Read in 2020 (part 3)

 At the end of the year I also rushed through a few novella-length books, and among these was the Soul Drinkers Novella Daenyathos.

This one had been on my shelves for quite some time, since 2013 I think when the Soul Drinkers' new omnibi editions came out, but which books I both somehow missed out on, despite actually getting the separate hardback novella, which is just bloody typical isn't it?
The Soul Drinkers series of books concerns a space marine chapter which, despite remaining loyal to the Emperor, slowly succumbs to corruption and mutation. I remember the books being hugely entertaining, visceral and as creatively gruesome and imaginative as only Ben Counter could make them. The gist of the overarching plot is that the longer the series progresses, the more mutation crops up in the characters and the more their fall to Chaos becomes, or seems to become, inevitable. But despite this, these mutations and indications of corruption, for instance; their chapter-master losing his legs and growing spider legs in place, the Soul Drinkers remain a force loyal to Terra.
I have only read the first three novels, because when the omnibis for books 4,5 and 6 came out ( yes, TWO different omnibi's of books 4,5 and 6) they were pretty much immediately sold out, because Games Workshop is stupid and prefers to stifle its production to drive up the price, and so I actually never got to finish reading the series. And though I got the Daenyathos novella at that time, it seemed stupid to me to actually go read that when I couldn't finish reading the entire saga.
But stupid or not I've finished it now, and despite having become quite vague on the details of the rest of the series, I still actually enjoyed doing so. The novella's main draw is that it follows, shockingly, Daenyathos on his journey to entombment in a Dreadnought, with several shocking revelations along the way. It's quite action-packed but also frequently ruminative and though I was satisfied, I do wish I had read the damn thing right along with the rest of the series.

Another (very) short one was George RR Martin's The Ice Dragon, which technically speaking is more of a short story than anything else, but which, given the man's popularity at a certain point, was published a few years ago all on its own in a ridiculously lavish edition, wraparound dustjacket, internal artwork and all. It's a fairy tale set in the world of Ice and Fire and it's decent, though quite a little bit too short to warrant a standalone edition. 

The plot follows a young girl who has more in common with creatures of ice than anything warm-blooded, and so when an Ice Dragon shows up (I mean, my God, what a surprise, right?) she begins to spend more and more time away from her family and more with the alien creature. But war looms on the horizon, and the girl's Ice Dragon isn't the only dragon in the skies. The ending is quite poignant, unexpected, and very good. It's a real addition to the world, not feeling out of place and yet retaining enough "alien-ness" to set it apart from the main series.

I'd been a fan of 2000AD's Tales of Telguuth comics and I picked up this short story collection as soon as I knew it existed. Both comics and the writings here were written by Steve Moore, a long-time friend of Alan Moore (though not a relation).

Despite the change in format, from comics to prose, the tales here genuinely 'feel' like the world we've come to know in the Telguuth comics, and that's because it's really Moore's writing the brought it all to life. Again we're treated to beautiful, lyrical prose, gorgeous naming, both hilarious, heartfelt and horrific stories, with memorable pro and antagonists and a feeling that you're in one of the most vibrant creations in fiction. It's a shame there's so little of it, but I recommend anyone, those lovers of the English language at least, to seek out these perfect stories. A joy to read out loud.

Lastly, there's a few novels here that I feel I should be writing a whole lot more about, and they should at least have been giving their own posts. But as writing is really something that I'm having severe difficulties with these days, this is better than nothing.

The Tooth Fairy is the last of the Terror 8 I still needed to read, and it ended up being quite a different story than I was expecting. It was a disturbing and at times rather an uncomfortable reading experience, but with the uneasiness coming from real life elements, rather than from the horror-trappings I was expecting. The Tooth Fairy is essentially a coming-of-age story dressed in dark fantasy clothing. It's a very sexually charged story, and though it never gets as ill-conceived as some of those sections from Stephen King's It, there's nevertheless some strange stuff in here. It might be better than King's novel, but only barely. Summer of Night is still the best one in this genre.

Next up, another novel that I should've given more attention to, but that for more reasons than usual I don't. 

The Dragon Waiting is one of the novels of Gollancz's Fantasy Masterworks line and should really get its own post, exploring various aspects of the story, or an in-depth exploration of something that caught my attention or whatever, but both my disinterest on writing in general (for the moment) and my opinions concerning this book in particular have conspired to make me abstain from writing anything at all. You see, despite it being highly regarded by the literary world at large, and regardless of it being a beloved favourite by anyone who's read it, I don't actually think The Dragon Waiting is all that good.

Even though, yes, of course, it is.

But it certainly isn't a Masterwork. It meanders all over the place,  Hell, it isn't even conclusive, the story ends, or rather it doesn't, and instead sets itself up for a sequel. But there isn't one.

It does things masterfully well though: the characters, the time period... hell, even the feel of the whole thing is genuinely unique; from roman, to the celtic, to the dark ages, the periods that it visits all feel authentic, but despite everything that it does right one can't help but feel that there should be more.

By and large the Dragon Waiting feels woefully incomplete; you can not help but feel, and wishing that there was more to come. Alas.

