Episode 435 - The Graveyard Rats

Hey, I tracked down some of Kuttner’s works, in particular the Galloway the drunk inventor stories... give ‘em a read: <a href="http://astoundingstoriesatwar.lmc.gatech.edu/files/original/217d00359e5cab551c857bccd7cf0d1a.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://astoundingstoriesatwar.lmc.gatech.edu/files/original/217d00359e5cab551c857bccd7cf0d1a.pdf</a> , <a href="https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article863" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.prosperosisle.org/spip.php?article863</a>#below

I found your graduation speech very inspiring! I was homeschooled through middle and high school and missed out on an actual graduation. And the only speech I ever got was my mom yelling "IT'S JUST ALGEBRA! IT'S NOT THAT HARD! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" So, I'll pretend your speech was for me and stop beating myself up for being, so far, unsuccessful.

I just want to say: I found C&amp;C's "half-assed pep talk" about not comparing yourself to others or feeling discouraged by a lack of immediate success really encouraging.

New from Arkham Records, here’s a compilation album you’d be crazy to miss - because you’ll be crazy after you listen to it! “Now That’s What I Call Eldritch” features all those sanity-blasting tracks you remember, including: - Rat Bite Fever by Dead Nugent - Achy-Breaky Tell-Tale Heart by Billy Ray Cultist - Uptown Ghoul by Billy Dhole And who could forget these mind-rending hits? Those souls lucky enough to roll ‘Amnesia’ on the insanity table, that’s who! - Straight Outta Yuggoth by Mi-Go With Attitude - Ithaqualung by Deathro Tull - Have I Told You Whately That I Love You by Yog Stewart Order now and recieve a bonus CD of Ozzy Oswalt’s infamous “Dunwich Comes Alive” album, featuring a previously unreleased live rendition of “Snake-Knot Round the Taker’s Legs”!

Hairspray and a cigar... instant blowtorch - best defense against throngs of rats.

Ilker Yucel

Also, cranium rats are agents of the illithid deity Ilsensine, a massive tentacled brain whose realm is somewhere in the Outlands below Sigil's spire, and who seeks the acquisition of all knowledge and the total Multiversal dominance of the illithid. They act as extensions of "Her" senses and will, even among illithid communities on the Prime Material Plane!

Mandy Reznor (She_It)

"Belated fears were beginning to crawl, maggot-like, within his mind, but greed urged him on." This story is great.

I don’t remember if you talked about Ratkings before in an earlier episode. Ratkings are a real phenomenon where groups of rats get their tails and fur matted together and form a large moving bunch. In folklore they are seen as omens of plagues or other bad events. There is also a tradition that they are more intelligent then as a group and people even have called them a cyrptid creature. In the roleplaying campaign Planescape and the best crpg ever, Torment, cranium rats are large eats that have normal intelligence singularly but when grouped together they progressively get more intelligent and are even able to use psionic powers when enough rats come together. They live in the warrens, eating bodies and zombies. In their central lair there are so many cranium rats that a group conscience has become a personification, named Many-as-One. I thought that the rats in Graveyard Rats may have been an inspiration. Also GRR Martin’s Sandkings was mentioned above. It is wonderful and is inspired by Ratkings becoming more intelligent the bigger they get.

Alan Ricks

Yeah. I know I’ve heard it somewhat recently too. Pseudopod did it a while back but I don’t think I listened to that. It is bothering me now!

Alan Ricks

You guys should do the Glamour of the Snow by Algernon Blackwod while it's still winter time.

Chad’s Not alone- Kinemortomuseoclaustrophobia is more common than you might think. Though it might not count as a phobia if it’s something you’d be mad not to fear! Monastic architecture gives me the creeps but then I am Cloisterphobic :)

Happy New Fears. I am now afraid of frightful orgies. Not that I wouldn't try one out, just terribly scared.

I love the idea of Kuttner's drunken inventor stories. It reminds me of a realisation I had about The Elves and The Shoemaker tale where there may not have been any elves at all but the shoemaker working into the evening with a glass of wine or two may have progressed much further with his work than he remembers the next morning.

Regarding frightful orgies, have you seen the film "Event Horizon," when they recover the video log of the original crew? My favourite orgy story, however, involves Adam West and Frank Gorshin, who were allegedly kicked out of an orgy for refusing to break character as Batman and Riddler.

So true about peaking too early and never recapturing that initial glory. Did Joe Dolce ever surpass "Shaddap You Face"? He did not.

I could SO feel the claustrophobia!!! I had to look out the window and breath deeply. Also, I'm sure these rats have existed for cyclopean eaons, burrowing through holes in the vast deeps of perceived reality. Perhaps worm holes are actually rat holes, you know?

Grackles

I know I've read or listened to this story very recently and was quite sure it was HPL podcast meaning you guys had an unintentional rerun. But that wouldn't happen, so it's either pseudopod or Audible or one of my weird dreams. Either way, not my favorite of Kuttner (please do The Eater of Souls and/or The Salem Horror at some future point), but good enough for a crappy rainy starting to be an unpleasant winter Sunday.

