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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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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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Agentdark posted:this might be a hard one, but I remember a story in an anthology about a visit to a city considered the Last Refuge of the Assyrian Empire, and something about a Diamond. Does anyone know what this story is called. It was in one of the Lovecraft Inspired Anthologies, but for the life of me I cant remember what its called. gently caress me that sounds familiar. Did the story closely follow the plot of The Nameless City?
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Feb 13, 2014 06:54
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PateraOctopus posted:"Strappado" is the only story of his that really sticks out in my head Wow yeah. I disagree with you as I really enjoy Barron but there was just something about "Strappado" unlike any of his other stories that just stuck with me for several days...heck months now even that really terrifies me and leaves my stomach a little nauseous. Maybe it was sensation of utter degradation at the end, being dumped in and confined in that oil drum. Maybe it was something about all these European/Asian/American glitterati/neo-imperialists giving in like the sheep they were and walking into the slaughter of their own volition. Maybe because I could see the same thing happening in Pakistan or someplace in Africa and being reported on CNN tomorrow. I don't know. He hit a deep primal nerve in me I didn't know I had with that story. Van Iblis was such a good idea for a Mythos cult though. Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Feb 25, 2014 |
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Feb 25, 2014 08:22
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GrandpaPants posted:If I were to get one Barron short story collection, which should I go for? Occultation, Imago Sequence, or The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All? Imago Sequence and Occultation you can't go wrong with. Just don't read them back to back as he uses similar themes in both. The Beautiful Thing... is a step down in quality.
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Feb 26, 2014 05:51
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NickRoweFillea posted:God drat Thomas Ligotti is depressing Does Ligotti have some chronic pain condition or something?
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Mar 28, 2014 05:35
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So Steven King, I vaguely recall a mythos short story he wrote about worms in the earth (likely Chthonians) where the protagonist discovers an underground church where there was an inverted golden cross on the altar. The story may have been bound in a mythos anthology. Anyone know the name? Apologies if I've asked this before. I highly recommend King's short story "The Crate" (1979). While primarily character driven, it does have a Lovecraftian back story. It is also the first work I read of King that convinced me he is actually a brilliant literature writer when he bothers to take the time. ----- Just got Teatro Grottesco. Read "Purity", "The Town Manager" and "The Red Tower". Goddamn. This poo poo is good. Also it occurred to me "The Town Manager" and "The Red Tower" alone are more Carcosa-esque than most explicitly King in Yellow stories. I can't get the image of the fat black woman dipping uncooked hotdogs into mayo and licking her fingertips out of my head. Some people live like that. The atmosphere of broken decay and degradation is unsettling. Also "The Town Manager" is a pretty amusing satire. The "The Red Tower" too I guess but it works much better as a horror story. ----- Laird Barron recommends Simon Strantzas and Scott Nicolay. Thoughts on these guys? ----- Minorty Report: I didn't like The Light is the Darkness Part of it I'm sure it that Barron really likes to recycle themes and since I read it after Imago Sequence, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, Occultation and The Croning, I found the story all too familiar. I do appreciate it when Barron tries new experiments within his myth cycle, for example getting into the skin of a gay protagonist in "Mysterium Tremendum" or a lesbian protagonist in "The Carrion Gods In Their Heaven" (though I don't like "Carron Gods" as a story because I think its just a dumb werewolf tale). However I think The Light is the Darkness is a failed experiment. Specifically in that Barron was trying to write a pulp story in a Lovecraftian world that ends in cosmic horror and I don't think the two genres mix, at all. I don't mind that most of Barron's protagonists are two-fisted hard-bitten men of action...because presenting the helplessness and confusion of the