Awesome.
Have you seen the new $500 book of art by artists inspired by Lovecraft?
http://www.millipedepress.com/centip...-h-p-lovecraft
Intro by Harlen Ellison, afterward by Thomas Ligotti...
/drools....
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Awesome.
Have you seen the new $500 book of art by artists inspired by Lovecraft?
http://www.millipedepress.com/centip...-h-p-lovecraft
Intro by Harlen Ellison, afterward by Thomas Ligotti...
/drools....
Yeah, Millipede Press has some pretty amazing titles. It's one of those things I'd treat myself to if I won the lottery :)
There is some incredible Lovecraft-inspired artwork out there. I know it'd scare a lot of people away from visiting my home, but some of this stuff (like the image above) I would frame and put in my living room.
I just ordered this hoodie:
http://images.cafepress.com/product/...or-AshGrey.jpg
I can't quite make out what it says, but that's awesome :lol:
"Cthulhu 2008; Why Vote For the Lesser Evil?"
I finished My Work is Not Yet Done.
My God that thing is bleak and disturbing. A full review is in the works.
Next up...
Deathworld 2 - Harry Harrison
After spending a month with Ligotti, Lovecraft, Cisco, Burke, Klein, Chambers, Hodgson and Campbell, neck deep in horror, misanthropy, terror, isolation, and anguish, I need to return to something more adventurous and light hearted - for my own sanity.
Last night, I dreamed of Cthulhu - seriously. That's just not cool.
And no, the irony of this book's title is not lost on me. Yes it is called Deathworld, but it's more like Fun-filled Adventure-World!
It's pure Harrison pulp, and it's just what I need right now.
Okay, I finally started Laird Barron's "The Imago Sequence", by reading the first story contained in the book - "Old Virginia".
I was surprised how creepy this story was. Really. While fairly simple, Barron's prose were effective in evoking that feeling of impending dread that Lovecraft and other writers of so-called "weird fiction" are commended for.
The story itself is quite simple, too. In the mid 1950s, a group of soldiers are stationed in the middle of nowhere to protect some scientists working on a secret project. When the tires on their vehicles are methodically slashed one night, a period of paranoia begins, and secrets are unveiled. Is it the evil "Reds" stalking and playing with them, or is something terrible about to be uncovered?
It's a very quick story. 19 pages, and it flies by. But it really did creep me out, and I'm looking forward to reading more.
Looking forward to hearing more about that Meg.
From what I've seen, it looks pretty good.
Read the second story by Barron, titled "Shiva, Open Your Eyes". It's more of a theme piece than a narrative, and it is like a loving tribute to the ideas presented by Lovecraft throughout his Cthulhu mythos and, well, most of his work. The idea that there are truths regarding our existence and "place" in the universe which are so horrible that, if one were to discover them, it would surely drive them mad.
I'm now about halfway through the third story, "Procession of the Black Sloth".
That sounds cool, meg.
I started Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen this morning. It's a post-modern fantasy (meaning what I have no idea). The amount of praise thrust upon this is ridiculous, and I hope this doesn't turn into another experience like M. John Harrison's Light (Everyone from Michael Moorcock to China Mievelle claim that this is a total reinvention of fantasy literature, and that VanderMeer has elevated the genre to a new height of literary excellence, blah, blah, blah, more akin (and often compared to) Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mervyn Peake, Lord Dunsany, and Gene Wolfe than Tolkien, blah, blah, blah. I've heard all that before, lets hope he delivers).
The book is quite strange. It consists of two novellas, a fake history book of the world, and a 300 page appendix consisting of articles, found writings, and assorted curiosities detailing the work VanderMeer created.
So far the prose is quite good. It reminds me a bit of Cisco's The Divinity Student in the way it conveys its dream-like atmosphere. I hope it approaches its narrative with a darker, sharper edge similar to, or at least as interesting as Cisco's novella.
My only fear is that it is going to get all story-book or fairytale-like in its execution. I hope VanderMeer steers clear of that kind of Gaiman territory. I don't imagine he will tread that water, but it seems like the kind of thing that could happen given the nature of the world he is working in.
It feels like a very dense read, one that a large amount of time could be needed to digest it all.
