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YolkEater posted:I really enjoy the combination of cosmic horror with the violent, gun totting, noir detective. However, I've seen this archetype shows up far more in games based around HPL's work than in any fiction I've found. I hope I didn't miss this being mentioned but if anyone has a recommendation I would be grateful. Or if you could just point out the recommendations that have already been made that combine the two themes. The was a trade paperback/graphic novel/whatchmacallit that I picked up recently called Fatale that is sort of Lovecraft meets noir. Definitely more noir than anything though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatale_(Image_Comics)
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Aug 22, 2013 01:08
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quote:John Langan 'Mother of Stone' is a really creepy story which manages to flub the reveal a little bit. He does like his little twilight zone ending twists as well.
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Sep 3, 2013 18:31
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20% through The Wide Carnivorous Sky. Do not find this creepy at all. Actually, the stories are kind of tedious and the ideas not very interesting. Where are the authors that can evoke terror at the barely revealed horrors of the universe as well as Barron can? I know, I'm setting a high bar.
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Sep 20, 2013 21:11
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Having recently finished The Imago Sequence and made it a third of the way through Occultation before returning it to the library, I can safely say that I don't really like Laird Barron.
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Sep 21, 2013 21:35
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Ornamented Death posted:As much as I love Barron, "Procession of the Black Sloth" may be the worst short story I've ever read. It goes on and on and on forever and nothing loving happens! I didn't mind "Procession", it definitely wasn't the best story in the book but with a bit of editing I think it could have shone. There's definitely a story or two in the weird feeling you occasionally get in some south asian countries, cloistered away like that. It's not a paranoid feeling exactly but if twisted the wrong way it could definitely become something like that. On the other hand, we get it, sometimes people get kidnapped in Hong Kong. No need to mention it every page.
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Sep 22, 2013 13:52
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I've found John langan to be ok, worth two books. I just finished north American river monsters as recommended by Barron and that was some good stuff. Obviously not the same as Barron but it was pretty good. The stories were pretty horrific, which is always a plus. Just not monster horrific, more like single mother ditching her daughter at a truckstop horrific.
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Sep 22, 2013 14:53
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PateraOctopus posted:Having recently finished The Imago Sequence and made it a third of the way through Occultation before returning it to the library, I can safely say that I don't really like Laird Barron. Could I ask what it is you disliked about his stuff? Not every Barron story is genius, but some of them (Hallucigenia, The Light is the Darkness I would put right at the top) are terrifying and amazing.
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Sep 22, 2013 16:26
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Was Hallucigenia the one where that wife and her husband find a dead horse in a barn / cult shrine? I've got a mixed reaction to that. The imagery was pretty intense, but it's shot through with this weird vibe of Jews(iirc)-scientists-sorcerers being the same terrible thing. A good amount of the stories in Imago have these weird concept mixing problem. I get the feeling Barron has a somewhat poor grasp of science. I suppose I can see where he's coming from, but I don't feel like he pulls it off well.
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Sep 23, 2013 02:13
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That's the one. I don't remember anything about Jews. The main villains, such as they were, were a weird rural family that made everyone uncomfortable, a little like the family in The Dunwich Horror, I guess. I don't remember anything about them being Jewish, and I've always thought the science Barron used was pretty vague so it doesn't offend my knowledge of it too much. Albeit my training is in law and economics and my science understanding is mostly from private research so there's not much there to offend. I really liked the imagery in the story, the depiction of the extreme alcoholism and depression of the protagonist, and I thought the monsters, such as they were, were pretty creepy.
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Sep 23, 2013 02:26
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The ending to that one was hilarious, in an unintentional manner. Instead of opening the door and seeing the horrors inside, the butler just stops and goes NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE and high tails it out of there. Properly rational on his part.
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Sep 23, 2013 03:28
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The Rat posted:The ending to that one was hilarious, in an unintentional manner. Instead of opening the door and seeing the horrors inside, the butler just stops and goes NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE and high tails it out of there. Properly rational on his part. I think that was intentionally subverting your expectations. I mentally cheered the guy for making the smart move.