very best mankind has to offer against Barron's carnivorous cosmos accentuates the horror. It is the same reason why you give guns to Call of Cthulhu investigators. Once a roleplayer realizes their metal security blanket of a tried-and-true weapon does nothing against the true nature of the universe, terror is that much more acute. In The Light is the Darkness you could argue the protagonist "wins". He is able to sort of hold his own against at least one of the Elder Dark antagonists, and then goes on to achieve his goal of reuniting with his sister (and what a reunion it is!) by completing his transformation. Now from another perspective, most of Barron's work features transformation as a fate worse than death, and he delivers on that promise. Even if that is the case in The Light is the Darkness, the protagonist features too much 'control' of his transformation into a monster for it to really to be horrifying to the reader. And he beats the poo poo out of one of his inhuman antagonists in a scene that came off like a superhero fight, and a bland one at that. Also, seriously Barron. Why did you make the climax of the book a WWE match between two giant Goya-Saturns? That was just dumb. I think "The Jaws of Saturn" is a better exploration of all the themes in this book. Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 03:50
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GrandpaPants posted:I read Ligotti's The Last Feast of Harlequin and there was a very Shadow Over Innsmouth feel to it, which I'm sure was punctuated by the dedication to HP Lovecraft at the end. It didn't quite have the same amount of sheer misery and misanthropy that the rest of his stories have, but it was a pretty great Lovecraftian story. Interesting. It seemed more similar to The Festival in my view. Poutling posted:Has anyone else here read American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett? It just got nominated for the Shirley Jackson award, and I wanted to recommend it to you avid fans of Laird Barron and cosmic horror if you haven't checked it out before. It's a tad long and drags a bit in the middle but altogether a fantastic read and wholly original. Glad you guys recommended American Elsewhere. Honestly I didn't feel like it dragged in the middle. It just felt to me that the book was so intricate. There was so much interesting backstory and a valid reason for every creepy weird detail. I really like how he handled the cthulhoid beings. Though they were given some understandable human-like emotions and motives (which I usually hate because it makes the monsters sympathetic and less likely to induce the sensation of cosmic horror), the author used several different methods to hammer home the point that even though they ape humanity the monsters are truly alien.
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Jun 2, 2014 00:52
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Yeah I thought "Overtime" was too goofy as well. Though I did appreciate what I thought was a reference to the Coleopterous (future beetle forms) Great Race of Yith by having the Laundry's prognosticator appear as giant cockroach. Honestly I think Stross's most well written cosmic horror tale is "Equoid." It takes the comical premise of "Unicorns scary? Yeah right" and fully delivers shocking, unexpected horror that ramps up into cosmic terror. It is light on the nerd humor, which I like. What I really appreciate about "Equoid" is that the story is efficient and well paced. Since it is a short story I think Stross was laboring under certain limitations that prevented him from going off on plot unnecessary tangents, which are found in all his Laundry books and that makes them feel slightly unfocused. Maybe he had a stricter editor for the short story, I don't know.
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Jul 11, 2014 05:25
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Found a bunch of fiction books published by Chaosium. Any of these titles hide gems? -Tsathoggua Cycle -Singers of Strange Songs -Return to Lovecraft Country -Nightmare's Disciple -Scroll of Thoth -Mysteries of the Worm -The Ithaqua Cycle -The Innsmouth Cycle -The Disciples of Cthulhu -Cthulhu's Heirs
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Sep 29, 2014 05:52
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Ornamented Death posted:Eric Heisserer, the guy that wrote "The Dionaea House," has been busy the last week. Interesting. I'm skeptical as gently caress given that you have the right mix of disappearance plus photographs plus Good story even if this is advertisement bullshit. Edit: Yeah. Nice viral marketing. Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 04:56
