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Just finished up Bonding by Maggie Siebert, which you can find here courtesy of Siebert herself: https://twitter.com/maggiecsiebert/status/1412948010594672643 Contentwise, the stories have a running theme of traumatic body horror, but tonally they run the gamut between conceptual satire, cosmic horror, and splatterpunk. The stories are short and punchy too. Highly recommended.
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Jul 23, 2021 21:11
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You had me at cosmic horror and splatterpunk
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Jul 23, 2021 21:37
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Fallom posted:Question about the ending of Carrier Wave: the ending is an "all bets are off" thing either way, since it's outside the usual cycle intended by the Four. the Judge was supposed to flip sides and extinguish the human race for good because the other three got into its territory and went "base," but the surviving humans went "gently caress you actually" and severed all of the Four's connections at once with the nuke. at best they've been banished for good, at worst they're drifting out in space again with a population that knows about their cycle and how to educate against it
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Jul 23, 2021 22:58
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pospysyl posted:Just finished up Bonding by Maggie Siebert, which you can find here courtesy of Siebert herself: This is pretty good
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Jul 24, 2021 01:08
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SniperWoreConverse posted:This is pretty good Yeah I'm halfway through and the stories have all been average to great, no real stinkers so far.
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Jul 24, 2021 03:06
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We need to elect a new prime minister.
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Jul 24, 2021 03:23
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Oxxidation posted:the ending is an "all bets are off" thing either way, since it's outside the usual cycle intended by the Four. the Judge was supposed to flip sides and extinguish the human race for good because the other three got into its territory and went "base," but the surviving humans went "gently caress you actually" and severed all of the Four's connections at once with the nuke. at best they've been banished for good, at worst they're drifting out in space again with a population that knows about their cycle and how to educate against it I read the Four as concepts and not truly 'killable', and humanity as eventually hosed, unless the immunity that the survivors had was genetic. Even with proper education, imagine anyone with enough motivation had a nuke that could eliminate humanity just by searching out some old hard drives. Once the cycle kicks off that's pretty much it for humanity. The best possible situation humanity can hope for is that the immunity is genetic and then the survivors can track down anyone who survived through methods like the costco colony and kill them all.
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Jul 24, 2021 03:30
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Good Citizen posted:I read the Four as concepts and not truly 'killable', and humanity as eventually hosed, unless the immunity that the survivors had was genetic. Even with proper education, imagine anyone with enough motivation had a nuke that could eliminate humanity just by searching out some old hard drives. Once the cycle kicks off that's pretty much it for humanity. The best possible situation humanity can hope for is that the immunity is genetic and then the survivors can track down anyone who survived through methods like the costco colony and kill them all. That was an alternative I thought about but I think the immunity must be genetic, because the rage maniacs were said to be base humans without any gifts whatsoever. Since no more gifts are coming and we know humankind made it their offspring must be chill. On a related note, are there any other books that have the same kind of format of short, related vignettes? The only other example I can think of is World War Z.
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Jul 24, 2021 23:07
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I don't think Carrier Wave holds up to close scrutiny, but I'm usually ok with that in stories as long as the finer details aren't really crucial for the story.
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Jul 25, 2021 00:31
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Oh yeah I just think it’s fun to think about. The logic of the world isn’t really the part worth criticizing since the pace is fast enough you don’t really dwell on it. I finally remembered the book that seemed fairly similar in concept and execution: The Testimony by James Smythe quote:A global thriller presenting an apocalyptic vision of a world on the brink of despair and destruction. What would you do if the world was brought to a standstill? If you heard deafening static followed by the words, ‘My children. Do not be afraid’? Would you turn to God? Subscribe to the conspiracy theories? Or put your faith in science and a rational explanation? The lives of all twenty-six people in this account are affected by the message. Most because they heard it. Some because they didn’t. The Testimony – a gripping story of the world brought to its knees and of its people, confused and afraid.
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Jul 25, 2021 15:50
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pospysyl posted:Just finished up Bonding by Maggie Siebert, which you can find here courtesy of Siebert herself: Read this and it’s a nice quick read for being free. Most of the narrators felt unreliable since it seems almost all of them are in the process of going insane in some way. My biggest complaint is that a few of the stories cut off right when they seemed like they were going to get really interesting. It’s a really quick read so pick it up if you want an odd collection of relatively shorter than usual short stories for free
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Jul 27, 2021 01:16
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Yeah I'd say the stories range from 2/5 to 4.5/5 stars. There's some really good hits and a couple misses. But for being a free quick read I really enjoyed it. I think Every Day For The Rest of Your Life was my favorite story, even though it was very uncomfortable.
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Jul 27, 2021 01:39
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A friend suggested Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. I think I’ll give it a shot?
