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Barron's The Light Is The Darkness is one of today's Kindle Daily Deals.
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Nov 10, 2014 23:15
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Patchwork Shaman posted:This has to be The Barrens by F. Paul Wilson. anilEhilated posted:I know this story and even recall that the first sentence is something along the lines of "Yesterday I shot the answering machine" but can't for the life of me remember what it's called. It is very good though. I remember that sentence now anilEhilated. It has got to be The Barrens then. Thanks.
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Nov 10, 2014 23:42
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Any good free weird fiction e book recommendations on like say project Gutenberg?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:38
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Rough Lobster posted:Any good free weird fiction e book recommendations on like say project Gutenberg? Is Hodgson's stuff on there? House on the Borderlands is cool as poo poo, and if you can stomach the language, The Night Land is great. Boats of the Glen Carrig is also quite good. Actually I know House and Boats are because that's where I got them. The other one probably is, too. Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 06:00
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If you read The Night Land, I recommend the rewrite by James Stoddard rather than the original. I've now read both and much prefer Stoddard's. It is much less stilted. After reading both The Night Land and House on the Borderlands I recommend Awake in the Night Land by John C Wright, 4 novellas also set in the Night Land and which give a conclusion to the setting, which also ties in with House on the Borderlands. Wright's fantasy as opposed to his harder sci-fi, at least in the longer form, has been pretty lacklustre, but this book is flat out amazing. Strangely, despite Hope Hodgson being quite purple at times, Wright's language is actually less baroque than in his wont in these stories which pay homage to Hodgson. They each explore a different conception of love, as the original Night Land dealt with romantic love, against the rather dismal and fatalistic Night Land setting. Don't be fooled into thinking that makes them, or the original for that matter, in any way upbeat or unsuitable for this thread. The setting is so downright bleak it gives any optimism gleaned from human affection a doomed and bittersweet feeling.
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Nov 19, 2014 14:13
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Thanks for the responses, I'm on a shoestring budget over here. I actually was in the process of reading the Night Lands rewrite a while back but I think it wasn't finished yet or something.
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Nov 19, 2014 14:23
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Finished Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy recently loved it. Coincidentally I then found this thread and immediately was blown away by A Colder War. Any other recommendations re: the intersection of cosmic weirdness and espionage / shadowy govt agency stuff?
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Nov 19, 2014 20:00
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j. alfred moonrock posted:Finished Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy recently loved it. Coincidentally I then found this thread and immediately was blown away by A Colder War. Any other recommendations re: the intersection of cosmic weirdness and espionage / shadowy govt agency stuff? Stross excels at the short story, and he's got a few in the same vein as A Colder War in his collection Wireless. In particular, I'd check out Missile Gap, which he might actually have a free link to on his website. Depending on how okay you are with Stross's other output, you may or may not be interested in his Laundry series. It's about a computer nerd turned demonologist drafted into the British intelligence service, kind of a tongue-in-cheek take on both John LeCarre's spy novels and Lovecraft's mythos. I think there's also a couple more serious 'spies meet cosmic horror' stories in Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence as well.
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Nov 19, 2014 20:31
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Neurosis posted:If you read The Night Land, I recommend the rewrite by James Stoddard rather than the original. I've now read both and much prefer Stoddard's. It is much less stilted. Yeah, Stoddard's rewrite is great. That cover though.
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Nov 19, 2014 20:45
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The first two Laundry novels have a very different voice from the later novels since they're deliberately aping Ian Fleming and Len Deighton, and then the later novels are just straightforwardly in Bob Howard's voice. Might be a bit odd the first time.
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Nov 19, 2014 22:04
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Is Richard Marsh's The Beetle (1897) any good? I had never heard of it. Evidently a contemporary of Bram Stoker.
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Nov 19, 2014 23:28
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j. alfred moonrock posted:Finished Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy recently loved it. Coincidentally I then found this thread and immediately was blown away by A Colder War. Any other recommendations re: the intersection of cosmic weirdness and espionage / shadowy govt agency stuff? Tim Powers' Anubis Gates and Declare!. Some Australian author's something Peel Files. And a series of shorts based on the delta green rpg. On my phone I'll update w/ links soon. E: "The Harrison Peel Files" by David Conyers. Follows an Australian Army Officer that quickly gets wrapped up in Lovecraft mythos. I flew through the first two books. I didn't dislike them, but it felt like it was missing just a little of something that would make it really entertaining. Tim Powers gets a lot of love. Personally, I can't stand him. YMMV. The Delta Green Series. More of a Special Forces meets the unknowable, I feel the same way of this as I do The Harrison Peel stuff. Like it's missing just a dash of salt. These are more of a "boots on the ground" perspective rather than a LeCarreian back room ballet of espionage though. E2: Found it. Dr. Benway fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 02:53
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I haven't read Anubis Gates yet but Declare is really loving good. I'm thinking about ordering his other novel The Drawing of the Dark because the description sounds loving amazing.
