The Grimbscribe's Puppets: Top 5

The Grimscribe's Puppets is a short story anthology collecting a variety of tales that homage the work of horror writer Thomas Ligotti. There's 22 of them, all written by different authors, and they run the gamut from garbage to excellent, and as I'm feeling both lazy, generous and rather uncertain concerning my understanding of some of the tales that I labeled as tripe, and allowing for the possibility that I'm just too dim to understand what those were really about, I'll just be writing about those I think are the best in here. The really bad ones I can count on one hand, as there really are more good than bad, but I'll only be talking about my favourite 5 anyway.

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First off, I haven't read much Ligotti. Specifically I've only read Teatro Grottesco, the Vastarien short story, and as of now am only about three quarters into the Conspiracy against the Human Race, but I do have a firm grasp on the ideas and themes present in the man's work.
Said themes can be rather confronting to read about. As someone who's suffered from depression and the darkness that comes with that, to this day, reading these tales has sometimes been too much, and at other times it's been almost therapeutic.
I have an affinity with this type of stuff and when I saw the lovely cover art on this one I immediately bought it, together with the Seasons in Carcosa anthology, despite me never having read all the King in Yellow short stories... I really should remedy that somewhere this year.

Now, apart from The Grimscribe's Puppets I've also read all 4 issues of the Vastarien magazine that are out right now, and I've found that, occasionally, writers who take their influence from Ligotti don't exactly tread lightly when telling their own stories, and that the themes that Ligotti subtly (but clearly) weaves throughout his fiction, will by them be splashed on the page in an explicit and sometimes even quite shocking manner. Whether this a good idea or whether this devalues the thing in the way of common shlock-sensationalism, is for each individual reader to say. Needless to say, whether this is for you or not, there are always times one just simply should stay clear of this type of fiction.That's just a little warning: If you're depressed, Ligottian fiction will find a fertile soil in you.
For some this can be a help, for others it won't be.

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That's just a bit of an aside. Without any more prattling from me; here are the top 5 short stories from The Grimscribe's Puppets.

5. Gailestis - Allyson Bird

     At number 5 Gailestis, by Allyson Bird, is the story of Gerda and her twin Kay, who, bereft of their parents, try to survive in relative isolation. It's a story that's got more going for it in terms of imagery  than in any competency of style or skill at storytelling. There's barely any story to speak of even. We follow around Gerda for a while, listen to her thoughts, learn of her being different from the people around her, but I'll admit, as it continued I found among its elements intriguing oddities that implied more than that they stated outright, hints of strangeness, dangers that might've been supernatural, or not, it's hard to say because the story just ends, kind of.
     I can't really say why this one's in my top 5. It was this one or Diamond Dust, which was also very good, and for some reason I chose this one. Diamond Dust was more sensational, way more active, whereas this one had something more placid going on.
     I didn't think I would like it as, at its beginning, it seemed to me to be one of those pretentious stories where the author just foregoes telling a straightforward narrative, in favour of something more experimental, with sentence structure delivered in a complicated manner, jagged and disconnected, in a way that hampers the read itself, rather than something with a coherent vision or idea in mind.
     But after a while, lo and behold, it actually clicked. Maybe it was the titillation stuff, not outright erotica mind you, but still: to imply is sometimes better than to make explicit, and there also seemed to be something definitely nefarious going on with this particular element. Anyway, whatever the reason, though there might be better stories in here, this one managed to stick in my head and so gets my fifth spot.

4. Where We Will All Be - Paul Tremblay

This one struck a chord with me.
     A young man is different from everyone around him. It's been known all his life; troubles at school required him to have consultations that eventually pin-pointed the problem; that his brain just seems to work differently. And maybe this might turn out to be a good thing. Because when Zane wakes up one day to find his father storming out the front door to join what seems to be a mass exodus of humanity, in response to a kind of summons Zane himself can not hear, he can not help but tag along on the journey, of his own accord and in curiosity, unbeholden to the terrible signal that seems to compel the rest of the teeming masses.

