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He also believes that the Laundry is demonstrably in the right and that people are better off being kept in the dark by various intelligence agencies supernatural or otherwise.
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Dec 1, 2015 06:34
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Peztopiary posted:He also believes that the Laundry is demonstrably in the right and that people are better off being kept in the dark by various intelligence agencies supernatural or otherwise. I can sort of forgive/accept that in context, since one of the major tropes with cosmic horror is that information can literally, itself, be a deadly threat. You know the wrong sorts of things or think the wrong thoughts, and the Outsiders seep through into your brain, especially as CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN gets closer. It's a few steps beyond "well, our attempts at enforcement will be hampered if people know about the surveillance operation." In fact, I'd go so far as to say it could act as a (very slight, and likely unintentional) deconstruction of the arguments in favor of powerful secret agencies, by asking "Okay, what sort of threat or premise unambiguously makes this sort of deception necessary?" and concluding, of course, that it's literally the stuff of fantasy. That said, if he's actually defended poo poo like the NSA in the real world,  For some reason I always got the impression he was pretty progressively minded, but I guess one can't take that for granted.
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Dec 1, 2015 08:13
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JerryLee posted:That said, if he's actually defended poo poo like the NSA in the real world, I used to follow his blog and yeah he's generally pretty progressive. That said, he's convinced he's a genius and so are the idiots in his comments sections, and he likes doing 'thought experiments', so God knows what he's convinced himself of lately
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Dec 1, 2015 18:39
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While he was moaning about the people who didn't get TAS (because anyone who didn't like it didn't get it) he said something that boiled down to "I don't want to write the sort of stuff I wrote ten years ago*, and if don't like it then you're not the sort of reader I want." Which seemed indicative of a pretty lovely attitude. Also, snarking at his own readers as obviously being too dumb to have ever read any real literature. *In and of itself, fair enough.
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Dec 1, 2015 20:59
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"If you don't like what I'm writing now, don't read my books anymore" is also, itself, fair enough, but the paraphrasing makes it seem like he was more  than  , which is dumb
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Dec 1, 2015 21:07
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JerryLee posted:"If you don't like what I'm writing now, don't read my books anymore" is also, itself, fair enough, but the paraphrasing makes it seem like he was more There's really no way to say that without sounding like a jackass.
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Dec 1, 2015 21:32
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ravenkult posted:There's really no way to say that without sounding like a jackass. I think there needs to be, though, because--the entitledness of some media consumers being what it is--even a non-jackass creator may occasionally need to point it out to people. But this admittedly is getting away from whatever Stross may demonstrably have done or not done, and in his case I can buy him being tone-deaf enough to come off like a jackass. He fits the mold, no doubt familiar to us from Internet discourse generally*, of the mostly cool and interesting guy who doesn't realize when his head is getting close to his own rear end in a top hat. *Or the mirror. Like in my case.  vvv 
JerryLee fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Dec 2, 2015 |
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Dec 1, 2015 22:38
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let me assure you you are neither cool nor interesting
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Dec 2, 2015 03:38
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I think ur cool dawg
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Dec 2, 2015 04:58
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i don't
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Dec 8, 2015 23:03
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I guess it's a classic and one of the great mythos stories, but I'd never read Robert Howard's The Black Stone before. Good story! It's in a collection of Howard's mythos stories, so in looking forward to the rest.
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Dec 15, 2015 09:50
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Just read Laird Barron's new novella Xs for Eyes. I thought it was pretty good. While it still has some of the trappings of a standard Barron story the style is different. Less noir and more pulp adventure. It still has a major helping of cosmic horror but is less heavy going and more fun... To the degree his stories can be fun.
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Dec 15, 2015 14:56
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Inspired by someone else who mentioned it, I went searching for what else the Darkest Dungeon narrator Wayne June has done. --Wayne June narrates Lovecraft on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77xxGopjMbY The Shunned House is really good. --Wayne June narrates Kubla Kahn (Coleridge), The City And The Sea (Poe), Dream-Lands (Poe), The Conqueror Worm (Poe), The House On the Borderland (Hodgson) 5.2 hours for $10, To Virgil Finlay (Lovecraft), and The Oval Portrait (Poe) http://www.sffaudio.com/index.php?s=wayne+june --Wayne June narrates Lovecraft in audiobook form: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Worlds-Lovecraft-Volume/dp/B004BDTXFK --Wayne June's audiobook catalog of narrations: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/3890839.Wayne_June Also : http://vibedeck.com/waynejune NB: The Willows (Blackwood) and The House On the Borderland (Hodgson) are here. --Wayne June's Website: http://www.waynejune.com/
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Dec 22, 2015 11:38
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Finished Carter & Lovecraft, enjoyed it a fair bit. Kind of similar to Laundry books, but with less nerd humor, bureaucratic parody and modern pop culture references.
