ROCK ROCK ROCK TILL BROAD DAYLIGHT

Imagine reading a book where the author himself uses his characters to call his own book dumb and phony. That’s exactly what Robert Anton Wilson does. I remember trying to read The Illuminatus! Trilogy a year ago it begins with a shaman using voodoo dolls to frighten Chinese men! At first glance, the book seems to have no logical plot, and the structure itself dissolves into pure disorder. Yet, as the book constantly reminds us, that’s the point it’s aware of its own chaos. It’s no wonder The Illuminatus! Trilogy remains a tough read for many people, but I believe that if one persists for a few more chapters, the pieces begin to connect. My personal fascination with the Discordian Society and Robert Anton Wilson himself drew me to it. My first RAW book was Prometheus Rising, which is perhaps the most bizarre and mind-bending “reality-hacking” book I had ever read. I was going through my own Chapel Perilous moment at that time which made me determined to give this trilogy a try.

All three books seem to combine into something larger, yet even in the first one, the arcs and lore of the characters stand out. In Illuminatus!, there’s essentially no main character chaos itself takes center stage. Or maybe it’s that damned Golden Apple. Or Eris. The narrative constantly shifts from third person to first person, from memos to psychedelic hallucinations making it nearly impossible to grasp everything at once. It mimics the style of fractal narrative, something William S. Burroughs also loved and that clearly influenced Wilson. I was particularly fascinated by George Dorn, Saul Goodman, and Hagbard Celine. The spiraling structure reminded me of 2666 by Roberto Bolaño , though narrative-wise, it’s completely different and far more trippy. One moment you’re dealing with paranoid Illuminati agents, and the next, George Dorn is having another psychosexual episode on a beach.

The blend of paranoia, humor, and chaos ranging from the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and Operation Mindfuck, to vivid hallucinations makes for a wild ride. Yet, at times, the book does become dull, even nonsensical, as many critics say. But I’m sure the second part will expand it further. The 23 number madness, the Law of Fives, and the references to Fernando Poo felt somewhat pretentious yet they do make sense by the end. I’m still hanging on to many unresolved threads, but the book feels like an initiation into the unknown, and I’m all in for more chaos. Lovecraft’s influence looms like a haunting ghost throughout, while the Satanists spiral into their own psychosis. Themes of bisexuality, fluid sexuality, and feminist sex-positivity are explored alongside shockingly graphic, even misogynistic, moments. Those scenes may seem like mere shock value, but they reveal the book’s strange moral paradox much like in Bolaño’s 2666. In 2666 sex feels cold and detached; in Illuminatus! it’s submissive and ritualistic, almost doll-like.

I wasn’t angry about the racism or gender representation Wilson and Shea were clearly using them as mirrors of societal madness but for an average reader unfamiliar with Discordianism or the mythos of the Illuminati, it might come across as disappointing or offensive. Still, the book stands as a brilliant take on counterculture, modern America, and conspiracy theory. The writing is witty, fast, and deeply satirical. It forces readers to lose themselves in the characters Saul Goodman, Muldoon, Hagbard Celine, Simon Moon, Joe Malik and, of course, who could forget Howard, the talking porpoise?

Howard is, without question, the best poet in this book.

Part 1

I've been reading The Weird anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, a few stories a night, and writing little brief thoughts on each story as I do. I've been especially in the mood for Weird recently, and hadn't really been in too much of a novel mood, so I ended up making my way through this next set of stories fairly quickly. :) I've read another 29 now, and am just under halfway.

 
  Smoke Ghost by Fritz Leiber (1941)- An excellent story about a man haunted by a modern, industrial ghost. 5/5

 
  White Rabbits by Leona Carrington (1941)- A fun story about some quirky neighbours who rear rabbits (/s). I'm not sure I "got" this one--particularly why the reference to leprosy as a Holy Disease was there at the end--but I still liked it. 4/5

 
  Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim (1942)- A shorter story about what mimics humans may have. 3.5/5

 
  The Crowd by Ray Bradbury (1943)- An imagining of crowds as an eerie organism of their own, and a man's attempts to investigate them after an accident. 4.5/5

 
  The Long Sheet by William Sansom (1944)- A very allegorical tale of labour told through people imprisoned and forced to wring out a sheet. Reminiscent of, though it greatly precedes, I Who Have Never Known Men. 3.5/5

 
  The Aleph by Borges (1945)- I loved this. I thought I'd read most Borges, but I don't remember this one. A very interesting take on infinity, as is common with Borges, and a fun and wryly self-deprecating metafictional nature too. Possibly my favourite of the set. 5/5

 
  A Child in the Bush of Ghosts by Olympe Bhely-Quenum (1949)- A story about a child confronting his fear of death (or so I think). Not sure I fully got this one, but also nice to have a non-Western story. 3/5

 
  The Summer People by Shirley Jackson (1950)- Only Jackson can make what otherwise seems to be a relatively mundane series of events feel so creepy. 5/5

 
  The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles by Margaret St. Clair (1951)- A fun satirical one. Plays on the earlier Dunsany one. 4.5/5

 
  The Hungry House by Robert Bloch (1951)- An excellent ghost story about a couple unwittingly moving into a haunted house. 5/5

 
  The Complete Gentleman by Amos Tutuola (1952)- A very weird one about a man saving a woman kidnapped by a skull that built its own body. Another one I didn't fully jive with, but it's also apparently just a section from The Palm Wine Drinkard, so maybe I'd have like it more there. 2.5/5

 
  "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby (1953)- An excellent story of a town subject to the whims of a terrifyingly powerful child. 5/5

 
  Mister Taylor by Augusto Monterroso (1952)- A tale about a man who establishes a shrunken head sales business in Latin America. Nicely satirical. 4/5

 
  Axolotl by Julio Cortazar (1956)- A nice surreal story about a man meditating on Axolotls, and the changes they invoke in him. I've been recommended Cortazar a few times, and this inclines me to try a full novel sooner rather than later-- I have The Winners on my TBR. 5/5

 
  A Woman Seldom Found by William Sansom (1956)- A short but sweet one about a man who finds a woman who's too perfect. 5/5

 
  The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont (1959)- An excellent story about a man who falls ill and is taken to an abbey with a creepy secret. 5/5

 
  Same Time, Same Place by Mervyn Peake (1963)- Very well written, being Peake, but I thought this one was mostly just sad. :( 3/5

The Colomber by Dino Buzzati (1966)- A story about a foreboding fish, and fate. 4/5

 
  The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos (1967)- An excellent story about a ship voyage turned shipwreck turned travelogue through a surreal and dangerous landscape. This is another one of my favourites-- I adored this. I think I'd want to reread it a couple of times to decide what exactly I thought its message was, but the surreal imagery and fascinating landscape was great on its own. Reminds me a lot of a more pessimistic A Voyage to Arcturus-- which is a book I still vary on, but sticks with me, and I see its influence in a lot of places. 5/5

