What are you reading?

[Twisting H]

In prep for a Bookhounds of London game I am planning on running (first session is this Sunday and man am I behind) I am reading The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. I would not qualify it as great but it is a fun read, sort of a beach book for the library set. I am going to have to go and watch The Ninth Gate again after I am done. I don't remember it being great so it will be interesting to see how it stands up after reading the source material.

May help. https://www.pinterest.com/zoombaba/bookhounds-of-london/

Just run it as an investigation or heist.

Also From Hell is visually and narratively useful.

[Adam_Autist]

A bit of an odd one but does anyone else get the Orbital Operations newsletter Warren Ellis does? I've been catching up with my inbox.

Three benefits: Ellis project update, Free! Ellis writing which is always a pleasure and his version of shoutouts which is mostly weird electronic music and interesting books.

[Twisting H]

A bunch of issues and articles from “Weird Tales” (1923-1954) available for download in the public domain.


http://www.openculture.com/2016/06/download-issues-of-the-pioneering-pulp-horror-fantasy-magazine-weird-tales.html

Debuting in 1923, Weird Tales, writes The Pulp Magazines Project, provided “a venue for fiction, poetry and non-fiction on topics ranging from ghost stories to alien invasions to the occult.” The magazine introduced its readers to past masters like Poe, Bram Stoker, and H.G. Wells, and to the latest weirdness from Lovecraft and contemporaries like August Derleth, Ashton Smith, Catherine L. Moore, Robert Bloch, and Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian).

..

Weird Tales is widely accepted by cultural historians as “the first pulp magazine to specialize in supernatural and occult fiction,” points out The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (though, as we noted a few days ago, an obscure German title, Der Orchideengarten, technically got there earlier). And while the magazine may not have been widely popular, as the Velvet Underground was to the explosion of various subgenera of rock in the seventies, so was Weird Tales to the explosion of horror and fantasy fandom. Everyone who read it either started their own magazine or fanclub, or began writing their own “weird fiction”—Lovecraft’s term for the kind of supernatural horror he churned out for several decades.

Fans of Lovecraft can read and download scans of his stories and letters to the editor published in Weird Tales at the links below, brought to us by The Lovecraft eZine (via SFFaudio).

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Also I HIGHLY recommend any Cosmic Horror or Lovecraft fans read the following. It's very short and very good.


 The Nothing Equation


Tom Godwin
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1957

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25628/25628-h/25628-h.htm

The space ships were miracles of power and precision; the men who manned them, rich in endurance and courage. Every detail had been checked and double checked; every detail except—

THE NOTHING EQUATION

...
the cruiser vanished back into hyperspace and he was alone in the observation bubble, ten thousand light-years beyond the galaxy's outermost sun. He looked out the windows at the gigantic sea of emptiness around him and wondered again what the danger had been that had so terrified the men before him.

Of one thing he was already certain; he would find that nothing was waiting outside the bubble to kill him. The first bubble attendant had committed suicide and the second was a mindless maniac on the Earthbound cruiser but it must have been something inside the bubble that had caused it. Or else they had imagined it all.

...

I haven't attended to the instruments for a long time because it hates us and doesn't want us here. It hates me the most of all and keeps trying to get into the bubble to kill me. I can hear it whenever I stop and listen and I know it won't be long.

[CADmonkey]

Just finished this:


Mondo Macabro by Bryan Rombough, on Flickr

It's a kind of guide to cult films from Asia, South America & Turkey (I'd say the Middle East, but Turkey is the only Middle Eastern country mentioned) from 1998.  It's not an academic analysis of these cinematic milieux, but a fun look at a bunch of B/cult movies.  Some chapters are little more than lists of movies with synopses, while others have a little more depth.  If you're a horror fan, this may be a book for you, since that's the genre that gets the lion's share of the author's attention (and he acknowledges his bias).  The best chapter is probably the one on Brazil: The Strange World of Mr. Marins which is largely devoted to the career of José Mojica Marins, a self taught filmmaker whom the author believes should be remembered alongside visionaries such as Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mario Bava.