     It's implied that main character Zane is autistic, and that this is the reason why his brain doesn't receive the same 'signal' everyone else seems to pick up and this, of course, is quite interesting to me, as someone with Aspergers.
     But I also liked this tale because of the sheer shock and gore factor, and some very nice and nasty apocalyptic imagery at its ending.
     It also reminded me of some of Clive Barker's tales. Frequently labeled and dismissed as Splatterpunk, Barker's work often uses supernatural elements not just to horrify but also to evoke a sense of awe when finally a higher power stands revealed. Think of The Midnight Meat Train, or Cabal. Although maybe Tremblay's story has more akin to In the Hills, the Cities, where the level of gore on display is of such scale that it simply becomes awesome, and mind-numbing.
Either way, the gist of the thing is that something bigger than mankind has touched it, and in Where We Will All Be the consequences of that touch are undeniably malign, or at least inimical to humanity's well-being, and their presence can not be denied. And their demand can not be stopped.

3. Furnace - Livia Llewellyn

     Furnace is the very first story in this collection and it's a great opener, immediately hooking you with a variety of horrors.
     I've done a separate post on this one already as I didn't really expect to be giving the book its own post too, but the short story bears an extra little bit of attention nonetheless.
     There's enough stuff in here to constantly keep the reader engaged. Under the guise of the familiar 'Dying Town' theme Llewellyn introduces us to a young girl's experiences with growing up in this kind of setting. And though it might seem familiar and even a little comfortable (quite reminiscent of childhood nostalgia) at its beginning, soon we're introduced to some really horrific stuff, courtesy of the girl's grandfather, who's been keeping an eye on some of the town's stranger goings-on.
     As the townspeople move away (or disappear) from their residences, violent and shocking things begin to happen, but what might be stranger still is how that this is simply expected, as if it's not all as fucked up as it really quite obviously is. And you do get the feeling that the longer this goes on, the more reality itself will begin to unravel.
     The story's ending is quite something, though there are multiple possible explanations for what exactly might be happening. There is added value in such an ending, inviting re-reads and analysis.
And usually I can come down easily on my preferred possibility, but here I found that the two possible explanations of what was happening were both rather plausible, and genuinely interesting.
But these things operate according to their own rules in any case, so I'm not going to try to explain and instead I'll just recommend you read this one for yourself.

2. Into The Darkness, Fearlessly - John Langan

     I am absolutely going to read more of John Langan's work. There's a quality to Into The Darkness, Fearlessly that I absolutely loved, and it might be my favourite short story in here.

     "The morning after the police found the final piece of Linus Price, Wrighton Smythe, his frequent editor and occasional friend, opened the front door of his apartment and saw a manila folder lying on his doormat." Within is Linus' last work; A grammar of Dread, A Catechism of Terror, a previously not even hinted at volume, that swiftly reveals itself to be an autobiographical work, primarily focusing on the 6 last months of Linus' life. The novel is undoubtedly by Linus' hand, and following up on the mystery of who left it at his front door leads Wrightson into something more dreadful than even Linus' darkest imaginings.

     It has a great opening line, the focus on the literary world is delicious, and I absolutely adore the story conceit of a writer whose darkest work is uncovered after his death. However, I found that the finale was a bit off. Not a dud, exactly, but less than what could have been, certainly. Still, the writing is hugely enticing, and of a higher level than the bulk of contemporary authors writing today.

1. By Invisible Hands - Simon Strantzas

     By Invisible Hands sticks undoubtedly the closest to the Ligottian themes of all the stories in the anthology. The story elements of the puppet and the puppeteer rears its head once more, and though the plot might seem very straightforward, its execution is masterful nonetheless.
    A once-great puppet maker sits alone in his basement, tormented by the decline of hands once capable of crafting true masterworks. When he is requested for another project he can not help but have his reservations. But a forced visit to his would-be client makes him decide otherwise, even though he can't actually remember much from the visit itself.
     As his newest masterwork begins to take shape his old pains fade away and the joy of the craft becomes paramount. But he's losing more and more moments of his day, and whole hours pass without notice or remembrance. He seems to space out, or forget. And worst of all, there's an acute sense of dread for what comes when the puppet will be completed. And slowly the craftsman begins to understand that a dreadful revelation might be waiting for him up ahead.
     It's a great story, with uncomplicated prose, an eerie, alien atmosphere and capped off with a perfect ending, what more can I say?

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There's definitely more stories I could talk about, but this month's been an impossible slog for me in the writing department so I'll leave it at just giving honorable mentions to Diamond Dust, The Human Moth, The Lord Came at Twilight, Basement Angels, The Holiness of Desolation, The Prosthesis and Oubliette.

