What are you reading

[Flames of Torture]

There are far more editions than 3 of Siege. PM me if you want the link to the newest version.

Are you talking about the 5th edition or the 666 edition? Secondhand, or brand new?

[auteur]

There are far more editions than 3 of Siege. PM me if you want the link to the newest version.

Are you talking about the 5th edition or the 666 edition? Secondhand, or brand new?

Neither. It's from a different publisher than those. Brand new.

[Vrenndel]

Just finished reading Price by Steve Tesich. Not as good as Karoo in my opinion.

Michel Houellebecq's The Elementary Particles is next.

[Flames of Torture]

There are far more editions than 3 of Siege. PM me if you want the link to the newest version.

Are you talking about the 5th edition or the 666 edition? Secondhand, or brand new?

Neither. It's from a different publisher than those. Brand new.

Sent you a PM.

[BlackCavendish]

Currently reading:

Chaos Magic For Skeptics by Carlos Atanes
Nothing particularly new here (Spare, Hine, Carroll and so on) but it's a good compendium and I was interested in a different perspective (Atanes is a movie director among other things) and a more up to date take on the subject - the book came out in 2018.
His movie about Crowley (titled Perdurabo) was recently uploaded to his youtube channel. I still have to check it out, but it's on the watchlist.

L'UOMO PALLIDO: e altre storie weird - Julius Long
An overview of the weird fiction (not very extensive, to be honest) written by Julius Long, a minor author active during the golden age of Weird Tales under the editorship of Farnsworth Wright.

[Nolan]

Spent the Christmas break making one of my periodic attempts to get to grips with M. John Harrison. Re-read The Course of the Heart, and finished The Sunken Land Begins to Rise again. I think the key to "getting" it (if that's quite the right word) is to accept that you won't be explained everything, and much of what's going on will remain a mystery to you.

Also made another attempt at his space opera Light, and this one I just don't gel with. Too many displays of superficial brilliance to push through, for a fairly minimal actual substance. There is also the everpresent streak of nastiness, morbidity and misanthropy in his writing, that I actually enjoy in his regular novels. But in a sci-fi space opera set several centuries into the future, it is just too much.

I also read a couple of lesser-known Patricia Highsmith novels recently, The Blunderer and Deep Water. They're good, but I still think the Reipley series is the best thing she's done. Plan on getting started Richard Bradford's Devils, lusts and strange desires : the life of Patricia Highsmith soonish.

There's a good episode of the Weird Studies podcast where they discuss The Course of the Heart.

The Sunken Land I couldn't finish, just not for me.

I'm not a fan of science fiction at all but for some reason I really enjoyed Light.

[Atrophist]

There's a good episode of the Weird Studies podcast where they discuss The Course of the Heart.

The Sunken Land I couldn't finish, just not for me.

I'm not a fan of science fiction at all but for some reason I really enjoyed Light.

Oh this sounds interesting, lots of good stuff on the reference list at least, Dick's Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (his best novels), Ligotti etc. etc. Will listen later on. Thank you for the tip!

The Sunken Land is tough going, really tough but since I'd already abandoned it once I decided to power through it. It just keeps going in the same vein for a while, weird unexplained things keep happening and then it just ends. I'm not saying it's bad, but it is very odd, and not necessarily in a good way. I doubt I'll read it again.

That seems to be the thing with Light (and please don't take this the wrong way), sci-fi for people who don't like sci-fi. I want my space opera with some level of scientific plausibility, rather than just the semblance of it. I'm actually planning to finally tackle Stephen Baxter's Ring next, after putting it off for years. Wish me luck.

[Nolan]

There's a good episode of the Weird Studies podcast where they discuss The Course of the Heart.

The Sunken Land I couldn't finish, just not for me.

I'm not a fan of science fiction at all but for some reason I really enjoyed Light.

Oh this sounds interesting, lots of good stuff on the reference list at least, Dick's Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (his best novels), Ligotti etc. etc. Will listen later on. Thank you for the tip!

The Sunken Land is tough going, really tough but since I'd already abandoned it once I decided to power through it. It just keeps going in the same vein for a while, weird unexplained things keep happening and then it just ends. I'm not saying it's bad, but it is very odd, and not necessarily in a good way. I doubt I'll read it again.

That seems to be the thing with Light (and please don't take this the wrong way), sci-fi for people who don't like sci-fi. I want my space opera with some level of scientific plausibility, rather than just the semblance of it. I'm actually planning to finally tackle Stephen Baxter's Ring next, after putting it off for years. Wish me luck.

Oh, I take it as it's intended, the only William Gibson I actually like is the Blue Ant trilogy.

If you haven't listened to Weird Studies before there's probably a few episodes worth looking at.

Currently reading Quentin S Crisp - Remember You're a One Ball, excellent as ever, I feel bad for him that he's destined to inhabit the realm of highly respected, but tiny print run world of micro publishing.

[absurdexposition]

the only William Gibson I actually like is the Blue Ant trilogy.

If you haven't listened to Weird Studies before there's probably a few episodes worth looking at.

The collection of Gibson shorts, Burning Chrome, is very good.

And not book-related, but the latest Weird Studies episode (from today) re: Ken Russell's Altered States is also very good. I've never been huge on the movie itself, but the podcast just uses it as a launch point to go into the more interesting elements the film touches on.

[host body]

Blue Ant is great, but I also really like The Bridge Trilogy. Its a bit all over the place, but has many of the same themes and ideas as Blue Ant, just in a more scifi package. It predicts a lot of the cultural movements around technology and internet, or I guess they existed in the 90s just in a very rudimentary form that Gibson elaborated into something that looks quite like what we have now.

Ballard and Gibson are really the only two authors who saw what went on clearly and could thus predict the future in any capacity, worth to revisit both at regular intervals.

[Hyena]

"Junkie" by Burroughs. I could never make it through even half of "The naked lunch". "Queer" is readable, but not much more IMO.

[NedOik]

two recent scores :

Conor Hultman - DOE
From blurb : "Constructed from evidence extracted from a database of unsolved human remains cases, the poems in Conor Hultman's DOE stare back and dare you to look away." It's not very clear if the details of each crime come from real reports or from the imagination of the author, but at 630 pages it's very relentless. Below is one example, of the shorter poems.

San Bernardino

tatto of butterfly on right breast
pierced right ear & breast implants

Marian Tatar - Lustmord Sexual Murder In Weimar Germany
Interesting look at how "transgressive" imagery works in art, especially when it makes violence aesthetic and sexualizes death.

[Vrenndel]

Liarmouth, by John Waters (yes, that John Waters). It took me a few pages before it became interesting. A funny reading. Definitely grotesque.

[Hyena]

I think I'll read the entire playlist with commens thread from start to finish. An exciting Friday night.

[Vrenndel]

Possession by Chris Kelso, about the 1981 horror movie. Entertaining analysis, semi-academic, I might dare saying, with some nice drawings, an interview with Jörg Buttgereit and some behind-the-scene details.

https://pspublishing.co.uk/possession-hardcover--by-chris-kelso-6598-p.asp