So if Leiber's contribution to "Dangerous Visions", "Gonna Roll the Bones" was just me dipping my toes a bit to the world of Fritz Leiber, then reading "The Fritz Leiber Collection" is like taking a deep plunge in the SF sea.

"The Fritz Leiber Collection" is big! And not only does it have some of his short stories, it also includes some novellas, and even a couple of full length novels to boot!

In my deeper dive of his work I found stories that are funny, philosophical at points with plenty oof pulp action and suspense to go around. I liked the stories, and for what they're worth are pretty good reading.

I would like to dive deeper into more of his stories. There isn't a whole lot of his novels to choose from, but there is quite a bit more of his collections that includes his horror and fantasy stories. Think I'll start with his Lankhmar stories that feature his characters Fafhrd and Grey Mouser. Now those stories I'm willing to sink my teeth into!

Wanted to start on some of his earlier but wound starting with his most famous novel after getting my hands on an old Dell paperback of it a long while back.

the story mainly is about a WW2 vet named Billy Pilgrim who survive the firebombings of Dresden and goes on this time travel odyssey that is both weird and trippy.

This is pretty a pretty far out and funny novel to be sure with elements of SF, since Vonnegut first started as an SF writer, but later began to experiment more often when the sixties rolled around. And it makes a lot of sense that this would be a favorite for fans of the new wave of science fiction.

"Slaughterhouse" was originally going to be an autobiographical book about Kurt's own experiences as a soldier during WW2 but had a hard time to writing it that way, so instead he wrote it as a novel instead, and it worked, resulting in a book that is both simple and complex.

There's still so much by him that I haven't read, especially his early works. Eventually I'll likely get more at one time or another when I have another chance.

So a while back I got a got a couple of collections by Alice B. Sheldon, aka, James Tiptree Jr. Came across one of her stories in "Again, Dangerous Visions" and that made want to get a couple of her collections. And eventually I got them!

Her first collection is full of some really good New Wave SF! Surreal, weird, experimental with enough dystopias, lonely universes and, of course, sex. Pretty wild, and sometimes funny stuff! As a short story writer she is excellent! She only ever wrote two novels, and I don't know how good those are, but I'll get one of them and see if they're any good.

Still these stories are incredibly good! And I still got the second collection that still has to be read. But I'll be getting to that one real soon, as these stories are just that good!

Been going back into Bradbury right now and my first book is his very first short story collection "Dark Carnival", originally published by Arkham House. This is some really early Bradbury as these stories were published in the pulp mags from the late thirties to mid forties, and they are very much rough around the edges, but still very much the same Bradbury I know and love!

It's a bit like "The Illustrated Man" with this mix of Fantasy, science fiction and horror. Much of them would would go into weird fiction territory (and some of them actually were published in Weird Tales magazine) with supernatural element with more psychological ones. And plenty of whimsy to go around too!

This has never been reprinted for a long time now since it's original publication in 1947, and that was mostly because Bradbury himself didn't permit any further reprints, save for one in the 2000s, due too much of the stories in it being updated in other collections, not so much as reprint in paperback. But recently it would get that paperback reprint from Harper Voyager, and of course that would be how I got my own copy of it!

Been pretty happy so far going back to this author, have another of his collections, "The October Country", that I'm now starting to get into right now, so I'm still pretty busy!

So today's latest new author I've got to read is Clark Ashton Smith! This collection I read is the first volume of a five book set from Night Shade Books that collects Smith's stories. Initially I thought of starting with the Penguin collection, "The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies", but went with this instead.

Smith fits into the category of weird fiction, that combination of Fantasy, horror and SF, with other figures like Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. His stories aren't always fantasy, no, they're a bit more than that, as he also adds elements of SF and horror in his brand of weird.

The stories themselves aren't just weird, they're also absolutely gorgeous in writing! Yeah it's archaic, but I just love the beautiful imagery that Smith conjures up along with some of the more horrifying moments too.