Review: Genevieve Undead, Kim Newman

     The second release in the Vampire Genevieve series under the new Warhammer Horror Imprint, Genevieve Undead, is a collection of three linked novellas. This novel was originally released in 1993 and has now been newly re-released to drum up some interest into the Warhammer Horror imprint. After all, Newman is a recognized and popular horror novelist, so it is a good idea to release the novels that he (practically) cut his teeth on even though those same novels are not indicative of either the direction that the Old World fiction ultimately continued in, or even that the Black Library strives towards right now. This means that both quality and mood are markedly different from what you'd normally find in the Black Library's stable.

The whole Genevieve series uses numerous horror tropes, and is very comfortable with giving homage to various classics of both horror literature and other types of horror fiction, and in Drachenfels and Stage Blood in particular; the blood-drenched boards of the Grand Guignol serve as the main springboard for the action.

    The first novella here; Genevieve Undead, takes place after Beasts in Velvet, the second complete novel to actually feature the vampire heroine, but in which she's delegated to a mere cameo. Nevertheless Beasts is actually my favourite of the four novels. I'll talk more about that one when I review it.
     You could read Beasts in Velvet first and catch a few references though it isn't really necessary to do so, as the first novella; Stage Blood, is still the first story to chronologically follow Genevieve and Detlef five years after the events of Drachenfels proper.

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Already a genius before the events at Castle Drachenfels 5 years earlier, the experiences in its dark halls have given Detlef Sierck a new insight and an unstoppable urge to drive his plays into darker territories, and now, together with his Vargr Breughel company he is staging a new production based on an older morality play.

As Detlef seeks to perfect both his new take on The Strange History of Dr Ziekhill and Mr Chaida, and his own dual performance in the title roles, the vampire Genevieve begins to grow aware of the toll it is taking on her lover, how inhabiting the evil character of the transformed doctor is threatening to drive out the good in Detlef. And soon she may have to acknowledge that her relationship with him might also be responsible. 

But the darkness is a generous muse, and soon the halls of the Vargr Breughel theatre will resound with rapturous applause.

But behind the walls, behind the one-way mirrors, in the passageways and in the haunted recesses of box seven, the theatre's Trap-door Daemon looks on everything that happens, and has designs of his own.

And then there's still the old evils... And the dangers within will be joined by those from without.

Because in the destroyed fortress of Drachenfels a vestige of the Great Enchanter has been unearthed, and soon his last vengeance will begin to make his way to the unsuspecting artist, and his undying lady.

I spent quite some time on the blurb here as Stage Blood really is a damn fine story and I felt it deserved something extra. (The other two don't have blurb as that would constitute spoilers and in the case of The Cold Stark House I would have to explain the story for it to even begin to make sense.)

     As it follows the previous book's principal protagonists, Genevieve and Detlef, and in some measure also that one's main antagonist, it pretty much serves as the direct continuation for the Drachenfels story line.
     I'm not exaggerating when I say that Stage Blood is magnificently done, its cores theme revolving around the idea of duality and man's struggle with his darker side. The longer the story goes on the more you realize at how many points this is explored and how well it all actually fits together.
The story is funny, horrific and ultimately heartbreaking, ending on a real note of poignancy, the inevitability of certain developments no longer able to be put off. Though it easily evokes a response from the reader, I can't help but feel as if there should have been slightly more build-up for Genevieve's decision at the end of the novella. It's a small niggle though, as the decision itself feels logical and inevitable even as it breaks your heart.

Stage Blood's quality has the unfortunate side-effect of making the other two novellas in this collection feel like disembodied little side-jaunts, removed in both tone and style from the rest of the Genevieve stories.

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     The Cold Stark House picks up Genevieve's story some time after the ending of Stage Blood but at its start you can be forgiven for being confused about where it belongs, as the novella is a bit of a mess. This is mostly down to our point of anchorage, Genevieve herself, suddenly having become a stranger to us, with a lot her backstory massively, glaringly, altered.
Or at least that's how it appears.
     The conceit of the story can be figured out quickly after a certain point, but until that time the reader will be floundering, unable to connect, irritated by the seemingly endless stream of contradictions that come with a cast that is straining the seams of the novella with their inconstant backstories, altering characteristics, and of course their frequent dying and resurrecting.

But of course, it is this last development that reveals the story for what it is, or at least its nature, and it is at this point, a few resurrections in, that the plot becomes clearer and less aggravating.
Nonetheless, it is comfortably the worst of Newman's tales that I've read, if not worst then it is the least fun to read.

