Horror, Fantasy, and other non-sci-fi genres...

Black Man With a Horn, the third novella in Dark Gods, is great. It tells the story of an author who has lived his life under the constant shadow of HP Lovecraft. Haunted by a misprint on the cover to one of his novels, reading "The Author of Beyond the Garve..." and never able to break free of the "Lovecraftian" pastiche, the author has become bitter, jealous, and somewhat resentful towards his literary hero. Soon the author finds himself in the midst of a real Lovecraftian mystery, one that involves a Malayan fish-god known as the Shogoran: a black humanoid fish-like demon with something like a horn (looking like a gas mask, or scuba gear) attached to its face. This novella is very well written, and Klein conveys the ramblings of the bitter old author with great skill. At first I didn't like the author at all, he is a bit racist, but over time Klein reveals his idiosyncrasies and personality and he becomes sympathetic despite his jealousness and bitterness.

This book sounds amazing, D...

Klein's Dark Gods ends with a fantastic tale called Nadelman's God, my favorite novella in the book. It touches on the mythologies of religion and the presumptuousness of man, and does so in a haunting and frightening way. A half-forgotten, blasphemous poem, later becoming the basis for the lyrics in a "satanic" heavy metal song, detailing the rituals behind the creation of a dark, vengeful, and evil god, the god of chaos and cancer, leads Nadelman into his past to discover a life-shattering secret of a divine entity. Who created whom? What happens when the lie becomes the truth? Just who is the joke on? The Hungerer waits...it waits to be woken...it waits to once again be among the living.

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Originally Posted by Daniel Davis

he is a bit racist

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Like Lovecraft. Heh.

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Originally Posted by Grouchy

Like Lovecraft. Heh.

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Yeah - all that "evil" coming from those "savages" found in Asia and Africa. Most of the authors of the early weird were a bit ethnocentric to say the least. Just a sign of the times, commenting on the fear of the "other."

So I've "discovered" another small-press horror author whose books are almost impossible to find: Kealan Patrick Burke. I ordered his short story collection, The Number 121 to Pennsylvania, and it arrived today. It is a gorgeous book, published by Cemetery Dance, signed and numbered. I got number 792 our of 1000. This dude is supposed to be awesome, and I am hoping he is at least as good as Cisco and Klein - I've had good luck with horror authors lately. Unfortunately, if I do end up liking Burke, I am going to have a hard time getting any of his books. Some of them sell for $100+ on Amazon.

Orcs - Stan Nichols

I picked this up last night after throwing down M. John Harrison's Light in frustration. Orcs is exactly what I need now. While Light felt like a pretentious art-house film, one whose lack of plot and character is poorly hidden behind ambiguity and false portentousness, Orcs is like a B-grade schlock film designed with one thing in mind: to entertain.

And entertain it does.

It's brash, gross, violent, and over the top.

Light is to Lost in Translation, or Stealing Beauty, where as Orcs is to Toxic Avenger IV: Citizen Toxie and The Road Warrior. I know what I'd rather spend my time with.

Daniel, have you by chance read Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones?

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Originally Posted by Malickfan

Daniel, have you by chance read Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones?

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No, I have not. Good?

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Originally Posted by Daniel Davis

No, I have not. Good?

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It is. Different from all his books. This was written in a literary film treatment style with tons of footnotes...or endnotes in the trade paperback. It's a film trilogy in one book. Highly entertaining with a beautiful ending.

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Originally Posted by Malickfan

It is. Different from all his books. This was written in a literary film treatment style with tons of footnotes...or endnotes in the trade paperback. It's a film trilogy in one book. Highly entertaining with a beautiful ending.

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I'll check it out. I am always open to buying and reading new books. My "to read" stack(s) are huge, but I like having choices and being introduced to new things.

Thanks.

I am planning on reading a ton of horror next month, so I might get to this then.

I'll be reading: Klein, Ligotti, Cisco, Burke, Ramsey Campbell, and Clark Ashton Smith next month.

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Originally Posted by Daniel Davis

I'll be reading: Klein, Ligotti, Cisco, Burke, Ramsey Campbell, and Clark Ashton Smith next month.

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That's a big list. Demon Theory was the first horror book I'd read since John Saul's Creature back in junior high. But since then, I read I Am Legend, The Girl Next Door and I have waiting for me, World War Z and House of Leaves.

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Originally Posted by Malickfan

That's a big list. Demon Theory was the first horror book I'd read since John Saul's Creature back in junior high. But since then, I read I Am Legend, The Girl Next Door and I have waiting for me, World War Z and House of Leaves.

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Do you like Lovecraft and weird fiction?

If so, I highly recommend Thomas Ligotti. He's pretty much considered the direct descendant of Poe and Lovecraft. He is a national treasure, a modern master of the macabre. Most of his books are close to impossible to find, at least in affordable editions, but his newest one was just released as a trade paperback.