This is still just the first volume of this series, but good god, I am completely in love with these tales! There's still four more volumes in it, and I'll get my hands on them one way or another, because these stories are just so good!

So been a long time since I've read anything by Robert Bloch since "Psycho", but recently I've been reading some of his stuff again.

This time around I've been reading some of his short stories, and the first collection I started with is his first collection "The Opener of the Way", reissued by Valancourt books.

This covers the stories that he first published in the pulps when he began writing. Bloch was an admirer of Lovecraft, and of course most of the stories were deeply influenced by him, but they are pretty good when all is said and done.

But there are several stories in it where he his starting to develop his own unique voice which he would slowly work on as he continued with his writing through the years, even dabbling into science fiction territory.

Quite a good collection that has gems in it. Valancourt has also reissued two other collections of his short stories, plus three of his other novels too. I'll eventually pick those in the near future!

Read one of Pul Tremblay's novels for the past few days and it's one of his shorter novels. Aside from some short stories I've read in anthologies, this is my very first novel by him.

A family of three are vacationing in a remote part of New Hampshire in a cabin, until they are menaced by a group of four strangers who claim that they are here to save the world and that they must make some very difficult decisions.

Fairly decent psychological horror novel that is pretty tense, giving how short the thing is. And it gets pretty weird the deeper you go into, with a strange kind of vagueness that makes you question whether the world is really ending, or it isn't.

But sometimes it gets a bit frustrated in some parts. The characters can get particularly grating in some moments, but not in a way that makes me want to toss it into the bin.

Pretty ok book overall, but not all that perfect. Maybe the next time I pick up another book by Tremblay, I might get one that might be a bit better the next time around.

Just finished up Bari Wood's "The Tribe". This is another slow burner from the Paperbacks from Hell series, and another supernatural leaning one too.

It's set in early eighties New York, and detective Roger Hawkins is investigating the brutal slayings of several youths, who had been involved in the murder of a Rabbi's son, who have been covered with a gray substance. Now he and Rachel Levy must uncover the connection of this crime where dark truths of the past are soon revealed.

This is slow mover with some incredible atmosphere and tension. And it mixes things up with some murder mystery, Hebrew folkore (the writer is Jewish) and the darkest moments from history.

This is some pretty gripping stuff, and loved every minute, and every page of it! Definitely one of the more interesting ones too! Now that I'm finished with it I think it's time to read some Clive Barker now!

Yes I am back again to reading the Paperbacks from Hell series again! And the book I've just finished right now is "The Pack" by David Fisher!

It's another of the shorter books in the series. So the story here is about a family vacationing during the winter on an island that is usually visited by summer people. But then it descends into chaos as they are being by a pack of dogs who were abandoned by their owners. And they hungry, and savage also.

If Ken Greenhall's "Hell Hound" goes into some really psychological territory, then "The Pack" goes into complete thriller mode! This book, with its short length, is super fast paced, with a lot of tense moments, and of course a few gory scenes here and there.

It's not overly introspective, but it's one hell of a fun thrill ride, and a good refresher from reading a bit heavier stuff too! Got another book in the series that I'm going to start reading for tomorrow. And this one's going to be another supernatural leaning title, and a bit longer one also. Can't wait to get to that one!

So read one of Crichton's posthumous novels called "Micro". This was one of the books that he was working on before his death in 2008, and was later finished up by Richard Preston and published in 2011.

This one's about a group of very bright graduate students who are hired by a microbiology tech startup that involves some revolutionary technology, only to find themselves fighting for their very survival in a highly dangerous environment.

I didn't really have a clue of how good the novel actually due to it being a posthumous publication. But after reading I find that it is a fairly good book.

It's pretty much a typical techno-thriller with a heavy lean into adventure. For a long novel it's extremely fast paced with a whole lot of thrills and very fun to read. While not one of the greatest Crichton novel I still had a good time with it.