It's also in this story that I realized how little agency Genevieve actually has, and has had, throughout the series. Maybe this is due to the Immortal-Vampire aspect of her character, being pretty removed from the affairs of the world, disinterested due to her extreme lifespan, but it frequently ends up with her acting only as an observer in the affairs of others.

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The last story here, Unicorn Ivory, is a step up from the previous outing, but it still has the odd conceit of introducing our heroine as someone other than whom we have come to know. This time we're wise to the act though and we'll be able to happily go along with what Newman has in store for us, leading to a pretty intricate and satisfying tale that nonetheless feels a little bit off, a little bit hurried, in its ending. It's a good thing that Chronologically in the Genevieve series there's still a short story after this one, else it'd be a bit of a lackluster ending.

June Book Haul

Normally I do this on the 20th but I happened to run into some delays this month. Serious delays, I'll have you know.

      It's not as if I took the pictures and then promptly forgot, no, no. There was some serious stuff going on, man.

Anyway, as you can see, this month it's a very varied batch, running the gamut from sci-fi, horror, classical history and even an extended opinion piece on the epic Fantasy genre as it was in 1987.

First up the latest Hack/Slash omnibus comic, even though the fifth was supposed to be the last one.

I'm not complaining though, as I really enjoyed this one.

It was a lot of fun to catch up with Cassie, especially as, since this one came out of the blue, given the rather definitive ending of the last omnibus, I just let any and all reservations go and just ended up really enjoying myself.

Expect an actual continuation of the overall storyline, and as long as you weren't married to the status quo at the end of omnibus 5, you're probably going to like it. This one practically does not give a shit and does what it wants, and I actually enjoyed that. Which is very unlike my usual self.

Judge Dredd is up next, with the Complete Case Files nrs 28 and 32, which I'm still a ways off of in my read but these were off by more than 35 percent, which together with a 10 percent discount almost halved the original price. Yay! Go me!

Also, I love the cover for Case File 32. A one-panel joke typical of Judge Dredd.

As always, click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Here, from the dread halls of the Black Library comes the reprint of the entire 5 books of the Liber Chaotica. You can easily find these online in a PDF format, of course, but I had been wanting to have the original editions on my shelf for a while, and so in lieu of that I picked up this one instead. It was only 55 euros, after all.

I'll be honest, I don't really understand the low price. Because this thing is magnificent in its presentation alone. Full-colour throughout, countless pieces of artwork, short stories everywhere, and, as they deal chiefly with the Chaos Gods, some of these are gratifyingly nasty and horrifying.

I've already read a bit, and honestly, if you're into the Chaos forces of the Old World (may it not rest in peace, and instead return to us, praise Sigmar), this thing ends up reading like a dark and twisted Bible.

The short historical Epic The Sea, The Sea.

Collected in this slim volume (84 pages) are actually only 2 books of a much larger narrative (7 books); the Greek expedition by Xenophon also know as the Anabasis.

I picked this one because, as I'm going to slowly work my way through the Penguin Epics collection (5 done, 15 more to go), I'm on the look-out for connections to current reads, and though this one doesn't actually connect to anything right now, this one's title nonetheless caught my fancy do I just went and bought it regardless. When it finally arrived I realized that I had already read 2 works inspired by it: Paul Kearney's The Macht trilogy and Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Lost Army, and I immediately got stuck in.

Like most of these older works, it gets bogged down in names and speeches sometimes, but the scene from which the volume gets its title was pretty powerful.

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Hobbits, wizards, Tolkien-lovers, assorted Orcs and Uruk-Hai, hang on to your butts, because the king of the opinionated writers is here, and he's out to tear you a new one. Yes indeed. It's Michael Moorcock 's Wizardry and Wild Romance novel, the book of his gathered essays wherein he just lets go and laughs at and criticizes every work of Epic Fantasy of his day.

I bought this one both as it's been on my list forever, and because I was hoping to also run into Moorcock's opinion on Gardner's Grendel, foolishly forgetting that this book is solely about Epic Fantasy and that Grendel absolutely does not qualify for that.

Ah well. I've got it now, at least.

Also, look at this. Sad and poignant.

But anyway, it's been 30 years, so you can't really tell what happened with these two.

Up next, Vastarien 1.2 and 1.3.

