#1075

oooh, I bought that on the Kindle Daily Deal recently. Just started Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, bought digitally at a similarly dirt cheap price. Not read any of his work before, but this is a promising start. Any book opening with Riemann zeta function and Kurt Gödel chat gets my vote, TBH

#1076

Haven’t read for months. Just got through Wakenhyrst this weekend, it was compelling enough but definitely felt on the guilty trash end of the spectrum and didnt really have me gripped or spooked at all.

Have picked the Night Brother again. Feel very meh about it so far.

#1077

So I’m halfway through the first Mazalan book, ‘Gardens of the Moon’, Where’s the place for chat on this? Here? Sci fi (and fantasy?) thread? Does it have /need its own thread?

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#1078

I eventually found ‘The Great God Pan’ in a collection of victorian horror. It’s an essential read though a slight notch below his very best. ‘The Hill Of Dreams’ which @mrmrongov mentioned is excellent too and, being semi autobiographical, a must read.

On Machen being ‘remarkably consistent’ I was referring only to the stories in the collection (pretty sure you’re reading the same one i read). Ive not read anything post ‘The Terror’ and apparently he did write some really terrible stuff after that. If you did want to delve further there’s a kindle version of an ultimate collection you can get for 99p. It’s 4000 odd pages so i imagine it would collate a lot of that later stuff. Not being a kindle owner myself I’ve not bothered though tbh.

#1079

Definitely been mentioned by @kenako I believe. Not sure where the chat has been if there’s been anything specific at all, though.

1 Like
#1080

£3.99 today

His Dark Materials
#1081

Fucksake! Cost me less than each book but still around 13 quid!

#1082

Getting back into reading after a bit of a hiatus.

Just finished Harvest by Jim Crace. Really loved it. A real sense of the land and our relationship with it at an inflection point in human development. Briefly made me hanker for a return to the feudal system, but then decided that the enlightenment was probably a good thing.

2 Likes
#1083

Finished reading: ‘Capital Is Dead’ by McKenzie Wark, quite enjoyed it, for a relatively short book there are plenty of ideas that Wark goes through the main one being that Capitalism as it’s traditionally is no longer the dominant paradigm we’re living under.

Instead she suggests it’s something largely defined by the ownership and control of immaterial goods/ways of transmitting information particularly information/intellectual property but also communications infrastructure and information platforms.

Not sure if I was entirely convinced but I think it was a useful way to think forms of material economic exploitation that operate above and beyond the traditional wage-labour paradigm.

Currently Reading: Lovecraft Country, only just started it but really enjoying it, it’s a sort of blend of pulpy horror, weird fiction and racial commentary (along similar lines to green book). Kind of horrific that this used to be an actual thing back in the 1950s

#1084

Aah, his first book is on my top 3 ever list

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#1085

Read the Southern Reach trilogy by what’s his face over the last couple of weeks and that short Herzog one about him walking to Paris to prevent someone from dying.

Anyway, what do people do with trilogy’s/sagas etc? Reading then in one block left me flashing in parts, second book particularly. Also reached Annihilation as well as I only half watched it the first time. Prefer the books but can understand how some bits wouldn’t translate in film.

At what point did weird fiction become new weird?

#1086

I’m a bit of a newbie when it comes fiction but I think the jumping off point was around the early part of the 21st century and the shift from classical\fantastical settings to more futuristic\sci-fi ones. Or at least I guess that’s how I’d see the difference between say VanderMeer and Lovecraft :thinking:

#1087

I’d probably guess say those writers (vandermeer, china mieville, etc) probably ‘invented’ new weird to distinguish themselves from bland fantasy and horror in order to make themselves seem more interesting and part of a movement (and also be more acceptable to the ‘literary’ critics and whoever else.)

I don’t think it’s to do with sci-fi though!

#1088

Yeah, I guess that actually makes a lot of sense. Unnecessary to ask really. Especially considering I’ve read enough Mieville to have got to that conclusion. I guess this trilogy could really be anytime I guess

Any tips on anything new weird outside of those two?

#1089

Read Jekyll & Hyde in two nights preparing for teaching it at the end of the month, then I started From Hell.

I feel* like I’m descending into a weird occult world behind Victorian London. I’m about half way through From Hell and I already feel like I’ve seen too many drawings of genitals. It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?

*original appropriate typo was “eel”

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#1090

idk whilst folks like Ashton Smith and Lovecraft sometimes touched on other worlds it seemed like it was just another way of working with more fantastical settings where as alien technologies/alien encounters/space seem to be more intrinsic to the narrative of folks like Mieville.

Then again I think that’s only part of it, and I guess Ligotti who apparently is also part of the ‘new weird’ doesn’t really do either :man_shrugging:

#1091

I don’t know that the genital count will increase massively, but it’s going to get VERY weird.

I think it’s amazing.

3 Likes
#1092

From what I’ve read I quite enjoyed:

‘Songs Of A Dead Dreamer’ by Thomas Ligotti
‘Three Moments After an Explosion’ by China Mieville

I would say ‘Meddling Kids’ by Edgar Cantero but its more of a mystery that just borrows heavily from Lovecraft.

#1093

Oh yeah, love Ligotti. Just had the C93 collaboration on in the office in part because I don’t like me colleagues and also the weird talk reminded me about it. But he can’t really be New Weird? Post weird/nu weird maybe?

Will have a look out for the Cantero book though.

#1094

hmm I’m not sure I agree, mieville’s bas-lag books are pretty much purely fantastical as far as I remember, I’m fairly sure some of vandermeer’s earlier stuff is (the ambergris books - I haven’t actually read them so this could be bollocks!)

@fustercluck the new weird collection edited by jeff and ann vandermeer might be worth reading (they also did a weird collection which includes like borges and octavia butler and possibly kafka - definitely attempting to broaden the scope from the pulp authors and those inspired by them)

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