Lastly, this awesome set of books.

Part horror, part sci-fi and fantasy, the Coldfire trilogy is a brilliant piece of fiction.

 It has a heavy focus on religion, an engaging world and memorable characters.

If there's one thing I didn't like about it, then it is the ending, which was just a bit too wishful for me. Most other people would be more than fine with it I guess, but for me the ending kind of undercut the gravity of the sacrifices made along the way.

Read in 2020 (part 1)

     I had some trouble reading this year, and I didn't get to read even close to as much as I would've liked.

But as you can see, it's not all a loss. By the end of the year I was back up to more normal reading speed and what you see above was mostly read then, and though there's a few of those that I'd still like to review, most of these books will just have to content themselves by just being given a quick run-down here. I've also decided to split this one up over several posts. Blogger is incredibly glitchy these days...

Though it was at the time still the most significant read yet ahead, hindsight has proven it a slightly underwhelming experience. But, Scott Bakker's Aspect Emperor cycle, despite my misgivings and minor quibbles, did manage to constantly surprise and engage.

     The story of Kellhus' march towards Golgotterath in order to liberate the world from the greatest evil it had ever seen ended up being one of the boldest stories ever told. And that's not hyperbole either, sure you might not like it, but damn me if that last book doesn't quite do the unthinkable. (well, I say unthinkable, but I swear to you that I saw it coming, even though it all didn't quite go down as I thought).

     It's really quite an impressive bit of drama. Exceedingly dark, stomach-turning, and ever more fucked-up the longer it went on. Was it satisfying? I still can't tell.

     I do however still feel that the last two books should be revisited and thoroughly edited by its author. The strained relationship between Bakker and Overlook has unquestionably left its mark, and it's a damn shame. Where the Judging Eye and The White-Luck Warrior fit together seamlessly, in themes, execution and style, both The Great Ordeal and The Unholy Consult give off different vibes, and are inconsistent in both execution and writing quality. But whatever one can say about it as a whole, the Aspect Emperor's ending is unrivaled. Unconscionable and ruthless, and still haunting, even ten months later.

And then of course, there is this one:

     My feelings on Gravity's Rainbow haven't changed, and my opinion on it is still the same. But I will always doubt those that say they unreservedly love it. Closet-pederast or just lying about having read it? Who can tell? I'm using harsh words, and though there are of course many ways that one can enjoy this novel, there's also just a few too many moments where it just straight-up crosses the line.

On these three I have not much to say right now, except that I've been working on some reviews for them. One of the main goals I have here on the blog is to give every Warhammer Horror story its own review, which in itself isn't too difficult.

     But, I'm worried I've left it all too long to do them any justice, and writing these days remains a daunting prospect.

I also finished off the next two issues of Vastarien, and am now only 1 issue behind, sadly, that issue isn't in stock right now, so I'll have to find a second hand copy somewhere.

     As usual these were a mixed bag, mostly good, but there was also some really pitiful stuff. Some of these, mostly the stories at the back of each volume, are unmitigated self-centered, self-pitying shite. But what do you want? You're reading stories about death ideation and suicide, with themes that are fundamentally selfish and individualistic, and you only come seek these stories out if you've already been taken over by your darkest thoughts.

     But, there's a marked shift in the subject matter nonetheless, the ideas concerning the world and our place in it, our identity or lack of it, death and all its attendent symptoms, seem to be slowly pushed aside by issues concerning gender identity. It fits of course, there's a natural correlation between gender dismorphia and self-hate, and so I don't begrudge it its inclusion here. But I can't help but have my hackles raised whenever I read about it. At any rate, there's still good enough stuff to be found to endeavour to seek out the next (magazine) issues whenever they arrive.

Speaking of...- well no, that would give it away wouldn't it? The Wasp Factory is my first encounter with Iain Banks, and it certainly won't be the last. I've been meaning to dig into his culture novels for ages now but there's always something else that demands my attention.

     I had actually given this book as a gift to a friend some years ago, who has a proclivity for disturbing fiction, and though I frequently have a hankering myself, for some reason I held off on buying it for myself.

     And now that I've finally read it for myself;... yeah, it is weird and quite disturbing. But it is also rather beautiful, written in a unique voice and way more thoughtful than I was expecting.

     The story follows an eccentric boy living together with his father on a small island just off the coast of Scotland. When he's not doing chores, young Frank spends his days hunting small animals, crafting totems and safeguards from their remains in order to protect his home from all who would do it harm.

When he begins getting phone calls from his hospitalized brother, with promises of that one's coming escape and a visit back to the island, Frank's reasons for preparing seem well-founded.

     It's of course definitely not as simple a story as I'm making it out to be here. I'm hiding and glossing over alot. Despite the slim page count there's a lot of surprises, a few of them quite grisly, and the read itself is a compulsive one. I've remarked on the author's voice already but it bears repeating. Iain Banks is one I should maybe have read more of already, but there's always something else. Either way, The Wasp Factory is a very interesting novel and one of the few on this list you could recommend to absolutely anyone. It's a special read. A blend of mystery, coming of age drama and thriller. Go pick it up.

