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

[D_Davis]

At two separate points I was ready to give up on Michael Cisco's Celebrant. And boy howdy I'm glad I didn't. I still don't know what it's about, but at least now I know it's about something. I am beginning to think that it might be best to start the book at the end and read it backwards, chapter by chapter.

Something clicked about 1/2 through, and I am now loving at a book that, up until that point, I was merely interested in.

Cisco continues to be the most challenging author I've ever read. Each book gets progressively more challenging. He began with The Divinity Student, a simple and yet incredibly elegant and creative, plot-based story; and he has arrived where he is now, creating these elaborate puzzle-books overflowing with the most lush and beautiful prose I've ever read, with each page being a well of secrets that must be studied, parsed, and broken down.

For instance, all throughout Celebrant the dialog is written like this:

I'm going over here (he says).
OK, I will meet you there (she says).

However, for two pages in the middle, the main character meets a woman, and all of her dialog is written with traditional "" marks and structure. Although the responses from the main character are still noted as above.

That means something to the story. I know from the timeline at the beginning of the book that the woman in question is actually a person that the main character is going to be reincarnated as in the future (or the past, because time runs backwards in this book), but why does Cisco employ this affected style choice?

And book is full of these kinds of things. Almost every chapter contains something like this. Sometimes I'll spend ~5 minutes reading and re-reading the same page.

[D_Davis]

I'm almost done with Michael Cisco's Celebrant, and I think it is pretty safe to say that all of weird-fiction should have to change its name. Because next to this, all of weird-fiction is mundane and completely normal.

[D_Davis]

Celebrant, by Michael Cisco

I cannot claim to understand everything that this dense, cryptic, and powerfully written novel contains. Not even close. My level of understanding probably hovers around 40%. This is the most difficult book I've ever read. There were multiple times that I almost gave up, and I was tempted to skim whole chapters. But I never did. I persevered and worked my way through it, slowly, word by word, in a manner similar, I'm sure, to the process by which Michael Cisco wrote it.

For those of you who might read it, it is important to remember one thing: there is a world within the world of the novel in which time runs backwards. And I don't mean it in some simple Benjamin Button convention. It's not that people are born old and die young. The very fabric of time and space, and cause and effect is fundamentally turned on its head. Literary devices such as flashbacks, foreshadowing, and projections from a/n omnipotent POV character(s) all work differently in this novel. Cisco effectively creates a new kind of storytelling in which his readers discover the things that happened before we discover why and how they happened. It's hard to explain.

Yes, it is purposeful obfuscation. However, it is done for an important reason. As far as I can tell, the book is about reincarnation, death, and the afterlife. Things that are or can be incredibly confusing to a person experiencing them (and given the premise, we have to assume that these things do in fact exist in the book's world.). Cisco uses a confusing convention to demonstrate the confusion the characters are experiencing, and in turn he puts his readers in a similar state.

Additionally, the book itself is somewhat odd. The very first page past the cover contains a series of anagrams for the book's title, each crossed out, with only the final solution, 'Nacre Belt' left unmolested, but followed by a '?'. And then the next page begins with a narrator proclaiming that he is not ready yet, who then goes into a explanation of certain things for a few pages. This is all before we get to the traditional title page and bibliographic information. We are then presented with a timeline of the book, something that is simultaneously confusing and illuminating.

Scattered throughout the rest of the book are additional little puzzles and clues (such as the use of quotation marks surrounding only certain lines of dialog). I'm sure there is something on almost every page to solve, that, once done, will reveal another layer of understanding. However, I was unable to do so frequently enough for my own peace of mind. At times the book felt like work, and I can't say that I enjoyed a lot of it in a more traditional manner. There were entire POV characters that completely baffled me, and entire chapters that left me scratching my head.

As with The Great Lover, Celebrant will be a book I will return to in the future. I truly believe that there is a lot to gleam from its pages. I know that Cisco is a writer who carefully chooses every word he uses - there is no compromise, he does not settle for something that simply gets the job done. I wish I understood more, and I am greatly looking forward to reading the comments from other people who have read this book. Celebrant is a book to be read and studied, and I'm sure that one day I will treasure it more.

[D_Davis]

Next up, some magical realism:

The Complete Butcher's Tales, by Rikki Ducornet

170 pages, over 60 short tales.

[D_Davis]

So far, The Complete Butcher's Tales has been unsettling to the max; it is full of dark and twisted little tales with sinister humor, and ghastly imagery. The stories are also written with a master's eye for detail and word selection. Highly recommended.

Here is an entire story:

"Thrift"

The chosen infants are taken from their mothers after the sixth week. They are placed in specialized hospitals and tortured. Other than that they are treated like other children; washed, hushed, scolded, and kissed.

They are tortured every day at varying intervals for their entire lives. Within a few years they are all fancifully deformed. None live long, the oldest die broken and senile and sixteen.

They never reach puberty or grow taller than four feet. However, individual members (hands, fingers, tongues, feet, ans ears) develop and grow to miraculous lengths.

When these children die they are fed to the police dogs.

Nothing on the planet is ever waster.