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Dec 22, 2015 19:21
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Just finished Declare by Tim Powers. Didn't really like it. I felt like it was too long-winded, and failed to evoke any feeling of horror or dread. e: Maybe my expectations were off, because I was expecting more Lovecraftian horror and less spy novel stuff. The Rat fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Dec 29, 2015 |
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Dec 29, 2015 21:25
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Neurosis posted:Just read Laird Barron's new novella Xs for Eyes. I thought it was pretty good. While it still has some of the trappings of a standard Barron story the style is different. Less noir and more pulp adventure. It still has a major helping of cosmic horror but is less heavy going and more fun... To the degree his stories can be fun. Seconding this, I enjoyed it a lot. Kind of Johnny Quest meets Lovecraft.
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Dec 29, 2015 21:42
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The Rat posted:Just finished Declare by Tim Powers. Didn't really like it. I felt like it was too long-winded, and failed to evoke any feeling of horror or dread. Declare isn't Lovecraftian. It's closer to Arthur Machen, but it's a novel where there is a powerful and benevolent god who nevertheless puts people to cruel tests.
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Dec 29, 2015 22:29
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i recall there being no evidence of any benevolent god in declare
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Dec 30, 2015 10:26
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Neurosis posted:i recall there being no evidence of any benevolent god in declare
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Dec 30, 2015 12:50
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There's a benevolent God in Declare because Noah's Ark is real, and baptism cures an inherent defect in the human soul. Whether or not you choose to recognize that particular deity as benevolent is up to you, but in the context of the book its clear.
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Dec 30, 2015 14:46
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I don't know if it'd classify as defect, I interpreted it like a "running water as folk remedy based on reality" thing. As for Noah's Ark there sure as hell isn't anything benevolent in there; I haven't read it in quite a while but the impression I remember having was that Bible got it wrong and it's a metaphor for the djinn stowed away there. Might be wrong, I need to read it again.
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Dec 30, 2015 15:59
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anilEhilated posted:I don't know if it'd classify as defect, I interpreted it like a "running water as folk remedy based on reality" thing. As for Noah's Ark there sure as hell isn't anything benevolent in there; I haven't read it in quite a while but the impression I remember having was that Bible got it wrong and it's a metaphor for the djinn stowed away there. The Ark they encountered isn't Noah's, which is said to be elsewhere like a few mountains away. It's the Djinn's life-raft, which they hooked onto Noah's Ark to escape the flood. The Djinn are explicitly parasites. As far as the baptism thing, Hale encounters a supernatural immortal king or something, who demands to know how Hale no longer has "the black drop in every human's heart" or something. Hale thinks it was baptism, saving him from original sin iirc. So there's no actual Jesus descending from the clouds type stuff, but it's clear the author was attempting to invoke some notion of the divine as existing.
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Dec 31, 2015 11:27
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Just finished Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes which I thought was extremely dope, especially in her descriptions of 1) reality being torn apart by an extradimensional dream being and 2) a believable and grounded Detroit. Now I'm reading Windeye by Evenson and it's alright. The story about the demon horse was stupid though.
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Jan 6, 2016 01:12
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I dunno it seems pretty clear to me that while Angleton may be dead in mind and body, his "soul" (which is to say The Eater of Souls) is more entangled with Bob than ever before. Like in The Rhesus Chart Bob does something similar to Angleton's "stare absolute fear into a man" trick to a police officer after Angleton dies. That and when Bob went zombie in his sleep to try and destroy Lector in The Annihilation Score. I don't quite expect Bob to become the new Angleton but if anything some part of him is still existing on Earth.
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Jan 7, 2016 07:11
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JerryLee posted:That said, if he's actually defended poo poo like the NSA in the real world, Yeah, no. He's a socialist. If you read his blog at antipope.org he's pretty much the opposite of an NSA shill.
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Jan 7, 2016 12:07
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bog savant posted:Just finished Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes which I thought was extremely dope, especially in her descriptions of 1) reality being torn apart by an extradimensional dream being and 2) a believable and grounded Detroit. Third of the way through Broken Monsters. Good so far. Original.
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Jan 7, 2016 13:27
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Neurosis posted:i recall there being no evidence of any benevolent god in declare Well, I guess you didn't read the ending, or the part where literal angels torment people who professed false faiths, or the part where a literal djinn-killing meteor fell on the center of Wabar. I mean, you could attribute the first to delusions and the latter two to some sort of demiurgic figure, but that kinda robs the novel of a lot of its power.