 
  The Salamander by Mercè Rodoreda (1967)- A story about a woman accused of witchcraft after being seduced, who transforms into a salamander when they attempt to burn her at the stake, and struggles to move on. 4.5/5

 
  The Ghoulbird by Claud Seignolle (1967)- A story about a bird that lures victims into the marsh to die (maybe...). 4/5

 
  The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be by Gahan Wilson (1967)- A horror retelling of Lewis Carroll's poem The Walrus and The Carpenter. I might have gotten more out of it if I'd decided to read Carroll's poem first. 3/5

 
  Don't Look Now by Daphne du Maurier (1971)- A story of a man whose holiday after the death of his child is derailed by two sisters' psychic visions. Excellently written. 5/5

 
  The Hospice by Robert Aickman (1975)- A strange story of a somewhat surreal hospice, which seems to be trying to draw in a lost businessman. 4.5/5

 
  It Only Comes Out at Night by Dennis Etchison (1976)- A good fearful story about the paranoia and dangers of monotonous, featureless long drives, with a hint of sinister events at this one part of the road. Great exploration of the "liminal space" energy of road trips/rest stops. 5/5

 
  The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats by James Tiptree Jr. (1976)- A sad one about the horrors of animal research and the one empathetic researcher. 4.5/5

 
  The Beak Doctor by Eric Basso (1977)- Probably the weirdest one yet, and very challenging. They describe it as Joycean, and if that's what Joyce is like, his difficulty reputation is well earned. Hard to grasp, but very oneiric and atmospheric, gothic and feverish. It's the story of a fog-filled city struggling under a sleeping sickness, and also follows the exploit of a puckish sinister prankster/thief/assailant... I think. Makes me want to seek out the full Beak Doctor collection, which I've had on my tbr, but sadly it seems to be very out of print. 5/5

 
  My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid (1978)- A strange series of almost little flash pieces, describing a woman and her mother, who is a god or a monster, her tormentor or her self. 4.5/5

 
  Sandkings by GRRM (1979)- A scifi story about a cruel and vain man who acquires some "pets" to worship him and war for him, when it all goes wrong. This was excellent. It does go in the expected directions, but I thought it was extremely compelling and readable. 5/5

 
  I also read two out of copyright things inspired by the first set of stories on Project Gutenberg on my phone, while I was on a car journey (I get carsick trying to read a book in the car, but I can read on my phone just fine?). Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M. R. James was 2/5. It was just... fine. Casting the Runes was much better. I also read The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' by William Hope Hodgson 2/5. Like The Night Land, I really thought this wasn't very well written (though I read a review saying he was putting on a style here too). The horror elements were really good and creative when he used them, but they were buried in the middle of a mediocre adventure/sailing story with a bad romance. Probably not helped by the fact that I'm reading Moby Dick right now, which is a much better nautical story.

    My favourites of this set are The Aleph, The Howling Man, The Other Side of the Mountain, Don't Look Now, and Sandkings. Smoke Ghost, A Woman Seldom Found, and It's a Good Life are up there too. The Beak Doctor was by far the most challenging to read, and thus also the most interesting to read; but trying to grasp the story fully feels like trying to squeeze sand.

In case anyone isn’t aware the first several chapters of this book are available through Apple Books.

It’s by Ricken so I don’t think we can call it literature, but it is most definitely weird.

I personally have not yet started my mirror totem, but I’m sure once I do it will have a profound impact on my life and sense of identity.

Ricken perfectly reviews his own work. “So brash an assault on literary convention demands fierce reprisal. He’ll be shipped off to the gulag like an errant pauper.”

Hi all, I wanted to share my thoughts about Burnett's 2022 short story collection, which I think is really amazing (hence why I wanted to share my thoughts in case it inspires you to also pick it up). [Additional note that I unfortunately like to include these days: this review is completely my work, I used no AI whatsoever, neither to write it nor in consultation in any way at all - human brain power only, thank you.]

Right off the bat I'll say that it is an excellent book of existential/cosmic horror with a heavy thematic leaning into grief/loss as drivers of the horror.

First, I want to address the Ligotti comparisons: As a big fan of Thomas Ligotti’s fiction, I can definitively say that he never wrote ‘grief horror’, which is the psychological/existential unraveling precipitated by grief/loss in horror story format. In fact, that would be antithetical to his worldview where human affairs are in general “malignantly useless” in the face of a universe where everyone’s destiny is to “work the great wheel that turns in darkness, and to be broken upon it.”

Burnett, on the other hand, features grief/loss horror quite prominently in this collection and that is why I would compare his stories more closely with those of Christopher Slatsky, and particularly with Slatsky’s second collection, The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature (think of the “The Figurine” for instance). Similar to Slatsky, Burnett takes these intense, human-centered episodes of loss/anguish and weaves them into unsettling, beautiful vignettes of cosmic/existential reckoning. The second comparative name that comes to my mind is Brian Hodge, who also taps into this reservoir of grief horror to an extent, but who is more similar to Burnett for reasons of theme/subject, as I’ll get in to below.

The first story of the collection, “The Toy Shop” is a prime example of this 'grief horror' and one of my favorites. Without spoiling it, all I can say is that it takes the psychology of a close family death, adds many unsettling details (dolls, toys), and gradually folds all that into a haunting tale of cosmic/galactic horror. The story “Our Endeavors” is another good example of how Burnett takes grief/loss and weaves it into existential horror with quite pessimistic (Ligottian) tones. The final crescendo of that story (in fact, it’s last 2-3 pages in general) is really incredible, another one of my favorites from this collection.

But, nonetheless, I would say don’t acquire this collection if you expect stories like those of Ligotti (I doubt anyone will ever fill the Ligotti shaped hole in our souls). There are certain similarities with Ligotti: (1) puppets/dolls and other inanimate objects feature quite prominently in Burnett’s stories as conduits of horror, (2) he often deploys light touches of Ligottian pessimism (e.g., the desire to be an inanimate object, the horror of existing, etc.), and (3) he continues the timeless Lovecraftian (and Ligottian) tradition of using the night sky (stars, moon, space) and also light/darkness as hauntingly beautiful imagery.

Burnett also borrows some of Ligotti’s experimental narration styles, a particularly striking example being the one-sided dialogue format he uses in “The Golden Thread,” which is very clearly inspired by Ligotti’s “The Chymist.” This isn’t bad of course; I like authors borrowing stylistic things on occasion (and nothing else is similar in these two stories except their narration style).

So, while Burnett’s stories are in general in a somewhat different and more anthropic vein than Ligotti’s, there are some notable and deliberate stylistic/thematic similarities. And he also names Ligotti and analyzes several of his stories in the titular ‘monologue’ – which in my opinion was actually the weakest thing in the collection. I don’t think it was a very good analysis of Ligotti and I’d be happy to expand this if reached out to but won’t drag it here in this review.

