A Momentary Taste of Being

from "The Whisperer in Darkness" H. P. Lovecraft I hope--devoutly hope--that they were the waxen products of a master artist, despite what my inmost fears tell me. Great God! That whisperer in darkness with its morbid odour and vibrations!  Sorcerer, emissary, changeling, outsider. . . that hideous repressed buzzing. . .  and all the time in that fresh, shiny cylinder on the shelf. . . poor devil. . . "prodigious surgical, biological, chemical, and mechanical skill" . . .  For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance--or identity--were. . . H. P. Lovecraft is one of the greats.  This is one of the four or five major canonical stories--but each tale has its own compelling interest.  And if only for his influence on major writers of our own day, one should take time to peruse the occasionally florid, sometimes purple prose of HPL and get a glimpse of the cosmic horrors he made his metier.

Neeta Lyffe: Zombie Exterminator Sound like it could be a romp.

Guillermo del Toro to direct At the Mountains of Madness We'll see if funding materializes, but if he handles it with the aplomb of The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth with a liberal sprinkling of Hellboy , we're likely to be in for a real treat.  The first Lovecraftian treat on film (other than the Lovecraft-in-name-only Reanimator. ) Poor H.P. suffers nearly as badly as E.A. Poe and Stephen King in the transition to the silver screen.  Consider such gems as Die, Monster Die!, The Shuttered Room, The Dunwich Horror .  Dagon was all right, but not much related to the story.  And probably the best Lovecraftian film, In the Mouth of Madness has precious little to do with anything H. P. penned.

How long is the memory of the dead?  - Quotation from the book This book came to me recommended by an unimpeachable source--Julie at Happy Catholic.  Generally, if Julie likes it, so do I  (we're rarely mismatched that way), I think there are many things that I have truly liked that Julie has found somewhat less appealing--so my match to her recommendations is about 90%, the reverse match probably closer to 70%.  But we have high compatibility as reading partners. Problem is, I have a very high avoidance factor with zombie novels.  No matter how many I read, they still disturb me down to the very core of my being.  Conceptually, they are just about the most awful thing I can think of short of Jaws , and most likely for the same atavistic reason. But you didn't really stop by to listen to me natter on about my own sensibilities, did you?  You really want to know about this book, don't you? Think James Lee Burke filtered through Cormac McCarthy'...

A young woman confronts the mayhem she has caused. from The Reapers are the Angels Alden Bell The thing that happened back here, she says. I mean it ain't like you asked--but anyway. He doesn't take his eyes off the fire. I mean I guess I been around meatskins too long, she continues. Sometimes it happens where I'll lose it. Like a switch got flicked somewhere in my brain, you know? And then my hands'll start rippin and tearin and they don't care about the whys or wherefores. The fire pops and sizzles with the sap from the branches they found. And it's wrong, it's  a sin as big as the world we live in, bigger even--to lay your hands on a creation of God's and snuff it out. It don't matter how ugly a thing it is, it's a sin, and God will send a terrible vengeance down on you for it--I know, I seen it. But the truth is--the truth is I don't know where I got off on the wrong track. Moses, he says I ain't evil, but then if I ain...

The Reapers are the Angels --my own review later this week, I hope.

I have two more zombie books to read--one of which I'll report on shortly, and one that should follow quickly behind after I get an SF I've been dying to read out of the way.  But this is a way station report. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the literature of zombies (as opposed to the vast majority of mash-ups and gore-fests that celebrate the Zombie as an object of terror) is primarily a literature of anger.  Or so it seems on brief exposure.  In each of the two novels (admittedly a very small sample, but what I'm generating right now is a working hypothesis) that take the subject as more that a gore-fest, the primary message has been that zombies act according to nature.  Nature red in tooth and claw, but nature none-the-less.  In each case as well, the acts perpetrated by those who can choose to go against nature are by far and away worse than those that come from beings acting as beings. What do we infer or read from this?  One can app...

Do keep in mind that these are the musings of a rank amateur who has neither the breadth of reading nor the deep understanding of the field that might make for a more coherent set of speculations.  However, ignorance has never stopped me from flapping my gums and I don't see any particular reason to start now. One of the "givens" of zombie fiction is the so-called Zombie Apocalypse.  Given that I do have a resolutely scientific mind in these matters and I had cause to ponder this question over the weekend it occurred to me that the triggering mechanism for the plague had a great deal to do with the possibility of such an apocalypse. Let us consider the matter--if the trigger is based in the material and scientific world, it most likely consists of some strain of virus, prion, or other contagion.  This has practical consequences--either a virus, bacterium, fungal, or protozoan infection have means of redress and an incubation period.  The scenario resembles that p...