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Jan 7, 2016 17:20
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Effectronica posted:literal angels torment people who professed false faiths I didn't finish the book (gave up about half way through), but this sounds like the opposite of evidence of a benevolent god to me.
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Jan 7, 2016 17:38
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Disappointing egg posted:I didn't finish the book (gave up about half way through), but this sounds like the opposite of evidence of a benevolent god to me. The character in question was a British intelligence agent who falsely converted to Islam to better infiltrate and exploit the people of the Middle East. In return, he gets to go through a temporary period of purgatory before his son resurrects him.
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Jan 7, 2016 18:43
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I'm sure it's been discussed somewhere in this read but what is the goon take on Clive Barker, particularly the Books of Blood? I prefer horror fiction with a more classy prose style - Ligotti is by far my favourite, and Barron and Strantzas aren't bad. There was a lot of trashy horror fiction written in the 80s, is Barker actually worth getting into?
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Feb 6, 2016 17:53
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If you want class, Barker isn't for you. I find his earlier stuff fairly enjoyable, but it's mosty body and gore horror, nothing subtle or imaginative in there. Also if it's a Barker book and has more than 300 pages, it's poo poo; he eventually started writing horribly bloated fantasy novels that are like 90% pure drivel. edit: Also, poop snakes.
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Feb 6, 2016 18:17
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feedmegin posted:Yeah, no. He's a socialist. If you read his blog at antipope.org he's pretty much the opposite of an NSA shill. Glad to hear! And yeah, I read his blog every so often to see if there's been any major updates on his writing, but not nearly often enough to be sure I haven't missed something... so I was just reacting to posts/implications in this thread. anilEhilated posted:If you want class, Barker isn't for you. I find his earlier stuff fairly enjoyable, but it's mosty body and gore horror, nothing subtle or imaginative in there. Also if it's a Barker book and has more than 300 pages, it's poo poo; he eventually started writing horribly bloated fantasy novels that are like 90% pure drivel. I have three real data points for Barker: The Hellbound Heart: Good stuff. Both earlyish and shortish, which might have saved it based on what you're saying. Mr. B. Gone: Amusing, not bad for what it tried to be, IMO. Completely different in tone than Hellbound Heart, though. The Scarlet Gospels: Ostensible sequel to The Hellbound Heart, but shifted the cosmology to something completely different in tone and implications. As a result of this thematic mishmash and possibly other factors, this book ends up being complete poo poo. It might be worth flipping through it if your library has it or something, just so you don't take my word for it, but don't give anyone a single dime for the privilege. Unless that dime is paying your library fees to unlock your account, because that's something you should do anyway. Based on this and what I hear, I agree with you (anilEhilated) that the earlier books are at least a much better bet. If one reads The Hellbound Heart and likes it, then I found the tribute anthology (i.e. not written by Barker) Hellbound Hearts to be an okay read, by the standards of multi-author horror collections. It certainly does a less discordant job of expanding the mythos than Barker's own sequel does.
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Feb 6, 2016 19:30
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What about The Damnation Game?
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Feb 6, 2016 19:36
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That's one of the better ones, effective and not too pretentious. With Barker it's really the shorter the better.
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Feb 6, 2016 19:38
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Edit: wrong thread.
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Feb 7, 2016 07:40
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Pope Guilty posted:What about The Damnation Game? I read this and really hated it. I enjoyed the first couple Books of Blood, Hellbound Heart, Weaveworld, and The Great and Secret Show. The last two are more of his dark fantasy rather than horror, but I have no problem recommending any of these.
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Feb 7, 2016 12:51
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I liked Abarat. Imajica had a very obvious plot and became boring. Didn't finish it.
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Feb 7, 2016 13:09
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If you guys haven't read Nathan Ballingrud's North American Lake Monsters you are grievously loving up. Poignant and weird, and only one of the stories is actually about a lake monster.
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Feb 7, 2016 14:18
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Abarat had some trippy drawings to help you through. Imajica did not have that
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Feb 7, 2016 18:54
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Hey so I'm looking for some fairly specific recommendations-- I'm working on a project that's cosmic-horror inspired, and we'd like to track down some good short stories or novellas that have a theme of alien nature or the surrounding environment (a la Southern Reach) or specifically cosmic horror that puts heavy focus on unhospitable or Arctic environements (a la Mountains of Madness). I've read some Laird Barron, but I've been led to believe that a lot of his stuff is at least marginally focused on the Pacific Northwest or settings like that, is that true?
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Feb 8, 2016 01:32
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