What are
/r/WeirdLit's
favorite Products & Services?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
The most popular Products mentioned in /r/WeirdLit:
The most popular Services mentioned in /r/WeirdLit:
LibriVox
Project Gutenberg
Goodreads
Ecwid
Google Play Books
Standard Ebooks
Open Culture
AbeBooks
Tapas
Worldcat
Alibris
Lifehacker
JustWatch
The most popular reviews in /r/WeirdLit:
It depends on what type of weird you are looking for.
The John Dies at the End books are a Lofecraftian comedy. They're fun.
I'm not sure if I'd call it weird lit, but ex-Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder's Frank Burley books have weird surrealist comedy to them that I love. Swartzwelder is extremely secretive and most likely agoraphobic, so the books have no press, as well as no cover art or summary, but you can read the first couple pages on amazon to see if it is something that might interest you.
Really recommend Dark Descent: The Evolution of Horror by David G. Hartwell
I have the Penguin Classics edition. I haven't noticed any censorship but it contains the stories you mentioned.
A lot is available from Project Gutenberg. I would suggest:
- The Great God Pan
- The White People
- The Three Impostors
I liked The White People best but I think The Great God Pan is a bit more approachable. They are both fairly short; The Three Imposters is longer.
If anyone would be interested a redditor - /u/ionbooks, has paired the public domain text with a LibriVox audio recording made by the excellent Peter Yearsley and put it on YouTube. The Yearsley reading is of the main King in Yellow mythos stories, and not the unrelated pieces in the second half of the book. The text in the YouTube video scrolls along with the reading.
>This is a collection of the first half of this work of short stories which have an eerie, other-worldly feel to it; but the stories in the second half are essentially love stories, strongly coloured by the author's life as an artist in France. Only the first half of the collection of stories is presented here: the earlier stories are all coloured by the background presence of a play, "The King In Yellow" itself, which corrupts those who read it, and opens them to horrible experiences and to visions of a ghastly other world, lit by dark stars and distorted skies. This half of the collection is completed by a few very short pieces and two rather strange and beautiful stories of love and time, loneliness and death. (summary by Peter Yearsley)
You may want to give the free readings on LibriVox a shot. Some of the volunteer readers there are better than others, but some of the recordings available there for free download are every bit as good as paid content.
Readings of Arthur Machen - https://librivox.org/author/2155
I hope you find ones you like, wherever you get them!
The first book in my Weird Western series is live on Kindle Vella, check it out here!
Willard Beckett has died and come back at least a dozen times in his service as a US Marshall. But when his former-and previously deceased-partners resurface and start causing trouble in a mining town, Beckett is dragged back into the life he left behind. In order to stop them, he'll have to dig up his past and confront demons of his own.
I'm glad that someone else shares both my love for Dunsany and my frustration with trying to collect his works. It's gotten so bad that I've considered learning how to bind books so that I can make my own omnibus.
Anyway, I think the edition you want is the stupidly named Time and the Gods by Fantasy Masterworks. (It's stupid because there's already a short story and a different collection called Time and the Gods, so you have to look for the Fantasy Masterworks logo to make sure you have the right one. The right one has a picture of a lady in blue (Circe?) on the cover.)
TatG collects a bunch of his fantasy works, including A Dreamers Tale. It does have some overlap with the Penguin book, but it should still have plenty that you haven't read.
Here's the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Gods-Millennium-Fantasy-Masterworks/dp/1857989899
If anyone likes audio books, HorrorBabble has done a full unabridged reading of The House on the Borderland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcG1F39GBA8
Also you can read it for free since it's common domain:
That was great, thanks so much for making that! The beginning was a little hard to follow, but I think that had more to do with the text than with your reading.
If you still have a audio file, you should absolutely contribute this to Librivox. They'll be thrilled to have such a high quality reading, and they'll help preserve it in the public domain for everyone in the future to enjoy.
not explicitly lovecraftian check out artifacts from hell, but most "lovecraft stuff" is overdone and cringy as hell. HuRr DuRr It HaS TeNtAcLeS.
For Weird rather than just Horror, I strongly recommend the works of the late Clarice Lispector. Her style itself is weird horror. This Amazon page lets you "look inside" this collection:
Keeping in mind that he's public domain so there's no point in paying for it unless you want to, this collection seems to have the majority of the stuff that would interest a weird lit reader: The Great God Pan, The Three Impostors, The House of Souls, and The Hill of Dreams.
