damage to the shelter—the family ventures outside expecting to find the radioactive remains of their obliterated neighborhood. Instead, they find themselves surrounded by a serene woodland paradise unblemished by even the slightest mark of humanity. At first, the area is completely unfamiliar, until Hugh, Duke, and the Farnham’s servant, Joe, begin scouting the area and recognize natural landmarks. To complicate their dire survivalist predicament, both Karen and Barbara announce that they are pregnant.
Hugh and Grace’s marriage was disintegrating long before this catastrophe and on a day when Grace decides to leave Hugh and the shelter to strike out on her own (albeit with Duke to protect her), the entire lot are captured by a group of dark-skinned humans in a flying craft unlike any they’ve ever seen… and from that moment on, the fate of the Farnhams takes more than one otherworldly turn.
Heinlein spares no details in this well-paced adventure, from the graphic descriptions of births (both human and feline) to a thoroughly developed caste system of a future Earth that is at once fascinating (reverse-racism, adherence to a diluted form of Islam) and disturbing (benevolent dictatorship, cannibalism, female servants labeled—and used as—sluts or “bedwarmers”).
Although Farnham’s Freehold sparks much debate among hardcore Heinlein fans and general SF readers alike for its political and sociological views, it was not my favorite of Heinlein’s works by far. The story itself did not appeal to me and sometimes I find Heinlein’s portrayal of his female leads to be doltish, naive, or unrealistic and nowhere was this was more evident than in the character of Barbara.