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Aug 7, 2021 08:26
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MLSM posted:A friend suggested Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. I think I’ll give it a shot? It’s not bad (about 20 years ago for me), but I preferred his other works like Summer of Night (it is IT without the adult stuff and I might like it more than IT), Drood, and of course The Terror. Also is sci-fi stuff is great, but I wouldn’t read anything he has written since Drood. As I said before 9/11 + Obama in 08 getting elected broke his mind.
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Aug 7, 2021 15:59
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Any good vampire stuff I can get for free? Weird old pre-Dracula stuff would be better, but that might be a bit of an ask, at that point I'm kinda looking for actual folklore and dunno if there's good free collections
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Aug 8, 2021 06:50
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SniperWoreConverse posted:Any good vampire stuff I can get for free? for free? https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29412/29412-h/29412-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/62873/62873-h/62873-h.htm you might be able to find The Vampire in Europe and The Vampire: His Kith and Kin by noted pedophile Montague Summers somewhere on the internet but i think they might still be under copyright
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Aug 8, 2021 18:44
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Last month's BotM Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce has some nice turn of the (previous) century horror to it. Very cozy, folksy feel to it, very Americana. Apparently he was an influence on Lovecraft?
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Aug 9, 2021 04:18
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So I’m listening to North American Lake Monsters again. I listened to it before but never finished the very last story, now I’m stuck on Crevasse because of dog death. It keeps striking me how the most horrific part of each story isn’t the blatantly ‘horror’ bits, but the mundane emotions and reactions to them. These stories are so good, they make my stomach hurt.
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Aug 12, 2021 03:41
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I started Carrier Wave last night. Did the first 20% really need to be a false start? Like everything before War Machine could be cut (or at least so it seems right now).
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Aug 12, 2021 04:41
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DreamingofRoses posted:So I’m listening to North American Lake Monsters again. I listened to it before but never finished the very last story, now I’m stuck on Crevasse because of dog death. It keeps striking me how the most horrific part of each story isn’t the blatantly ‘horror’ bits, but the mundane emotions and reactions to them. Ahhhhhh the last story is the best one of the bunch!! Oh my gosh, you need to finish it! --- I just finished Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana and it was... fantastic. Emotionally and viscerally gut-punching the whole way through, but holy hell what a great read it was.
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Aug 12, 2021 06:08
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DreamingofRoses posted:So I’m listening to North American Lake Monsters again. I listened to it before but never finished the very last story, now I’m stuck on Crevasse because of dog death. It keeps striking me how the most horrific part of each story isn’t the blatantly ‘horror’ bits, but the mundane emotions and reactions to them. I keep meaning to buy a physical copy because I liked it so much.
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Aug 12, 2021 12:57
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Bonaventure posted:for free? I started mining these for info and have so far been able to disregard the pedo writer so so far so good, thanks I like how that old times poo poo is basically batshit insane. Modern vampire ideas are too coherent and imo part of what makes them scary is not that they're just illogical -- rub garlic problem solved -- but that they follow this weird alternate non-logic like ok if you are travelling at night and stop to rest and arrange your items in a specific way the vampire cannot come out but it will try to come out and talk to you and you can compel it to do different things via wordplay.
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Aug 13, 2021 10:44
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The Hollow Ones by T. Kingfisher was $1.99 so I picked that up. So far it's...ok. The main character is obviously a self-insert who keeps making observations about the internet fanfiction community. I also picked up The Final Girl Support Group and haven't started if, but I have high hopes based on Grady Hendrix' previous output.
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Aug 13, 2021 12:59
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SniperWoreConverse posted:I started mining these for info and have so far been able to disregard the pedo writer so so far so good, thanks in spite of his membership in some society that promoted certain ideals of 'greek' love, his books are good & insane and should stay on the radar writing in the 1910s-40s; he believed vampires are real, and lobbied the british government to reinstate the death penalty for witchcraft. his books contain entire pages of untranslated Ancient Greek, German and Latin, because he expects the reader to know them described by contemporary critics as "as learned as he is stupid," every piece of quoted research in his books is solid--an absolute treasure trove of folklore that can provide a multitude of jumping-off points for further research--while every bit of his own prose is florid grand guignol horror fiction mixed with ultraconservative religious psychosis and the exact kind of rambling, spurious comparative folklore connections that he criticized in Margaret Murray's "witch cult" book. he also pretended to be a catholic priest. very entertaining
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Aug 13, 2021 15:25
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Oil change took a long time, and I ended up reading a good chunk of Stephen King's Carrie on my tablet today. It's written in an interesting way imo, like a chronicle of a investigative journalist piecing things together after the fact. I haven't gotten to the Prom yet, but I presume it plays out similarly to the movie.
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Aug 17, 2021 08:06
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Ornamented Death posted:I started Carrier Wave last night. The more I think about it the dumber that book gets. It's like The Walking Dead.