2020 Reading Goals

For 2020 I have another list of reading goals even though I wasn't able to cross off all the books I wanted to read in 2019. I don't consider that a failure as I did actually manage to finish off many of the smaller novels I had been planning to read and a whole bunch of others besides, and in fact, the only one on my list I didn't get around to finishing, the big one, ended up being, despite only barely having reached the halfway point, one of my favourite reads of the last few years.

You see, back in November I realized I very much enjoyed reading Infinite Jest and I felt I would be doing both it and myself a major disservice if I just forced myself to finish it within the set time frame, which is why I let it slip a bit, mostly in order to let the read settle. There were other complications too but those have been ... dealt with... *eyes the Death Stranding case meaningfully*.

With that in mind, I should say that even though Infinite Jest will remain the big reading project for 2020 it'll probably be done quite a bit before the end of the year, barring any major mishaps.

Other than that, there's a few other things I absolutely want done this year:

I want to keep up with the Warhammer Horror books as they come out, and I'm already behind a bit with those. Someone else still has a Horror Audio Drama of mine so I'm waiting 'till that returns to me to plunge into that. When I get it back, I'll continue reading/ listening and reviewing. Though I have a few thoughts still lying around on the Colonel's Monograph, so I'll be posting those soon.

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I'd like to continue, and finish, my Paradise Lost read + the accompanying posts.
I'm a bit scared of this one, because I'm not good at all with protracted projects, but this is one I should really finish off. Because, you know, as a lover of eschatological fiction and all, it's pretty bad that I still haven't finished off the granddaddy of all Devil tales.
I remember loving the work on the accompanying blog posts for each book, and it would be nice to have that continue.

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I'm also going to finish reading the Aspect Emperor cycle, as I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get spoiled if I leave it much longer. I'm not sure at all if I'm going to review these, as the blog's already full of my thoughts and observations on the series. But if something comes up that interests me I'll undoubtedly write about it. There's some interesting bits where the Judging Eye and The White Luck Warrior show some clear influences from Blood Meridian and I definitely had something I wanted to say about that (all positive of course).
I've read the first two, but have avoided all spoilers on The Great Ordeal and the Unholy Consult.
It's also way past time to plunge back into depravity.

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Begin reading and/or, depending on how engaged I am, finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, hopefully before the promotional material for the Television series starts appearing, but that's a foolish notion, I'm guessing.

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Read at least the first 4 novels of the Michael Moorcock collection, and begin posting my Moorcock Library posts, of which some have been done for years (and boy, will it be nice to get those out of the drafts-section), and review the 3d and 4th of these as Fantasy Masterworks.

Half of the Von Bek novel will be a re-read, but the rest is all new. I did also read 2 of the Elric novels at that time and there was a bunch that I then wrote for the blog, but for some reason I never actually posted that. I'll have to see where I'll post that, but it'll probably be my "Introduction to the MMC" first, then "Elric1", then "Elric 2" and then "Von Bek".

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Read C S Friedman's Coldfire trilogy. This one's been on my shelves way too long as it is.

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Also, because I was busy with it at the end of 2019: Finish reading the last book in the Terror 8 series,  The Tooth Fairy, and finish reading the Dragon Waiting and give it a Fantasy Masterwork review.

That last one had been taking a while because it's quite a dense book that requires one to have a lot of knowledge on things historical and a host of smaller elements besides. It's been quite a challenge to understand and interpret a lot of what the book is doing.
A few minutes ago I actually finished the story, and I feel myself not up to the task of even giving the thing a regular review. I'll just let it settle for a week or so, read the accompanying Draco Concordans to make as much sense of it as possible and then begin setting down my thoughts.

There's a lot more I want to do this year, but these are the ones that I feel have priority, either because they've been on my mind, or shelves, so long, or because they're about to be adapted into some form of media or other.
I find that if I plan too much, I tend to get disheartened, so by keeping my must-reads relatively few, I leave myself some room so I can toss in a random interesting book every once in a while.

The 2019 Done and Dusted Pile, and a little update

Behold, the books that I read in 2019.

It's a more than respectable heap of books, given the dumpster fire of a year I've had. Much of my frame of mind of the past 12 months is reflected in the abundance of horror novels and works of a particularly nihilistic focus; The Vastarien Magazines in particular

but I've also actually managed to cross off a few books that I've been meaning to get to for a while. Titles that any reader and lover of fiction will undoubtedly have heard of; The old Man and the Sea, Beowulf, The Stars my Destination, The Turning of the Screw, Slaughterhouse 5, Roadside Picnic, The Art of War and The Crying of Lot 49.

Also, titles that have gotten used to staring at me in silent, unwinking judgment have also been dealt with; Exquisite Corpse, Lois the Witch, The Spook House, The Grimscribe's Puppets, The Haunted Doll's House, DarkWar and Winter's Dreams, Eldritch Tales, The Green Mile; these have been on my to-be-read shelves for literal years and I'm super happy that I can place them on the big shelves now, out of the dark into the light.

I've also read a bunch of short stories, and though in most cases I finished off the collections I began, there were a few that I didn't quite conclude with. They'll probably be read this year.