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rocket_man38 posted:I'm reading through the "New Annotated HP Lovecraft" right now. It's pretty comprehensive, but a bit dry at times. The footnotes are nice, but sometimes don't really add much, or seem to have little relevance to the stories. The appendixes are much the same, some are neat and useful, others seem almost irrelevant (such as the staff list at Miskatonic Univeristy, or Lovecraft in popular culture.) The introduction by Alan Moore is good, as well as the comprehensive background information on Lovecraft by Klinger. Overall, I found it well worth the $25 I paid. It probably is the most thorough anthology of Lovecraft out there, with a mix of academia. Good to know its worth it. There is an interview with the annotator Leslie S Klinger here: http://hppodcraft.com/2014/10/02/episode-227-leslie-s-klinger-interview/
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Oct 31, 2014 08:04
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Daveski posted:Has anyone compiled a goon-recommended list of these sort of stories? This is a good idea. ---- If you are able to tolerate Derleth then you should substantially enjoy Laird Barron. This is not a swipe at Barron. The time when I could somewhat appreciate Derleth was when I was jonesing for anything passably similar to Lovecraft, and for me Barron is the most genuine Lovecraft heir I’ve read. Start with the Imago Sequence and proceed to Occultation. Preferably don’t read them back to back; Barron repeats a lot of themes and they may swim together. If you want more Barron, from there I suggest cherry picking “Hand of Glory”, “The Men from Porlock”, “The Siphon” and “Vastation” from The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. For Thomas Ligotti, I haven’t read all of his work, but I would recommend starting with Grimscribe, where Ligotti is most influenced by Lovecraft, and then immediately going into Teatro Grottesco where Ligotti shows he has truly come into his own terrifying voice. The Red Tower. TheRedTowertheredtowertheredtower. I also heartily recommend American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett (a goon). Creepy though it is, to me it is less a story of cosmic horror and more a very interesting and intricate supernatural mystery. It’s good. I can’t get over how well written Equoid is by Charles Stross. He can deliver a sucker punch of surprise. And it’s free. The short story There was a short story in some Cthulhu anthology some years back that starred a female protagonist of Appalachian descent exploring Appalachia with an investigator friend to discover the origin of strange lights in the sky. I can’t remember author or title, but it was excellent. If I recall correctly Barron said somewhere that Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” was firmly in the tradition of cosmic horror. It is on my to read list so I can’t speak to Barrron’s argument, but hey reading a classic London story is never time wasted. Edit:  vvvvv Thanks. I continually confuse the titles.
Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Oct 31, 2014 23:00
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So people are assholes on the internet. Its not a big deal. Intelligent readers will always be able evaluate opinions based on their merit alone. And every person has their intrinsic taste and biases. Normal people know this intrinsically. I'm almost done with Teatro Grottesco and I've read Grimscribe. I intend on reading all of Ligotti at some point, but what is his best work that I should read next? Also I'm really not sold on Clark Ashton Smith as a good author. What should I be reading. Since it is the season, relevant podcasts: Clark Ashton Smith podcast: The Double Shadow http://thedoubleshadow.com/ Currently at its end but there are some interesting episodes in there. Robert E Howard podcast, focusing of course on Conan: http://thecromcast.blogspot.com/ Evidently he wrote boxing stories too. I enjoyed their analysis of the 1982 Conan movie. Since it has been many years since I have seen it, I found their analysis of the movie from the perspective of paternalism to be interesting. http://thecromcast.blogspot.com/2014/06/episode-24-conan-barbarian-1982-or.html Edit: I was going to quote myself about the Lovecraft podcast, HP Podcraft but I can't find it. If you want to hear two dudes and occasional guests discuss Lovecraft's stories then check it out. After they finished Lovecraft's body of work, they go into the stories Lovecraft referenced in Supernatural Horror and Literature. Also readings of HPL's stories for this evening: http://hppodcraft.com/ http://lovecraftzine.com/audio/ Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Nov 1, 2014 |
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Nov 1, 2014 01:47
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If you hate Laird Barron, or any other author, TELL US WHY IN DETAIL. Basic critical analysis. It makes for an interesting discussion and it highlights weaknesses and strengths of the author.