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Aug 17, 2021 19:21
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I ended up enjoying Carrier Wave when all was said and done, but my god did it drag. It could have been significantly shorter, I'd agree that most of the stories before War Machine could have been cut with no real impact, maybe just one story that establishes the conceit. A lot of the stories felt like the treaded the same ground, and the mood was pretty inconsistent in a way that I think hurt the book overall. Like a lot of ambitious horror from (I assume) new writers, I think it had some really cool ideas that weren't executed well. Though I guess that's hardly a problem unique to new horror writers, either.
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Aug 17, 2021 19:33
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I'm a bit under 50% and stalling. I can kind of see where things are going and I dig it, but based on what I've read of the book and comments from folks that have finished it, I know it's going to be long, meandering journey.
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Aug 17, 2021 20:23
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Ornamented Death posted:I'm a bit under 50% and stalling. I can kind of see where things are going and I dig it, but based on what I've read of the book and comments from folks that have finished it, I know it's going to be long, meandering journey. I definitely had to kind of muscle through after the 50% point. It has some high point moments but I wouldn't blame anybody for dropping the book. It just takes way too long to get from point to point, and too much is repeated or rehashed for no real reason. I doubt I'll ever re-read it and I can't see myself recommending it to anybody, but I still ended up feeling like the interesting bits were enough to propel me though it. After I finished I ended up just telling my wife the cliff notes version of the story and she said "wow, that sounds like a really interesting apocalyptic horror kind of thing" and my response was basically "you'd think so, yeah"
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Aug 17, 2021 20:40
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Whereas I thought each retelling from different perspective filled in some additional information and set up the concluding chapter well. But apparently I have a lot of tolerance for bullshit
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Aug 17, 2021 20:43
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As a fan of themed anthologies I really liked multiple perspectives on a universal disaster. My only complaints with the story were based around the writer’s attempt to wrap up all of the loose ends and the abandonment of interesting storylines/characters
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Aug 17, 2021 20:57
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I'm like a year late to the party but The Only Good Indians was really good. The first section was the strongest (which seems to be the norm for horror for me, evil forces tend to become less scary as they become more familiar), but it stayed strong overall to the end.
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Aug 18, 2021 20:11
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nate fisher posted:It’s not bad (about 20 years ago for me), but I preferred his other works like Summer of Night (it is IT without the adult stuff and I might like it more than IT), Drood, and of course The Terror. Also is sci-fi stuff is great, but I wouldn’t read anything he has written since Drood. As I said before 9/11 + Obama in 08 getting elected broke his mind. Can you elaborate on this? I’ll still give Carrion Comfort a shot, though.
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Aug 19, 2021 06:32
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He wrote a book, Flashback, during the Obama years about a dystopian future where liberalism has destroyed America. It has everything from Muslims killing millions of Jews, conservative radio being banned, global warming is a myth, the military has been dismantled by liberals, Texas has succeeded with its true ‘America values’, and so on. Of course all this was caused by the 2008 election of Obama and all the socialist programs he puts in place. Plus let’s don’t forget Obama ‘s love of Muslims and his hatred of Israel that causes the 2nd Holocaust. As a longtime Dan Simmons fan I tried to read it with an open mind despite the warnings, but I couldn’t finish it. It is anti-Muslim propaganda and a knee jerk reaction to 9/11 and his fear of a black president.
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Aug 19, 2021 13:16
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I've been reading World War Z, a book I bought years ago when it was getting hyped up and then never actually read. It's fun enough, but it's incredibly comical how much Israel is portrayed as the heroes and China and Russia are basically mustache twirler level evil. At least the stand in for Bush America is pretty accurate
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Aug 20, 2021 18:44
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The China stuff gets ever so slightly less ugh much later, but yeah pretty much. And he definitely is going after the PRC in specific and not Chinese people. Now the Japanese stuff…. loving yikes.
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Aug 20, 2021 19:49
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Picked up Negative Space by B.R Yaeger and it's hitting a button I've never had hit in a occult horror. I've never seen the surburban opoid and self harm crisis that happened in the 2000s reflected back. It's... really hard to read but incredible horror.
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Aug 21, 2021 14:28
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World War Z just had a part where they talk about how cool and good Cuba is now that they have capitalism and Fidel Castro is gone and lol
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Aug 23, 2021 04:08
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Don't forget how thankful Cuba is to the American refugees that came and taught them The True Meaning of Democracy. That book is some pretty cute ideas floating in a very cringe sea.
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Aug 23, 2021 04:11
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Xiahou Dun posted:Don't forget how thankful Cuba is to the American refugees that came and taught them The True Meaning of Democracy. Yeah, it's interesting when its about dudes getting infected because of infected organ transplants or how there are zombies just wandering the sea floor. Just really neat details in world building that don't pop up in a lot of zombie fiction. Then it gets really bad whenever they start talking about anything deeper than that. The guy that supported apartheid but was secretly a good person is probably the worst of it.
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Aug 23, 2021 04:15
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