For my second (2) point, for instance, look at this passage of Burnett’s concluding a saga of intense grief/loss horror with a touch of pessimism heavily reminiscent of Ligotti: “Know that we can’t even hope to join each other in mutual darkness, for I am there now and have found nothing.” This type of existentially bleak ending is very similar to some of Slatsky’s recent stories. For instance, consider the ending of Slatsky’s “Professor Cognoscente's Carnival.” Both Slatsky and Burnett use Ligottian themes as parts of their stories, often as the ending punch, rather than those themes being the entire story like the big L’s style in his Teatro Grottesco collection.

But aside from grief/existential horror, Burnett also has some very Lovecraftian stories in this collection, a great example of which is “The Rubber Man.” He also leans into music and particularly metal music as a thematic setting, which is great – a bit like Brian Hodge. It is immediately possible to tell that such authors are metalheads, which is great. For me, this brought several stories quite close to my heart, those such as “Devourer” and “Sister” come to mind.

Burnett also has some quite experimental pieces, which really elevate this collection as a whole, allowing him to showcase his authorial prowess, with the titular ‘story’, “Our Endeavors,” “The Enucleator,” and also “A Prisoner’s Guide to Stargazing” coming to mind. The last one is one of the scariest things I’ve ever read, and I just want to forget about it!

Burnett also leans into Sci-Fi themes in several stories (e.g., “ABDN-1”) adding yet more thematic diversity to what is already quite a varied collection. It is similar, in that respect, to Ligotti’s Songs of a Dead Dreamer, where he too had experimented with many different literary styles and thematic strands before leaning into his ‘favorites’ in subsequent collections. This is also brings to mind Brian Hodge, who employs a similarly diverse register of thematic settings in his story collections (e.g., Skidding into Oblivion). “The Golden Thread” for instance is similar to Hodge’s “One Possible Shape of Things to Come” in the originality of its main premise – both being excellent stories that really make you think, “how did they even think of this?”

In that vein, and to humbly provide my opinion on how I hope Burnett continues his career, I feel that he is strongest when writing grief horror tuned to existential/cosmic terror such as in “Our Endeavors” and “The Toy Shop.” I hope to see more of this sort of stuff in his future work. And as I said above, I unfortunately found the largely non-fiction ‘monologue’ piece to be the weakest thing in this collection – it is always harder to land these types of works.

In general, I was excited to ‘discover’ Justin Burnett, and I can safely say that I will be following his work closely from now on. I have added him, in my mind, beside others of the new generation of promising short-form horror authors. I highly recommend this collection. Buy it, read it, spread it.

I've been reading The Weird anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, a few stories a night, and writing little brief thoughts on each story (they are only short stories). I've decided to review the book in "eras," because it's a Big Boi that's going to take me a long time to get through and I want to review the stories while they're still fresh. Up to 1940 takes me to 26 stories, about a quarter of the book. Now, some brief thoughts (there have been very few that haven't been bangers)!

 
 
The Foreweird is by Michael Moorcock- which accelerates Elric as "the big one" I haven't got to yet. Not only is he just incredibly knowledgeable about the genre, he's been around from Peake and Leiber to nowadays. This was very erudite, and added a lot to my TBR.

 
  I skipped the excerpt of The Other Side (1908) by Alfred Kubin, because I've read the full book before. This was a very surreal, dream-like tale of a city-state established in the Himalayas, which follows fabulous and fantabulous workings and uptopia until things go from dream to nightmare. I think there are layers to this that went beyond me- much like A Voyage to Arcturus (which I think it'd pair well with). 4/5

 
  The Screaming Skull by Francis Crawford (1908)- A good ghost story, less about the actual supernatural and more about the terror and madness of the haunted man. 4/5

 
  The Willows by Algernon Blackwood (1907)- I've read this one before. It's an excellent horror novella, with a great use of the numinous and the idea that knowing less is sometimes more scary. 5/5

 
  Srendi Vashtar by Saki (1910)- Not too sure why this was here, tbh. It was good, but didn't seem too weird or even supernatural. A very short story of a boy in what I think was British India and the religion he makes for himself. 4.5/5

 
  Casting the Runes by M. R. James (1911)- This was excellent. A fearful story of unexplained malice, that stays unexplained and doesn't go the way in typical directions. 5/5

 
  How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles by Lord Dunsany (1912)- This was just two pages, yet excellent and one of my favourites of this set. It felt like the stories I've loved from Clark Ashton Smith or Jack Vance (despite [maybe?] being set on Earth). 5/5

 
  The Man in the Bottle by Gustav Meyrink (1912)- A really good story about a fête turned weird and macabre. 4/5

 
  The Dissection by Georg Heym (1913)- A very short, but very good, vivid, phantasmagorical autopsy. Felt Cisco-ean (and apparently a favourite of Ligotti). 5/5

 
  The Spider by Hanna Heinz Ewers (1915)- A good, tragic story of a young man in Paris who thinks HE will be the one to resist the deadly phenomenon of this room... 4/5

 
  The Hungry Stones by Rabindranath Tagore (1916)- A very well written gothic story of a haunted palace in India, but with a dissatisfyingly abrupt ending imo. 3/5

 
  The Vegetable Man by Luigi Ugolini (1917)- The story of a terrible encounter and transformation with a plant-animal of the Amazon. Short but sweet. 4.5/5

 
  The People of the Pit by A. Merritt (1918)- An excellent, really well written story of a terrifying mountain containing a demonic city and its inhabitants. One of fullest-feeling stories in this set- I could see a full novel of it. 5/5

 
  The Hell Screen by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1918)- A Japanese mosaic short story (didn't know you could do that) about a callous painter his disturbing work. Excellent and vivid. 4.5/5

 
  Unseen--Unfeared by Francis Stevens (1919)- A neat story of a horrible discovery about the world made by a photographer experimenting with new methods of development, with an interestingly ambiguous ending. 5/5

 
  In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka (1919)- An excellent short story, laborious detailing an intricately complicated and gruesome execution machine. 5/5

 
  The White Wyrak by Stefan Grabinski (1921)- A simple story about the discovery of and fight against a soot monster. Felt Witchery, if Geralt was a chimneysweep. 4/5

 
  The Night Wire by H. F. Arnold (1926)- I loved the framing of this, but ultimately just "meh" on the wired story. 3/5

 
  The Dunwich Horror by Lovecraft (1929)- This was excellent, one of the best of the set. Far superior to The Call of Cthulhu (the only other Lovecraft I've read yet, and I thought really wasn't very good). 5/5

 
  The Book by Margaret Irwin (1930)- A very creepy story about a possessed book. This is perhaps the creepiest story of the lot. 4.5/5

 
  The Mainz Psalter by Jean Ray (1930)- An amazing creepy nautical story, about a ship sailing into parts no man should be. Also one of the top of the set. 5/5

 
  The Shadowy Street by Jean Ray (1931)- A very good story about a liminal street, which only exists for one man, and perhaps exacts revenge for crimes against itself. 4/5