Vastarien is an award-winning magazine in its second year of publication under the Grimscribe Press publisher, founded by Jon Padgett. As the name alludes, Grimscribe Press is a publisher dedicated to and inspired by the work of Thomas Ligotti. The magazine itself takes its name from the short story of the same name, which just happened to be the first work of Ligotti's that I had read, collected as it was in American Supernatural Tales, one of the 6-volume glossy Penguin Horror Hardback series.

I had already read the first issue somewhere last month, and I was impressed enough that I bought 2 and then, when that one arrived and had been read, 3 and am now halfway through it. There's no way that I'm not going to read 2.1 now. The Magazine has besides a bunch of short stories in the vein of Ligotti's work, also poems and non-fiction essays. The essays have so far all been hugely interesting and informative reads, bar 1, and I won't say which one. And the Eraserhead as Anti-natalist Allegory in particular, from volume 1, which, besides being insightful and informative, was also straight-up horrifying.

There's currently 4 issues out now, with issue 5 (2.2), the Summer 2019 issue, announced just today. I'll be getting that when it comes out in the coming months.

You can see I've been on a Horror and Weird binge lately.

Michael Cisco's the San Veneficio Canon is a book collecting his The Divinity Student and its sequel The Golem. I bought this because after reading the Traitor I found it... special and enduring. See here my review of The Traitor. It remember it being a strange read, and I was hoping for something more of the same, but maybe less impenetrable and this one's blurb stood out to me.

Struck by lightening, resurrected, cut open, and stuffed full of arcane documents, the Divinity Student is sent to the desert city of San Veneficio to reconstruct the Lost Catalog of Unknown Words. He learns to pick the brains of corpses and gradually sacrifices his sanity on the altar of a dubious mission of espionage. Without ever understanding his own reasons, he moves toward destruction with steely determination. Eventually he find himself reduced to a walker between worlds - a creature neither of flesh nor spirit, stuffed with paper and preserved with formaldehyde - a zombie of his own devising. The line twixt clairvoyance and madness is thinner than a razor blade. In 1999, The Divinity Student captured the attention of fans of dark fantasy everywhere, eventually winning the International Horror Guild Award for best first novel. Now, The Divinity Student has been paired with its sequel, The Golem, for a must-have book - The San Veneficio Canon. Michael Cisco has created a city and a character that will live in the reader's imagination long after this book has been read... 

You have to admit, it sounds pretty cool.

And lastly, the 20th anniversary edition of William King's Space Wolf, the first ever Warhammer novel that I read.

I couldn't not buy it, but now that I have it I kind of question the worth of this edition.

Sure, it looks all manner of impressive, but there's not much in here.There's a number of colour artworks included that have graced the Ragnar Blackmane novels in the past, but besides the slight introduction by King himself there's nothing really new in here.

It's a beautiful edition for newcomers, but for old hands you're better off sticking with the omnibi or the individual novels.

The Crying of Lot 49

This isn't a review, and instead it's more a barrage of my thoughts, me just trying to order what happened, trying to make it clear for myself. There's more than enough reviews on this novel, about 50 years worth of it, and there's about 4000 reviews on Goodreads alone. This is also a reminder to myself that I don't always enjoy doing reviews, and that I should do what comes natural. For this one that means just spouting out whatever comes to mind. That does mean spoilers, somewhat.

Oedipa Maas has been made the executor of a an ex-lover who has recently passed away. Wealthy and eccentric, Inverarity Pierce has left behind him a massive amount of assets to be appraised, sold and auctioned off. Despite not having any experience in the legalities of the situation, and now living with her husband, Oedipa makes the journey to Southern California where, in the course of her duties she stumbles on what could possibly be a massive world-wide conspiracy. As she tries to piece together the clues concerning the mysterious Tristero organization, and its secret war with the Thurn and Taxis postal system, with allies disappearing and dying around her, and with signs tying everything she sees into a massive web of deceit, she has to confront the likelihood that she's become insane.

Depending on who you ask The Crying of Lot 49 is either a classic Postmodern work, or a classic work that parodies Postmodern works. But either way, it's become dated, or at least, to someone not living in the USA, the horde of Americana it references; the characters, politicians, brands, and concepts can be quite bewildering. There were a lot of times where I just did not understand what was being referenced, where I felt left out and frustrated. That being said, it never became too insurmountable, in reading sometimes you have to accept that the small hang-ups don't matter and do not necessarily detract from the whole.
The Crying of Lot 49 was a strange but interesting read, most of the time funny and engaging, but also at points quite irritating and a bit of a slog to get through, especially at the start.