Get it while you still can:
http://www.amazon.com/Teatro-Grottes...1763331&sr=1-1

Decades from now, after his death, Ligotti's name will be mentioned with the same amount of reverence and respect as Poe and Lovecraft, and he will probably be considered one of the all time great American authors. He is just that good.

Haven't read Lovecraft. Would weird fiction be the same as bizarro fiction?

My to-read list is huge as well. I just keep buying more and more. I hope to get to them all before I die.

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Originally Posted by Malickfan

Haven't read Lovecraft. Would weird fiction be the same as bizarro fiction?

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Don't know - I don't think so.

"Weird fiction" began as a sub-genre during the 1920s and 1930s with publications such as Weird Tales, and written, originally, by authors such as Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Ambrose Bierce, Shirley Jackson, Clarke Ashton Smith, and others.

Ah, then that's not bizarro which started or was influenced by Lynch's fims and one of the main authors is Carlton Mellick III.

I've decided to get a few day's jump on my October reading, and so I started Ligotti's newest collection of short stories last night: Teatro Grottesco.

The book is divided into three parts; the first is titled, Derangement.

The first story, Purity, is totally bizarre, and incredibly unsettling. I read it twice in a row, and I am still unsure of its overall meaning, if it truly means anything at all beyond the haunting atmosphere it conjures.

It's told from the POV of a young boy. The boy's family lives what his father calls a "rented lifestyle," their lives in a state of constant flux, ebb and flow, as they move from one hovel to another. His father is obsessed by a series of experiments through which he hopes to purify the world around him; he desires to end the impurities of Citizenship, Faith, and Family: in his eyes, three vapid principles.

Just as the father is about to conduct one of his experiments on a hapless victim, the son leaves the house and the story shifts gears slightly. This is somewhat odd, but very brave. Ligotti sets up something that sounds like its going to be the driving force behind the narrative, and then he steers the plot in a different direction, only to leave the reader's mind craving to know what is going on back with the father.

So the son leaves and goes to a friend's house. This friend is an older women who lives in the ghetto, a women involved in some unknown but seemingly illicit business. Soon, the boy finds himself being attacked by a policeman with a strange secret. He returns home to find that his sister and mother have returned from one of their secretive excursions, and that his father has finished his mysterious experiment in the basement.

What in the hell is going on?

But do we really want to know? Haven't we learned the dangers of gnosis from Lovecraft? Aren't some things better left unknown?

I'm pretty sure all the clues to unraveling this mystery are presented by Ligotti, and part of me wants to parse through them to figure this thing out. However, part of me also hopes that there really isn't a solution. Part of this story's appeal is that it remains unknown.

I finished the first part of the Ligotti book, and damn does it contain some awesome stories. Two in particular stand out:

The Clown Puppet and The Red Tower

These are probably the two best Ligotti stories I've read. Pure genius, really, and totally haunting.

Like Lovecraft, Ligotti is not so concerned with plot. In many instances, it is quite hard to really explain what his stories are about beyond just describing the strange situations and terrifying occurrences. What's more, it is almost impossible to describe his stories to someone who hasn't read them in any meaningful or symbolic way.

It's not what his stories are about that makes them so unsettling - it is the way in which he tells them.

For instance:

The Clown Puppet is about a man who works in a small medicine shop. Every so often, late at night, he is visited by a clown puppet, a marionette being controlled by an unseen puppeteer. That's what the story is about - really - that's it. That's the "plot" as it were. However, the descriptive detail with which Ligotti conveys this story is rock solid, and he deftly creates a bizarre and terrifying atmosphere with his prose. Ligotti has an eye for detail, and always describes the most important parts, while picking the correct stuff to leave vague and ambiguous.

He is a master of showing what needs to be shown, while also keeping in shadows that which needs to be hidden.

The Red Tower is about a red tower - a factory that shifts in and out of existence in the midst of a gray and desolate wasteland. The tower and its environment seem to be in a state of total conflict. The Red Tower's purpose is one shadowed in mystery. At one time in its storied past it was a factory where otherworldly novelties were made, and at yet another time it produced things known only as hyper-beings.

Through strong, concrete, and tangible language, Ligotti creates a setting in The Red Tower that feels real - it's like he is describing a place that he has actually seen and been to many times. A place that, if you are unlucky, you could very well find yourself trapped in, unable to escape to the comforts of your once normal existence.

Corporate Horror

Thomas Ligotti has a fascination with corporate horror, and he is a master of painting the working-world with brush strokes rendering it macabre, dark, depressing and sinister. He has taken a theme popular with Kafka and elevated it to a new level of literary genius.

The second part of Teatro Grottesco focuses on corporate horror, with two of the three stories being absolutely incredible. The first, My Case For Retributive Action, tells the story of a man recently hired by the Quine Organization (a fictional corporation residing on the border of madness, insanity, and mundane normality). The new-hire finds himself surrounded by never-ending piles of forms to process. When the fate of the man he was hired to replace is discovered, the new-hire realizes just what kind of mess he's gotten himself into; indefinite hours, endless piles of forms, paranoid co-workers, and a knobby-monster thing that lives in his attic are all part of this recipe for terror.