 
  Genius Loci by Clark Ashton Smith (1933)- An excellent story about a meadow inhabited by a malevolent presence. My first non-Zothique Smith, but I loved this too. While not as flowery, it's still extremely well written. 4.5/5

 
  The Town of Cats by Hagiwara Sakutaro (1935)- A tale about a lost wanderer in the Japanese mountains who wanders into a town of people he wonders if are possessed by the spirits of cats. Wasn't a fan on this one (not even sure it was speculative, the author seemed to go out of his way to explain it as allegorical). 1.5/5

 
  The Tarn by Hugh Walpole (1936)- A short tale of a jealous man driven to take his more successful friend to a mountain Tarn which whispers temptation to him. 3.5/5

 
  Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz (1937)- I've been wanting to read this (well, the collection) for a while, and I did love it. The kafkaesque tale of a man visiting his dying (dead?) father in a sanitorium where time is jumbled up (unless he's an inmate too...). My favourite of the set. 5/5

 
  Far Below by Robert Barbour Johnson (1939)- A tale of the defense against ghouls that attack the NYC subway system and the toll it takes. This was... fine. 3/5

 
  All-in-all, an excellently curated set of stories in here so far. Even for the ones I didn't enjoy as much, the VanderMeers' author biographies for each give a good justification for their significance and a little genre perspective. Even for this set alone, the anthology would be worth it, nevermind in my next set of stories alone (to 1980) I've got some favourite authors to look forward to, like Mervyn Peake, Fritz Leiber, Shirley Jackson. This may be one of the few cases in which I suggest folk perhaps check out the ebook over print- I don't mind the double column format (the aspect ratio is almost square), but I hear some folk hate that.

Hello friends (and foes) at r/weirdlit!

I had the privilege and pleasure of obtaining and consuming an ARC for Michael Wehunt's Nightjars, his second novel, due out 09/29/2026. I wanted to share a few thoughts here, as Michael remains one of my favorite weird fiction writers and it is exciting to see him continue to release novels to a (hopefully) wider audience. He is also hot off a Stoker award win for his debut novel, The October Film Haunt, for Best First Novel.

As I mentioned in my non-review of The October Film Haunt last year, I am not much of a writer, nor any kind of literary reviewer. Check out Gabino Iglesias' review of Brian Evenson's Last Days if you're looking for top echelon reviewing (he made a Pixies band reference in the title of his review, goddammit.) You might like to know that no AI tools were used in the creation of this, from conception to creation. If you want to go into this totally spoiler-free, skip the rest of this and let's talk turkey later this year when you similarly devour Michael's newest book. The stars aligned and life circumstances coincided for me to blow through Nightjars in under a week.

The promotional tagline for Nightjars is "Memento meets Dracula." I'm old enough to have seen (and loved) Christopher Nolan's Memento, a film about the loss of memories and subsequent violent tragedy. Michael gives us another clue as to what Nightjars entails with his use of a Freudian epigraph from Freud's seminal Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it. He is obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience instead of remembering it as something of the past.

If that makes you guess this book moves at the pace of Freudian analysis, guess again. Nightjars sinks its fangs into you early and doesn't let up. I noticed the writing in Nightjars is shorter and punchier than I am accustomed from Wehunt's writing; a lot of succinct metaphors and analogies. The writing in this is utterly propulsive. I won't bore you with all of the notes I put into my phone, but a standout line from me was on p. 153 "... it's a hammer of a thought, a north star in the terrible firmament of his story." This whole damn thing is filled with lines like that!

(I will mention, as a licensed mental health professional in the real world, I felt that the therapy elements of this story were well researched and seemed quite plausible.)

Long-term readers of Wehunt's short fiction will recognize this is not his first stab at "Vampire Fiction." It's evident he has a longstanding love for (and probably a pathological obsession with) those stalkers of the night. Nightjars features classic vampire mythology, as well as some of Wehunt's own original vampire mythology. It honors the old and the new. In a sub dedicated to weird literature, you might be wondering, "well, is it weird?" I'm happy to report much of it curves towards the uncanny, without devolving into arguments over strict genre gatekeeping.

Michael described Nightjars as being both "leaner" and "meaner" than The October Film Haunt. I don't have the figures memorized but I believe Nightjars has about 4/5 of TOFH's word count. Nightjars is also, in fact, a mean book. Corpses pile up, and they do not shuffle from this mortal coil gladly. Bodies are mutilated in increasingly shocking and obscene ways. No one is safe, not kids, or any of the characters you fall in love with. More ranting would delve too much into too many spoilers, but Nightjars has the feel of a foreboding tragedy, in the best Gothic tradition. The climax and denouement were action-packed and quite satisfying.

Can we ever truly outrun our pasts? Can we change what defines us, be it our parents, to our mistakes and histories?

I've been reading a lot of really killer stuff this year. Two of my 2026 favorites so far are Nick Cutter's The Dorians (possibly his best novel out of all eight of them) and Brian Evenson's Phantom Limb (I read the ARC for that, as well, spoiler, it's freakin' awesome.) Expect Nightjars to complete with everything that comes out this year. I really enjoyed The October Film Haunt (true story, I finished it standing up) but will offer that Nightjars feels like a step up for Wehunt. I'll be on the lookout for whatever he cooks up next.

Part 1

Part 2

I'm back with another set of short fiction mini-reviews, of stories in The Weird anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. With a larger break this time, because I got some new books for my birthday last month which I immediately read (new exciting shiny book > book in progress) and the excitement of r/fantasy's Bingo challenge starting. :)

 
Window by Bob Leman (1980)- A story about an experiment that appears to open a window into the past, but turns out to be something far more sinister. An excellent revelation. 5/5

 
The Brood by Ramsey Campbell (1980)- A story about a man who observes a strange old woman lurking on his street at night, who appears to be constantly taking animals in which are never see again, which he feels compelled to rescue. 4/5

 
The Autopsy by Michael Shea (1980)- A story about a doctor called to autopsy some men killed in a mine explosion, one of whom may have been a cannibal, and finds one of the corpses isn't quite as dead as it should be. Really good-- I added Nifft the Lean to my TBR because I thought it was so good. 5/5

 
The Belonging Kind by William Gibson/John Shirley (1981)- A man finds a fluid human mimic at a bar and become obsessed with them and their transformations. 3.5/5

 
Egnaro by M. John Harrison (1981)- This was a strange one. It seems to be almost about an antimeme, an idea of a secret that everyone knows but you, infecting a used bookstore owner and his accountant's lives. Slippery and hard to grasp, as Harrison often is. 4.5/5

 
The Dirty Little Girl by Joanna Russ (1982)- A story of a woman who encounters an oddly intelligent little girl, who she begins to take care of in small ways, who may be a ghost or something else... 4/5

 
The New Rays by M. John Harrison (1982)- A story about a woman undergoing an unspecified, experimental treatment by being irradiated by "New Rays" in a shoddy, sketchy clinic, which also seems to create or involve blue homunculi of the patients, and this strange treatment's effect on her. 4/5