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Nov 1, 2014 01:53
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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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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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I'm sure you are all aware by now that Lovecraft is getting his own beer. Did Lovecraft even drink? http://www.narragansettbeer.com/beers/lovecraft-honey-ale Not sure if it is the first, or if it is any good.   Unrelated, here is a t-shirt design for a fictional Lovecraftian beer:  --- Re: Mirror of the Nameless Ultimately I don't feel I can really recommend Mirror of the Nameless even at $2 because the plot was too predictable. Essentially the story is driven by a man's desire to rescue/find his daughter in a post-apocalyptic Zombie hellscape, but with Mythos monsters instead of zombies (mostly). The phrase "I/We have to find Ashleigh" is repeated like a mantra something like five or six times as each scene goes from bad to worse and the protagonist pulls himself and his companion from one scene of horror to another. I prefer more character motivation than "it's my daughter" and more plot twists than "we have found a Mcguffin to save the world, oh wait no everything is worse." Personally I'm really sick to death of the zombie genera, so less jaded readers may enjoy it more than I did. Having said that, the elder gods Walker creates and the being at the end are all very interesting and rather unique. I was impressed, particularly by the description of the observation at the end. That is cosmic horror right there. Some of the human horror sequences were also disturbing and stick with you after a couple of days. The problem is, in some sections the story moves from horror scene to horror scene so quickly that fear and terror doesn't have a chance to sink in. I don't believe that was intentional either. Walker also has talent at making secondary characters such as the former priest and the bartender come alive with an economy of words. I wanted to hear more about their stories, but by necessity you never get that chance. So I wouldn't recommend Mirror of the Nameless, but I will be watching for Walker's future releases. --- Delta Green: Tales from Failed Anatomies I just finished Detwiller's book and I have to say I am impressed. Wow. I found the book because the team who release the Hp Lovecraft Literary Podcast narrated several of Detwiller's stories on the Unspeakable Oath podcast (Unspeakable!). http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/category/unspeakable/ My favorites are "Intelligences" and "Drowning in Sand;" narrated by Rachel Lackey and Andrew Leman, respectively. http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2014/11/unspeakable-episode-16-intelligences-a-story-by-dennis-detwiller/ http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2014/10/unspeakable-episode-15-drowning-in-sand-a-story-by-dennis-detwiller/ "Intelligences" begins to approach Ligotti's realm of "the horror of banality" but it takes off into a very fitting Mythos grounded direction. "Drowning in Sand" ends on a wide-eyed question with horrible implications. What if he is right? Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 22:55
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God Of Paradise posted:No, and no on a technicality. Can't really compare the written word to a bunch of drawings without text. 
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May 7, 2015 09:46
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muscles like this? posted:There's a short story (I think by Laird Barron?) that pokes fun at Ligotti's seriousness. More Dark in The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All.
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Jul 3, 2015 16:14
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End Of Worlds posted:Austin Grossman's Crooked is a lot of fun and y'all should read it. It's a first-person account by Richard M. Nixon of the secret war behind the Cold War; a war fought with black magic and eldritch abominations. It's really funny and pretty smart, and you can burn through it in like a day probably. That is a really smart way to spin a historical biography into something profitable. Will check it out.
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Aug 18, 2015 02:45
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Reposting this because you guys may appreciate it. Pvt.Scott posted:I've just started playing Infra Arcana today and it is awesome. H.P. Lovercraft presents: Rogue. One of my early attempts ended with claustrophobia induced terror and a swarm of giant locusts! My take: The tileset and sounds are appropriately spooky. Along with managing your health, you also have a spirit stat that functions as an integrated mana/second health bar. Casting spells costs spirit. Some monsters can strictly attack spirit. If your spirit reaches zero, you die. Instead of a hunger mechanic there is an sanity mechanic. Sanity is broken down into two meters: Shock and Insanity, each on a 0-100% scale. Enter a darkened room without a light source or see a cosmic being, you gain shock. Wait too long around a level and you will begin to accrue shock as well. Once shock reaches 100% you have a minor mental breakdown that can be anything from making noise because you are gibbering to having shadows appear and stalk you. Upon reaching 100% shock resets to 0% and Insanity increases by a certain amount. If insanity reaches 100%, you die. Reach the stairs for the next level however and your shock meter is set to zero, encouraging you to explore efficiently. Currently you can be a War Veteran, Rogue, or Occultist. I recommend Rogue for your first few times since you start with a cloaking spell to escape enemies. In my second game I got cursed for kicking open the slab to an ancient tomb, grabbed a Tommy gun and unloaded drum after drum into Keziah Mason until the foul witch fell, found out that chopping apart reanimated corpses with an axe is a great way to gain shock way too quickly, drank an insight potion and identified an eldrich artifact that scattered my opponents around the level, threw knives at gun wielding cultists with varying success, watched an infected wound become diseased because I couldn't treat the wound in time oh god oh god the zombies beat down the door I spiked, and threw a bunch of dynamite at Major Clapham-Lee and his undead hoard only to eventually fall to their clutches.