Note that I just searched Amazon and found that that collection has the stuff a novice Machenite would want to read; I don't have it so can't comment on the quality of the typography or whether or not it's riddled with typos.
I am also partial to The Green Round, although I don't think it's as popular among weird lit readers as his other works. Personally I prefer it to The Great God Pan but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority there.
Here's the Gutenberg page if you want to go the free route.
Calling out to The Weird.
Give my novel Fable Unbound a shot. A click, a share, a shout-out, anything at all. The characters within the pages would love you forever.
So. Fable Unbound is a novel heavily inspired by Vertigo comics, British authors, and Charlie Kaufman films. It's surreal, absurd, speculative, an urban contemporary fantasy about the writing process and what happens when men in the moon crave to rip your unwritten manuscript out of your mind. And also it's something of a love story between a failed writer and his creatively-starved muse, and the dangers of when inspiration ceases to flow and the creative process sharpens its teeth.
Again, check it out. Let me know. Peace!
https://www.amazon.com/FABLE-UNBOUND-Anthony-Kocur/dp/0578541386
Catastrophe and Other Stories by Dino Buzzati
​
It was originally published in 1966, but a new English translation (or maybe a re-release of an out-of-print English translation?) just came out last year.
​
(The Goodreads listing isn't great so here's the Amazon one).
Regarding mimicry, Hunter S Thompson typed out The Great Gatsy a few times, some Hemmingway, and some Faulkner stories, just to get a real feel for the prose.
I'm very glad to be reading The Etched City as it's been on my to-read list for years - it's not disappointing so far! I have the collection (That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote) on my wish list, so I hope to get to that soon.
Well, the book does exist. There are five libraries in the world with cataloged copies. Are there any copies currently for sale? No there do not appear to be. You might want to "create a want" on abebooks.com -- it's a feature they have that will notify you if a copy becomes available for sale.
You could try contacting the holding libraries to see if they have digitization services. It's not going to be cheap to digitize the whole book (usually a minimum of a dollar a page), but it's early enough that you won't run into copyright restrictions.
If you don't mind my asking, what on earth is this book about? It certainly has a great title.
A lot of my reading is focused on science fiction right now, but I am in the middle of an audiobook of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (provided for free by the good people at LibriVox. For those of you who don't know, it's a ghost story with an unreliable narrator, so that the reader doesn't know whether or not the governess protagonist is imagining the spirits that threaten the children in her care.
I tried to read it once before, in high school, and had to give up because the language was too difficult for me. I'm managing to get through it this time (the audio format helps), but good lord is it difficult. James crams so many ideas and clauses into a sentence that they become almost incomprehensible. By contrast, a great deal of his dialogue is comprised of characters simply repeating each other. I'm nearing the end of the story, and I really wish I liked it more. There are some really beautiful sections of prose, and the idea is certainly interesting. But the language is convoluted, and honestly I don't think the story ends up being as clever at it tries to be. Maybe it was more revolutionary in its time, or maybe I've just been spoiled by Hollywood plot twists.
Anyway, I'm hoping to read a collection of Laird Barron stories next. Hopefully that'll be more my speed.
Also, what's the deal with the lovely flair that's started popping up on this sub? Any chance I could get in on some of that?
My favorite is a book called "Horror and the Holy" by Kurt Schneider, which deals with the horror tropes of infinite expansion and infinite contraction. It's from a Jungian/existentialist point of view.
The review I was referring to is the highest-rated international review for the book entitled ' Excellent stories but book is censored.' on the Amazon listing. Unfortunately they didn't give many details beyond that they feel it's been censored.
CTHULHU ARMAGEDDON is on sale for $0.99! After the end of the world, humanity still survives in tiny towns as the world becomes more and more impossible. Monsters roam the Earth and magic is available to those willing to harness it. John Henry Booth is a New Arkham Ranger who doesn't care about any of that, though. All he wants is revenge on the wizard who killed his squad.
A post apocalypse Weird Western adventure!
https://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Armageddon-C-T-Phipps-ebook/dp/B01KUOM7SI/
It Waits on the Top Floor by Ben Farthing
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08ZS7T7QP/
That fits your criteria of monsters beyond our understanding using something as a hunting ground/playground for humans.
Full disclosure - that’s my book. My other books are all cosmic horror as well, but that one really dead on fits what you’re asking for.
