The Great God Pan

By bottle

I went to start Stephen King’s *Revival* on Sunday, but then I got distracted by the dedication to Arthur Machen’s 1890 book, *The Great God Pan*. King basically calls it one of the best horror novels in English, so I ended up going down this whole rabbit hole—grabbed a Machen collection for $1 on my e-reader and read the story before getting back to *Revival*. Honestly, I can’t believe it’s 135 years old and it still feels so clear and keeps real tension. It genuinely manages to be scary. I also didn’t expect it to have epistolary bits and a pretty modern-feeling setup about doing brain surgery to make you more capable of sensing the supernatural. I won’t say where it goes, but it really pushed the horror envelope for its time. Super fun, and I’d definitely recommend it. 5/5.