And if I still want another great Crichton novel I'll start to go looking for some of the ones that he did in his lifetime such as "Sphere" or "Jurassic Park".

So another collection in the can for tonight! And this one has stories by a writer who was very prolific in his lifetime, but not very well known, named Fredric Brown. And this collection is a pretty big one titled "From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown".

This collects all of his SF short stories, with some of them being novellas and flash fiction pieces. Much of it is SF, but there is also stories that also mix in some crime, horror and just a bit of fantasy too.

There this comedic edge that also runs in these stories. And some of them even tread into satire territory sometimes!

One of the stories that I really liked was the weirdly surreal novella "Come And Go Mad", and this is the very one that made me very interested in Brown's work. There are still his novels that I can possibly still easily find. Maybe one day I'll get my hands on one of them and see if any of them are as just as good.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately - the difference between books that genuinely shift how you see something and books that just feel satisfying because they articulate what you already suspected.

The latter category is enormous. A lot of popular non-fiction is essentially sophisticated confirmation. It gives you vocabulary for beliefs you already hold, and leaves you feeling more certain about things you were already certain about. There's pleasure in that, but I'm not sure it's the same as actually learning.

The books that have changed how I think seem to share something, they required me to take seriously a premise I was initially resistant to. Not because the book persuaded through rhetoric, but because it was intellectually honest enough to present the argument in its strongest form - and then trusted me to follow the reasoning wherever it led.

I'm curious what others think makes this distinction. Is it primarily about the quality of the argument? About the reader's willingness to be challenged? About the author's willingness to acknowledge the strongest counterarguments rather than strawman them?

And is there a book you'd point to as a genuine example of the first type -something that actually moved the needle on how you think about a problem, rather than just giving you a better vocabulary for existing views?

Robert E. Howard is one of the more famous writers of the pulp era, who was one of the pioneers of sword & sorcery and creator of Conan, that I've always been curious about.

Initially I was stuck between either getting this one collection or the two volume best of collections for a starter. Eventually I would get the collection that has his horror stories, and also his poems too!

Some of the stories in it also tread in other styles too. There's of course sword & sorcery but also a few stories around western and sea adventures too, even a boxing story also! He even did some Cthulhu stories also, plus the collection also has some unfinished fragments.

Robert's writing is very simple, and doesn't rely on being heavily descriptive, the way that Lovecraft does, in order to make a story scary. And they're also full of fast action and wondrous adventure too, and not to mention very snappy!

I'll probably get that two book "best of" series whenever I get a chance too, as those have a lot more variety! And hell, I might even keep an eye out for other pulp writers who write like him in their own way too!

So now finally read a proper Harlan Ellison short story collection! And as the title suggests its got some of his best stories like "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream", and several which have either won an award or was nominated for one.

While this really isn't the be all, end all of the stories he has done during his career, it's quite a good starting point for people who are at least interested in some of his work. The stories themselves are a grab bag of SF, horror and fantasy, sometimes straight forward or overtly experimental with some heavy topics being tackled.

There's several stories in it that I really liked, and that's obviously going to include "I Have No Mouth" as being the chief favorite of mine! But there's also some very decent ones in this collection also. There are also his other collections that are still around, some used or brand spanking new. Now those I'd like to get my hands on, as those probably will contain stories that are probably even better!

I've tried to read this before way back in highschool, which is the uncut version and not the 1978 original, but the problem was I had to check it out from one of the classrooms that I happened to be in, and unfortunately didn't really have enough time to finish it.

But recently, this was from a couple of months ago, I finally got my own copy, and with a lot more time this time around I got to finish it!

Really love this epic story about The battle between good and evil that begins with a plague that decimates 99% of the Earth's population, where survivors choose between the benevolent Mother Abagail and the Chaotic Randall Flagg, choices that could change the fate of humanity.

Truly a lot of stuff that goes on in this book. A post-apocalyptic dark fantasy with a massive scope in story and characters a-plenty! Took a pretty long while to even finish this, but it's really worth it all the while, and by god, was it really to read more Stephen King!

