I finished Wool by Hugh Howey last night. It was quite engaging - some of the twists were a bit predictable, but it was a fun ride. It's good if you're looking for a little escapism and to get your mind off things without having to think too hard. Had a lot of Fallout vibes.
after about 5 million years i finally finished 'news of a kidnapping' by marquez which was pretty cool and a kind of a crash course in early 90s colombian politics
The idea of a fiction "bundle" is intriguing but this seems to be only e-books, and, as we all know, I'm not gonna read a book unless I can kill a tree in the process.
I read "I Have a Special Plan for This World" by Thomas Ligotti today during my breaks at work. It was a good short story, and I liked it. It used some neat repetition techniques to build up tensions and create a feeling oppression on the part of the reader. Apparently there is also a spoken word poem of the same name also written by Ligotti with Current 93, which I think it rather interesting - I have yet to listen to it, but I don't think I know any other authors who've intentionally created two separate pieces with the same title. I read part of "The Nightmare Network," as well, but I think I'm going to reread it from the beginning - I was running out of time on my break and sort of rushed it - before forming a full opinion.
I'm about to start "My Work Is Not Yet Done" by Ligotti this evening, as well.
Just finished listening to the poem version of I Have A Special Plan For This World. Man, that was... something else. I feel a vague sense of discomfort.
Just finished listening to the poem version of I Have A Special Plan For This World. Man, that was... something else. I feel a vague sense of discomfort.
It really is. David Tibet's voice with Ligotti's words are amazing. It's probably the only song that has given me a sense of awe and dread, in the best way possible.
Current 93 and Ligotti did two other collaborations together, at least as far as I know. There's "This Degenerate Little Town", which is another poem with Current 93 providing the backing music, this time read by Thomas Ligotti himself. You can find the track itself on youtube. The other album, " In A Foreign Town, In A Foreign Land", is available at current 93's bandcamp page. It was originally released as a book and CD combo, where CD would provide ambiance for the stories while you were reading them. I don't know if you can find the stories online, JHM/Sredni Vashtar might know more about that, as he's the resident Ligotti expert, but if a physical copy of the book will cost you roughly 500$ and that's for a used edition.
Ligotti also did something on or inspired Patripassian from All The Pretty Little Horses, the liner notes mention that he lent the song "the phrase and the title" which is a little vague
"In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land" was reprinted in the fairly easy-to-find Teatro Grottesco, although finding it standalone is harder. The CD portion has been reissued at least once, however. The physical text of "This Degenerate Little Town" is much rarer, although I *think* it's in the first Durtro edition of Teatro Grottesco—I can check; I have it—but that's in itself pretty rare.
As for "Patripassian", he reads the poem from "Les Fleurs" over the phone at the very end. The title is a reference to a particular Gnostic heresy which asserts that the Trinity is an illusion in the eye of the believer and that God in Himself suffered on the cross and, in the mind of the believer, suffers still for mankind. It's a very Ligottian take on the dogma.
Also: Ligotti is himself a musician, although he has done relatively little work. His lap steel guitar appears on the Current 93 track "A Dream of the Inmost Light" on the benefit compilation Foxtrot.
Strongly tempted to buy Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America. I just might for myself as a sort of, I don't know, mini-congratulations on making it through the year.
i have just finished taras bulba by gogol which is highly recommended if you like tales of cossacks getting drunk, cossacks impaling children and burning women alive, anti semitism, and homoerotic undertones
i didnt post it in this thread but because it was inevitable due to my relationship status ive been reading lots of Ligotti lately and Notes on the Writing of Horror is such a good short story that i was in a state of absolute hysterics by the time it was over, good stuff
it wasnt anywhere near as thematically interesting as Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, characters werent as interesting either, some of the exposition fell right into "as you know, fellow future person" territory
continuing my trend of mostly reading fiction while away from computers i read Howl's Moving Castle today. i got it cos i liked the movie but it's a great book in its own right, and the differences from the film are kinda interesting
Spoiler:
probably most obviously, Sophie has a latent witch talent of being able to convince inanimate objects to do things. by the end of the book she can animate a staff to fight for her. most of the wizardlike characters remark on her being magicky before it's obvious so that's neat foreshadow whatever thing too. iirc there was no hint of this in the movie
in the movie one of howl's big secrets is that he's a big bird thing. i don't remember the details, maybe it was a curse. in the book the secret is he's from Wales. just regular modern Wales. he has a degree in mythology and his family thinks he's a layabout. it's where the black door in the castle goes, instead of the Ypres sky.
