And This is Lore
I’ve always had this sort of macabre appreciation. I think graveyards are beautiful, I enjoy dark art with dim colors and rough lines. I grew up on scary stories told by my older cousins by flashlight. I like the macabre, though I’m super not into gore. I’m not a huge fan of horror movies with curses and killers; axes and chainsaws flying; blood coating the walls. I mean, I enjoy the mystery aspect of them, sometimes, but mostly they’re just an excuse to spurt blood from someone’s neck and hack them to pieces. I like the sophistication of a dark tale well crafted. Lovecraftian horror or the works of Poe. That’s my kind of horror. And that desire to indulge in the macabre, to investigate the stories that give us shivers, is satisfied, for me, once every two weeks with a new episode of ‘Lore.’
‘Lore’ is a podcast produced by Aaron Mahnke, a novelist as well as a podcaster. You may remember me mentioning him in my review of ‘The Memory Palace‘ in which I said I enjoyed ‘Lore’ because of it’s similarities. This is true, I enjoy the style of story telling very much and they both do a great job with it, Mahnke stays a step back from the stories, though. He doesn’t delve as deeply as Nate DiMeo does in ‘The Memory Palace.’ He can’t, really.
Mahnke isn’t telling just one story, after all, he’s telling a conglomerate of stories that have built up to the stories we now take for granted as part of our culture. The ideas and triggers behind the belief in werewolves, for example, or the different forms of elves across many different cultures. Mahnke presents theses stories in their story form and builds them up to their full power. He starts with the basics, the root of an insecurity, that human reaction to some core element of the story. The difficulty we have trusting the people around us, for example, and why it’s good, because there are crazy people out there like the guy who made a murder palace. Or the fear we have of the unknown which lead to stories about what might be lurking in the woods. He builds up these stories, starting from their roots, as close as he can get and working to the most prominent of the classics.
I’ve really enjoyed listening to ‘Lore’ these past few months. It’s a biweekly podcast, airing a new episode every other Monday, and it’s fairly new, with only sixteen episodes in the archives thus far. I started when there were nine. The podcast itself takes roughly 20-30 minutes and it’s well worth the time. I made the mistake of listening through the archives one day while the power was out in my apartment and I’ll admit, I was a little wary of the shadows until my Mom got here for her visit. The music is always excellently matched with the episode and adds a great flow to the stories, and the pacing is always well done.
Mahnke also writes supernatural thrillers. I’ve read his most recent one, Grave Suspicion, and it was actually pretty good. If you don’t count the short kindle break I took while switching from my husband’s to my own I finished it in roughly a week or two, which is super fast for me, guys. You don’t even understand. I’ll admit, I talked to the book more than I should have. Some of the things they took too long to figure out seemed obvious to me and I wanted to shake the protagonist a couple times, but I enjoyed the reading experience, so that’s really all that matters. And as there was a fairly obvious set-up for a sequel, I will definitely be getting the next book so I can find out what happens. You can find all of his books on Amazon, I believe, in e-book form and paperback, I believe.
So, basically, if you’re into scary stories and want to listen to the histories and ideas behind them you should totally check out ‘Lore‘ by Aaron Mahnke. It’s the perfect podcast recommendation for this spooky time of year. I may or may not spend the day listening back through the archives. It feels like a good day for it. Enjoy the macabre, my friends, and have a lovely day.
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