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Regarding the release of the Tales of the Lost Citadel anthology:quote:The short of it is this: Once the limited edition has been delivered, there will indeed be a mass-market version, but we don't yet have specifics sorted out with the publisher. We'll update everyone both here and on social media once we know for certain, but it shouldn't be too long now.
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Jan 21, 2017 03:39
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| # ? May 15, 2024 14:28 |
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Thanks for the update. Looking forward to that.
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Jan 21, 2017 03:39
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I didn't see it in a quick scan of the thread, but this looks promising. Alex Garland (recently of Ex Machina fame) is working on a film adaptation of Annihilation. http://www.slashfilm.com/annihilation-set-photos/
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Jan 27, 2017 15:53
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Gooble Rampling posted:I didn't see it in a quick scan of the thread, but this looks promising. Alex Garland (recently of Ex Machina fame) is working on a film adaptation of Annihilation. Wowwww, this has me excited actually. Ex Machina was great and there's a lot of good names attached.
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Jan 27, 2017 17:29
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After reading The Keep way back in the early 90s I'm finally half way through F. Paul Wilson's NIGHTWORLD and it's been a fun ride through the apocalypse. Plenty of mind-bending otherness as the avatar of chaos warps the fabric of space and time and plunges Earth into a perpetual night. Not sure if all the books in "The Advisary Cycle" are technically "Weird Tales", but I find Wilson's work to be fast and easy to read (in the best possible way) and the rest of the books in the Advisary Cycle are fun reads too.
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Feb 1, 2017 10:28
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As long as you can get over his cringeworthy politics.
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Feb 1, 2017 11:35
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anilEhilated posted:As long as you can get over his cringeworthy politics. I've tried to read a couple different F Paul Wilson books, and found them both pretty gross, his politics color them quite a bit, moreso generally than Dean Koontz, who has some whacky political beliefs, but can generally keep his narration together to do a workmanlike job* *77 Shadow Street being an exception, a novel about liberal scientists turning the world into actual literal Silent Hill.
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Feb 1, 2017 17:00
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I'm most of the way through Carter and Lovecraft, and it's got some good things and some inexplicably-awful things. The sex/rape scene, played bizarrely for comic relief (I think? the tone makes no drat sense) stands out.
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Feb 1, 2017 19:56
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a foolish pianist posted:I'm most of the way through Carter and Lovecraft, and it's got some good things and some inexplicably-awful things. The sex/rape scene, played bizarrely for comic relief (I think? the tone makes no drat sense) stands out. Yeah I dumped that book like the trash that it is. Also the protagonist/author insert explaining how as a kid (teen?) he had some... interesting thoughts about black people but now, *gasp* he even finds this black woman attractive!
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Feb 2, 2017 10:43
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Just "finished" The Terror and it was... really not good. I say "finished" since a little under halfway through, I started skipping the long blobs of ship description and random sailors musing about how the weather sucks and how terrible scurvy is. Plus the eleventh-hour right hand turn the story took felt clumsy as hell. I just don't get what the person who recommended this to me saw in the book. I wanted it to be good so badly and it doesn't deliver on anything it sets out to do.
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Feb 2, 2017 20:22
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MockingQuantum posted:Just "finished" The Terror and it was... really not good. I say "finished" since a little under halfway through, I started skipping the long blobs of ship description and random sailors musing about how the weather sucks and how terrible scurvy is. Plus the eleventh-hour right hand turn the story took felt clumsy as hell. I just don't get what the person who recommended this to me saw in the book. I wanted it to be good so badly and it doesn't deliver on anything it sets out to do. i told you all
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Feb 2, 2017 20:57
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MockingQuantum posted:I wanted it to be good so badly and it doesn't deliver on anything it sets out to do. What exactly do you think the book set out to do?