I bought four back issues of Weird Tales, so I'd know whether to submit my stuff to them or not. I've actually been enjoying the stuff quite a bit. A ton of different approaches to the overall concept of the "weird," which is good news for me (being inclusive is good).
Anyway:
"The Heart of Ice" (Tanith Lee, March/April 2008)
Reads like a Grimm's Fairy Tale, only without the moralizing. Lee's adept at describing the snowy landscape, where an outcast meets the Snow Queen, the woman of winter. As time passes, he becomes more attuned to her level of reality, but is he forsaking his own? There's little to the story past its evocation of mood, but I dug the attention to detail. Many images leap past the printed word, especially Lee's descriptions of the ethereal animals that inhabit the Snow Queen's world. Lovely, if slight.
"Creature" (Ramsey Shehadeh, March/April 2008)
Fantastic, silly, and sad. "Creature" follows an enormous, amorphous beast that enters a town and gains an unexpected friend: an adorable little girl named Ugly. The titular creature is a lot of fun, but what caught me off guard was the sincere relationship that developed between the two. But whenever things threaten to get too serious, the Creature transforms into something strange. Could be retitled "Little Lucy and the Sympathetic Shoggoth."
Sounds good. I think Weird Tales was recently relaunched. I haven't heard a lot of good things about this new reincarnation, but I'm sure it will take a while to pick up steam, and the "new weird" is a budding sub-genre right now. There seems to be many authors attempting to define and add to the voice of the new weird.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dead & Messed Up
VanderMeer, Mievelle, Bishop, Cisco, Ligotti, - it's a cool time to be into this kind fiction.
Have you checked this out:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1892391554.01.L
No, but Ann VanderMeer is the current editor of "Weird Tales," so I should give it a go. Thanks for the heads-up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Davis
Jeff VanderMeer is also an anthologist of Clark Ashton Smith.
Small world!
I'm submitting a story to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Pays 6-9 cents per word.
Wish me luck!
Luck has been wished.Quote:
Originally Posted by megladon8
Good luck meg!
I finished the first novella in VanderMeer's City of Saints and Madmen, and it was fantastic. What starts as a touching, but strange, little love story quickly turns into an exercise in the grotesque and bizarre, but the shift in tone does not feel jarring. VanderMeer weaves a tapestry rich with nuance and subtle inflections of emotion and develops a believable, and yet still phantasmal, decent into madness. The novella leaves a number of questions unanswered, and can be analyzed in a number of different ways. I am sure I will return to this one again, as there is a lot here to digest.
I finished It a few days ago, and have still been thinking about it. I really need to stop trying to compare the novel and the movie. The movie's almost nothing like the novel, and I consider it pretty much a complete failure at conveying the characters and themes in the book.
In the chapter "Under the City", where we actually hear It's thoughts, this struck my mind immediately:
It had made a great self-discovery: It did not want change or surprise. It did not want new things, ever. It wanted only to eat and sleep and dream and eat again.
That's really what kept It alive: a mix of denial, complacency, and ignorance. Bill and the others' willingness to fight, to not acquiesce and let things go, was a significant part of the battle. I like that idea a lot.
However, the "Love and Desire" section was creepy as hell (in a bad way), and underdeveloped as well. In a book that's nearly 1100 pages long, if you have a major theme that's underdeveloped, I think there's a problem.
Now that I tackled that behemoth of a book, I think I'll be willing to take on some more. Any recommendations, particularly from King's works?
Try his short fiction:Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisnu
Cycle of the Werewolf is an awesome novella - tons of fun in an old pulp way.
The Bachman Books - four awesome novellas
Everything's Eventual - short story collection
My favorite non-Dark Tower book is The Talisman
I also really like The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
***
I've started reading part two of the San Veneficion Canon - The Golem. It is a direct sequel to The Divinity Student.
So far it totally kicks ass.
I cannot believe how absolutely amazing these tales are.
As if the Divinity Student couldn't get any more effed up - remember the first book begins with him dying and being stuffed with the pages torn from random books before being brought back to life - in this tale he is even more undead, as if that is even possible.