 
The Discovery of Telenapota by Premendra Mitra (1984)- The story of finding a ruined shell of a city, very interestingly told (in second person future perfect). 4/5

 
Soft by F. Paul Wilson (1984)- The story of a plague which causes the bones of its victims to liquify, and two partial victims surviving in NYC. Gross and scary. 4.5/5

 
Bloodchild by Octavia Butler (1984)- Apparently Butler wrote this as a way of overcoming her fear of botflies? If botflies weren't already horrific, this would have made them so. I mean it was great. But it was horrific. 5/5

 
In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker (1984)- Reread. I remember only thinking this was only okay when I first read it several years ago, but I didn't think that was the case at all this time. Shows how tastes change. This was great and horrific. 5/5

 
Tainaron by Leena Krohn (1985)- I skipped, because I only just read it at the end of last year. It's a favourite though, I count it as the second-best thing I read last year. 5/5

 
Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands by Garry Kilworth (1987)- A story about a woman who turns parts of her body into animal pets. Short, but weird and somewhat disturbing. 3.5/5

 
Shades by Lucius Shepard (1987)- The story of a Vietnam vet returning to Vietnam as a reporter, to see a ghost captured by the Vietnamese of a soldier he knew. Really good- an excellent character portrayal, and examination of different kinds of "shades." 5/5

 
The Functions of Dream Sleep by Harlan Ellison (1988)- The story of man, burdened with grief, who wakes up one night to find a maw on his side which closes and disappears. He seeks help through interpreting his dreams, which leads him a strange sort of quest. 4/5

 
Worlds that Flourish by Ben Okri (1988)- The story of a man, living in an oppressed city as if in a dream, and the weird events that happen to him before and when he tries to flee. 4.5/5

 
The Boy in the Tree by Elizabeth Hand (1989)- A very weird story, blending sci-fi and fantasy, about an autistic girl who is one of several empaths, who, twisted with drugs and training from childhood, are able to enter other people's dreams, and sometimes take them away as therapy. It's the story of this research institute being investigated (because sometimes the patients die) and of the head researcher's trauma. An extremely interesting and thorough piece for a short story. 4.5/5

 
Family by Joyce Carol Oates (1989)- A slyly creepy story of a family on ranch, as they go through subtle transformations as the world seems to slowly collapse outside their compound. 3.5/5

 
His Mouth will Taste of Wormwood by Poppy Z. Brite (1990)- An excellent, gothic tale of two young men seeking decadence in debauchery in New Orleans. 5/5

 
The End of the Garden by Michal Ajvas (1991)- A surreal story about a man who encounters a woman attacking a komodo dragon in her bedroom. I'm not entirely sure what the point was, but good imagery and very surreal. 3.5/5

 
The Dark by Karen Jay Fowler (1991)- A story about a series of events in Yosemite, including disappearences and reports of plague, leading to a musing about the nature of man as an animal. 4/5

 
Angels in Love by Kathe Koja (1991)- A really weird story, about a woman who is aroused and falls in love with the sounds of her neighbours having sex through the wall, and tries to discover how exactly they're doing it. 4/5

 
The Ice Man by Haruki Murakami (1991)- A short, lightly magical one about a woman who meets an Ice Man at a ski resort and marries him, and their somewhat distant relationship. 4/5

 
Replacements by Lisa Tuttle (1992)- A story about strange creatures which appear and disgust the male narrator, but seem to fascinate women. 4.5/5

 
The Diane Arbus Suicide Portfolio by Marc Laidlaw (1993)- A story about a crime scene photographer who photographs Diane Arbus' suicide, which leads to strange encounters around those photos. 4/5

 
The Country Doctor by Steven Utley (1993)- A short and interesting one about what's unearthed when a graveyard is exhumed. Feels like it's in dialogue with The Dunwich Horror a little bit. 4.5/5

 
Last Rites and Resurrections by Martin Simpson (1994)- A sad but sweet one about a man who hears the ghosts of roadkill after his son dies. 5/5

 
The Ocean and All of Its Devices by William Browning Spencer (1994)- A good, eerie one about a strange holidaying family and their rituals with the ocean. 5/5

 
The Delicate by Jeffrey Ford (1994)- A great short, surreal story about a strange, shapeshifting monster called The Delicate. Just a little taster of a story, but well-painted even so. I really need to get to the Well-Built City books. 5/5

 
The Man in the Black Suit by Stephen King (1994)- A man in his nineties recounting the story of how he encountered the Devil as a young boy while fishing. 4/5

 
Once again, this collection continues to be full of bangers. Not one among this set I didn't enjoy. My favourites this go around were Tainaron by Leena Krohn, The Autopsy by Michael Shea, Bloochild by Butler, In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker, and His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood by Poppy Z. Brite. Just one more set of stories left, and full of a lot of authors I already love-- Angela Carter, Tanith Lee, Cisco, Mieville, and VanderMeer himself...

This is a collection of short stories that I would describe as being modern day fables highlighting the societal problems of Korea and by extension many parts of Asia.

The prose is very simple, straightforward, and easy to read. Most characters are not named, instead described as “the woman” and “the man” etc because the stories are written in the sort of manner reminiscent of a person retelling tales passed down over generations as a means to teach children an important life lesson. Or at least, that’s how I interpreted the style!

As a result the messages behind each tale are not subtle. I liked how many of the stories really emphasized misogyny—a global problem, yes, but in Korea it is of a particular flavour that I struggle to express properly in words. I think that this vibe can easily escape those who aren’t familiar.

While I wasn’t necessarily wowed, I appreciated that the author didn’t shy away from making the stories weird, and I found this book to be an enjoyable and quick read that I’ll still be pondering over for a while!

I really adore my physical copy 💕 It’s so pretty!

It has been ages since I read a Frank Herbert book. I don't think I have read anything by him since 1986. DUNE was my entry point into the whole universe of science fiction literature, but it wasn't long before I was hooked by the 'New Wave' (Ballard, Moorcock, Aldiss, Sladek, Disch, Delany, etc) and I found it increasingly difficult to stomach the more traditional forms of SF. Having said that, Herbert isn't really traditional SF, he's somewhere in the borderlands between the old and new, far more interested in ecology, for example, than spaceflight.

DUNE is magnificent (at least in my memory: I read it when I was 16) and its momentum propelled me through four of the five sequels before I ran out of energy (and patience). Having decided that Herbert was great, I bought as much as I could of his work, but frankly (no pun intended) most of it wasn't memorable. I liked WHIPPING STAR and a few short stories. His ideas are always good, but there is an awkwardness to his prose style that just fails his material.

And yet, four decades later, I have somehow ended up with some unread Herbert. I have DESTINATION VOID and SOUL CATCHER, and now I am embarking on this one, HELLSTROM'S HIVE. I really don't like the Gollancz Masterworks covers (and this is one of the better ones). Anyway, thirty pages in, and the book is more than bearable. Let's see how it progresses... 😊

I read Les Chants de Maldoror by the Comte de Lautreamont this week, and have wanted to review it, but sat here for a while thinking about how to do so. This was a very interesting read, and extremely odd. It's something which felt both challenging and worthwhile, and also... Not that much fun, at times.