[Lordsloth]

While I'm on vacation, I've been reading Road Trip, by Ross Payton.

Bought his book! 

[trinite]

So much research. So much. A sampling of my public library checked-out list:

Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons
Beseiged : siege warfare in the ancient world
The Attack on Troy
The War that Killed Achilles
The Trojan War : a very short introduction
Rome and Jerusalem : the clash of ancient civilizations
Medieval Mercenaries
Leningrad : state of siege
Leningrad : the epic siege of World War II, 1941-1944
Leningrad, Hero City

Plus, my wife has begun reading The Iliad out loud to us after dinner each night. It's pretty great.

[Twisting H]

Thematic Spoilers for Delta Green: God's Teeth 6 - God's Legs podcast below

Listen first! http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2016/06/genre/horror/delta-green-gods-teeth-gods-legs-episode-6/























Books mentioned:

The Sloan Men by David Nickle

Story: https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/thesloanmen

Free audiobook narration from Pseudopod: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/6/4/f/64fdc003d12f06cc/Pseudo092_TheSloanMen.mp3?c_id=2279861&expiration=1467081587&hwt=35d876a9d54078319dfcc7b4b88372f8

La Morte Amoureuse or Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/gautier/theophile/clarimonde/

The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605651.txt

Discussion of HH Ewers work on Eldritch Dark forums http://www.eldritchdark.com/forum/read.php?1,4438,page=all

[KillItWithFire]

I just started Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey. So far, it revolves around a nameless, injured, combat veteran protagonist, trying to cope with PTSD, doing a two year stint in a space-lighthouse, alone. So far, it's good stuff!

[clockworkjoe]

Thanks Twisting H - posting that in the comments of that episode.

Also I am reading Big Machine, a novel recommended by Greg Stolze as inspiration for Unknown Armies. So far so good!

[Adam_Autist]

Finishing  Laird Barron's Nanashi part 1. Holy hell if you like yakuza and mythos horror you should read it.

[D6xD6 - Chris]

Finishing  Laird Barron's Nanashi part 1. Holy hell if you like yakuza and mythos horror you should read it.

What is the title of the book?  Will read!

I'm reading NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.  Heart-Shaped Box was awesome, Horns was kinda lame, but NOS4A2 is basically Joe Hill's attempt at doing a supernatural behemoth like his dad (Stephen King).  And it's pretty great.



 

[constructacon]

i just signed up for goodreads wondering who else is on. my profile

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/57363858-jason-carter

[Twisting H]

Finishing  Laird Barron's Nanashi part 1. Holy hell if you like yakuza and mythos horror you should read it.

Contrary opinion

I'm a big fan of Barron's early work (The Imago Sequence, Occultation, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All)

This is skipable in my opinion. A story about a Yakuza assassin who does a job and some weird things happen. Very short to it's detriment. More realistic/serious in tone than X's for Eyes or The Light Is The Darkness. Slightly better than those last two in my opinion but this story doesn't bring anything new or interesting to the table.

Barron has a habit of repeating themes and that is front and center here. 

To be frank there are a handful of stories in Children of the Old Leech by authors other than Barron that I recommend you read other than this.

However, in the back of the Kindle edition is an excerpt from "Blood and Stardust". If anyone remembers the movie AI one of the main problems with the movie is that the director constantly hits the viewer over the head with "this is a Pinocchio" story. "Blood and Stardust" is Barron's take on Frankenstein and it suffers from the same sin at least in this excerpt. However the main character and style is interesting enough with ideas that are new to Barron that the excerpt was very engaging. I want to read more of it. However given Barron's recent track record, if "Blood and Stardust" is short I imagine it may suffer from the lack of a compelling narrative and resolution as well. Time will tell.

Another caveat.  I still buy Barron's books even the ones I think are very sub par to support him.  I hope eventually he will have the inspiration/time/opportunity to create something novel again.

[Adam_Autist]

It was the first of his books I'd read.

[Twisting H]

You are are in luck!  Everything gets better from there!