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Feb 2, 2017 21:14
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Ornamented Death posted:What exactly do you think the book set out to do? I guess the book didn't set out to do anything other than what it did, it was just grossly misrepresented to me by the person who recommended it. He made it sound like the creature, and what it was, mattered a whole lot more to the plot than it did. I definitely didn't expect so much of the book to be focused on the crew kind of just slowly dying and not doing much of note. I guess I expected there to be a little more to the mythology of the beast and more interaction between the crew and it, other than it just showing up occasionally to kill off some characters you didn't really care much about anyway. I'm not sure I'd even call it a horror novel, really. That didn't seem to be its focus at all, it seemed to want to be more of an alternative history with some (relatively unimportant, at least to me) supernatural elements. Long story short I should have known it wasn't what I wanted fairly early in the book, but kept hoping it would pick up steam.
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Feb 2, 2017 21:31
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This is out of nowhere, but did Zack Parsons ever do any horror after Liminal States? That was a while ago, and I'd love to read another That Insidious Beast.
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Feb 2, 2017 21:36
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MockingQuantum posted:I guess the book didn't set out to do anything other than what it did, it was just grossly misrepresented to me by the person who recommended it. He made it sound like the creature, and what it was, mattered a whole lot more to the plot than it did. I definitely didn't expect so much of the book to be focused on the crew kind of just slowly dying and not doing much of note. I guess I expected there to be a little more to the mythology of the beast and more interaction between the crew and it, other than it just showing up occasionally to kill off some characters you didn't really care much about anyway. I'm not sure I'd even call it a horror novel, really. That didn't seem to be its focus at all, it seemed to want to be more of an alternative history with some (relatively unimportant, at least to me) supernatural elements. Ah, yeah, sounds like the person recommending it didn't do the plot justice. The story is more about how humans are the real monsters - the literal monster just shows up sometimes and kills some dudes, but the lovely crew members make life hell for everyone just because they're terrible people and end up doing way worse than the actual literal monster.
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Feb 2, 2017 21:46
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Ornamented Death posted:Ah, yeah, sounds like the person recommending it didn't do the plot justice. The story is more about how humans are the real monsters - the literal monster just shows up sometimes and kills some dudes, but the lovely crew members make life hell for everyone just because they're terrible people and end up doing way worse than the actual literal monster. I'd agree, but even that took a long time to develop and didn't feel like it was fantastically executed, to my taste. I recognize that's a writing preference thing though and it's probably the right book for some people. I thought Hickey was not a terribly well written character so I had a hard time getting behind him as an antagonist. I definitely think the book as a whole would benefit from a ton of Dan Simmons showing off his research being cut out. The discussion about Darwin felt particularly heavy-handed and unimportant to the plot, but there were a lot of other moments where I just could not be bothered to care about pinnaces and manhauling sledges. It really feels like even knowing what the book set out to do, it worked against itself by spending so much time on minutiae and killed a lot of the momentum of the plot.
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Feb 2, 2017 21:51
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I don't disagree, I've always maintained that it's a great 400-page book trapped in a decent 800-page book.
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Feb 2, 2017 21:56
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My troubles with The Terror are what's preventing me from reading Carrion Comfort. The synopsis seems right up my alley, but I've been burned before.
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Feb 2, 2017 22:06
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Ornamented Death posted:I don't disagree, I've always maintained that it's a great 400-page book trapped in a decent 800-page book. I would wholeheartedly agree with that. I also think some of the POV characters could have been ditched entirely. I'm still not sure why Peglar was given the spotlight. It kind of feels like Simmons put him in to say "hey not all people with certain preferences are madmen"
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Feb 2, 2017 22:07
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the terror, while bad like all dan simmons novels, is due some credit for reaching 800-odd pages without a single weird reference to the fever-dream bloodcult that in Simmons' broken mind stands in for Islam
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Feb 2, 2017 23:50
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chernobyl kinsman posted:the terror, while bad like all dan simmons novels, is due some credit for reaching 800-odd pages without a single weird reference to the fever-dream bloodcult that in Simmons' broken mind stands in for Islam I'm glad I've managed to dodge most of that. I've only ever read Terror and Hyperion. Also now to assuage my disappointment I'm reading The Great God Pan since I've never gotten around to it. So far so good.