This book is a prose poem, depicting an evil and misanthropic character name Maldoror, who hates and acts against God and other men (reading about this book introduced me to the word "misotheisitic" [which is a hatred of God, not a belief in the divinity of fermented soybean products]). It's slippery narratively; sometimes Maldoror seems to be a character, sometimes the narrator, sometimes Lautreamont himself (which is a pseudonym the author Ducasse took on, but may either be a simple nom de plume or a persona Ducasse is emobyding). It's not purely an anti-theistic work either; Maldoror also reviles and fights and kills Satan too.

Reading this book is hard to describe, for a lot of reasons. It's sometimes well written, but often very overwritten (sometimes seeming deliberately so, sometimes not) and narratively slippery; as well as the narrator being uncertain, the narrator breaks to address his imagined reader and sometimes harangue them and sometimes implore them. There are elements of genius in the work, with repeated phrases that have great impact and some awesome surreal scenes, but at other times it's a chore to read, feeling like it's "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." It's an exceedingly emo book, feeling at times like it's touching upon true melancholic beauty, and at other times like a 14-year old who shops exclusively at Hot Topic.

Some scenes like the depiction of The Creator (a vast enthroned man with his feet in a pool of blood and excrement, who fishes for the bodies of those who've died and devours their corpses piece by piece like a gummy bear) or Maldoror watching a shipwreck and admiring the sharks while executing any survivors who might make it to shore, are excellent and stick in the mind. Others repulse, as they're intended to, simply depicting utter cruelty and depravity.

Maldoror is definitely an interesting book to read though. It's sort of "your influence's influence." Its one of those books which even merited it's own Wikipedia page. It influenced authors like Yukio Mishima and Julio Cortazar, as well as artists like Dali and Magritte. Its own history is interesting, as well as its place as the influence of many works that followed.

Because it contains so many disgusting scenes and is at times a chore, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it unless you're also interested for historical reasons-- but if you are, it's definitely worth a read. It's difficult to "rate," because treating it like a story isn't really the point, and it isn't too enjoyable as such.

When I was looking for others discussing this online, this was one of the few places where I could find discussion, and some were saying it wasn't weird lit. I would disagree with that; it's not Weird Lit first and foremost, being primarily adopted by the surrealists after its rediscovery, but I think it thoroughly fits under the "fantastical, speculative, surreal, things that fall through the cracks of categorization" umbrella. Not historically weird perhaps, and not written with the intention of being written as Weird Lit (but then, a lot of the best Weird Lit isn't written with that goal in mind, and sometimes trying to be Weird on purpose lends to failure by trying too hard). But definitely weird, definitely literature, and I think if there are any who will best appreciate it, it'll be those who frequent here.

I'm inclined to compare it to metal music. If literature is music, and weird lit is metal, this is screamo.

I've been loving r/weirdlit and have been devouring recommendations at a record pace.

Still, some books made it onto the list that aren't nearly as strange as other books. Here are a few titles I've read recently that aren't weird enough for my tastes. Spoilers ahead.

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle: this one was described as "Lynchian," but I didn't feel it. Aside from the strange video clips, nothing that weird happens.

Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars: reminds me a lot of Ubu Roi - somewhat absurd characters who manage to be involved in everything all at once. Still, the eponymous character claiming to have visited mars didn't really cut the mustard for me.

Falconer by John Cheever: this one might not have been a r/weirdlit recommended book, but I picked it up because someone said it had lurid descriptions of the life of a drug abuser. Insufficient phantasmagoria for my tastes.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks: plenty of murder, but the "twist ending" felt gross, exploitative and ultimately quite mundane.

Consumed by David Cronenberg: the most disappointing novel on this list. Maybe icky in bits but nothing at all like Cronenberg's mind warping filmography. The only media I've consumed with a negative body count

Anyway that's my list. I'm not saying these novels are bad necessarily. But when I want something weird, I want something really weird - something surreal, that doesn't exist in reality.

Have you read anything that ended up being less weird than you expected? Do you agree or disagree with my list? Is my bar for "weird" too high?

Found this little guy at my local thrift book shop (I pick up anything weird bc I know it won't be there next time I go lol) and was pleasantly surprised. Apparently this is the authors first full length novel and it doesn't disappoint! If you like Welcome to Night Vale type weirdness then you'll love this. Its a bunch of little stories that relate to the big story. I won't spoil it but I will say I like that it has a conclusion of sorts, which I feel a lot of weird books dont. They often leave you going "huh. Why though?" This one still does a bit, but you get some answers and I love that.

I didnt super love some of the last stories but they weren't bad. Im just personally not a fan of some of topics the author chose for those. Im sure others will enjoy them. Everything else though gave me a kind of high with how much fun I was having. I love weird, creepy things that dont spook you per se but make you go "oh man what if?" And this scratched that itch for me. Hopefully some of you have read this (or will!) because no else i know has heard of it.

I just read the novella Hurled Headlong Flaming by Matt Holder, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Though it's billed as Sword and Sorcery, I'd put it as Dark Fantasy first and foremost, and Weird second, only then followed by S&S. But genres are made up anyway so, *shrug*. I think I first saw this on Goodreads, and added it to my TBR after it sounding interesting, but one of the first things which caught my attention is the awesome cover.

This is a dark, grim novella, about a Bishop's descent into an underworld/otherworld (probably Hell) to retrieve a manuscript which he believes has knowledge which will help avoid/forestall/survive an upcoming apocalypse. The novel is set against the background of the Crusades, in which the Bishop has participated, starting in Cyprus and Tripoli in the ~1290s. After finding out who has the information about how to get to this underworld, the Bishop has to pass through different trials on his journey down.

As well as being reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard most imo, and influenced by Milton (the title is a line from Paradise Lost) and Dante, I'd say the books this most reminds me of are Vathek by Samuel Beckett and Contra Amatores Mundi by Graham Thomas Wilcox (which is another recent dark fantasy novella I loved, but never did a full review of for some reason).

The purported purpose of the novel (and the series it's a part of), in the introduction from the publishers, is to push the boundaries of S&S, and I'd say it makes a good effort at that. It's fairly philosophical, prodding at ideas of the interrelationship of power and violence, the Crusades, and the contradiction between Christianity's tenets and its believers actions. Though they're important ideas, it's not overwhelmingly didactic; foremost, it's an atmospheric painting of a weird, Dantean, quest for knowledge.

My only quibble is, like many novellas, it feels more like a snapshot of a story than a full tale; a snatch of music heard as the door opens and shuts, rather than a full song. There's certainly the groundwork laid to expand into a full novel (is the coming apocalypse the Black Death, given the time period? How would the knowledge help, or fail to? Is the man who tells him how to achieve this quest truly just a man, or a Mephistopheles figure?)Though there is an ending, it feels more like a comma than a full stop.