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Nov 20, 2014 03:07
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Rough Lobster posted:Thanks for the responses, I'm on a shoestring budget over here. I actually was in the process of reading the Night Lands rewrite a while back but I think it wasn't finished yet or something. The short stories I mentioned are available for free here http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightfic.html#content There's a whole bunch of fiction here set in the Night Land, actually, but the four stories I was referring to are: http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightawake.html http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightcry.html http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightsilenceofthenight.html http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightlastofallsuns.html
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Nov 20, 2014 04:43
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Neurosis posted:The short stories I mentioned are available for free here http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightfic.html#content Thanks! I've always meant to grab the book these came from; guess I can save a few bucks now.
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Nov 20, 2014 05:23
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Rough Lobster posted:I haven't read Anubis Gates yet but Declare is really loving good. Anubis Gates is honestly overrated. Now, for myself: I'm a fan of Lovecraft(iana) not for the feelings of horror but the awe-inspiring alien mythology. Is there anything good and similar to this side of HPL around? I've tried going for the two most used names in this thread, Barron and Ligotti, and neither of them really hit that for me. Loved just about anything Stross had written on the matter, but mostly for different reasons, too. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 22:34
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If the horror is of secondary importance, you might try branching out into sci-fi. Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space series is pretty good.
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Nov 21, 2014 02:13
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The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey is pretty good.
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Nov 21, 2014 08:23
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Ornamented Death posted:If the horror is of secondary importance, you might try branching out into sci-fi. Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space series is pretty good.
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Nov 21, 2014 12:42
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Fire Safety Doug posted:I like Barron a lot, I didn't like Ligotti very much even though I can see why some might do. The nameless protagonist overcome with nameless dread in a nameless place thing just doesn't really do it for me. I think horror as a genre lends itself better to fairly straightforward writing, which is not to say that you can't write well, but that the emotional punch required is harder to achieve through layers of literary gimmickry. Name one Ligotti story where the protagonist overcomes anything. I've read everything the man's ever written fairly recently after rediscovering Teatro Grottesco and Conspiracy Against The Human Race on my shelves. I must admit, I picked the books up again while watching True Detective, just because Rustin Cole kept directly quoting them. I can only name two stories where anyone over comes anything. There's The Tsalal, where the protagonist becomes the leader of a cult based around the sinister order of the universe, a shadowy force, a cosmic grand unification that uses the Human race as puppets. This is encountered time and time again in Ligotti's fiction And My Work Is Not Yet Done where Frank Dominio gets hollow revenge and kills himself instead of being a puppet to the shadowy & sinister grand unification of the cosmos any longer. A lot of people go into reading Ligotti expecting him to be Lovecraftian. He's not. Not exactly. Every Ligotti story starts out with a character in a bad situation that gets worse, true. But much of his work is closer in tone to Franz Kafka, or a much darker version of Philip K Dick. I'm a sucker for stream of consciousness perspectives and pessimist philosophies, so he's right up my alley. I guess that would be the major knock against him, since most people expect fiction to be written in a direct scene by scene format, with little editorializing from the narrator. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Nov 26, 2014 |
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Nov 26, 2014 17:56
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God Of Paradise posted:Name one Ligotti story where the protagonist overcomes anything. I've read everything the man's ever written fairly recently after rediscovering Teatro Grottesco and Conspiracy Against The Human Race on my shelves. I must admit, I picked the books up again while watching True Detective, just because Rustin Cole kept directly quoting them. I can only name two stories where anyone over comes anything. English is not my first language, but I was using "overcome" in the sense of "overwhelmed by", not in the sense of conquering something.