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Aug 18, 2015 06:16
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Some of you gents may be interested in this. ------------------  PST posted:The Delta Green Kickstarter has gone live:  Delta Green Kickstarter update. Funded to 40K in less than four hours. New objectives to unlock! quote:Stretch Goals    quote:Developers and Key Personnel  Q: What does a Delta Green game sound like? Look no further than "The Lover in the Ice" :http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2011/05/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-delta-green-lover-in-the-ice/  Q: What is the Delta Green world like? Here are three excellent short stories written by one of the authors and professionally narrated. http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2014/11/unspeakable-episode-16-intelligences-a-story-by-dennis-detwiller/ http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2014/12/unspeakable-episode-17-philosophy-a-story-by-dennis-detwiller/ http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2014/10/unspeakable-episode-15-drowning-in-sand-a-story-by-dennis-detwiller/  Q: Is there a podcast where I can listen to what's new in Delta Green moderated by the authors? Why yes there is! quote:News about the upcoming Delta Green book! http://www.delta-green.com/
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Oct 1, 2015 18:51
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I found The Outer Dark podcast.  Scott Nicolay started this podcast at the end of June it and currently has 15 interviews with authors of new Weird Horror. He's got the work ethic of a professor. Maybe he is. This is a fairly academic podcast. Basically it is two writers sitting down and talking about elements of the stories of the interviewee but there will be references to Steinbeck and Classical literature. Anyone who enjoyed discussions of literature professors in grad school will be right at home. Some might find it dull and a bit dry at times (in part because of the tone of some of the people speaking). As an example from the Daniel Mills interview. quote:Daniel Mills, author of the 2014 critically acclaimed collection The Lord Came at Twilight, discusses how his writing engages with historical voices such as Hawthorne, Chambers and others, rediscovering obscure authors of the 19th and 20th centuries who delved into weird, ghosts and the supernatural, the tendency among contemporary weird writers to be archivists/archaeologists digging into old sources for forgotten gems, his wistful yearning for past eras such as Colonial America versus confronting the spiritual corruption of American history in his stories, presenting a mannered lyrical approach to storytelling in a fresh and contemporary application, the artistry of depicting grotesque material with beautiful prose, modern cinematic writing versus language itself as “a world where you can disappear,” narrative restraint and the horror that happens offstage, courtships that reflect the intersection of deeply repressed desires and warped worldviews, clerical characters and the contradictions of America’s Christian mythos, creative misremembering, balancing presentism and historicism, discovering a shared New England sensibility with Matthew Bartlett, NecronomiCon Providence and the excitement and critical mass of today’s Weird Renaissance, the resounding influence of John Bellairs, upcoming projects including short stories, a novella and a second novel inspired by the spiritualism and theosophy movements of the late 19th century, and his current recommended reading including Reggie Oliver and Orrin Grey. I do have to say though, after listening to how the interviewer reviews a particular story I have found my self very excited to read the story, with varying degrees of approval so he does make the listeners enthusiastic about the authors. I enjoyed the John Langan interview to reference Skyscraper's post. The audio quality can vary because some of the interviews are carried out over skype. For some reason Scott Nicolay's voice is very quiet too in more than one podcast. There is also a panel from Necronomicon addressing Racism in HPL's work and why it can be appreciated and still be literary despite those flaws. http://scottnicolay.com/category/outer-dark-podcast/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-outer-dark/id1011456737?mt=2 Through this podcast I found the author Jayaprakash Satyamurthy. Try his free short story "Empty Dreams" here: http://pratilipi.in/2011/11/empty-dreams-jayaprakash-satyamurthy/ He is a Bangladeshi native and seeks to build a mythology of Bangladesh somewhat in the vein of what Gaiman, China Melville and others have done to London. I picked up Kate Jonez's Ceremony of Flies based on the interview and well.... it was ok. It really felt to me like an abbreviated imitation of American Gods than a cosmic horror novel. She can write well but I can't recommend the story.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:06
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Were any other DarkFuse novella's any good? Are any of them cosmic horror?