My experience of this story was an audiobook “best of” horror anthology that I procured at Books-A-Milloin from a clearance bin. A six tape set for 2.99! It was late 90s. This story in particular scared the bejezus out of me, specifically when he encounters the revenant... Alas, the tapes were lost when I enlisted in the military, and to this day I haven’t been able to replace them. I’m consistently surprised when you guys cover stories that I considered ultra obscure, and it turns out the stories are well known. One example in particular was “The Dead Valley”... Long story short: I loved this episode, keep up the great work.

Re the rat-filled corpse, yes for some reason I got the same impression when I read this ages ago. Also agree re Graveyard Shift.

I read this story ages ago and for some reason misremembered the corpse as not being a zombie but merely an actual husk of a corpse moved by the thrashing of the rats within. Now of course on the re-read the bits about the ghoul like creatures and so forth are of course clear foreshadowing.

Why didn’t the rats eat the zombie things?

Oh here's a suggestion - I know it might not be within your remit but I'd be fascinated to hear you guys cover Sandkings by George R. R. Martin!

That was chilling! I could almost feel the claustrophobia in the tail end of that episode!

The first time I read this story as a kid I assumed the rats were somehow animating the corpse without any supernatural help. They were just inside it or something, perhaps with their feet sticking out of the side facing down, running it like a Flintstones car. Hey, I was ten, what can I say? I've always liked this story, but as stated above, the years have not been so kind to my opinion of it. I now get a bit bored by most EC Comics-like protagonists in these stories, who are just such shitty people that they have it coming in spades. For giant rat horror in short form, I'd much rather re-read Stephen King's "Graveyard Shift", which at least has more everyday people falling victim to strange rat attacks while cleaning out the basement of an old mill. Even the b-movie adaptation is not too bad and gets unfairly lumped in with the really bad King adaptations. It's got a monstrous bat-winged queen rat for the ages that still holds up.

Lee Russell

I agree - this story, though entertaining, does not come close to Kuttner's best work. In fact, "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", a story he co-wrote with his wife C. L. Moore, is one of my all-time favorite science fiction stories. It was also chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America for their Hall of Fame anthology. Maybe you'll get around to covering it someday, there are distinct touches of Lovecraft's weird geometry in there.

I really wanted to like this one. The protagonist was just too dumb for me to care. In sort of a Darwin Award sense, I guess we can all thank the rats for their contribution to human advancement.

WHOOPS! It's Beyond the Door. Then Men Without Bones the following week. Got my carrots in my sweet peas - fixing now. Thanks for the catch!

So is next week "Beyond the Door" as said in the show, or "Men Without Bones" as in the show notes? #TeamWhyYesIDoReadAllTheStoriesEvenLairOfTheWhiteWormShudder

Richard Horsman

Oh, I know Ghost. Kinda vanilla for me. But, sure - that song's about rats.

If you ever want to return to rats but in a very different direction: James Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats" is deeply unsettling. And also really really sad. Dang she could write.

Richard Horsman

The band Ghost song “Rats” ,keep up with the times there you old men ,really goes with this.

Before there were laws against directly against it, bodysnatchers could only be prosecuted for stealing the clothes or goods belonging to the deceased. Perhaps another reason not to wear their outfits - also the chance of being recognised.

Steve

I got turned on to "Men Without Bones" by Patton Oswalt, who once did a blogpost for each day of October. That also introduced me to Doyle's "The Horror of the Heights," which the boys covered at my suggestion years back. All things considered, I'm looking forward to what they think of the tale next week.

Mandy Reznor (She_It)

Ooh, love some Kersh. I've been reading him recently. And of course there's the wonderful Night &amp; the City.

Steve

When I went to school in witch-haunted Boston I remember a storm that flooded the subway tunnels. They hooked up huge tubes to pump out all the water. These became dead rat launchers, until finally the hoses were clogged by rats too large to pass through.

Jeff C. Carter

Great story! I am not afraid of rats, being buried alive, being eaten alive OR zombies, but combine them all together and...meh, I’m still okay with it.

Jeff C. Carter

Oh, Cotton Mather was a superstitious twit, but thanks to my high school history class I know that even HE knew vaccination was a sure way to prevent disease. Indeed, he thought the religious folks of his day that shunned vaccines as evil were being blinded by Satan! I guess even some of the biggest idiots still have some modicum of common sense.

Mandy Reznor (She_It)

Oh, I'd recommend "The Salem Horror" when you cover more Kuttner.

Mandy Reznor (She_It)

Goggling isn't creepy, Chad! Learn to love the precious plague-bearers! They are full of love and half-digested cheese!

Mandy Reznor (She_It)

I love this story but I don't think it even comes close to being Kuttner's best. I haven't read a whole lot of Kuttner but I have the old Del Rey The Best of Henry Kuttner. There's several excellent stories in that volume that I think exceed Graveyard Rats. He can also be very funny; (as you mentioned) "The Proud Robot", is in his Best of and is hilarious! One of the few stories that have ever made me bust out loud while reading. Highly recommend!