What are you reading

[Balor/SS1535]

currently trudging through a combination of the Nag Hammadi Library and a couple supplementary theological texts on the self-imposed curriculum level, and finally reading Lovecraft for the first time on the more pleasurable end. tis the season.

Which Lovecraft are you reading?  He has a lot of great stories.

it's an anthology, just wrapped up "The Outsider" then onto the very short "The Music of Erich Zann" and "Reanimator". i'm not much of a fiction person, but his writing style is ace. luxurious horror.

Cool.  I think I read "The Music of Erich Zann" some years ago, but am not sure about the others.  I really should get back into his writing, as it has been a while.

[Bloated Slutbag]

currently trudging through a combination of the Nag Hammadi Library and a couple supplementary theological texts on the self-imposed curriculum level, and finally reading Lovecraft for the first time on the more pleasurable end. tis the season.

Which Lovecraft are you reading?  He has a lot of great stories.

it's an anthology, just wrapped up "The Outsider" then onto the very short "The Music of Erich Zann" and "Reanimator". i'm not much of a fiction person, but his writing style is ace. luxurious horror.

Cool.  I think I read "The Music of Erich Zann" some years ago

and the frantic playing had become a blind, mechanical, unrecognisable orgy that no pen could even suggest

[Balor/SS1535]

I just started Clive Barker's Books of Blood.  I have only read the introductory story, but I already enjoy it more that the other books of his that I have read.

[Atrophist]

Finally got Ted Chiang’s Exhalation, was on the waiting list at the library for ages. SF doesn’t get any better than Chiang’s previous short stories, so looking forward to this a lot.

[Atrophist]

Finally got Ted Chiang’s Exhalation, was on the waiting list at the library for ages. SF doesn’t get any better than Chiang’s previous short stories, so looking forward to this a lot.

This is absolutely glorious. As good as sci-fi gets. A couple of mediocre (by Chiang's standards) stories, but that pales into insignificance when compared with just how insanely good the best stories are. The title story, as well "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", "Omphalos" and "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" are the highlights.

I also read Wounds, by Nathan Ballingrud, another short novella and short story collection. Horror rather than sci-fi. All the stories take place in an alternate timeline where Hells exists, and it is possible to travel in and out of it, and bring out artifacts and even rescue the Damned out of Hell back into our world. One sort of YA themed story which seems strangely out of place, other than that this is incredibly good. I immediately ordered Ballingrud's previous story collection, North American Lake Monsters.

[holy ghost]

Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer. I really enjoyed the Southern Reach trilogy, loved Bourne and The Strange Bird and was really excited to tuck into this but..... what the fuck? It feels like he really phoned this one in. Was not a huge fan.

Kent State by Derf Backderf - did I mention this already? It was fucking GREAT. Dude knows how to make a comic really shine, writing, art, presentation. A+++++++

Currently reading The Witcher #2 - fourth one in the series for me with the two collections. Planning on enjoying something light and uncomplicated.

[Nolan]

Richard Gavin - Grotesquerie

One of my favourite contemporary weird fiction writers. Disturbing without being over the top.

Just read the Hijokaidan book, not bad and definitely worth a read but for me it needed an editor; the quality of writing was uneven and the interjection of personal opinion needed to be directed better. Takes a long time to get going.

[absurdexposition]

Just read the Hijokaidan book, not bad and definitely worth a read but for me it needed an editor; the quality of writing was uneven and the interjection of personal opinion needed to be directed better. Takes a long time to get going.

I haven't read it yet, but I find this to be a very common problem with a good number of "underground" music books that have come out in the past few years. It's a bummer.