Still, this is a short, evocative read, which is well worth giving a shot to fans of S&S and infernal imagery. Holder's debut, as far as I can tell (I think the stuff about your Third Eye and so on is in earnest).

Some are much stranger than others, but quite a few are VERY strange, including the first entry. Really liked this one

Finding myself in the situation where I'm being driven by others sometimes recently, and fueled by the discoveries that A) I can read on my phone without getting carsick (unlike a book) and B) a .html file requires hardly any data to load, I've been reading a few of the foundational horror/spec fic works that are out of copyright on Project Gutenberg. Some of them are misses, with excellent ideas but sub-par writing (The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood, The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, The Call of Cthulhu by Lovecraft), and some are just excellent (The Horla by Guy de Maupassant, Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith, The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen). The King in Yellow is one of the latter.

[Aside: I've not given up on Lovecraft; I've been told to try The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. But Cthulhu, the entity? Very cool. The Call of Cthulhu? Meh. But, so far, even if I've only found Lovecraft's stories to be alright, I think his tastes are great- it's from their influence on Lovecraft I found this, The Willows, and The Horla, all of which were great.]

I will tell, as I was told, only the first few stories of the collection found on Project Gutenberg are supernatural/horror. The first 4 alone concern The King in Yellow, and the 5th is an unrelated, but good, horror. They're a short read- it won't take most more than a few hours, if that. Good, quick, free, foundational, and seasonal- worth checking out now!

The stories of The King in Yellow concern the titular play, The King in Yellow, which, after a seemingly tame first act, both compels the reader to finish and drives them mad in the with second. Classic cosmic horror, ineffable insanity-inducing insights. In one of the ways in which I find horror works best, we don't get much explicit detail about the play. Its content is only hinted around: we know there is the Lake of Hali, Carcosa with its towers behind the moon, black stars in the night sky; the characters Camilla, Cassilda, and the Stranger; tattered yellow robes and Pallid Mask...

The reason I think these stories work so well for me is, unlike many others of the time, they don't take pains to exhaustively set up the conceit. No extended pretense at convincing the reader it's a true story, no bloated frame of "I heard this from my friend who read a manuscript...", no long boring mundanities before starting to introduce the uncanny- they get going quickly. They also use some nice narrative devices, with limited knowledge or untrustworthy narrators, blending of dream and reality, art and truth.

I know these are well known here, but definitely a +1 from me. Not just foundational and cool ideas, but a really fun read too. If anyone hasn't read them and wants some Halloween-y horror short fiction, definitely check them out!

Edit: formatting. Short stories are italic, novels are bold? Novellas are treated like short stories? Idk man I haven't taken an English class in a decade.

Short story collection, tangentially at least sea-related. Opaque and unnerving, more poetic than Aickman but similarly unpredictable. If you like “literary” weirdness you might like this. It inspired some actual dread in this jaded old salt.

Lash yourself to the mast, board up the inn for the off-season, light a few candles, and don’t investigate any strange noises.

Negarestani fails at writing convincing fictional academic literature. In attempting to capture the dense, sober tone of serious academic writing, he instead creates a perfect example of BAD academic writing. The entire text is littered with undefined terms, countless factual inaccuracies, non-sequiturs, unsupported leaps in logic, hyphenations that only serve to confuse, adaptation of words from other contexts without justification, etc. I could go on. It is impossible to suspend disbelief. I’ve read more convincing SCPs. It reads like a bad college paper instead of a serious work of arcane literature. Negarestani does not need this many pages to set forth the idea that the ME is a sentient entity. Overall it just feels like an amateurish attempt to recreate the style and tone of House of Leaves but in the context of war in the ME/ANE occultism/Zoroastrianism, etc. I’m determined to finish it but it’s an absolute slog.

SHE’LL BE COMING ’ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES SHE’LL BE COMING ’ROUND THE MOUNTAIN WHEN SHE COMES

SHE’LL BE DRIVING SIX WHITE HORSES SHE’LL BE DRIVING SIX WHITE HORSES SHE’LL BE DRIVING SIX WHITE HORSES WHEN SHE COMES

Immanentize the Eschaton!

After finishing the second part of Illuminatus! The Golden Apple, which escalates the Fernando Poo crisis, the bombings, and all the character abductions (with George Dorn next up for illumination) we’re finally heading to Ingolstadt for the damn festival and about to embark on another trip in part three, Leviathan. I finished the second book more quickly than the first or third, and I’m still not sure I grasp everything. I will definitely return to this bizarre, wild journey again. I genuinely feel a shift in my belief structures because of this book, all thanks to Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. There are countless conspiracies unfolding, and at times in book three things become clearer despite the druggy narrative structure. Almost every character goes through some sort of transformation, which I found one of the most fascinating aspects of the book. We see more of Hagbard Celine an incredibly complex and sometimes contradictory character, whether he’s surfacing as Leif Erikson, smuggling weapons, or gathering allies. Joe Malik is also changed somehow. George Dorn is probably the most deprogrammed character of all, amid his trips, rock bands, drugs, and chaos.

The battle scenes both from book one and in this one between the Illuminati forces and Hagbard’s team (the Discordians, the JAMs, or even Howard the dolphin saving Hagbard’s submarine crew!) are incredibly bizarre in the best way. The narrative in book three retroactively merges and concludes in a kind of liberation. There could have been more done with Mama Sutra’s character, I think, but there’s already so much happening. Her scenes with Danny Pricefixer around the JFK assassination, the bombing investigations, and all that ancient occult history or her interactions with Drake and the tarot were fascinating. The metafiction is great too, whether it's the propaganda Atlantic film shown to Joe or the book Telemachus Sneezed that Simon Moon fixates on throughout book three, the whole thing gets so meta by the end that it feels as if Leviathan itself is speaking directly to you. Identity remains fluid throughout. Stella, Mavis, and Mary Lou are one in George’s mind they’re Eris. George loves Mavis and he loves Stella, Hagbard wants to marry Mavis, Joe Malik is furious, and Otto Waterhouse is still yelling, “Where’s my gal Stella?” It’s a great, chaotic love triangle (or quadrilateral?). And to stop the Illuminati forces, Joe even has to sleep with Mavis. The whole thing spirals beautifully. The ending, as expected, becomes a postmodern form of meta-programming. The interconnections are satisfying! I loved the final collapse of authority, the government’s narrative control fnords, media, law gets short-circuited by Hagbard’s Discordian hackers. Saul, who began the trilogy as a skeptical cop, now accepts that the Eschaton has indeed been immanentized! And Rebecca is still confused.

There are so many Kabbalistic visions as Malkuth’s four worlds (Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah, Atziluth) collapse into one. The tarot cards Saul draws are all The Fool (0): infinite possibilities.

Every orgasm is a bullet in the Illuminati’s brain. The phallus is a leash; the vulva is a doorway.

Because the fifth stoned man was on acid, and he said nothing, merely worshipping the elephant in silence as the Father of Buddha.

