Yep. Longtime fan of weird fiction in general. Blackwood is great.
No reason to spend money on Blackwoods stuff, though. It's all in public Doman. Same with Lovecraft, James, Hodgson, etc.
There's also a really nice reading of The Willows on the vintage horror radio podcast. I believe this one is actually read by Blackwood.
https://gpodder.net/podcast/vintage-...adio-horror/40
I'm very glad I spent money on the Penguin paperbacks of Lovecraft's works. The Joshi notes are fantastic.Quoting D_Davis (view post)
Thanks for this. Sounds good.
Do you have any specific Blackwood recommendations? Also, out of curiosity, what is it that you don't like about Joshi?
It's not that I dislike Joshi, I'm just not enamored with him like so many other weird fiction readers are.
I think he's a little full of himself, and we don't see eye to eye on many things, especially in the realms of religion and spirituality, and it goes beyond a simple disagreement as he tends to (in more than a handful of cases) dismiss a writer's work because he or she happens to believe in a god (he is a staunch anti-theist). I appreciate his scholarly work with the genre in that he's helped to cultivate and keep the genre alive, but I rarely gather a lot of insight from what he has to say outside of the general facts he presents, which are good in their own right. I think we just approach and look for different things.
He knows a ton of trivia about the genre and its authors, but I get little to nothing from his literary criticism (like the stuff found in his book The Modern Weird Tale).
In other words, his annotations are not enough to get me to buy something that is already in the public domain and released for free.
I've only read the Penguin collection of Blackwood, along with a scattering of other stories. Just about everything in that collection is good to great.
I highly recommend an anthology called The Weird, edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer. It's an exhaustive collection of weird fiction from past to present, and is an absolute treasure. It's got a story from any author you would ever care to read in the genre.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Weird-Comp.../dp/0765333627
My favorite modern weird author is Michael Cisco, and author who is criminally under read, and one who I believe will find his place in the canon in the next couple of decades. As far as I'm concerned, he's the modern Kafka, and he's become a literary force of which I know no equal. He has an incredible short story in The Weird collection.
Great reply. I'm not familiar with Joshi outside of a vague sense of his scholarly reputation, so those details are interesting.
Thanks for the link to that anthology, as well (I noticed Angela Carter is on the cover; she's another author I was introduced to during university. I read and enjoyed The Bloody Chamber). Your effusive praise for Cisco has me very intrigued.
I'd encourage you to read some of his stuff. He might jive with you better than he has with me.
I actually found a few of the posters over at the science fiction and fantasy forum to be more insightful with their literary criticism. One in particular, who went by the name JD Worthington, was an amazing source for all kinds of great insight into the genre and it's authors.
another problem I have with Joshi is that people often turn to him as the ultimate opinion on things regarding the genre. As if his opinion is the right one, and everything else is wrong. That doesn't really have much to do with him, but I find that kind of appeal to authority to be a little boring and troublesome.
I find it very difficult to find quality modern weird fiction. I'm constantly going back to Lovecraft.
Laird Barron is quite good, as is Ligotti. Not sure if Michael Cisco is a part of this subgenre, but I would certainly say he's tops if he is.
Other than that, though, I've tried so much and found so little.
For one, the relatively new wave of "bizarro fiction" is utter trash. Authors like Carlton Mellick III and Jeremy Robert Johnson have little to no writing talent at all IMO. It's awful stuff, completely shallow and uninteresting. A writing movement I just don't get.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Some great modern weird/new weird authors:
Jeff and Ann Verdermeer
Ligotti
Cisco
Barron
Catherine M. Valente
McDermott
Ken Asamatsu
KJ Bishop
I'm sure there are more, but we'll just have to wait for the good to rise to the top with more anthologies.
And I agree - that bizarro stuff is mostly garbage.
I'm similarly a big fan of public domain and not a big fan of Joshi's broader personality and opinions. I just really like his specific notes in that specific edition.I'm not a big fan of Joshi, but I'm a huge fan of public domain literature.
Which one is it? Maybe I should take a look.
The Penguin paperback editions. Three books total covering most of his work. The end-notes, if I recall correctly, focus on the geographic context, literary influence, and publication history of each story. He offers brief opinions on the works, but mostly deals with the facts of the case.
Yes. Just finished the follower The Twelve, waiting for the third one.
Matheson's The Incredible Shrinking Man was a damn good time, sometimes a bit obvious with its messaging - if you aren't wise to the idea that his shrinking is emblematic of how we all have a due date, or that the spider chasing him is emblematic of all his fears, he explains it, albeit quickly enough that it's more of an "I get it, bro" instead of a "Good God, stop talking!" I've seen the movie (and kinda loved it), so it was interesting that the book constantly intercuts between Carey's battles with the spider and flashbacks to his diminution. The movie's much more linear.
That decision feels artificial, obviously, but the structural choice works, promising the reader plenty o fun spider action if they can just hang tight through Carey's psychological struggles. It also helps that the book's a brisk 200 pages, focusing mostly on either the momentum of tiny Carey's basement adventures or vital flagpost moments in his downward journey. One odd sequence involves him lusting after a teenage babysitter while in hiding, but contextually it makes some sense - he sees little of his wife anymore, and his complete inability to satisfy his sexual drive with anyone has only increased his appetite.
With that, I've read Shrinking Man, I Am Legend, Hell House, and roughly a dozen of Matheson's short stories. I'm not sure where to go next, but I'm thinking either Bid Time Return or A Stir of Echoes.
I absolutely love the film, but haven't read the story. I'm planning on reading a lot of short horror fiction this Halloween, including selections from The Weird and giving Lovecraft another go. I should add this to the list.
It is short novel size, whatever your thresholds are. I remember "Born of Man and Woman" being one of his most effective short stories.
It is on my must read list, along with Ligotti's selection.
No thresholds, I just have a lot of short horror fiction in anthologies and collections, and it's about time I started reading them more often. I'll check to see if that's in the Matheson book I own.
I'm not sure. I want to read a lot of The Weird. I've neglected it for too long. I also am going to give Lovecraft a fair shot. I feel like I haven't done that yet. I have a Matheson book in which I've only read "I am Legend" and would like to read much more. I also have The Exorcist, which I've always meant to read.
I'm in an early Halloween mood and want to take advantage.
I'll be picking stories on a whim so I won't be able to give much notice, but I'll let you know as soon as I start on one, or just finish. It'd be great to be able to discuss them with you.
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