I won't do a top 5 of books of 2019 as the blogging is on a bit of a backburn for the moment, as I'm very much going through a season of gaming right now.

Before I began the blog I used to have these 'seasons' where I would obsessively devote all my free time to one specific hobby for a number of months before tiring of it abruptly and switching to another. From gaming to reading to Warhammer to Watching movies and so on. For the past few months I have been gaming more and more, starting from the Witcher 3, to Dead Rising 4, to rogue-lites, to Death Stranding, and now, for the moment Code Vein, which is kinda shit just FYI but nonetheless addictive, and so, reading has definitely become more and more sidelined in favour of obstinate escapism.

It also doesn't help that my book of choice at the moment just happens to be an unexpectedly difficult challenge. I knew The Dragon Waiting was going to be a tough nut to crack, but I didn't quite expect to have such a difficult time engaging with it.

The story requires one to be quite familiar with history, for one, which I really am not but which isn't a problem, but which secondly, and more importantly, requires one to be amazingly intuitive pretty much all of the time. Logically, politically, emotionally, and for the time being this seems to be a little out of my reach, even though it hasn't been like this for me before. I'm honestly wondering if I've been struck stupid in the past year.

Anyway, I'll post more regularly from now on, even if it's occasionally just going to have to be some incoherent trivial nonsense. We'll see how it goes, but for now I'll leave you with a reasonably blurry picture of my bookshelves, where I put all the regular non-Warhammer books that I have read and still own.

It's a bit of a dick move finally posting a picture of my main bookshelves with a less than stellar camera. At this point, I should just buy a new phone, but I'd honestly rather spend the money on some more books :p

November Update

     Hello there, it's been a while! Been sick and lazy and all that. My month's been filled with sitting in front of the television, in a sick slouch or not, and hammering away at Fallout 4, Blasphemous and Dead Rising 4. Good games, although both the first and the last swiftly deteriorated into vapid busywork. Blasphmous, though initially not really my type of game, being a side-scroller, had an art-style and a type of lore that I loved and so I stuck it out and ended up having a blast. Here, take a look at the launch trailer.

     But, I've been wasting a lot of time this month, or so it feels. The truth is that I'm very out of sorts. So out of sorts that I have not much thought about blogging for these past few weeks, and on those times that I did, I had the damnedest difficulties in actually writing anything I was pleased with. Whether or not that any of this is due to not having imbibed any alcohol for nigh on a month or whether that it is because of a delayed reaction to the events that transpired earlier this year I don't know. Either way; this blog continues, I'm not here to announce my retirement. But I am saying that:... what the fuck man, why is this so difficult right now?
I'm annoyed and saddened that something that I could devote so much of my time and energy on has been delegated to a position of lesser import.

     I have been reading again though. There were maybe 2 weeks where I barely read a thing because of a very annoying slow-burn cold that took root in my brain, but since then I've finished a few comics, Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence, and a whole bunch of Jules De Grandin short stories.
     Of those, the one that I both want and don't want to talk about is the Imago Sequence.
You see, after a great start, specifically after The Procession of the Black Sloth, which read like a weird and terrifying Asian Silent Hill- kind of story, I was all set to proclaim Barron now one of my favourite authors, but then the last 2 or three stories in the collection veered a little too much into an abstract type of writing that is almost dis-associative free-form, and which, if you're not in the mood for it, is irritating in the extreme.
     I've indulged in that type of writing myself in the past, usually in the throes of depression or some or other violent passion, and it's quite an empowering form of art-making. You feel as if you are creating something truly impressive, and it's something that seems to validate itself, even if or maybe even because some or all of the audience that'll read it won't understand what you're talking about. There's a barrier there, and not everyone can slip past it. It's a form of magic, of perception.
But, as I said, it kind of sucks when you're not in the mood for it. Sometimes the chemical brain just doesn't care to cooperate; lack of sleep, nutrition, or being at the whim of emotional circumstance.
     So, though I loved Procession of the Black Sloth, and can recommend anyone to read that one, though Old Virginia, Shiva Open Your Eye, and Bulldozer were all bad-ass and very enjoyable to read, I didn't much enjoy The Royal Zoo is Closed, the latter half of the Imago Sequence short story, and though I thought that both Parallax, Hallucigenia and Proboscis were a little unoriginal, and though after all that, it seems like I didn't have a good time, I did actually appreciate pretty much of all that I read.
     I'm being unduly harsh here, and I wish the stories could've hit me at a better time maybe, but it is what it is.

     I also finally finished off Hunter X Hunter, which I pretty much only allowed myself to watch whilst exercising on my Home Trainer. At 148 episodes for 20-23 minutes per episode, it took me about 8 months of exercising before I'd gone through the whole bunch.
I had a good time. Hunter Hunter is a show not without its flaws but one that has some real nice emotional pay off.

     Lastly, it was my birthday this month and, as you might've expected, I replied to everyone that asked for gift ideas to just go and give me books, as if I didn't already have enough to read. What can you do? An addict is as an addict does, or something. I'll give you a look next post.