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Sep 23, 2013 03:49
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Neurosis posted:That's the one. I don't remember anything about Jews. The main villains, such as they were, were a weird rural family that made everyone uncomfortable, a little like the family in The Dunwich Horror, I guess. I don't remember anything about them being Jewish, and I've always thought the science Barron used was pretty vague so it doesn't offend my knowledge of it too much. Albeit my training is in law and economics and my science understanding is mostly from private research so there's not much there to offend. I really liked the imagery in the story, the depiction of the extreme alcoholism and depression of the protagonist, and I thought the monsters, such as they were, were pretty creepy. I believe that some neighboring farmer mentioned that the family was Jewish. Anyways, my personal problem with Barron is that he's great at building atmosphere, but cant seem to figure out how to write a good climax in most of his stories. You get this great building of tension that ends up just sputtering out. Its a real shame.
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Sep 23, 2013 04:21
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Neurosis posted:Could I ask what it is you disliked about his stuff? Not every Barron story is genius, but some of them (Hallucigenia, The Light is the Darkness I would put right at the top) are terrifying and amazing. It's hard to put a finger on it--I just couldn't get interested in his writing, really. It just became apparent that more often than not a story was going to be about gradually slipping into a dream-like psychosis where reality broke down around a character, and none of the stories really ever gave me a reason to care. The only story that stands out in my memory is "Strappado" because it broke from that formula, but it still didn't feel particularly compelling. It feels like a lot of his writing is just kind of presenting an image or concept that the author felt would be unsettling, surrounding it with overly flowery language and just leaving it there--like reading a summary of what the story's about would feel exactly the same as reading the story itself.
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Sep 23, 2013 04:49
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The Kindle version of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All is on sale for $1.99 this month.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:31
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I decided to check out Barron thanks to this thread. Finished The Imago Sequence and almost completed The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. I think he’s a worthy addition to anyone’s Lovecraft shelf, but I agree with many of the criticisms raised. The Imago Sequence, Hallucigenia, Bulldozer and Parallax were fresh and amazingly novel but I really haven’t found anything that rivals those stories in The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. Maybe that’s a result of diving into a second Barron short story collection so soon after the first. Don’t get me wrong, several of the stories (Hand of Glory, The Men from Porlock, Jaws of Saturn) are great fun, definitely solid Lovecraftian tales, and I appreciate how he interweaves details in his stories to generate his own mythos, but they don’t seem to be of the same quality as the stories in his first collection, particularly The Imago Sequence. I see that The Imago Sequence and Occultation won the Shirley Jackson Award but The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All has yet to be mentioned so maybe that explains the difference. Spoilers because I generalize about endings and other details. I read The Diamond Age recently so it seemed a little bit glaring that Stevenson and Barron seem to share the same problem of not being able to write a satisfying ending and just deciding to terminate it abruptly because the author is sick of writing. Stevenson is clearly the more egregious offender of this, but I thought The Men from Porlock wrapped up quickly (though it’s still an awesome story), while More Dark and The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven ended in a way that left me exclaiming “Seriously? Seriously you are going to end it like that? What the hell!”. PateraOctopus posted:It's hard to put a finger on it--I just couldn't get interested in his writing, really. It just became apparent that more often than not a story was going to be about gradually slipping into a dream-like psychosis where reality broke down around a character… Totally agree with you. I think Hallucigenia and Parallax are weakened by this style but he somehow nails it in The Imago Sequence and Bulldozer. I think in the latter two stories, each ‘dream-like psychosis’ state is short enough to and the details in the visions are relevant to the narrative; while in say the Procession of the Black Sloth you have way too many weird visions that are not all connected in the narrative. For example, the initial vision/freak out when the main character is in the airplane bathroom and sees what he thinks is a large monstrous bulk underwater isn’t really linked to what we find out his situation is. It feels like you could edit out several of them and still have the same essential story in Procession of the Black Sloth Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 08:47 on Oct 3, 2013 |
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Oct 3, 2013 08:45
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Helical Nightmares posted:
See, I disagree with that on both Parallax and Black Sloth. Parallax I think was different enough from the other stories that it worked pretty well. I suppose I just imagined the way he felt to be similar to insomnia, like the emotional equivalent of not sleeping for days in a row. I don't think that "slow spiral into madness" applies because he started out that way. Editing out parts of B.S. would lessen it imo, because part of the point of him being in hell is because he doesn't know he's there. Yet all these little visions and stuff are trying to jog him into realizing the truth. Only once he realizes can he move on and be ushered into the movie theater, and in time make his way back out. So it would be essentially the same, but it looses a little bit of the journey aspect. You have to understand before you can atone, etc. "Having a psychic break" is a good technique for Imago because, like you said, it's a really short breakdown and actually applies to the plot. I still think Imago would have been better if it wasn't so ... well, *gets high as gently caress* *listens to extreme drone metal* "  Holy poo poo look at these picture its like activating your DNA man  " "People are pretty much bugs on the cosmic scale man" "Sex and human 'love' is pretty much the same as aphids mating but like forever. Let's debauch this cathedral." "Total dark instar cosmic entomology" "Existence is like this grim fractal" *Woah 4D imago sequence* fin I dunno, is it dumb for me to harp on the weird pseudoscientific tie ins? I don't want to sound like I didn't like it, because I really enjoyed Imago (and that whole collection), but I guess I could live with it being more mysterious. I suppose it's easier for me to accept that people could have their lives or whatever affected by some mysterious force.