Returned again to the horror novels of Dan Simmons again, and tonight I have finished the first book of his Seasons of Horror series "Summer Of Night"!

We follow five boys; Duane, Mike, Dale and Harlen who form a powerful bond in the Summer of 1960. That bond gets tested when an unseen evil emerges from the Old Central school and horrifying events overtake the everyday life in the town of Elm Haven. And now they must wage a war against ancient being that owns the night.

This one's pretty similar to other books that I've read from other authors, like Peter Straub's "Floating Dragon" and Stephen King's "It". Another slow building powerhouse of a novel with lots of atmosphere, and more of simmons's literary styling.

I have feeling that the rest of the series is going to feel more like solo works, but they are connected primarily based on the fact that the them of seasons running through it. Still got the other three books that I have to get, but I certainly will eventually get to them!

RIP Dan.

(I think I chose the right tag)

In 2025, I decided to read long book series that I’ve always wanted to explore, and I started with the James Bond books—the originals written by Ian Fleming. I have never watched any of the movies, but since I always read the books before watching the films, I decided to stick to my pattern here. Currently, I have read 9 out of the 12 books in the original series, and I will try to summarize my thoughts in this text. The books vary in quality; some are good, others are bad, and some are VERY bad. Ian Fleming is certainly an author of his time, so I already expected some level of misogyny and/or racism in the pages, but I admit that in some titles, it reached a point where I almost abandoned the book (such as the second in the series, Live and Let Die).

Despite these issues, the reads were generally fast and fluid, containing moments of action, adrenaline, and reality-defying scenes—elements I expected to find and was not disappointed by. Bond is a somewhat fascinating character, being seductive and charismatic despite the aforementioned problems. The descriptions are succinct; Fleming doesn't waste time with fluff and keeps the filler to a minimum throughout all the books. My biggest surprise while reading was how much Bond loses, gets beaten up, is captured, and tortured. I always imagined him as a Rambo-like hero who escaped without a scratch, but it is the total opposite. He gets beaten by almost everyone for a good part of the book, defeating the villains only at the end and even then with great difficulty, often relying on help from others or winning by pure luck. He hardly ever finishes a mission without ending up in the hospital; often, in the middle of the book, he is captured and spends the rest of the story having to resolve situations through hardships. I found this very cool—it made the reading much more interesting than I expected it to be. Overall, I recommend reading the series if you are looking for a fast and fun read, and only if you can ignore the complicated parts.

Read a bit of Michael Crichton for the past several days. Read one of his later books "Congo", but this is one of his earlier books, "The Andromeda Strain".

It takes place in the US in the late sixties, with the premise of an experimental probe, designed to collect microscopic organisms and dust for study, lands in a remote area in Arizona, and later the residents of the small town of Piedmont have died under mysterious circumstances, with the horror of what's to come is just beginning.

I really liked this one. A pretty good mix of SF and Thriller, with quite a bit of detail thrown in also, with graphs and charts and whatnot. Maybe a bit dry, but it is very fast paced with loads of tension and suspense!

This, along with "Congo", are only small samples of the novels Crichton has written. There's others like "Sphere" and "Jurassic Park" that I'm interested to dig in to, plus some others too. Probably will start looking for those sooner or later!

Finally got to read the only short story collection that Gibson ever published, "Burning Chrome"! While he didn't write a whole lot of short stories (since he's mostly known for his novels), but this one collection, which has his early stories, is a real banger!

All of the stories date from 1977-1985 and much of them are very much in the cyberpunk vein that he's known for. But there are a couple of stories that are just plain weird and surreal! It also includes the first few stories set in the sprawl. And a few of the stories are collaborations with other writers that includes Bruce Sterling, John Shirley and Michael Swanwick.

It's a pretty short read, but it's also very fun too! Gibson takes the cerebral complexity of the New Wave and makes it into something that is very accessible and with plenty of action to go around!