A Horror from dim Yesteryear

What do we want when we pick out a horror novel to read, when we purchase them and take them home and dive right in?
There's of course the desire, the expectation of being scared, with our own fear sought out and recognized in the moment. Fear, but at a safe remove from daily life, in a comfort zone of our choosing with eyes riveted to the page, hands gripped around the covers eager to see what's next.

Horror is a demanding genre. Demanding in what it requires from the reader.

Alot of times I get lost in what I think what fear in a horror novel ought to mean; shouting in surprise, shock or disgust, and your mind stepping back from behind your eyes, detaching itself for a moment in shock and bewilderment.
But that isn't fear, or at least not totally. Fear is dread. The anticipation of something that might happen. Might. Because it might not.

These days, it's mostly an idle hope to try and capture that feeling. The remove, that distance, has slotted into place and the mind has become less malleable.

I've been scared maybe a handful of times by written fiction.

Mostly that honour lies reserved for Adam Nevill's The Ritual, which for its sublime first half also relied on the build-up of fear coupled with moments of horror in its nightmare sequences and contrasted with its suddenly bizarrely shit second half, though I admit that the last pages managed to become quite good again.

I read it over the course of a single overcast afternoon, with the drawn blinds adding a grey gloom to the room.
I was so deep into it that I almost literally could hear the greedy excited tapping of hooves on the boards inside of a coffin. It's the sound, the perfect way it presented itself to my mind later that night, that made me creep fearfully underneath the covers. Good times.

There was another book that literally gave me nightmares when I was a kid, and I've tried to find it several times to see how it would hold up. I suspect that it would be disappointing now, it was, after all, read in a different time, in a time when there was no remove between story and immersion. When one grows up, the remove slots almost inextricably in the way. There's too much distance to be fully immersed.

The first time I read it I couldn't finish it, and I remember my parents taking it away from me because it was interfering with the household's sleeping cycle. I woke people up, in tears, because it frightened me so much.
Some time after, no idea how much, but years at least, I came back to it, borrowed it from the library  and found it, if not scary, then at least still very disturbing.

It was a tale of aliens, and of kidnapped teenagers forced to engage in bloody death-defying circus acts for their amusement. Of old people in horrific costumes and of rabid children tearing a tormentor apart, eating him, on a bridge overlooking trees while a talking rabbit doll screams for blood and violence in the voice of a small girl. The book ended with the survivors clad in blood and gore and wondering where to go next.

I really wish I could remember what it was called.
For some reason I keep thinking it's called Galaxy Wars, but try to google that in this day and age.
It's the age of Star Wars and easy escapism, baby, nothing else can compete.

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Edit: The Ink-Stained Beard got it pretty much within minutes of posting...
What the hell, man? How???
Anyway: the book is Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein:

Review: Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk

17 writers answer an add for an exclusive writer's retreat and upon arrival are only mildly shocked to find themselves forcibly locked up in a building for three months together with the organizers, and are then forced to write their great novel, poem, or screenplay, completely isolated from the world, and with all the usual distractions removed.

They're being treated alright actually, hot water, plumbing, copious supplies of food, clothing and so on, but most of them wish that the situation was a bit more dire, a bit more harrowing, so that they can sell the desperate story of their 'kidnapping' to the world outside when the three months are up.

To then live the rest of their lives in luxury and attention.

And so, to up the stakes a bit, each individual begins to sabotage the group's supplies and their surroundings, and as a result, the situation begins to grow a lot more dire than anticipated.

As food begins to run out, the lights grow dim and bodies start to drop, and with boredom inevitably setting in, the aspiring writers have no other choice than to share their stories.

Stories which make it clear that each one of them is on the run from someone or something, and that each of them harbours dark and terrible secrets.

     Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted was written as a novel that would explore stories where the horror would be supplied by the most mundane of things. To paraphrase the author: "Carrots, candles, swimming Pools. Microwave popcorn. Bowling Balls." But that's not completely true of course, The ones mentioned here are just elements of the stories, and those first three are present in the infamous 'Guts' short story, the short story that kicks off the collection of tales from the writers-to-be/ aspiring celebrities.

Guts is notorious because it garnered a name for itself as being such an upsetting story that it quite routinely made people faint whenever Palahniuk gave a reading whenever he promoted his books. There's quite an interesting, and rather hilarious, afterword in the book which has Palahniuk stating that he's made 73 people pass out at his readings over the years, and that he still gets mail that reveals that there's still readers and listeners out there who pass out whenever the story's being read.

I myself laughed when my turn came, though I had been spoiled quite a bit beforehand, and I knew the general gist of the story before I began. But it ended up being quite a bit funnier than I was expecting, written with the genuine humour of someone looking back after the fact.

     The stories that the characters tell each other are pretty much always offensive, inspired as they are by themes of depravity, crime, terrorism, violence, cannibalism, and just all-round weird shit. The depravity in particular is a theme that runs throughout and is present everywhere and even if you've got a strong stomach and open sensibilities you'll probably still find a story in here that'll disgust or horrify you.
     But what's maybe most horrifying is that a lot of the stories that the characters tell each other were in fact inspired by true events, anecdotes that Palahniuk had gathered over the years concerning some of the most disgusting and repulsive acts that human being have gotten up to. They're probably not even a thousandth of some of the worst shit that this world holds, but still, surely it's bad enough (or good enough?) that the novel has gotten so much of these between its pages.