It's got a high barrier of entry, but after a certain point it really ends up becoming quite an engaging read. Once Oedipa finishes watching the play, 'the Courier's tragedy', I felt myself quite involved, and interested in the mystery of the W.A.S.T.E./ Tristero - possibility, and likely for quite a different reason than most people would expect, which I'll outline below as an addendum after the main thing.

The entire last third of the novel is riveting and its ending is pretty brilliant, in a postmodern sense.
The central question that drives to the plot is of course the mystery whether or not there is a Tristero entity that was/is in a quiet war with the Thurn and Taxis company, that has gone underground and is doing its best to suppress any and all information about them, using any means necessary.
     By the end of the novel, the possibilities have been offered that either the thing is true, or that Oedipa has gone insane, or that she's just fantasized all of the connections, or that alternatively it might all be an elaborate joke, with too much money behind it, too many people bought in order to play along, to piece-meal reveal information, to clamp shut at pre-determined points. That it is a joke set up by a disgruntled or love-sick ex, who, aware of his erstwhile lover's mental problems, posthumously takes her for a ride, either in order to hurt her or to gift her with something transcendental. He might even not be dead and, with this elaborate game, be trying to win her back.
      The brilliant thing is that there's no way to really tell, given the novel's ending. Oedipa at the end has either truly gone paranoid, or has had the right of it. But due to how, over the course of the novel, she responds and analyzes the information she's been given, and who has been giving it, she/ Pynchon offers up multiple plausible reasons for those people's actions, allowing them to be puppets moving to the tune of a master puppeteer, but to also at the same time leave room for the possibility that they might just be tenuously linked individuals, all with their own insights into a vast conspiracy.
     The idea that she's fantasized all of it holds no water I believe, mainly as that devalues any type of fiction, but I could certainly admit that various incidents might have been imagined.
     If she's been suffering from a psychosis, then it's a bit of a disturbing novel, as it manages to catch you in its intrigue, and allows you to see all these connections, making you think that indeed there is something here, in this way managing to bring the reader down into Oedipa's psychosis alongside her.
     Either way, there's no clear answer, and not knowing has the effect of making it all the more engaging. Not delivering the answer allows this story to possibly be all of these things, rather than just having it be one of them. It's not really as if you can choose whichever type of story it is, but you can't really say what it isn't either.

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What struck me most is how the Tristero-possibility is gradually revealed, not just as something mysterious, an enigma to be solved and revealed, but also in that the way that the people who seem to be, or might be, in the know refuse to talk about it, with worry and distress written clearly on their faces, as if it is something to be feared, as if even mentioning it might put them in danger from forces unknown, and maybe even unknowable.
Their reactions, their sly hiding of knowledge, whenever the Tristero is mentioned, put me in mind of other tales where similar reactions occur, when words with dangerous or even occult connotations are mentioned, words like; 'Carcosa', 'The Yellow King', 'Necronomicon' and others.
The fact that many of them disappear, and/or die, leaving odd or cryptic warnings behind them adds to it.
Then there are the skeletons of the soldiers at the bottom of a lake, re-purposed, for ink and tourism, the Maxwell's Demon with its Machine for psychic sensitives, the darkly clothed figures, marauders or assassins, using violence to guard their secrets, the strange gathering of night-time children claiming to be dreaming in their closets while they stand in front of a fire happily warming themselves by its nonexistent flames, in fact the whole the mad night that Oedipa spends wandering the streets in thrall to her obsession, and of course the strange, unnerving postage stamps ascribable to the Tristero: all of these could be very well seen as horror elements.

In a strange way, The Crying of Lot 49 might easily fit in with horror literature, at least up until a certain point in the novel, where Oedipa's mental state becomes overbearing and begins to sideline the mysteriousness in favour of plausibleness. But, I can imagine some visionary adapting the novel into a classic horror movie. Like how the Shining adaptation leaves it up to the viewer (mostly) whether or not Jack Torrence is just the only monster in the movie or if there actually might be more things going on in the Overlook hotel. But then inversely, with the mundane origins of the Tristero, effaced the longer the adaptation goes on, to stand at the auction revealed as undeniably supernatural, representative of an Anti-God entity, its existence rightly suppressed by the Vatican, with the Tristero organization as the mad cult hiding their goals, planning for the auction at the novel's culmination where they will kill every person present, with Oedipa Maas either forced to join the cult, or willingly doing so, or falling victim to it as well.