Frankenstein for your viewing pleasure

Three books about the Count

Hallowe'en Haunted Houses--some great reading for your Hallowe'en.

Books to bring back from the dead I didn't realize that Robert McCammon had withdrawn his first four books from publication.  That's a real shame, because a couple of them are really superb and all of them are good. I wonder whether the question is withdrawal or simply lack of republication, because when I look at his bibliography , I see all four listed, recognized and being published in Europe.  For me the least successful of the group was the premier effort Baal .  And even while a debut effort, I still liked it a great deal.  I loved Bethany's Sin even though it tracks Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home pretty closely.  Night Boat with its crew of Nazi Zombies reminded me at once of some of the more intense Italian Zombi films of seventies and eighties mixed with the classic Zombies of Mora Tau .  ( Mora Tau doesn't get great ratings at IMDB, but most reviewing it probably didn't see it on late night television when they were 12 or 13 years old. ) And ...

A mention of the collections and a review of a stunning story by Jonathan Carroll.

Making the Vampire Scary Again Every time I consider this whole vampire/zombie phenomenon, I think of Keats's line for "Ode to a Nightingale":  Half in love with easeful death . While I know people will think I take it far too seriously, such are the signs of societal ills--deep and serious sicknesses that know of no cure save the one that we push farther and farther away with every passing day--becoming present.

Stephen King on putting the bite back into vampires. Top 10 Vampire novels -- Agree with Number 1, 2, 5. Anno Dracula --really?  What about They Bite among a plethora of others more worthy.  But at least in these a Vampire is still a vampire--evil, relentlessly destructive, and despite all of that (or perhaps because of it) seductive.

Dracula reviewed While Bram Stoker could be blamed for the modern epidemic, Dracula remains a wonderful, powerful story of darkness and seductive evil.  And in Stoker's book there is no question of its intrinsic evil, something modern fetishists tend to negate or forget.  Because Dracula , as its central taboo violates one of the most important of the kosher laws (Lev. 14:17)--placed with the Chosen People to assure the continued humanity of humanity.

With M. R. James, amongst the finest ghost stories in the language--a review of E. F. Benson's collected short stories . Memorable, "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery," "The Room in the Tower," and "Mrs. Amworth."  While I don't agree with the blogger in Benson's wider range (M. R. James has quite a range from "Casting the Runes" to "Count Magnus" to "'Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad,"  and Lovecraft also had a large range from "Cool Air" to "Whisperer in the Darkness" to "Color Out of Space" not to mention the central position of the Mythos.  But that said, I cannot argue with the reviewer's admiration of the quality and range of Mr. Benson's wonderful collection.  Well worth one's time if one is into October Reading.  And what is particularly nice is that Benson does offer us, occasionally, the real and true, dyed-in-the-wool ghost story--a rarity...

Biblioklept warns us againt Justin Cronin's most recent run at it-- The Passage . If true, what a pity--I was so looking forward to reading this eventually. Sounds like Mr. Cronin has read not only Stephen King, but also Robert McCammon's magnificent Swan Song (derivative of and in many ways better than The Stand --certainly better than the unbridged mess that Stephen King couldn't resist offering to us.  Indeed, the unabridged version of The Stand stands (pardon the pun) as a definitive warning against those who constantly malign the editorial profession.  There comes a time in an author's life when his editors cease to edit--and what we get can be. . . unfortunate.)

I have to hand it to him, Joe Hill can certainly write.  He is a great weaver of stories--his first two books, 20th Century Ghosts and Heart-Shaped Box were remarkable debut pieces  In this, the sophomore novel, he is true to form. That is not to say the Horns is without fault, but rather that despite its faults, the book is a very enjoyable read.  And it is worth noting that the faults spring not from timidity of purpose or an inability to handle the material, but rather from a striding ambition to deal with the big issues that horror and dark fantasy are best at exploring. Let's start with the difficulties with the book then. They boil down to one essential point--the main point of any work of dark fiction--Joe Hill struggles and struggles hard with the nature of evil.  In some cases, this struggle results in some uneasy juxtapositions that can easily be misread.  For example in one particular setting of the book the placement of a menorah as the center...

I'm also an H.P. Lovecraft fan, and this postcard of Downtown Arkham comes from a site that epitomizes the extremes in fandom.  It's nice to see that kind of interest and passion in something that isn't of itself destructive.