     The most repulsive one, and yet strangely, also the one I most appreciated, was Director Denial's story; Exodus.
     It was so vile and disgusting, the acts hinted at giving such a low and degrading opinion on humanity that it quite simply revolted me, even more so when I reasoned that, yes, this stuff undoubtedly happens. It's the kind of stuff, the kind of actions you couldn't conceive of anyone actually doing, until someone says it, suggests it, lifts the rock and lifts the monster out into the light, and then you realize that, fuck, there is definitely people doing this kind of bile-inducing shit, and your stomach just turns at the thought of it.
     And then, this really quite short little tale, it ups the ante by offering you vengeance against those people, and gleefully you take it, oh yes, you want to see this wrongness punished... until you actually see it enacted, and it's a bit more nasty than you expected. Karmic justice, sure, but there will be a queasy cast to your vindictive laughter nonetheless.
     And then it just made laugh out loud, which is something that very few books ever have managed from me.

     I'm not going to talk to much about the stories, and the poems themselves, as people should probably read the book on their own, without spoilers, as it is such a unique and memorable experience.
     But I must stress that all the short stories in here are all incredibly polarizing, not suited for an immature audience, and that some people will find themselves targeted, or even confronted by their past, and that for some old sins might come back to haunt them, whether they be victims or sinners themselves.

     Either way, with any type of fiction you take and accept what you're given, really, but if there's one negative here, it's that I found that it never became believable that these were stories by 19 different people. Palahniuk's voice was always dominant, and as it's such a distinctive voice, it's never any less than clear that we're reading something written by a single writer. It's a minor niggle, but I felt I had to remark on it nonetheless.

The Vampire Genevieve series, Reading Order

I'm one of those people who wants to read things precisely in order and so the (somewhat) convoluted Vampire Genevieve series gave me a bit of a headache. For your benefit I set down the Chronological Reading Order, which follows the events exactly one after the other, below, and further down on the page, my actual recommended Reading order, together with my reasons for having this one be different than the Chronological.

The Chronological Order

1.  Drachenfels, the 30 page +/- prologue: the book-end of 'The Quest for Constant Drachenfels'
2.  Red Thirst (Silver Nails): Genevieve and Vukotich and the Great Escape
3.  No Gold in The Grey mountains (Silver Nails): Lady Melissa and the ruin of Drachenfels
4.  The Ignorant Armies (Silver Nails):  Johann and Vukotich in the North
5.  Drachenfels, the Main of the novel: Detlef Sierck and Genevieve and the play of Drachenfels
6.  Beasts in Velvet: Harald Kleindeinst and the case of The Beast
7.  Stage Blood (Genevieve undead): Detlef and Genevieve and the Phantom of the Opera
8.  The Warhawk (Silver Nails): Harald Kleindeinst and another killer
9.  The Cold Stark House (Genevieve Undead): Genevieve and the Endless Play
10.  Unicorn Ivory (Genevieve Undead): Genevieve and the Family Drama
11.  The Ibby the Fish factor (Silver Nails): Detlef and Genevieve and the end of the line

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However, the reading order for the entire series I'd recommend is a little different from this one:

Recommended Reading Order

     I'd start with The Ignorant Armies as that one stands alone quite well.
Next I'd go with Red Thirst as Vukotich will be the connecting thread that'll introduce you to Genevieve, and the story will also make reference to the ending to the Quest of Oswald and its successful completion, which will slowly hype up your interest in the Drachenfels storyline.
     The third to read will be No Gold in the Grey Mountains short story, which will subvert your expectations somewhat (though depending on the reader, this might be a bad thing, or a good thing), while introducing you to both the environs of Drachenfels and the character of Lady Melissa, who, though she isn't that important, she will be immediately present upon the start of Drachenfels proper and will have an emotional bond with Genevieve, which you, as a reader of the No Gold short story, will al have.
     Then, naturally the Drachenfels novel, followed by the Stage Blood novella.
     I'd advise not immediately continuing into the Cold Stark House short story as, though it follows Genevieve, is a bit of a confusing and almost soulless continuation of her story line. Following on from the superb Stage Blood, it can not be anything but a let-down. It's best to make the side-venture into Beasts in Velvet first, as it is a magnificent novel, though it isn't a Genevieve novel per se (but then that's actually a plus since reading Cold Stark House next would be a bad idea), then followed by the Warhawk short story. Both follow Harald Kleindienst and  Rosanna as they solve crimes.
     The Warhawk's ending is a little abrupt but this'll be a good opportunity to go ahead with the Genevieve storyline and to plunge on into the Cold Stark House story. When that misadventure has been dealt with, prepare for an uptick in quality, and a return to the feeling of Red Thirst, the lady Vampire teamed up with an unwilling ally, in Unicorn Ivory.
     Then, to round it all off, with a good ending and happy feelings, comes the Ibby The Fish Factor.