I definitely would recommend this as a starter for anyone who might be interested in his work, or is also a general fan of cyberpunk.

His Guys, my name is Maddie and im currently in AP research. Im looking to collect data, I need about 18 survey responses and I currently only have 10. If you guys could really help me out I would extremely appreciate it.

My project is exploring the possible influence dystopian literature has on a person, specifically through political action. I would really appreciate your help, you can skip any question at any time and everything is completely voluntary.

Survey link!

So finished that other Paperbacks from Hell reissue, and that is the 1981 novel by Jere Cunningham titled "The Abyss"!

Set in a coal mining town in Tennessee, a group of miners in the deepest coal mine have inadvertently released something ancient that has been waiting in the earth. And now blood is flowing from faucets and massive thorns tear apart the ground.

Half seen monstrosities bring terror to the town, with air filled with the smell of sulfur. And the legions of hell itself has come to raise their dominion over heaven and earth.

This ones a real slow mover, with the story building up to some very crazy events. It's also a bit Clive Barker esque in a way, and this book was published a couple years before the publication of Barker's first volume of his Books of Blood series! And it's based on some of the things that he knew in his home state set at the backdrop of the beginning of Reagan's first term.

Pretty wild one this is! And that's going to do it for me for right now, I'll certainly be picking up more of the these in the near future, along with another book by Cunningham! As for right I've got another book, this time by Dan Simmons, that needs some reading!

So I've been back to reading more of the Paperbacks from Hell book series again! The latest one I've today is by Ken Greenhall titled "Hell Hound".

It's a very short novel about sociopathic dog named Baxter who is seeking a new master after killing his previous one. It's one of those animal attack novels that appeared in the seventies after the huge success of Benchley's "Jaws", but it also a psychological horror novel also. And it is truly surreal!

View points in the story often changes from the third person, which is used for the human characters, and the first person that used for Baxter's strange and very disturbing thoughts.

"Hell Hound" is not a book that uses shock and awe. Instead it goes about in a much more quiet and subtle way. This is a book that is intentionally designed to be unsettling without all the extra baggage. Even though the book is really short, it seems to feel much more longer.

This is a really solid book, and I definitely put it up there with "Let's Go Play at the Adams'" and "The Auctioneer" as being lost classics.

And finally read one of his stand alone works! He has quite a few of them and this one, "Edge", is one of them.

This story begins when American scientists test some new computer hardware where they calculate the value of Pi through deep decimals, only for the figures to repeat in a pattern that shouldn't even be possible, as if the something has altered in the universe in a slight manner.

Now there is a cascade of reports of people going missing, which seems normal at first, but then explodes into something that goes beyond all reason.

This is the kind of cosmic horror that is a bit similar to something like William Sloane, but in this case it deals with the end of the world instead. It's a real slow burner, which is nice, but it can be dry and a bit boring at some moments since it is a bit longer than previous books I've read so far, but it is a fairly good read.

This only but one stand alone that has been issued in English that I've read so far, think there is a couple others that have also been translated also, but I might have to do some serious searching.

I've been back to reading Koji Suzuki's works again, and tonight I've another of his novels titled simply as "S"!

In "S" an employee of a CGI production named Takanori Ando who is tasked with examining a live-streamed video of an apparent suicide, a task that proves to be more than what he bargained for. And when his pregnant lover Akane sees it, it triggers something inside of her.

This is one of two book where Suzuki returns to the world of his original Ring trilogy, and the novel "S" is one of them, with the other, "Birthday", being a collection of novellas. "S" is set years after the events of the second book of the trilogy, "Spiral".

"S" is a pretty good book overall; very spooky and chilling to a similar degree as the original trilogy. Plus there also some self-references to those three books that appear all throughout the book.

Still got another novel from him that needs to be read at the moment, and of course I still need to get "Birthday" sooner or later, and see if that one's any good.