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James was one of the best writers in his genre- H.P. Lovecraft admired him and you can see his influence in Lovecraft's work.

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Agree. I thought about making this a second entry in the Sepulchral Roots project, but since James was the original inspiration, I decided to leave it as is.

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James is one of my all-time faves. This story was amazing! Brilliantly done!

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I enjoyed the nod to James. Great stuff.

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Thanks. 😃

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Yeah. Very ugly paintings in my head 😄

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Ah, so that's why it reminded me a bit of Lovecraft. I've read some James as well, I think, but I can't remember it as well as Lovecraft's.

Modern horror so often rests on an extremely graphic killing early in the story. Earlier horror is much more subtle at first, like hearing what might be a rat scratching in the walls.. This story works well in that way. The earliest part might well be lit flic, but gradually, the scratching of the metaphoric rat gets louder...

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Thank you!

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James is big on understatement, and he was critical of contemporary works, such as Dracula, in which he thought the horror to be overstated.

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