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Nov 26, 2014 22:10
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Fire Safety Doug posted:English is not my first language, but I was using "overcome" in the sense of "overwhelmed by", not in the sense of conquering something. It reads to me like you used the word perfectly properly and God of Paradise just parsed it wrong. 'The nameless protagonist overcome with nameless dread' doesn't indicate that the protagonist is overcoming anything if one reads it correctly; rather, it says just what you intended it to. /derail I had to put down the original version of The Night Land. The best I can say in the author's defense is that it actually seems like the way someone who isn't a very good writer might keep a journal, so in that sense it might be appropriate for him to be writing 'I slept and then I ate some of the tablets and drank some of the water' for the nine billionth time, but it doesn't make it any less putrid to read as a narrative. The setting is definitely amazing but it made me think I wanted to be reading an RPG sourcebook about it, not a novel. Maybe at some point I'll try the rewrite. House on the Borderlands is better so far, but it's still turn-of-the-century purple weird fiction.
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Nov 26, 2014 22:43
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JerryLee posted:It reads to me like you used the word perfectly properly and God of Paradise just parsed it wrong. 'The nameless protagonist overcome with nameless dread' doesn't indicate that the protagonist is overcoming anything if one reads it correctly; rather, it says just what you intended it to. I'm halfway through Teatro Grottesco and I'll be excited to talk about it when I finish.
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Nov 26, 2014 22:57
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JerryLee posted:It reads to me like you used the word perfectly properly and God of Paradise just parsed it wrong. 'The nameless protagonist overcome with nameless dread' doesn't indicate that the protagonist is overcoming anything if one reads it correctly; rather, it says just what you intended it to.  Anyone have a recommendation on where to start into Ligotti? I'm looking to get into a new author.
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Nov 29, 2014 03:03
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coyo7e posted:Anyone have a recommendation on where to start into Ligotti? I'm looking to get into a new author. If you can find it, the 80s edition/s of "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", and/or 90s ed of "Grimscribe", or alternatively the '96 bind-up "The Nightmare Factory". The new, updated, "definitive" versions of Songs and Grimscribe are a definite down-grade.
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Nov 29, 2014 13:47
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Ghostwoods posted:If you can find it, the 80s edition/s of "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", and/or 90s ed of "Grimscribe", or alternatively the '96 bind-up "The Nightmare Factory". The new, updated, "definitive" versions of Songs and Grimscribe are a definite down-grade. The '96 paperback of "The Nightmare Factory" goes for about $200 online, soooooo maybe find a different printing.
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Nov 29, 2014 13:58
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Ghostwoods posted:If you can find it, the 80s edition/s of "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", and/or 90s ed of "Grimscribe", or alternatively the '96 bind-up "The Nightmare Factory". The new, updated, "definitive" versions of Songs and Grimscribe are a definite down-grade. What's different between these editions?
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Nov 29, 2014 14:35
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Pope Guilty posted:The '96 paperback of "The Nightmare Factory" goes for about $200 online, soooooo maybe find a different printing. It does? Jeeeeeebus. a foolish pianist posted:What's different between these editions? The new editions -- somewhere in the last few years -- were commissioned with revised & updated text for all stories. Going back to stuff you wrote ages ago is often a mistake though, and in this instance, the updates mainly seemed to blunt the stories and dampen their impacts. The Nightmare Factory is a straight bind-up of the fiction content of Ligotti's first three collections, though. It's missing some of this thoughts on writing, but the stories haven't been screwed around with.
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Nov 29, 2014 19:18
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Ghostwoods posted:If you can find it, the 80s edition/s of "Songs of a Dead Dreamer", and/or 90s ed of "Grimscribe", or alternatively the '96 bind-up "The Nightmare Factory". The new, updated, "definitive" versions of Songs and Grimscribe are a definite down-grade. What are the differences between the Silver Scarab edition of Songs of a Dead Dreamer and the one most people have?
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Dec 3, 2014 23:50
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Latest Story Bundle is Weird. https://storybundle.com/fiction?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fiction
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Dec 4, 2014 02:17
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God Of Paradise posted:What are the differences between the Silver Scarab edition of Songs of a Dead Dreamer and the one most people have? More stories, some polishing -- and much better distribution into shops! (The 1989 version, that is.)
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Dec 4, 2014 20:09
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Any opinions on Peter Rawlik and his books REANIMATORS! and The Weird Company?