Ah well, it's too hot for rambling. I loathe summer.
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Review: Perdition's Flame (audio drama)

Perdition's flame is the first audio drama from the Warhammer Horror range.

I'm not one for audio books or dramas but, drawn as I am to horror, and in particular keen to explore the 'Horror' aspect to the Warhammer license, I felt obligated to check this one out.

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A tiny bit of a rant here... Feel free to skip if you dislike me harping on about my ideas and negative responses to the audio format.

I dislike audio-dramas/books because it doesn't take much for me to get pulled straight out of the story, my bubble of immersion too easily punctured by even the smallest of things; off-kilter accents, stilted line-delivery, disharmony in dialogue, etc... but in this particular story I'm pleased to announce that I only gritted my teeth in absolute supreme irritation only once. In case you're interested: It is in Chapter 13, right at the 1-minute mark. You can't miss it.

The voice actors do a mixed bag of a job, their accents ranging from the bad to the flat-out excruciating. This might not be because of the actors themselves and rather because of the material they have to work with, the stereotype accents they have to deliver, or it might just be because of an inherent bias on my part, although I went into this story very open-minded and willing to be entertained.

And you know, this is probably what is always going to be my main gripe with audio-adaptations of any kind and the reason why this particular format just isn't for me. Prose can be perceived as perfect for the reader as it requires the imagination to fill in all the possible blanks, while auditory input from another party (not yourself, and thus alien to yourself) can cause, and very likely not in a way that is all that conducive to the listener, associations that might not be expected leading to negative reactions.

Every single one of the characters sounds like a stereotypical cliché, and not even the acceptable kind, and in fact they're all quite dubiously rendered by the voice actors. Our main character and narrator Vosk's thick and distinctly Russian/Vostroyan accent is mildly off-putting at first but due to a kind of stockholm-type syndrome, swiftly becomes comforting. Especially when we veer from his drawn-out tones into the nasal whines of the female characters who you'll be begging to shut the fuck up. Both Captain Brandon and Inquisitor Herryn are awful to listen to. Brandon's gutter-British and Herryn's upperclass entitlement ooze with every syllable out of the actor's mouths. If you're looking for subtle: this isn't it. Commander Treece, with barely a minute of dialogue to his name, isn't much worth mentioning either.

Honestly though, I'm not here to slag these people or their choice in profession off, so I won't be mentioning names, and you can just file all of the above under 'Levi just does not like audio dramas'.

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All of that being said.

The story was ok. It wasn't really worth being made an audio drama out of, but it was at least acceptable.

In a lonely cave, with a howling blizzard raging through the night outside, a Vostroyan guardsman sits in front of a fire and welcomes you to sit with him, to listen to his tale. He'll treat you to a tale of cowardice and redemption aboard a haunted ship, where voices whisper in urgent entreatment, and where the shadows wait in the darkness, patiently waiting for their chance to break free.

It is a tale of terror, of the risen dead spawned by the dark plague come for mankind. It is the tale of those that fight it. And it is a tale of an unknowable horror that can not possibly be contained.

In the grim licensed future of 40k there's not much chance of being surprised. Any and all plot developments must adhere to the rules of the setting, after all. And if you are well-versed in the lore, or if you've read a lot of the novels, chances are you can figure out story revolutions well in advance.
Worley knows this. and uses it to his advantage, managing to wrong-foot lore-enthusiasts and delivers an at least decent twist, in a story that threatened to become quite bog-standard 40k. As it turns out after the drama's close I actually found myself left with some questions, which is a good sign of my engagement with the story, or at least, with this particular lore aspect. I'm not sure how this would float with people completely new to 40k but I appreciated this element most.

As for horror, well... it definitely was not worthy of the Warhammer Horror label. It does make a point about horror in the Warhammer 40k universe (and which relates to the plot twist), but it's not explored enough, and as such, to any new listeners this point would be entirely lost, I think, making me wonder if anyone who's not already into the setting would actually have anything positive to take away from this.

A spoken story that has to last all of 70 minutes has a very limited amount of time to leave a good impression. This is genuinely a tall order. I don't think the Library should be trying to churn these out, and should instead be trying to make something truly unique, maybe something experimental, that'll validate audio dramas, and in particular, Warhammer Horror audio dramas.