[D_Davis]

The Complete Butcher's Tales, by Rikki Ducornet's

Rikki Ducornet's The Complete Butcher's Tales could have also easily been called Unsettling Tales, or 60 Unnerving Tales of Unsettling Occurrences, had it been marketed as a collection of weird/pulp stories rather than a collection of magical realism or whatever it is.

In general, I liked most of these little tales. Even while reading in broad daylight, more than a few unsettled me, and read in the morning more than a few cast the remaining hours of the day in a strange and haunting light.

However, by the end of the book I was ready for it to be over. Like Thomas Ligotti, I get the sense that Ducrounet doesn't think to highly of humanity. She's probably not quite as misanthropic as old Tom, that is I don't get the sense that she thinks humanity is nothing but the worst punchline to the most terrible joke ever told, but I don't think she sees much good in us; or, at the very least, she's chosen to focus on the ill-mannered, the abused, and the downtrodden.

And yes, this is often the point of horror, but this particular brand of the genre exhausts my psyche much quicker than a work of pop-horror does. And that is probably a testament to Ducornet's skill and talent. These stories are incredibly well written. I'd probably group her with Ligotti and Cisco in her literary style.

So yes, The Complete Butcher's tales comes highly recommended. Just be prepared for the overly-somber and unsettling nature of the stories. Perhaps it would be best to split the book into two readings, with something like a Stainless Steel Rat novel thrown in for some light-hearted balance.

[D_Davis]

Next up is a heroic fantasy anthology called, Swords Against Darkness v1, including novellas and novelettes from Howard, Wellman, Poul, and others.

[Irish]

Davis, can you recommend something in the "low fantasy" line?

Primarily interested in quality prose and a good story. Don't mind pulp too much, but looking to avoid the awkwardness of something like the Fu Manchu books, if that makes any sense.

[D_Davis]

McDermott's new trilogy, The Dogsland Trilogy, is amazing low fantasy. I compare it favorably to The Wire in the way that it is actually urban; it's not urban-fantasy in the way that Neil Gaiman, or the Dresden Files is. That is, it is not Hot Topic gothic, or steampunk. The first two books are out. They are short and sweet. He's one of the best writers writing today, in any genre or not-genre. His book Last Dragon is the single best work of fantasy I've ever read.

The Dogsland Books:

Never Knew Another
When We Were Executioners

Also, Manly Wade Wellman's Hok the Mighty is awesome - caveman fantasy, very low.

[Irish]

Ha! Those sound perfect -- thanks!

[D_Davis]

You might also want to look into Wellman's Silver John stories - Redneck/Americana horror/fantasy. I'd recommend almost anything from Wellman.

Or Charles G. Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao - while not exactly "fantasy," it is fantastical, bizarre, and incredibly influential.

[D_Davis]

Here's my review for the latest Dogsland book:



When We Were Executioners, by J.M. McDermott

Sometimes there aren't reasons for things; sometimes things just are. This is true for the characters and story depicted in J.M. McDermott's book, When We Were Executioners, and true for the book itself.

Thus far, The Dogsland Trilogy is the polar opposite of high, epic fantasy. I'm not quite sure what the opposite of epic is, but in this case the narrative is super small and extremely personal, almost to the point of it being a work of pointillism.

The Dogsland Trilogy is low fantasy, very low, and also very urban. I'm not talking about urban in the sense of a Neil Gaiman or Clive Barker urban fantasy. This isn't cute-goth, or weird alt-London, or steampunk. It's urban in the sense of it taking place in the inner-city; it's urban in the same way that The Wire is urban. It's about the lives of a few people trying to get by, it's about whores and drug dealers, cops and criminals, addicts and politicians, all trying to live their lives with the cards they were dealt, while all around them the city, their very environment, chews them up and spits them out.

And the chewing gets nasty. McDermott punctuates this book with a few scenes of extreme, grotesque violence, violence that has a point, and violence that hits hard. It is graphic and hard to read, but never gratuitous. This is not violence in the context of action, or titillation, or excitement. These depictions of violence serve to illustrate the consequences of living in a city like Dogsland.

When you get right down to it, there isn't a lot going on plot-wise. It's basically a direct continuation of the first book, Never Knew Another, almost to the point of it being the same book. Things happen, but there isn't a grand, sweeping narrative with an exciting dramatic drive keeping the pages turning. It is, rather, a very small story about people, their lives, their love, and their survival.

And so what's the point of the book? What's the point of it being a trilogy? I'm sure if you simply examined the plot of the entire thing, you could easily tell the story in a single volume, perhaps in the length of a novella; the plot is not complex, at all. But some things don't need points, or reasons. Some things just are. This book exists simply to read about and spend time with a few fictional characters, not completely unlike people you might know, save for some of them being shape-shifters and of-demons. It exists to be read, and isn't this the ultimate purpose of all fiction?

[D_Davis]

For a good, short example of McDermott, you can check out his excellent short story/novella, Death Mask & Eulogy for only $1.99 (e-book). It gives a good taste of what he is about as an author. I don't think it's the best thing he's done, but if you like it you will surely like his other longer works.