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Dec 17, 2014 01:41
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redreader posted:I'm reading the imago sequence right now (on the final story, 'the imago sequence') and some of them are just terrible. What's up with the guy who reads weird stuff in graffitti? I skipped that story. Some of the stories are good (the first one, with the weird witch person and the army guys and scientists) but of the first, I think three stories in the book, two of them basically end with the first-person protagonist saying or at least heavily implying 'and then I died'. I mean, that's playschool-level stuff here. If you're writing it you can't die. On a positive note, I previously read the tales of cthulhu anthology and most of those were pretty great. I thought the first story was just terribly bland and underwhelming, like the rest of the book. I can't say much though, I gave up after a few stories. There was just nothing in them. Everything felt so bland and watered-down. I've been reading Ligotti and like another poster here, am excited to talk about Teatro Grottesco when I finish it. I'm taking it real slow, only one story at a time with some intervals. It's absolutely terrific so far. The apathy and the dreamlike reality of every story really gets to me like nothing else. I recently read the first Southern Reach novel and really liked it. Everything about it was just great and I really liked how nothing was overexplained or made dull. It felt very fresh and exciting. When starting the second novel I found myself unable to continue somehow, the leap from the narrator of the first book to the beginning of the second one was too jarring. I'm going to take a short break and then give it another try, because I know this is something I want to explore further. Maybe I'll try the Ambergris stuff in the meantime.
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Dec 18, 2014 15:35
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Bolverkur posted:I've been reading Ligotti and like another poster here, am excited to talk about Teatro Grottesco when I finish it. I'm taking it real slow, only one story at a time with some intervals. It's absolutely terrific so far. The apathy and the dreamlike reality of every story really gets to me like nothing else. That was me, and I just finished. Teatro Grottesco was fantastic, and while people like to compare Ligotti to Lovecraft, I think he's a lot closer to being the David Lynch of print. Teatro Grottesco has a lot of stories concerned with turning the mundane, daily grind into a thing of horror (or exposing the horror in capitalist existence, if you prefer), much the same way Eraserhead does. People like to say that things are "nightmarish" when they really mean scary, but Ligotti and Lynch both deal in horror that uses actual elements of nightmares in the way they're presented. Time is questionable, and most of the stories take place more in a strange everyplace rather than any country in the real world. Characters end up in menacing situations without any linear narrative of how they got there. I can't help but think that this would make an amazing horror anthology film, because all the stories work together, but each stands alone really well, and so many of them deal with working environments rather than, say, the plateau of Leng.
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Dec 19, 2014 20:01
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Bolverkur posted:I thought the first story was just terribly bland and underwhelming, like the rest of the book. I can't say much though, I gave up after a few stories. There was just nothing in them. Everything felt so bland and watered-down. The rest of the southern reach books are not so great. Worth the read for completions sake. The first ambergris novel, city of saints and madmen, is amazing though.
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Dec 20, 2014 17:27
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I just finished a collection of weird fiction written as a tribute to David Tibet and Current 93, called Mighty In Sorrow. The stories range from excellent to absolutely abysmal, most notably one about Aleister Crowley, witch hunter, which read like self-insert fanfiction. I was disappointed to see that Thomas Ligotti's contribution was just the "In a Foreign Town" - stories from Teattro Grottesco, although I like them. As a side note, Current 93 and Ligotti have released some collaborative albums which are well worth checking out.
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Dec 29, 2014 21:46
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Tim Waggoner's The Last Mile is a fun Cthulhu-esque story. I hope Waggoner decides to flesh out the setting some more.
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Dec 30, 2014 05:30
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Ornamented Death posted:Tim Waggoner's The Last Mile is a fun Cthulhu-esque story. I hope Waggoner decides to flesh out the setting some more. Seconded. Worth reading.
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Dec 30, 2014 21:10
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So I don't know if this thread really gets enough traffic to warrant it, but I figured I'd throw this out there: I've mentioned that I'd be willing to edit the OP so it's got some decent recommendations for people new to weird fiction/cosmic horror/etc. I think, though, that I'm probably not nearly as well read in these genres as a lot of people who post in this thread. So if someone has any interest in writing up a solid OP or just has some quick and dirty recommendations I can list, hit me up.
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Jan 8, 2015 22:11
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Bolverkur posted:I thought the first story was just terribly bland and underwhelming, like the rest of the book. I can't say much though, I gave up after a few stories. There was just nothing in them. Everything felt so bland and watered-down. The story The Shadow, The Darkness is amazing. It's like one story that really ties all of his work together.
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Jan 11, 2015 00:00
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