To reiterate, without a wall of text:

1.  Ignorant Armies (Silver Nails)
2.  Red Thirst (Silver Nails)
3.  No Gold In The Grey Mountains (Silver Nails)
4.  Drachenfels
5.  Stage Blood (Genevieve Undead)
6.  Beasts in Velvet
7.  The Warhawk (Silver Nails)
8.  The Cold Stark House (Genevieve undead)
9.  Unicorn Ivory (Genevieve Undead)
10.  The Ibby the Fish Factor (Silver Nails)

6 and 7 could possibly be left out if you want to just read about Genevieve but, really, you'd be missing out.

And that puts to rest my extended look at Newman's classic horror series.

A very good addition to the Warhammer Horror imprint.

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Small note:

These books were written in a time where the spirit of adventure was paramount, and the original writers liked to put in references to the works of the authors they shared their little sandbox with. As such there are references to Steve Baxter's The Star Boat, The Tilean Rat, The Wolf Riders and likely a bunch of others.

And there are also a bunch of references, flat-out or oblique, to larger works: David Ferring's Konrad trilogy, Brian Craig's Orfeo trilogy and William King's Gotrek and Felix series. It is of course not necessary to read any of these if you enjoy or enjoyed the Genevieve series.

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.

----

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.
.

Update.

Just a short and quick update, with some details about the novels and comics I won't get around to writing about.

With Winter's Dreams done and dusted with, I have now already finished 3 out of 5 of this year's reading goals. For some reason this is all going a lot faster than expected. A side product of having more free time on my hands obviously. My health is still going up and down, an infection in my eye requiring heavy medication and limited time in front of the telly and pc for the moment. It's currently stopping a steady reading and writing speed from manifesting itself. But I'll be right as rain at the end of the week I expect.

I hope to finish off the Grendel reading goal this month, which means reading Beowulf and the Fantasy Masterwork Grendel, and do a Fantasy masterwork post for the latter, which could take some time. I'm also dedicating some time to the Warhammer Horror imprint this month: as long as I have the time I better make good use of it.

Also, besides what was on my to do list for this year, and besides the novels and short story collections that have already merited their own posts on the blog, I've also finished 2 novellas of Warhammer's Old World in rather quick succession. The Life of Sigmar limited edition; an ancient book responsible for heavily inspiring McNeill's Life of Sigmar trilogy, and the Bloody-Handed novella by Gav Thorpe; a short story easily slotting into the Sundering trilogy. Both had their merit, with varying shades of readability.
I breezed through the absolute gothic horror classic the Turn of the Screw, which has become better and better the longer I have it in my rear-view mirror.
I also paced my way through two out of the three remaining Penguin Red Classics I still had left to read and though they ended up being 'just ok' I'm glad I did get round to them. They were collections of short stories by MR James and Ambrose Bierce, and it is the Gaskell collection which is still left.
The Old Man and the Sea and Slaughterhouse 5 were beautiful and stunning respectively, and as they're short and absolute classics, they can be recommended to just about everyone. I'm very glad I spurred-of-the-moment on these as they definitely gave me a unique experience each.

I've also plowed through a host of comics I had lying around.
Most notably, I've now read everything that's available in the Hellboy universe, excepting the trade paperback of Being Human. In my opinion the main BPRD series is very much a disappointing mess, with most of the merit to the Hellboy universe coming from the stories featuring the titular character, most of the spin-offs, which tend to be very focused and coherent, and several isolated stories such as The Long Death, in particular. But the central BPRD storylines just tend to fail again and again, due to rushing their storylines, having too many characters to juggle with, and just by having too many different things at play, frequently jarring the casual reader and requiring the reader who has read all of it to have an almost eidetic memory in order to enjoy the stories to their maximum potential. They also are very much too sprawling and unfocused. The Mignolaverse is very definitely overrated.
Hellblazer I'm practically through half of the entire 300 issue run, and still very much enjoying it, even though Constantine has shifted back and forth in characterization between absolute bastard and plaything of fate along the way. The artstyle has shifted to more contemporary art which is lovely, because as good as I found most of the earlier stories, the art almost always felt lacking.
Alan Moore's Light of Thy Countenance comic adaptation also deserves a mention, as I thought it was absolutely gorgeous and mesmerizing in concept and execution.

There's much more I got around to finishing off, but those are the big ones.

Up next: Some Warhammer Horror!

As a God Might Be

Reading goal 2 out of 5 done for 2019.

But what the hell do I actually say about it?
I've been struggling, for a while now, to write anything about this novel.
That's mostly because its themes, its questions and its story are laid out very clearly.
At the novel's close, anything you might be unclear about, any question you might have, has got one all-encompassing answer, of sorts. There is a statement that validates the novel, that cuts through the clutter, and bypasses any and all philosophizing and soul-searching by submitting a very straightforward mindset and a simple way of being. It is probably the most significant novel, in a personal sense, that I've read in years. I also happened to read the bulk of it during a time where I desperately needed it. Serendipity.