[Irish]

I also ordered The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, a collection of Howard's original stories.

Not exactly "low" but I've never read them.

[Irish]

For a good, short example of McDermott, you can check out his excellent short story/novella, Death Mask & Eulogy for only $1.99 (e-book). It gives a good taste of what he is about as an author. I don't think it's the best thing he's done, but if you like it you will surely like his other longer works.

Very cool, thanks! Based on your review, this stuff looks like exactly what I was looking for.

[D_Davis]

I'd say that Conan classifies as low fantasy, at least some of it. Just depends on where you want to draw the lines. A lot of the Heroic/S&S stuff is low. The worlds aren't necessary normal by our standards, but we're not talking high, epic stuff with elves and dwarves - and it's not Vancian at all.

Ever read any A. Merritt (The Moon Pool)? H. Haggard Rider (SHE, King Solomon's Mines)?

I just got a collection of S&S stuff by Philip Jose Farmer in which he combined the worlds of Tarzan and Rider's African stuff. It's called The Gods of Opar

[D_Davis]

I haven't read nearly as much Conan as I should have by now. I haven't read nearly enough Howard as I should have. I need to remedy that soon, because he was often a damn good writer.

[Irish]

I'd say that Conan classifies as low fantasy, at least some of it. Just depends on where you want to draw the lines. A lot of the Heroic/S&S stuff is low. The worlds aren't necessary normal by our standards, but we're not talking high, epic stuff with elves and dwarves - and it's not Vancian at all.

Ever read any A. Merritt (The Moon Pool)? H. Haggard Rider (SHE, King Solomon's Mines)?

I just got a collection of S&S stuff by Philip Jose Farmer in which he combined the worlds of Tarzan and Rider's African stuff. It's called The Gods of Opar

Kinda surprised you haven't read more Howard. Figured that's right up your alley.

That collection I ordered is 8 or so of the original stories, printed in the order he wrote them. Seemed like a good bet.

Haven't read Merritt or Rider. Very little Farmer. He seems like a guy I should have read more of. (I swear I have a copy of To Your Scattered Bodies Go around here somewhere, but I can't find the damned thing now.)

[Irish]

Re: low vs high -- I actually looked this up in Wikipedia the other night, trying to understand exactly what the distinction was. Sorta helpful, sorta not, because apparently the big line in the sand is whether the world of the story exists on a "primary world" (like Earth) or a "secondary world" (like Narnia).

I don't care so much about that, but I'm really digging around for stuff that's not always about lords and ladies and BIG EVIL and the fate of the world. And preferably worlds that don't have big, nonsense magical systems or anyone who resembles Gandalf.

[D_Davis]

I don't care so much about that, but I'm really digging around for stuff that's not always about lords and ladies and BIG EVIL and the fate of the world. And preferably worlds that don't have big, nonsense magical systems or anyone who resembles Gandalf.

Me, too.

Merritt and Rider will also be exactly what you are looking for. Lost Continent kind of stuff.

The only reason why I haven't read more Howard is simple a matter of too little time and too many authors.

[Irish]

Me, too.

Merritt and Rider will also be exactly what you are looking for. Lost Continent kind of stuff.

The only reason why I haven't read more Howard is simple a matter of too little time and too many authors.

Very cool! Stayed up too late last night reading first about Howard's life (suicide at 30?! FFS!) and then about HP Lovecraft. (Funny you mentioned SHE, btw, as that seemed be an influence on both of them). I will check out Merritt and Rider as soon as I work my way through this other stuff.

Btw, came across a good fantasy journal too -- have you seen Beneath Ceaseless Skies? They offer two long form stories per issue, for free, under various formats so you can read on the web, or a Kindle or an iPad. Looks great so far.

[MadMan]

Over the past month or so I've purchased the following Stephen King books:

*Night Shift
*Christine
*It

I started reading Night Shift today. The first short story, which is a prequel of sorts to his classic 'Salem's Lot, is a really creepy and well told tale, and a good start to that anthology. Its going to be my first King anthology, and I hear that he has penned some awesome ones over the years.

[D_Davis]

While I love many of King's novels, it is in the short story that he excels as a writer. Some of his short stories are among the best I've ever read; this is where King is his most literary and thought provoking.

[D_Davis]

Next up, The Croning, by Laird Barron. His first novel, my first Barron.

[D_Davis]

I started reading Rasputin's Bastards, by David Nickle this weekend. About 85 pages in, and it is wonderful. It's a huge, sprawling, post-Cold War epic (set in the 1990s) about a network of psychic KRB agents and spies scattered around the globe; most have been programmed to remember nothing of their pasts, and one-by-one they are waking up to discover that something new and sinister is afoot. There are dozens of characters, the espionage is thick and confounding, and the plot boils along barely taking a moment to clue the reader in - it's a book that demands attention.

Even though I have all of Nickle's previous fiction, this is the first I've read. He is slated to become one of the next big things in American horror/genre fiction; if this novel is any indication, I'd say he's fitting in nicely with someone like Neal Stephenson and Dan Simmons.