from the movie i always assumed the "wastes" in "witch of the wastes" was the hilly area above the treeline that the castle wanders around in. in the book it's more clearly a big desert adjacent to the flowery area, and the witch has a giant sandcastle that seemed pretty cool. i liked the description of having torch flames that you couldn't center in your vision.
in the movie i don't know what the witch of the wastes' deal was, but in the book she's pretty nuts and is trying to make a perfect human out of various important people's body parts, so that she can make it king and marry it and be queen. good shit
I read "The Lives of Christopher Chant" or at least part of it, as a kid, but it kind of freaked me out too much to continue. which is odd in retrospect since i read plenty of weird shit
I read "The Lives of Christopher Chant" or at least part of it, as a kid, but it kind of freaked me out too much to continue. which is odd in retrospect since i read plenty of weird shit
The nice guy was part of a smuggling operation and the titular character's uncle was the villain
k watched the movie again and yeah the plot's totally different. i like how suliman goes from "missing royal wizard" to "royal sorceress who is very active and kind of terrifying". kind of a neat example of an adaptation and an adaptee that i both like, i guess
So I wasn't really feeling all the noir tropes I don't really understand due to lack of history with the genre, but that went to a pretty cool place. i should probably read a mystery novel sometime that doesn't end in a massive conspiracy, but i guess if you don't than it's, what, a Christie short or a CSI episode?
yeah, i dunno how i got this way. nowadays i mostly read nonfiction that is impossible to read quickly so i don't notice as much. but the yids, they got very nice prose, they got looking like something that fell out of a vacuum cleaner bag,
incidentally, of the alt history aspect of the novel - which didn't make it feel like sci-fi, that was nice - my favorite part was the offhand and irrelevant mention near the end of the prime minister of manchuria shaking the hands of some manchurian astronauts
i was doing a lot of mental comparison with the city and the city, especially early on. lots of similarities... kind of homage to old detective stuff, being set in an economic disaster area, protagonist dies halfway through, pursuing cases the department put an axe on for unconspiratorial reasons, fuckin conspiracy... but i think yids was more on the crime novel end of things than city. i don't know if i could articulate why, and it might just be me forgetting things about city. but mieville was just more wrapped up in metaphysics and weird stuff, it feels like, i guess.
Comments
it was cool seeing it and also Teatro Grotesco at the book store, which previously had no Ligotti (i had checked multiple times)
WHY MUST I BE POOR? OAO
Current 93 and Ligotti did two other collaborations together, at least as far as I know. There's "This Degenerate Little Town", which is another poem with Current 93 providing the backing music, this time read by Thomas Ligotti himself. You can find the track itself on youtube. The other album, " In A Foreign Town, In A Foreign Land", is available at current 93's bandcamp page. It was originally released as a book and CD combo, where CD would provide ambiance for the stories while you were reading them. I don't know if you can find the stories online, JHM/Sredni Vashtar might know more about that, as he's the resident Ligotti expert, but if a physical copy of the book will cost you roughly 500$ and that's for a used edition.
As for "Patripassian", he reads the poem from "Les Fleurs" over the phone at the very end. The title is a reference to a particular Gnostic heresy which asserts that the Trinity is an illusion in the eye of the believer and that God in Himself suffered on the cross and, in the mind of the believer, suffers still for mankind. It's a very Ligottian take on the dogma.
I really enjoyed it, the art was superb, and it was very well constructed in general
but the basic plot skeleton was very...
the term I used when talking with Julian last night was "oscar-bait", even though that is movie-specific I feel it kinda hits the nail on the head
so yeah, dwj seems like a pretty good author
also the prince is togusa
yiddish policeman's union next