Author Topic: What are you reading?  (Read 395882 times)

quickstep23

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #135 on: October 06, 2015, 06:29:35 PM »
Extraordinary Renditions (new DG story anthology) is good and cool. It has a story set in the great depression dust bowl era that would make for a great No Security scenario.

This just made me realize that while I backed the KS I never ready Extraordinary Renditions or Strange Authorities! Now I know what to read next!

I also just started reading an interesting horror comic called  "Victims (and other questions for an empty universe)" looks like it's available online here http://splitlipcomic.com/comic/victims-page-01/. I picked it up at a local Con last weekend, enjoying it so far!

CADmonkey

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #136 on: October 18, 2015, 02:45:33 PM »
For the first time, I've just read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  I was actually surprised by how readable it is.  I was a bit worried that it would be completely disjointed and anti-narrative like Naked Lunch or Gravity's Rainbow.  As crazy as the drug-crazed recollections are, they're delivered in an almost straightforward, journalist style.  Which was great.
It was originally written to be a magazine article.  The distinguishing characteristics of Thompson's "gonzo journalism" are casting himself as the protagonist of the story, and writing to entertain rather than inform; but his writing style is actually pretty conventional.  I remember loaning my copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to one of my fellow stoners in high school, only to have him complain that the drug experiences in the book weren't fantastical enough.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2015, 11:23:22 AM by CADmonkey »
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Twisting H

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #137 on: October 18, 2015, 11:14:55 PM »
Regarding Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs,  Jonathan Tweet with Robin Laws wrote a game called Over the Edge for Atlas Games in the early 90's.

I looked through it briefly once because it had constantly been referred to by other gamers. I really need to read the whole book a couple times before doing it justice, but it seemed like a surreal Paranoia-esq game that somehow still managed to be grounded in reality.  For example, less supernatural than White Wolf's world while being a great deal more nuts. In a word it is certainly interesting.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_Edge_(game)

Here is a description of Over the Edge: http://keith-baker.com/over-the-edge/

Quote
What is Over The Edge? The tagline is “The roleplaying game of surreal danger.” Set in roughly modern day, it’s based on the bizarre island of Al Amarja – a haven for all manner of conspiracies and curiosities. Mash together Fringe, The Twilight Zone, Naked Lunch, Illuminati and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and you’ve got something that tastes like Al Amarja. It’s got a simple rules system that encourages creativity and can handle almost any character you can come up with; I’d describe it in more detail, but hey, for six dollars you can see for yourself. Because of the flexibility of setting and system, it can support many different playstyles. I’ve had players who played simple, serious characters – the secret agent on a mission, the reporter determined to get the Big Story, the local gamer who knows everybody. Others drifted slightly further from the beaten path… a Kaiju trapped in a human body; a cowboy abducted by aliens and dropped off in the present day; Kurt Cobain seen through the lens of Six-String Samurai; Phil Lovecraft, private eye. And then there’s been some very odd characters, such as Zombie Jesus and Five Ducks In A Battlesuit. The beauty of Over The Edge is that the system handles all these concepts with ease – and that the setting can encompass all of them. Over The Edge also includes one of my favorite game mechanics of all time – Robin D. Law’s Cut-Ups Method, included in the Weather The Cuckoo Likes supplement.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #138 on: October 22, 2015, 07:50:22 PM »


Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett-ish prose + Night Vale = fun.

trinite

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #139 on: October 23, 2015, 05:17:57 PM »
While doing the link list for the "Creepy Parrots" panel, I checked out a few of the short stories that got mentioned:

"Singing My Sister Down" by Margo Lanagan is amazing and fascinating.

"The Book" by Margaret Irwin is a pretty great Victorian ghost story (it reminded me of M.R. James, which is the highest of praise).

"The Spider" by Hans Heinz Ewers was good...but quite different from the way Caleb remembered it. ;)

And "The Sloan Men" by David Nickle....eeeeeeesh, that one made my skin crawl.
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Thorn

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #140 on: October 24, 2015, 07:49:40 AM »
Just picked up The Ballad of Black Tom.  Pretty good so far.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #141 on: October 24, 2015, 09:48:08 AM »
Read two interesting books lately.

Skullcrack City from Jeremy Robert Johnson is a bizarro fiction novel, relatively short which made itself felt by the end. Still, it's a pretty interesting book that I enjoyed, and despite being bizarro, it's actually completely palatable. It's about a banker who lives alone with his turtle Deckard, and falls back into addiction to a strange drug called Hex as he tried to sink his own bank by uncovering it's dirty dealings. Was an odd experience jumping in without knowing the author, because my assumption was the setting was IRL as is, but it all got peeled back bit by bit to reveal a more surreal, dark world inspired by paranoid delusions, it feels like. I'd recommend it.

Second one was Pretty Little Dead Things by Gary McMahon, similarly subversive of my expectations. It's the first novel in the Thomas Usher series, the titular character being a widower who lost his wife and child in a car accident and gained the ability to see and attract the restless dead. Assumed it'd be closer to urban fantasy than horror, and was very much wrong, as the main antagonists of the novel have some serious repulsive decadence and self-destructive corruption going on, not to mention the nightmarish thing that seems to be pulling the strings. Got a bit of a Laird Barron vibe. Dark, gloomy and somewhat fatalistic, not a whole lot of good happens to anyone by the end of it all. Have to say, though, wasn't a huge fan of the prose at times, felt a bit too forced and purple here and there. Recommendation pending, gotta read the other books first.

