This story was in a ghost story collection that I have. It is very "clubby" in atmosphere and tone, but I liked it quite a bit. Has anyone else read it?

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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I used to have a copy, Sawfish. The Scallion Stone was published by Stuart Schiff's Whispers Press, with, I think, a subsidy from Russell Kirk, a friend of Canon Basil Smith and with him a practitioner of the ghost story. The dustjacket painting by Stephen Fabian appears to illustrate a Lovecraftian story -- I'm quite sure it was art on hand, not actually a painting of a scene in one of Smith's stories, although the interior drawings by Fabian were.

Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> I used to have a copy, Sawfish. The Scallion
> Stone was published by Stuart Schiff's Whispers
> Press, with, I think, a subsidy from Russell Kirk,
> a friend of Canon Basil Smith and with him a
> practitioner of the ghost story. The dustjacket
> painting by Stephen Fabian appears to illustrate a
> Lovecraftian story -- I'm quite sure it was art on
> hand, not actually a painting of a scene in one of
> Smith's stories, although the interior drawings by
> Fabian were.

I think there are valid criticisms, for sure: it's plot is indirect; the POV is what, twice removed from the action; and what actually happened is so odd and arbitrary that it takes an extra dose of suspension of disbelief.

And yet somehow I liked the clubby tone, and for some reason liked the idea of a religious hermit on Lindesfarne.

Go figger...

Many would not like it, I think.

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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