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Feb 2, 2017 23:55
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Are we calling Hyperion bad? Because I really enjoyed that one. Probably because it was kept to standard novel length. I've been avoiding the sequels though.
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Feb 3, 2017 02:06
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Rough Lobster posted:My troubles with The Terror are what's preventing me from reading Carrion Comfort. The synopsis seems right up my alley, but I've been burned before. Eh, he wrote it well before 9/11, and it's actually not terrible. That's as far as I will go in support of it. Maybe read the first few chapters and then reconnoiter? I will say that I finished it without literally throwing it against the wall, something I cannot say for The Abominable. Do not read that book, you have been warned. Edit: I can't say that without explaining why, for maybe the 9th time in this forum. Read the cover blurb for The Abominable. Sounds interesting, maybe? But what is the McGuffin these intrepid mountaineers seek? It's photographs of Hitler loving young boys.. I'm serious. I wanted to kill Dan Simmons and then myself when I hit the reveal. Possibly worse than that, in the denouement it turns out that since the British recovered the photos, Churchill is able to bribe Hitler into not invading Britain. I don't know who published that book but they should die in a fire along with Simmons. mdemone fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Feb 3, 2017 |
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Feb 3, 2017 03:13
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mdemone posted:I will say that I finished it without literally throwing it against the wall, something I cannot say for The Abominable. Do not read that book, you have been warned. You can simplify this by just advising people to skip post 9/11 Simmons. One of two things is going to happen: 1) the story is going to veer into some pretty nasty Islamophobia, or 2) he's going to beat you over the head with all the research he did for the book.
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Feb 3, 2017 03:16
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Ornamented Death posted:You can simplify this by just advising people to skip post 9/11 Simmons. One of two things is going to happen: 1) the story is going to veer into some pretty nasty Islamophobia, or 2) he's going to beat you over the head with all the research he did for the book. Oh it's much worse than over-eager exposition. Read my edit.
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Feb 3, 2017 03:21
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mdemone posted:Oh it's much worse than over-eager exposition. Read my edit. Hahahaha now I remember you posting about that some months ago. I had blanked it out because it's so terrible.
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Feb 3, 2017 03:23
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Ornamented Death posted:Hahahaha now I remember you posting about that some months ago. I had blanked it out because it's so terrible. I tell the story whenever I can because if it saves even one goon from reading it, I will have done a good deed.
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Feb 3, 2017 03:25
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mdemone posted:I tell the story whenever I can because if it saves even one goon from reading it, I will have done a good deed. Thank you. Dear god thank you. Not that I was likely to read it after my experience with The Terror but it did at least pique my interest. Consider my interest very un-piqued following that edit.
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Feb 3, 2017 04:30
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mdemone posted:I tell the story whenever I can because if it saves even one goon from reading it, I will have done a good deed. You are doing God's work.
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Feb 3, 2017 04:36
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I messaged Doc Alloy to clear this before posting and I got their blessing, because I was looking to give away some kindle gift cards for a book of weird short stories I've done called "HEADCASE". The trouble is, here in the UK you can't gift e-books and as far as I can see I can only send gift cards in GBP and an American friend I tried this with said it didn't work. I'll be back in work on Monday and back on the forums and HOPEFULLY I'll have figured out a workaround by then. If not, I'll try and get an epub(I think?) kindle file and just link it for anyone to use... Unless you're in England. In which case I can send a gift card code no problem. If anyone is interested though, shoot me a PM. I think my budget this month can stretch to about 15 codes. http://bit.ly/2jVJjXK If anyone wants to have a look at the preview on Amazon.
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Feb 3, 2017 11:16
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Everytime The Terror comes up I just think of all the times people say something "softly" in that darn book.