CADmonkey

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #142 on: October 29, 2015, 04:44:26 PM »
Regarding Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs,  Jonathan Tweet with Robin Laws wrote a game called Over the Edge for Atlas Games in the early 90's.
Yeah, I have a copy of the 2nd edition from the late 90's.  Never played it though, which is a shame since I've actually been to Interzone:


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CADmonkey

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #143 on: November 02, 2015, 11:33:37 AM »
Oh yeah, what I've actually been reading.

I decided to read some old fashioned ghost stories for October, so I went through The Haunted Looking Glass a collection of 19th century ghost stories selected by Edward Gorey.  Aside from Lovecraft and Poe, I've never read much in the horror genre so it was kind of interesting checking out some more conventional ghost stories.  Though I did get rather tired of the device of having these stories told second or third hand, too many of these stories were bookended with accounts of the author meeting someone who then told them about some third person's encounter with a ghost.
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trinite

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #144 on: November 02, 2015, 04:00:59 PM »
Oh yeah, what I've actually been reading.

I decided to read some old fashioned ghost stories for October, so I went through The Haunted Looking Glass a collection of 19th century ghost stories selected by Edward Gorey.  Aside from Lovecraft and Poe, I've never read much in the horror genre so it was kind of interesting checking out some more conventional ghost stories.  Though I did get rather tired of the device of having these stories told second or third hand, too many of these stories were bookended with accounts of the author meeting someone who then told them about some third person's encounter with a ghost.

I hope there's some M.R. James in there. Because M.R. James is the best.

I'm returning to my Civil War horror research, and currently going through Vicksburg: 47 Days of Siege by A.A. Hoehling. And I'm learning that for the most part, sieges are pretty boring day-by-day. "Sunday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got blown up. Monday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got blown up. Tuesday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got (what a twist!) shot."

Ah well, nothing like a little Ambrose Bierce and Carcosa to spice it up!
« Last Edit: November 02, 2015, 04:06:49 PM by trinite »
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Thorn

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #145 on: November 02, 2015, 10:38:34 PM »
Oh yeah, what I've actually been reading.

I decided to read some old fashioned ghost stories for October, so I went through The Haunted Looking Glass a collection of 19th century ghost stories selected by Edward Gorey.  Aside from Lovecraft and Poe, I've never read much in the horror genre so it was kind of interesting checking out some more conventional ghost stories.  Though I did get rather tired of the device of having these stories told second or third hand, too many of these stories were bookended with accounts of the author meeting someone who then told them about some third person's encounter with a ghost.

I hope there's some M.R. James in there. Because M.R. James is the best.

I'm returning to my Civil War horror research, and currently going through Vicksburg: 47 Days of Siege by A.A. Hoehling. And I'm learning that for the most part, sieges are pretty boring day-by-day. "Sunday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got blown up. Monday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got blown up. Tuesday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got (what a twist!) shot."

Ah well, nothing like a little Ambrose Bierce and Carcosa to spice it up!
Don't know if this book is worth it (it does have Laird Barron though), but her is a collection of civil war ghost stories.
http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Blue-Gray-Ghosts-Civil/dp/1607014033

trinite

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #146 on: November 03, 2015, 01:09:23 AM »
Oh yeah, what I've actually been reading.

I decided to read some old fashioned ghost stories for October, so I went through The Haunted Looking Glass a collection of 19th century ghost stories selected by Edward Gorey.  Aside from Lovecraft and Poe, I've never read much in the horror genre so it was kind of interesting checking out some more conventional ghost stories.  Though I did get rather tired of the device of having these stories told second or third hand, too many of these stories were bookended with accounts of the author meeting someone who then told them about some third person's encounter with a ghost.

I hope there's some M.R. James in there. Because M.R. James is the best.

I'm returning to my Civil War horror research, and currently going through Vicksburg: 47 Days of Siege by A.A. Hoehling. And I'm learning that for the most part, sieges are pretty boring day-by-day. "Sunday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got blown up. Monday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got blown up. Tuesday: everybody starved a little bit, some people got (what a twist!) shot."

Ah well, nothing like a little Ambrose Bierce and Carcosa to spice it up!
Don't know if this book is worth it (it does have Laird Barron though), but her is a collection of civil war ghost stories.
http://www.amazon.com/Shades-Blue-Gray-Ghosts-Civil/dp/1607014033
Thanks for the tip! I'll try to check it out.
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CADmonkey

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #147 on: November 03, 2015, 08:40:28 AM »
I hope there's some M.R. James in there. Because M.R. James is the best.
Yes, "Casting the Runes" the last story in the book.
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Twisting H

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #148 on: November 03, 2015, 06:29:10 PM »
While doing the link list for the "Creepy Parrots" panel, I checked out a few of the short stories that got mentioned:

"Singing My Sister Down" by Margo Lanagan is amazing and fascinating.

"The Book" by Margaret Irwin is a pretty great Victorian ghost story (it reminded me of M.R. James, which is the highest of praise).

"The Spider" by Hans Heinz Ewers was good...but quite different from the way Caleb remembered it. ;)

And "The Sloan Men" by David Nickle....eeeeeeesh, that one made my skin crawl.

Thanks for this I was trying to track down the David Nickle story after it was mentioned and not having a great deal of luck .

I haven't read any M.R. James that I can recall and I hear him get recommended all the time. Where should I start gents?

PirateLawyer

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #149 on: November 03, 2015, 09:04:23 PM »
I haven't read any M.R. James that I can recall and I hear him get recommended all the time. Where should I start gents?

He's in the public domain so just download whatever collections you come across on your e-reader or just go to Project Gutenberg.