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Oct 6, 2015 03:47
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Good article on the staying power of Lovecraft's work from Slate. I hadn't considered the environmental horror slant of Lovecraft's and other weird fiction writer's work, but it is certainly there. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/10/h_p_lovecraft_and_the_environmental_horror_of_the_21st_century.html quote:A great story changes with the times. Decades after it’s published, a narrative with depth and dimension will still give up secrets, signifying different things to each generation. But this feat is particularly tricky in the horror genre, since society’s fears—the fuel in any good horror story—can change significantly over time. A story that can still terrify readers 90 years after it’s published is a rare thing.
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Nov 13, 2015 02:44
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ST Joshi made his name with Lovecraft scholarship. Not suprised he is that angry.
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Nov 13, 2015 04:04
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Xotl posted:You might as well throw out the classic canon of SF and fantasy if terrible opinions held by dead people are that worrysome. I wish people could just accept that temporal context means something and that these people had horrible opinions by modern standards--because they weren't modern people--and just leave it at that. No one loves Lovecraft because of his ethics or moral stances. His influence is undeniable, regardless of how much of a racist weirdo he was back when the Teapot Dome scandal was a hot-button current event. Maturity and logic is significantly lacking amoung some individuals of adult age. Edit: and I did find the bust of Lovecraft's head pop-eyed and weird looking but maybe that was the artists intended effect? 
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Nov 13, 2015 21:19
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General Battuta posted:It really does, though? Just to grab the last one I read/listened to recently, The Call of Cthulhu is pretty explicit in tying Cthulhu's cult to Eskimos and poo poo. You didn't read it carefully enough then. This is the problem I have with most of Lovecraft's critics based on racism. They didn't do their diligence in terms of reading the literature or have the maturity to recognize it came from another time or the critical analysis to understand what was the purpose of a particular literary passage. From Call of Cthulhu quote:Professor Webb had been engaged, forty-eight years before, in a tour of Greenland and Iceland in search of some Runic inscriptions which he failed to unearth; and whilst high up on the West Greenland coast had encountered a singular tribe or cult of degenerate Esquimaux whose religion, a curious form of devil-worship, chilled him with its deliberate bloodthirstiness and repulsiveness. It was a faith of which other Esquimaux knew little, and which they mentioned only with shudders, saying that it had come down from horribly ancient aeons before ever the world was made. Besides nameless rites and human sacrifices there were certain queer hereditary rituals addressed to a supreme elder devil or tornasuk; and of this Professor Webb had taken a careful phonetic copy from an aged angekok or wizard-priest, expressing the sounds in Roman letters as best he knew how. But just now of prime significance was the fetish which this cult had cherished, and around which they danced when the aurora leaped high over the ice cliffs. It was, the professor stated, a very crude bas-relief of stone, comprising a hideous picture and some cryptic writing. And so far as he could tell, it was a rough parallel in all essential features of the bestial thing now lying before the meeting. It is clear from the first bolded section that the "Eskimos" who were affected by the cult were a tribe shunned by the normal Eskimoes. A similar distinction is made between the Louisiana cultists and the "normal" human population. The point being that the Mythos corrupts a population and makes the non-Mythos population shun them. You see the same distinction in the Shadow Over Innsmouth where the Deep One allied Island tribe is hated by the other local tribes. The reason for mentioning Eskimos at all is in the second bolded point. It shows that the Mythos has consistency in worship despite it's global reach. There is racism in Lovecraft's work, but only idiots (and I'm including so called literature teachers here) say "Look! Native People! Evil Cults! Racist!" People don't know how to loving read.
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Nov 13, 2015 22:00
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I appreciate that I'm being an rear end in a top hat and that you appreciate the point. May you have many successes in your travels.