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Oct 5, 2013 05:43
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I just finished Laird Barron's The Light is the Darkness and thought it was pretty terrible. The premise sounded interesting but he somehow turns it into something that isn't interesting at all and I just ended up forcing myself to finish it. Pretty disappointed since I really liked his story "The Broadsword" and thought the whole concept of gladiatorial blood sport + dark gods would be exciting, but I felt like the whole thing was flimsy and Barron was just trying to push his dull protagonist through set pieces of purple prose.
pixelbaron fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Oct 22, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 21:33
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Just finished with The Impossible Object. I blew through all four stories in one sitting and would recommend it, but it feels like it could be so much more. In other news Tor.com posted Equoid awhile back (A little appetizer before the next Laundry Files book comes out in July). I haven't seen mention of it in the thread nor have I gotten around to reading it yet. Just started The Void which was recommended early in this thread, and so far it's off to a great start. So much so that I have That Which Should Not Be sitting next in my queue.
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Oct 23, 2013 21:04
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"Equoid" was pretty good. It's set sometime before The Apocalypse Codex.
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Oct 24, 2013 02:17
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I just finished reading "Equoid" and agree with Ornamented Death. It's another solid side-entry in the series. I like these short stories because I really like the world Stross has built. I want to read more one-offs like this in between the major novels to explore the different critters and mythology he's built up. Go Charlie, go!
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Oct 24, 2013 06:21
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So thanks to this thread, as a newcomer to the genre (besides old H.P. himself), I picked up Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco ebook and, well, wow. I have to say, he's super uneven; the titular story was pretty bad and did nothing for me, but holy loving Christ Gas Station Carnivals  I don't normally respond very strongly to written horror, but that story messed with my head so hard I can't even verbally identify the species of dread I was experiencing while reading it. It reaches some kind of primal irrational fear in a way that Lovecraft never really did for me. I think it's the whole "distorted childhood memory" aspect, it really speaks to me, and I am now officially hooked on that "disturbing but can't look away" feeling. Are there any more stories on that theme?
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Oct 31, 2013 15:44
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Just bought The Imago Sequence because of this thread. Look forward to checking it out, not familiar with the author. I've not read Ligotti, but years ago I got an unexpected gift (as I didn't know the author at all): the graphic novel version of The Nightmare Factory. Liked it but had some difficulties tracking down other books at the time. Good to see that Ligotti has some ebooks available on Amazon. I'll be picking up either short story collection next (too broke now). Also, wanted to back another poster up here: Check out Fatale. It's an absolutely brilliant graphic novel, very noir, very Lovecraftian. So good that I've been collecting issues of it, but I usually wait for the paperback volumes. Also, I've started listening to King Crimson because of the discussion about them and Ligotti. Well done, thread. Very well done. You should go and give In the Court of the Crimson King a listen if you haven't already.
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Nov 1, 2013 10:54
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If you enjoyed Equoid then you should definitely check out its source material, one of my favourite books (though it's about as far from cosmic horror as its possible to get).
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Nov 1, 2013 12:26
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The ironic part of Ligotti's career is that when he was writing you couldn't find his work but now that he's quit its becoming more available. For the longest time his short stories were only available through small print regional publishers who didn't sell their stuff to/through Amazon.
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Nov 1, 2013 12:40
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Apparently he got some stuff out recently so he might write more. With the nature of his mental illnesses there are going to be certain phases he'll be more productive in so it's going to be kind of cyclical.
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Nov 1, 2013 16:07
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John Dies At The End is an entertaining take on the amusing side of eldritch horrors.
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Nov 4, 2013 00:15
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TOOT BOOT posted:John Dies At The End is an entertaining take on the amusing side of eldritch horrors. One of the best recent horror movies I've seen.
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Nov 4, 2013 05:30
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Draynar posted:One of the best recent horror movies I've seen. The movie seemed okay but it basically removed a huge swath from the middle of the book.