Mention should be made of the characters, as they are of note in the way that they are naked to such an extent, and with this I mean that they are utterly human with all their motivations laid out clearly in such a way that it has become almost impossible for them to be misunderstood or that they will fail to be identified with, in a way that I've only ever seen done better once. Here this is because the protagonist, the one in whose mind we dwell for the duration of this journey, sees them very clearly at pretty much every step of the road. He's an analyst. That is his skill, his way of looking at the world, and as such we get to have such an insight into the people around him that the best and worst parts of themselves, the best and worst of their humanity, is laid bare.
  It is the author in love with his creation, exploring it as much as he can and because of this these characters have become extremely realistic.
There is only the one book, self-contained, but I admit these characters really got to me, and they'll stay with me for quite a while. I found myself wishing, well before its end, that there would be more stories following them around. But of course, that is not what this is about.

Obviously the book is about religion, but it also about families; the ones we build for ourselves, and those that we become a part of. It is about our relationships; our problems and our love.
It is about dying, illness and autism. And though that last one occasionally bordered on veneration I'm unsure if I've ever seen autism addressed this respectfully, certainly not without every shying away from the difficulties that go with it, and to have it so clear, and so honest.

The whole thing is beautifully written and it has a story that is incredibly well executed.
I came here for the whole 'man might've had an encounter with God and does something extreme', hoping for some delicious snippets of interesting mythology I could explore, and though the novel does have that, I'm surprised to find that, when it was all done, I found I didn't really want to.

-----

If I explored this novel the way I usually do, try to make sense of its mythology by making it coherent and easily navigable, I would look at the scenes where there's an arguably 'higher' presence, indicative of said mythology, but there isn't enough of that to not easily explain it away by relying on unreliable narration or issues of psychology, so I'm not even going to bother.

I don't think that it is that, however: I think that the story indeed plays out the way it is told and that the higher force is exactly the way it is shown to be. Or at least, I was enamored enough with the novel that I just accepted what was being presented.

I have pages and pages of notes and quotes, but I can't really share them.
The novel speaks for itself. It is lovely and though it gets dark, it is nonetheless a beautiful experience.

An intimation of the Divine

That time that God passed by.
This passage can be found on page 331 from As A God Might Be, by Neil Griffiths.

Down below is my account of an experience I myself had, some years ago, and which I wrote down directly after it had happened.

"I just saw something which I can not explain. A typical UFO sighting, really:

2 vague balls of light in the sky, between yellow and orange in colour + drawings

First they were equidistant from each other, moving slowly from right (from the way I was looking at it) to left across the night sky. Then the first ball/ orb, began to wobble. Then this stabilized.
After this the hind ball/ orb did the same thing. then this one stabilized as well. All the while they were still moving slowly across the night sky. Then the balls began to move noticeably away from us, they got more distant from us, I was watching this with my father.
At this point the hind orb moved in such a way that the first orb was invisible for a moment,

 as if you're looking at the bumpers of a car that is riding beside you, which speeds up and which then changes lanes in front of you, and all you can see at that point is the back bumper+ drawings.

All of this took place over the course of 10 seconds at most. though the balls moved slowly across the night sky, they were extremely fast.

These were not searchlights or anything like that. The sky was clear, there were no clouds, the stars were very visible and as I said, at the end the hind orb eclipsed the first one.

They weren't satellites; as the orbs were too big and moved too erratically.

They weren't planes as there was no noise and they moved too erratically.

They didn't move in random patterns, and those patterns, in fact, seemed intelligent.

It is incredible. I can not explain it. An unidentified flying object.

All I'm sure of is that this is going to be a good memory together with my dad.

All of this took place somewhere between 10 to and 5 to mid night, on the 17th of August in the year of 2012.

Levi"

So, that's what I saw.
The thing is that, at the time, all of the above happened too fast to enable thorough speculation, or even observation. We just saw. We were just looking at something, taking it in, in less than half a minute. And then it was gone and we went back inside, making offhand comments to the rest of the family about what we had just seen.

Ask me now what it was and I can't give you an answer. I refrain from looking at it too deeply.
I'm not sure if this is a conscious decision or not.
It might just be because to me this thing wasn't that special, regardless of what it actually was. Humanity is keyed to make the miraculous mundane. We are small and so what is large, we minimize. For all our fascination with God, religion and mythology, all our grand stories and explorations, despite all our pleas and prayers to witness something beyond ourselves, above ourselves, were we to be faced with something truly miraculous we wouldn't be able to see it for what it was, what it meant. We would dismiss it, unable to put it into our perception of reality. Or maybe it would be the opposite: Oh, this thing exists, it is there... okay then.

 But it might also be that, faced with something we couldn't explain at the time, and in the full knowledge that there probably was a very boring explanation for what we saw, we didn't really want to know. We wanted to be fooled.

Because we saw this thing and we both got something out of it. This was special, and for seeing it, we were special too.
My dad, being deeply religious, probably saw the hand of God in the phenomenon; an affirmation of his choices and his beliefs. A pat on the back for all his effort.
And me too. I got something out of it too. Even though, yes, I still refrain from looking at it too much. Even if I refuse to analyze it, even if I refuse to accrue knowledge in a bid to explain it.
After all, here I am, at my own dinner-party, accessible to all and sundry, sharing my amusing anecdote to an audience willing to be entertained.