The second story, Our Temporary Supervisor, is pure literary genius. I hope to one day discover that this story is taught in college classrooms around the world as a premier example of macabre fiction. right along side Kafka's The Metamorphoses. This short tale is haunting, and endlessly depressing. It is filled to the rim with despair, melancholy, and dread. The language Ligotti uses to describe this corporate horror is brimming with symbolism and concrete descriptions, and the situations he creates are terrifying in their plausibility while remaining fantastic and imaginative.

The narrator finds himself at the total mercy of his job - in every way possible. He can't quit because the Q. Org. is not excepting resignations at this time. His supervisor has been replaced by something not quite human. The work day is constantly being extended, breaks shortened, and increased productivity is required. What's worse is that the man doesn't even know what it is he is working on. All he does is assemble together small pieces of metal, for what purpose he has no idea.

In order to work these grueling hours, the employees are given drugs, prescribed to them by doctors who work for the corporation. The man soon finds out that when he stops taking the drugs he is plagued by terrifying nightmares. This story is an example of pure oppression - it is suffocating, frustrating, totally defeating, and completely mesmerizing. It weighs a ton, and I could feel the nastiness oozing from the pages of the book - the prose had a tangible effect on my very being.

It's been said before, but it is worth repeating: there is no other author alive like Ligotti. He is working on a level far above most other authors. That he is so seldom read is tragic. If you like quality fiction, of any genre, pick this volume up now.

You deserve to read something this outstanding. An author this talented only comes along once in a great while. We should consider ourselves lucky to have Ligotti living and working in our time.

It's the weirdest thing, I know, but while reading Ligotti it's as if I can actually feel a sinister presence enter the room. It's as if he has tapped into some kind of terrible and frightening force, and is able to channel this energy through the pages of his books into the very lives of those who read them.

Looks like Ligotti's book of corporate horror is getting a wide release soon.

Awesome. Now more people can read this master's stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Work-Not-Ye...329453&sr=1-38

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...2L._SS500_.jpg

Pre-order it now...

And while you're at it, make sure to pick up Teatro Grottesco before it's too late.

The title story of Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco is great, and it displays the author's rarest trait: a wicked, and cutting sense of humor. Wait, perhaps I should rephrase that: I don't mean to say that Ligotti lacks a sense of humor, it's just that his idea of "funny," or "comical," is so dark and twisted, subtle and nuanced, that it can easily be missed amidst the dread, doom, and unsettling nature of his prose.

Sometimes I'm just not sure if I am supposed to laugh or not; I am afraid that laughing might destroy the mood. But what if a small chuckle at the absurdity of the situation is exactly the response Ligotti is fishing for? It is hard to tell sometimes, and so, respectful reader that I am, I choose to error on the side of caution.

Not so here. With this story, it seems as if Ligotti might actually be making fun of himself and others like him. He takes a jab at the artistic underground and their self-righteous, overly serious, and pretentious ways. Perhaps Ligotti is poking fun at people who revere artists with such high esteem. Or, perhaps he is simply poking holes in and blowing down the facade of the artistic world and revealing it for the sham that it is.

Again, with Ligotti, like Lovecraft, Clarke Ashton Smith, and other authors of the weird, we are faced with the idea that knowledge of certain things will lead to certain doom; he demonstrates that gnosis gives way to a soul and body destroying evil. The narrator here remarks on his own artistic demise, of which the catalyst being his own presumptuousness and arrogance.

The human notion that we can stand up to anything, and that nothing lies beyond our ability of total understanding and domination, that everything "out there" exists only for our own use, to be manipulated, that we are meant to understand everything about the universe right here, right now, has lead us into moments of greatness, and moments of disaster.

This idea of ultimate knowledge leading to downfall is one that has plagued humanity for all of eternity. It is written about in the Bible with the story of Adam and Eve, they who ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That tree was their Necronomicon; it was their Teatro Grottesco.

Just finished The Ruins, and I am now thoroughly depressed. The story takes a while to rev up, but that mystery is probably the best aspect of the story. The threat, when it arrives, gets a little ridiculous, but, by then, I spent enough time with the characters that it really worked.

The Ruins is one of the worst books I've ever finished (I still don't know why I kept with it). 200 pages could be ripped out without any impact what so ever; it is an extremely padded short story, at best.

Today I picked up The King in Yellow, the short story collection published in the 1850s that served as a launching pad for much of the Lovecraftian mythos, and Adrift on the Haunted Seas, the Best Short Stories of William Hope Hodgeson, another early author of the weird.

I am going to try to work the King in Yellow book into my month of horror, which is getting off to an early and fantastic start with Ligotti.

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Originally Posted by Daniel Davis

The Ruins is one of the worst books I've ever finished (I still don't know why I kept with it). 200 pages could be ripped out without any impact what so ever; it is an extremely padded short story, at best.

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This. Only I didn't finish it. Couldn't finish it.