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Nov 13, 2015 22:14
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I was reading an Interview with Steven King on the Rolling Stone site that was published back in 2014. King had some interesting things to say about literary critics that outright bash a book without reading it. To be specific, this is not a response to General Battuta; he actually bothered to read Call of Cthulhu. It just illustrates a long term problem in literary criticism that has been recently been directed towards Lovecraft. And why post this in Cosmic Horror and Weird Tales? Well there is a thing he just casually mentioned that sent a shiver of existential dread up my spine. I hope someone turns that idea into a piece of fiction. http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/stephen-king-the-rolling-stone-interview-20141031 quote:The vast majority of your books deal with either horror or the supernatural. What drew you toward those subjects? King's thoughts on Evil and life in the cosmos quote:How about evil? Do you believe there is such a thing? 
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Nov 13, 2015 23:57
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If you remember the name please post it. Edit:  Thanks man. vvvvvv
Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Nov 14, 2015 |
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Nov 14, 2015 01:57
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General Battuta posted:It's the Shivans, actually. Definitely checking this out then. Thanks!
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Nov 14, 2015 03:07
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ravenkult posted:
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Nov 17, 2015 03:12
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Goal scored!
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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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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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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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Re: MockingQuantum Re: Barron Most of it is yes focused on the Washington area --(Artic) However here is an audio book of an story featuring the Wyld Hunt and the Iditarod, Frontier Death Song. Has some great arctic scenes. http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/frontier-death-song/ --(Environment) Also by Barron try The Men from Porlock (The Beautiful Thing that Awaits Us All) and --30-- (Occultation) --(Environment) Don't forget HPL's the Shunned House --(Artic) Biogenesis by Tatsuaki Ishiguro (MD) is a book I haven't really spoken about yet but it has some fantastic original stories about medical mysteries with mythic resonance and I put it VERY FIRMLY next to Lovecraft and Ligotti on my shelf. Dr Ishiguros fiction is very biologically technically deep (ie you have to have a professional understanding of evolution or tissue culture to get the full understanding of some of the stories) but despite that I highly HIGHLY recommend the story that starts with describing hypothermia. I don't have my copy of the book on hand and I can't recall the title. I think it is "Snow Woman". The story is about a found woman with pure white hair, no memory, and a body temperature of 75.2 F in prewar Japan. The the medical technical nature of his writing does not impede the reader from experiencing the weird mythic atmosphere of the story or its delicate touching humanity. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZNG4MA0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Feb 8, 2016 |
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Feb 8, 2016 01:59
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coyo7e posted:You seem to be projecting a hell of a lot there, man. If anybody is raging I'm thinking it's you, because I made fun of an author you really love. I will check out his short stories however, since everyone in this thread seems to be going wild over The Light is the Darkness, I picked it up and it wasn't really anything like I was expecting from a horror thread recommend I mean it's a weird tale to be sure but it came across a bit more like an author self-insert a la Monster Hunter, Inc, etc, where the protagonist is the best at everything, never really runs into anything resembling an obstacle, and then sails off into the sunset. The Light is the Darkness is the second weakest of Barron's writings next to X's for Eyes. (they are both pulp) Start with the short story collections.
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Feb 23, 2016 20:56
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Blitz recommendations Finished the Delta Green anthology Extraordinary Renditions. Most of the stories are quite good. Significantly above par for a weird fiction/new Lovecraftian fiction short story collection. -Good: The Color of Dust (Laurel Halbany), A Spider With Barbed-Wire Legs (Davide Mana), Le Pain Maudit  (Jeff C. Carter) - terrifying and then look up the reality it is based on , Cracks in the Door (Jason Mical), Ganzfeld Gate (Cody Goodfellow) HOLY CRAP, Utopia (David Farnell), A Question of Memory (Stolze), PAPERCLIP (Kenneth Hite), Passing the Torch (Adam Scott Glancy) Amazing action and fear generated from intelligent foes.... ok pretty much the entire bookAlmost done with Children of the Old Leech -The Good: Pale Apostle (JT Glover and Jesse Bullington), Walpurgisnacht (Orrin Grey), Snake Wine (Jeffrey Thomas), The Old Pageant (Richard Gavin), Notes for "The Barn in the Wild" (Paul Tremblay)-- really good in terms of structure. Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 23, 2016 21:46
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