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Nov 4, 2013 06:37
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I didn't even know that was based on a book! Something new for the kindle!
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Nov 4, 2013 16:01
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Honestly, I saw the movie then read the book, and I felt like JDATE made the best possible movie it could've out of the book, and I say that without the least rancor toward the book, which is every bit as excellent as the film. There's a bunch of stuff in the book that would take too long to explain (such as the demons harassing David by changing the lyrics of songs he hears to be racist) or just goes way too high-concept for a portion of a film. It's a great book and a great movie was made out of it, and both are well worth your time and good on their own merits.
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Nov 4, 2013 18:50
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Draynar posted:I didn't even know that was based on a book! Something new for the kindle! And it has a sequel out, even!
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Nov 5, 2013 03:24
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Dr. Benway posted:In other news Tor.com posted Equoid awhile back (A little appetizer before the next Laundry Files book comes out in July). I haven't seen mention of it in the thread nor have I gotten around to reading it yet. Enjoyed this. Thanks for posting it!
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Nov 7, 2013 04:56
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TOOT BOOT posted:And it has a sequel out, even! Ya finished original (movie was def good but book is a good deal darker(still funny thought) and a lot more in it) Sequel is also really good about half way through!
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Nov 8, 2013 16:23
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My favorite part of JDATE (the book) is when the two main characters both grow goatees to deceive their nigh-omnipotent supernatural enemies into thinking they're different people, and it pretty much works.
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Nov 9, 2013 06:30
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I hope nobody minds if I mention this here, but I've been working on a cosmic horror adventure for National Novel Writing Month. I'm going for a pulpy western adventure vibe wherein cowboys face off against eldrich horrors. Or, to put it as my synopsis does:quote:In the wake of the Civil War, an ancient evil awakens in the west... I've also been posting daily excerpts so people can get an idea of what the story is like. It's all super rough first-draft stuff, but I'm hoping the ideas are solid enough to support a fully fleshed-out novel. Though this is probably less horror and more pulp than what's usually discussed here, some aficionado perspective would be welcome.
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Nov 15, 2013 18:21
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I just finished The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us All and I was pretty happy with it, though I will say it's actually my first foray into Barron's work. There weren't any that I didn't enjoy (Men from Porlock stood out, as others have said) though they didn't all knock it out of the park, generally speaking. I don't think it's great writing, but I did thoroughly enjoy More Dark because I find it hilarious how much he lampoons the overly tight-knit and kind of silly community of modern horror writers. I also think he (maybe good-naturedly?) does a decent job of capturing the less credible and more unfortunate elements of Ligotti's work and personality. In addition, it's hilarious to read the reactions to the story on the forums on Ligotti's site-- The author he refers to as having stalked a woman to the point where she goes insane and kills him is a regular poster, and is seemingly the only person to take it with a bit of grace. I'm curious, has anybody else figured out who some or all of the authors mentioned in that story are? Some were obvious, I've hunted a couple down, and I'm kind of enjoying sleuthing the rest out.
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Nov 17, 2013 09:41
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Re: More Dark – I haven't really looked into it myself but this review by S.T. Joshi (which Barron linked to himself) mentions some names: http://formerpeople.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/a-northwesterly-chill/ I was surprised by the sour tone, I thought More Dark was just some kind of writerly goof-off.
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Nov 17, 2013 10:50
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MockingQuantum posted:I just finished The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us All and I was pretty happy with it, though I will say it's actually my first foray into Barron's work. There weren't any that I didn't enjoy (Men from Porlock stood out, as others have said) though they didn't all knock it out of the park, generally speaking. I don't think it's great writing, Having finished Occultation and The Croning I can definitely say The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us All is the weakest of his work. Enjoy the rest!
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Nov 18, 2013 05:42
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There's also webcomics: Lovecraft is Missing and Mockman are the two that I follow. As much as I like Lovecraft, I prefer Clark Ashton Smith and William Hodgson. I also wish there were more graphic novel adaptations of Smith's work, instead of just the one story. I haven't been that impressed with the Lovecraft adaptions so far.
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Nov 19, 2013 03:03
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I thought More Dark was all in good fun. My image of the story has been shattered; the Ligotti stuff made me giggle.  I'd actually be happiest if Barron started writing more novels, even though The Croning had some hallmarks of a writer trying to transition into the longer format I enjoy the mythos building, and thought the book was overall very good. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 14:33
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