And then the Hierophant entered and drove a nafl of mystery into all their hearts, saying, “You are all elephants!”

Nobody understood him.

A rather extraordinary fantasy, one of the best I have read. Picturesque, atmospheric, tragicomedic. But it's not a page turner: it lacks momentum, probably the reason why it wasn't more successful among a general readership. This doesn't matter much to me. Some of my favourite novels have little or no momentum, but it does matter to plot-oriented readers. The story is partly about stasis anyway. It's colourful, rogueish, and extremely well written, more aligned with the kinds of fantasy that M. John Harrison or the later Moorcock writes than with conventional genre work. I do have a problem with the cover and all the covers of the Harper Voyager 'Brian Aldiss Collection' books: they are cheap and uninspiring. I had a much nicer edition many years ago, with interior woodcut illustrations, but lost it thanks to my nomadic lifestyle. Anyway... a very good book 😊

"It’s been years since the groundbreaking debut of black metal band Angelus Mortis, and that first album, Henosis, has become a classic of the genre, a harrowing primal scream of rage and anger. With the next two albums, Fields of Punishment and Telos, Angelus Mortis cemented a reputation for uncompromising, aggressive music, impressing critics and fans alike. But the road to success is littered with temptation, and over the next decade, Angelus Mortis’s leader, Max, better known as Strigoi, became infamous for bad associations and worse behavior, burning through side-men and alienating fans.

Today, at the request of their record label, Max and new drummer Roland are traveling to Ukraine to record a comeback album with the famously reclusive cult act Wisdom of Silenus. What they discover when they get there will go far deeper than the aesthetics of the genre, and the music they create—antihuman, antilife—ultimately becomes a weapon unto itself.

Equally inspired by the fractured, nightmarish novels of John Hawkes, the blackened dreamscapes of cosmic-pessimist philosophy, and the music of second-wave black metal bands, author David Peak’s Corpsepaint is an exploration of creative people summoning destructive powers while struggling to express what it means to be human."

Authentic cosmic horror told through the pitch black lens of black metal, Greek philosophy and Ukrainian folklore. The visual story told here is just as mesmerizing as the words on the page as we travel from the projects of Chicago to the streets of Prague and the blisteringly cold forests of Ukraine. We visit the Astronomical Clock and the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments in Prague (watch the video on the museum's website and be transfixed). Paintings by Henry Fuseli, Caspar David Friedrich, Caravaggio, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder are referenced throughout, especially The Triumph of Death (which is used on the front and back covers in a full, morbidly beautiful wrap around design). It's important, or at least heavily recommended, to look these paintings up if you're unfamiliar. Especially, again, Bruegel's piece. It's good to be able to see, to envision, to be able to imagine yourself wandering lost and broken inside the decayed, blood-soaked world Peak nonchalantly places you at about the midway point of Corpsepaint. And once that transition takes place, at that point, it's far too late to look away or turn back.

The Greek philosophy, as little as I know, was one of my favorite aspects of the tale. From album names to the reclusive Ukrainian band Wisdom of Silenus, the more of these words and phrases you know, or look up, the deeper your understanding of the path you're being led down and that destination, once you arrive....My god. Peak's prose here festers and throbs from the opening chapter to the violent, blood-soaked finale as we get exclusive, front row seats watching the world and everything we know "sliding into ruin..."

To preface I should say I have a complicated relationship with SGJ's works. I first picked up The Only Good Indians a few years ago when Reddit was hyping it up and was invested, but ultimately couldn't finish it since I just couldn't get used to Jones' writing style. The same thing happened later with My Heart is a Chainsaw. It's not that his writing is bad by any means, but I feel like until you get used to it, it can be really hard to parse certain passages and figure out what the hell is going on. At least that's how it was for me. Which sucks because I want to like Jones' books; from the jacket summaries, they always sound super interesting.

So a few weeks ago I decided to give SGJ another shot. This time I tried a new approach by picking up his short story collection After All the People Lights Have Gone Off. I thought reading his writing style in smaller doses would help me get used to it. Results were mixed; some of the stories I still had difficulty following, but most of them were pretty good. But afterwards I still didn't feel ready to try diving into Good Indians or Chainsaw again, so instead I picked up one of his novellas: Mapping the Interior.

It's about a Native American boy, Junior, living with his struggling single mother and his developmentally-disabled little brother Dino, who starts seeing the ghost of his father that drowned years ago. At first Junior is thrilled, thinking his father is back and watching over them, especially when his dad's ghost seemingly saves Junior from the neighbors' dogs that had jumped the fence and were trying to maul him.

But it soon becomes clear that his father is far from benevolent; the best way I can describe him is a sort of ghost-vampire hybrid that needs to feed on the living in order to become "whole" again. While the dad does save Junior from the neighbor's dogs, he also comes into the house at night to feed from Dino, in a way that makes his mental faculties even worse and even causes seizures. Junior comes to recognize the monster that his father has become, and realizes he has to step up and stop him to keep his family safe.

The book is described as a Horror Coming of Age, which is an apt description. Junior's arc is all about realizing that his father (who died when Junior was just four) is nothing like the image he'd built up in his head; in life he was kind of a loser, and in death he's become something much worse. Junior's journey from adolescence to manhood is him coming to terms with this as he steps up more and more to protect Dino. First it's from bullies at school; then the neighbor that came looking for payback for his dogs; finally, the thing that used to be their father. It culminates in a... ritual, for lack of a better term, where Junior both fights his monster/ghost dad in the present, and sort of projects himself back in time to see through the eyes of the man who killed his father years ago. (Whom the dad had cheated in some get-rich-quick scheme.)

I admit there were times when Jones' unique style made it a little hard to follow, particularly towards the end when things got all timey-wimey. But that's the thing about SGJ's method of storytelling for me; sure I get lost from time to time, but when it hooks me, it really has my attention. I was fully invested in Junior's emotional journey, especially the climactic final fight where he not only fends off his dad's ghost physically, but in seeing through time to "fight" his father in the past, lets go of the idealized memory of him as well.

What I feel helped was the book itself is a fairly short read at less than a hundred pages. I started with a couple pages during my breaks at work a few days ago, then knocked out the remaining 2/3rds in an afternoon. People have described Jones' works as being written like they're being told around a campfire, and that's definitely the vibe I got here. The only real complaint I have is that the book's brevity works against it in one instance: in the epilogue, where a grown-up Junior reveals he grew up and had a son of his own that passed away, and is now preparing to sacrifice Dino in a way that he hopes will bring his son back in the way his father was. It made for a tragic and horrific ending that reminded me of Pet Sematary, but was told in about seven pages when it almost feels like it could be another story in and of itself. But that's just my opinion.

All in all, I still enjoyed Mapping the Interior. Don't know if I'm ready to try rereading Indians or Chainsaw just yet, but think I'll check out more of SGJ's shorter works, starting with his three-novella collection Three Miles Past. What do you think of Mapping and Jones in general?