Oldstyle Tales Press

Although Hodgson is best remembered for the cosmic and biological horrors of his later fiction, “The Terror of the Water-Tank” reveals an author still experimenting with the conventions of the detective story. Like Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales, the narrative presents an apparently impossible crime, a baffling collection of physical clues, and an investigator whose ...

“The Goddess of Death” was the very first story that Hodgson ever published in any form. Following the demise of his gym business, the imaginative body builder decided to turn to writing as a form of income, and cranked out this murder mystery set in British-held India during the late Victorian period. It has been almost universally scathed by critics, but I fear that they have ...

Published posthumously by Bessie Hodgson, “Demons of the Sea” is easily one of William Hope Hodgson’s most bizarre and revolting stories. It possesses a campfire-story quality (or, perhaps more appropriately, a "fo’c’sle yarn" atmosphere) that is impossible to miss in its closing lines—a classic “and on nights just like this, they say you can still hear…” type of chiller. Unlike...

I can say very little about this story without revealing some of its most important surprises. While there are tales in this collection—“Demons of the Sea,” for instance—that can withstand a few spoilers without suffering much damage, the power of "The Stone Ship" depends heavily upon mystery and discovery. Like so many of Hodgson’s finest sea stories, it begins with the appeara...

This is a new one for me: I’ve reviewed books, graphic novels, movies, even t-shirt companies, but I’ve never had the opportunity to review music before, and – boy – what an album this one is! When I was approached about it, the album was recommended to me on the strength of its often Halloween-ish lyrics (several of the songs brood with mysterious imagery of vampires, paranoia,...