He's been brought back to life, again, but now his stuffing is coming out, he only has one working leg held together by a brace that has been surgically attached, he's almost completely blind, and his skin is sloughing off revealing his old and tired bones. He's so messed up that at the end of the first chapter he tries to hang himself, but fails when Teo (The Butcher's back!) stumbles upon his hanging body and cuts him down.
Oh yeah - the cars are back to, still thirsty for the Divinity Student's blood, very thirsty.
It's so comically grotesque!
I just can't believe the way Cisco brings this all together.
The dude is some kind of total mad genius.
Read this, read this, read this. It will blow your mind.
THIS IS FANTASTIC FICTION!
D, have you read anything by Joe Hill?
Any good?
I have not. I have his newest collection of short stories though.Quote:
Originally Posted by megladon8
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Davis
I'm just trying to find some new horror authors to check out.
Hadn't read anything of his, but he has some good reviews.
Is it "20th Century Ghost Stories" that you have?
That's the one.Quote:
Originally Posted by megladon8
Maybe you should try some anthologies? That's what I'm going to do now. My horror project last month has gotten me into short stories, a form that, historically, I had not been too keen on.
From what I gather, these are some good ones, and I got them all for really cheap:
Prime Evil - ed. Douglas Winter (reading this now)
http://www.amazon.com/Prime-Evil-Dou...6679954&sr=1-1
Nightmare: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...
http://www.amazon.com/Nightmare-Slee...6679978&sr=1-2
The Dark Descent (this one is huge, and covers everyone from Dickens to Lovecraft, and from King to Ligotti)
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?...hology&x=0&y=0
Prime Evil ed. Douglas E. Winter
This is a pretty good little anthology.
First of all, the introduction is fantastic. It's a well written attempt to answer the question, 'what makes great horror fiction?' I love a good introduction to an anthology, as it is here that we can learn about the anthologist's thinking.
The stories in this volume range from merely OK to absolutely fantastic.
Although I did skip three entries, one written by M. John Harrison, one by Ramsey Campbell, and the other by Peter Straub. Just not a fan of these dudes. And I have one story left to read, the final short novel titled By Reason of Darkness, by Jack Cady.
First in line is Stephen King's The Night Flier. I could have sword I had read this before, but I guess I hadn't. It is really good. Many people argue that although King is primarily known as a novelist, it is in the short story that his talent truly lies; I will need to investigate this further. This one, however, is a winner. It's about a sensationalist journalist tracking down a killer who might be a vampire - all for a cover story. It is superbly structured and has the coolest vampire-reveal I've ever come across.
The next few stories are among the merely OK. Paul Hazel's Having a Woman for Lunch is a little zinger, ala Tales From the Darkside; The Blood Kiss, by Dennis Etchison, is my least favorite of those read thus far; and Clive Barker's story, Coming to Grief, is also mediocre.
I should mention my biggest disappointment before I get to the gems: Thomas Ligotti's Alice's Last Adventure. By no means is this a bad story, and in terms of prose-style it's probable the best in the collection, but it simply wasn't great. And I was expecting greatness: expectations set too high.
The true stunners here are Thomas Tessier's Food and David Morrell's Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity.
Food almost made me gag a couple of times. It's about a woman who has an obscene habit of over eating, and the transformation that takes place because of it. It's not all gross though. Nestled withing the rolls of fat and crumbs is a sweet little love story that is genuinely touching.
David Morell's story is my favorite entry. Morrell, by the way, is the author of First Blood - yes, it is he to blame, or praise, for unleashing John Rambo on the world. Personally, I love the hell out of First Blood, and I really want to read the book now. This novelette reminded me a lot of T.E.D. Klein's work in Dark Gods. It's mired in Lovecraftian atmosphere, but doesn't try to emulate the purple prose style. If not for the too-pat ending, I would say this is one of the better Lovecraftian style stories. It's all about a series of artists who go insane after discovering a dark, ancient truth. I adore stories like this; narratives dealing with secret arcane knowledge are totally my bad.
I highly recommend this anthology. Even if you only enjoy a few of the stories, it is cheap enough to warrant an impulse purchase. I got my copy at a used book store for like two bucks, and I see them for less than a dollar on the Amazon Marketplace.