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1 week ago | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. Ambrose Bierce was a writer whose acid-tongued societal critiques and gift for crafting scenes of the unnerving feel like a lightning rod for literature to come.
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3 weeks ago | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. “The Beautiful Stranger” finds Shirley Jackson in a more unnerving and tragic mode, compared to her last story in the anthology.
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1 month ago | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. “What Was It?” is something of an outlier for The Dark Descent.
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1 month ago | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. “The Beckoning Fair One” (1911) marks an interesting point in our discussion of The Dark Descent.
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2 months ago | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. We’ve all encountered the work of Robert W. Chambers before.
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2 months ago | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. Despite his massive personal flaws (the entire section of his Wikipedia labeled “antisemitism,” for example), Turgenev is an influential name in not just Russian literature but literature in general.
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Mar 25, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader |Tor Nightfire
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. Walter de la Mare is once again proof that we shouldn’t let poets and children’s authors write horror fiction; they’re far too good at it.
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Mar 11, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader |Tor Nightfire
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. Happy Women in Horror Month—it’s time to talk about Joyce Carol Oates. Joyce Carol Oates is something of a controversial figure these days. In the present moment, she’s known mainly for her infamous social media posts.
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Feb 25, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader |Tor Nightfire
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. In what’s becoming an odd theme in The Dark Descent, we’ve had multiple stories by Lovecraft, multiple stories by King, and now in “Crouch End,” we find the unholy union of the two: King doing Lovecraft.
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Feb 11, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Sam Reader |Tor Nightfire
Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. Is there any name more synonymous with ghost stories than Charles Dickens?