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Feb 3, 2017 13:33
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Fire Safety Doug posted:Everytime The Terror comes up I just think of all the times people say something "softly" in that darn book. Everybody whispers all the time in the Arctic, apparently. Trip report: I'm really digging Great God Pan so far. I think I'm a bit of a cosmic horror grognard in that any work with archaic language or the like sort of feels creepier to me for it. I had the same feeling when I read The King In Yellow. I think something about how the writing of the time inherently implied a lot of things without describing them outright.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:19
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Skyscraper posted:This is out of nowhere, but did Zack Parsons ever do any horror after Liminal States? That was a while ago, and I'd love to read another That Insidious Beast. No out-and-out horror that I'm aware of (although he needs to get on that poo poo asap, That Insidious Beast was amazing) but his Outer Echelon series is SF with some horror elements. If you haven't read it already you can start with Phrasebook.
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Feb 4, 2017 04:48
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MockingQuantum posted:Everybody whispers all the time in the Arctic, apparently. something about the great god pan made me want to bleach my brain. it felt that creepy and ominous. I've seen Machen described as a bad technical writer, much like Lovecraft often is; I'm coming to think more and more it might be a bit unfair, and that there are different technical writing rules applying for horror, following from the very different kind of aesthetic experience horror aims for than any other type of writing. I haven't made a study of writing technique (other than legal writing, anyway), though, so I don't have the tools to frame any kind of structured argument, it's just a feeling. Neurosis fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 11:18
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Skyscraper posted:This is out of nowhere, but did Zack Parsons ever do any horror after Liminal States? That was a while ago, and I'd love to read another That Insidious Beast. He did something on Halloween 2013 that I'm pretty sure counts as horror
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Feb 4, 2017 14:55
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The Vosgian Beast posted:He did something on Halloween 2013 that I'm pretty sure counts as horror Clipperton posted:No out-and-out horror that I'm aware of (although he needs to get on that poo poo asap, That Insidious Beast was amazing) but his Outer Echelon series is SF with some horror elements. If you haven't read it already you can start with Phrasebook. Today's hot take that probably won't be popular: I just read House on the Borderland and didn't like it. It's a solid horror intro, but about 1/3 of the way through the book the main character goes into a MYSTICAL JOURNEY into space, where he can do nothing as strange and boring astronomy happens in front of him for about half the book, then he wakes up and it's horror again, which is again actually pretty good.
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Feb 7, 2017 17:32
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I can't disagree with that appraisal of House on the Borderland; I found it pretty tedious while reading but appreciate the really weird interpretation of the nature of the universe in hindsight. If you like The Night Land I'd recommend reading John C Wright's Awake in the Night Land; the last story in that brings together House and The Night Land, and the collection's generally pretty good (oddly, the most nihilistic stories Wright wrote after becoming a crazy Christian and the most religious while he was an atheist crazy libertarian).
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Feb 8, 2017 10:42
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I just finished House on the Borderland as well. I think it's mostly an artifact of its age. Watching the Earth get destroyed by time was probably more horrifying when the idea of entropy on that scale was less well studied.
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Feb 8, 2017 12:10
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Skyscraper posted:Is this it? Am I bad at searching things? I'll give you a hint: It's at the top of the forums right now
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Feb 8, 2017 16:56
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| # ? May 15, 2024 14:28 |
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Neurosis posted:I can't disagree with that appraisal of House on the Borderland; I found it pretty tedious while reading but appreciate the really weird interpretation of the nature of the universe in hindsight. If you like The Night Land I'd recommend reading John C Wright's Awake in the Night Land; the last story in that brings together House and The Night Land, and the collection's generally pretty good (oddly, the most nihilistic stories Wright wrote after becoming a crazy Christian and the most religious while he was an atheist crazy libertarian). I know it'll be a pain to read The Night Land, and I only ended up reading House on the Borderland because it was in convenient audiobook edition thanks to librivox. The Night Land is too, but someone recommended The Night Land, A Story Retold instead of the original, which is not on audiobook because it's from this century. The plot summary I've heard sounds awesome, but I know there's an awful lot there. Jedit posted:I just finished House on the Borderland as well. I think it's mostly an artifact of its age. Watching the Earth get destroyed by time was probably more horrifying when the idea of entropy on that scale was less well studied. The Vosgian Beast posted:I'll give you a hint: It's at the top of the forums right now
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Feb 8, 2017 17:22
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