 Imagine it: some kind of Barker-esque visionary who could create some new type of Horror, unseen and unheard of before, and drawing in legions of horror enthusiasts. The type of dark prodigy you sometimes read about in horror stories, the type that went mad and died or disappeared, leaving behind a secret, much sought-after body of work.

As it is now, this really isn't it. Hard pass.

Furnace Short Story

Though I debated against it, here's a quick little post on my favourite story (so far) of the Grimscribe's Puppets anthology, a short story collection homage-ing Ligotti's body of work.

Furnace by Livia Llewellyn is so far the most original and arresting story in the collection.

If you're familiar with the name, then well done you, you pervert, but there's no erotica to be had here. It is a very good and horrifying little tale though.

It's about a young girl's experience of growing up in a town that has started to decay in an irrevocable sort of way. The theme will be familiar to Ligotti readers, but Llewellyn does some remarkable stuff with the premise. The above fragment is one of a series of anecdotes compiled by the girl's grandfather chronicling the weird goings-on in the town. They're pretty much all like that; horrifying , violent and shocking. And yet, there was quite a sweet nostalgic feeling at the story's start, reminiscent of Dan Simmons Summer of Night.

I'm unsure about what exactly the ending meant, what it implied and whether or not it held the key to all the town's happenings or whether what was being described was just the last of the town's happenings inevitably coming to a close.

Whatever it meant, this was a very good short story. 

One to re-read.

Review: The Stars My Destination

In the blown-open bowels of a derelict spaceship, tumbling aimlessly through the solar system, a man survives. In a patched-up space-suit he makes quick 5-minute trips through the airless, zero-gravity corridors in search of air canisters and sustenance, with a mantra endlessly repeating in his head.

Gully Foyle is my name

And Terra is my nation.

Deep space is my dwelling place.

And death's my destination.

Having collected what he needs the man hurries back to the lightless, airtight locker that he has come to call home, where, with desperate, heaving breaths he floods his tiny compartment with oxygen, renewing his tenuous lease on life. He has been doing this for the past 6 months. 

Waiting for a rescue that might never arrive, this man has survived in the loneliest place in existence with nothing other than blind animal instinct to carry him through. He can do nothing but wait.

And when a space-ship approaches his wreck, having heeded his distress signals, he believes that his desperate struggle for survival will finally be rewarded.

But when the vessel, having come close enough to make out its name, begins to turn, and slowly, irrevocably starts to move away from him, leaving him to his horrible fate, something happens to the man. And Gully Foyle, unremarkable as he might have been, becomes something else entirely. Something that will make Terra burn with the fire of his vengeance, and that will alter the very course of human history forever.

Eh. It's alright.

It's not as good as everyone's made it out to be though. It might have been much more when it came out, but almost 70 years on now, it's become a little dated.
Lying at the root of the Cyberpunk genre most of the conventions are present: cyber-enhancements, evil corporate entities working from the shadows, Foyle himself; the unlikable antihero just south of a noir detective doggedly pursuing a mystery, and never shy about using some brutal, "filthy" violence in his quest for vengeance. But he's very unlikable for about the first 90 percent of the novel, and his treatment of the female characters, and the way that those were written, was a bit off putting.

Though Foyle's pursuit of the Vorga is engaging, the mystery of why he was abandoned interesting, and his journey and its mind-blowing finale very epic and even a little mythic, the narrative still moves a little too fast and switches between its busy locations with too much reckless abandon to ever linger or grow comfortable in the reader's mind.
The ideas and the locations don't get time to settle, and though it's clearly the sci-fi son of the Count of Monte Cristo, taking after its dear old dad in a very noticeable way, it maybe should've endeavored to emulate more of that magnificent novel's pacing rather than just copying its story beats.

That last is my opinion though, and you'll probably not find anyone else who would prefer to read that mammoth of a novel to this sleek tiger of a book. Certainly not Neil Gaiman, who in he novel's afterword comes dangerously close to slagging off the father of all vengeance stories in order to defend this novel apparently so dear to him. Yet more reasons to dislike the bastard. Ask my friend, the Ink-Stained Beard, whether or not I'll ever let an opportunity pass me by to dis on Gaiman; no, like the proverbial tiger, I'll pounce. That's twice now: Tiger! Tiger!

So. A bit of a shallow novel, but the ideas and concepts were pretty compelling. Special mention must be made for the ingenious description/depiction of Synesthesia, at the novel's ending.