Other cosmic horror books I’d recommend:
14 by Peter Clines
The Croning by Laird Barron
Black Mad Wheel by Josh Malerman (this one fits your criteria well, too)
Bone White by Ronald Malfi (not cosmic, but otherwise fits your criteria)
The Handyman by Bentley Little (kinda fits your criteria).
I recently published my first short story on Amazon, going for only $1 or free if you have Kindle Unlimited: Almost Herman
It's in the new weird + science fiction category. The blurb is:
>Is he human? Is he even alive? Tortured and rejected, what’s left of him is bound to an absurd vessel, a child’s toy. Will he find a way back to how he was and his previous life? He’s not sure what that life was, or if there’s enough left of him to care. For the moment, he has only one drive: obtaining a normal body.
Night Shade Books put out a beautiful hardcover 5 volume set of Hodgson's fiction - It looks like they eventually did a paperback version too!
There is one that I've preordered on Amazon and that is due to appear on the 19th january next year.
Inspired by the book there is a short animated movie on youtube: Le syndrome du scaphandrier
Google and Amazon have showed me a couple but they are expensive. One is an out of print paperback starting at $150 USD:
https://www.amazon.com/fantastic-art-Clark-Ashton-Smith/dp/0883580136
The other is a hardback book that they are taking pre-orders on for $160 USD, marked down from $250 USD:
https://www.amazon.com/Eldritch-Dark-Collected-Artwork-Ashton/dp/1613470584
This second one seems more likely to be a nice edition. Maybe there are other titles out there as well.
Good luck!
I recently released my collection of short weird fiction, The Stone Man and Other Weird Tales, for $1.99 (free for KU users) on Amazon.
It releases on the same day in the US, September 15th.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/piranesi-9781635575644/
https://www.amazon.com/Piranesi-Susanna-Clarke/dp/163557563X/
$23.49 Hardback, $10.99 Kindle.
Not sure, but there are several modern weird lit writers who could probably give you first-hand information.
Scott Nicolay has been editing/translating some truly great translations of Belgian weird horror writer Jean Ray. I believe that he sometimes posts in this sub.
Also Brian Stableford has long been translating both weird and decadent French fiction, and this book seems to the point.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WVYLB8H/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
dont know why they didn't just link you this. it's all her work compiled, it was released last year i believe. good stuff!
I'm featured in an upcoming anthology, "The Best of Bizarro Fiction: Volume 1", with my story The New Faces of Mt Rushmore. Bunch oddball stories in this one and it releases Dec-9.
Well, of course you got This Is How You Lose the Time War, which is something weird and epistolary. Sure seems like it meets your exact request there, yep.
Oh yeah and Louis L'Amour had kind of a weird book called the "The Haunted Mesa" https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Mesa-Novel-Louis-LAmour/dp/0553270222 that was not weird per se but had some things we could recognize as weird adjacent. I read it 30+ years ago so I am not sure how well it holds up.
Well, I like Fungi, which is a collection of a whole host a fungus related weird stories. Some of these stories were the first time I had heard of a particular author and then I went ahead and read other collections or novels by them. So, ya know, just like a fungus intends.
I'd recommend this one, it's the only book that really stands out from the rest I've read. But it's fantastic just be prepared to cry. This really helped me at a low point in my life, I hope it helps you too. https://www.amazon.com/Unending-Chaos-Melody-Swanson-ebook/dp/B08Z8G3N2Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=7BKB8IO4T6WH&keywords=unending+chaos&qid=1666321581&sprefix=unending+chas%2Caps%2C204&sr=8-1
I really enjoy Jeffrey Thomas. His Punktown setting is future sci-fi with Mythos elements, but many stories fall into Weird Fiction. He has quite a few three story chapbooks available on Amazon. Unholy Dimensions was a good intro collection for me.
[William Meikle] (www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B002BMOP0G) writes a variety of weird fiction. Mythos tales, new Carnacki stories, some Professor Challenger, Ghost stories and much more. He has a large chapbook collection on Amazon as well. I've read a few, and have more in my library to read. He has four releases free currently, so you can sample his work with only an investment of time to read his free releases.
My book is out! My book is out!
The Colin Malatrat Museum of Curious Oddities and Strange Antiquities is now available to purchase!
Summary: Several years ago, a series of documents was unearthed in the dusty and forgotten archives of a certain college library. They seemed to detail the events leading up to and surrounding the fire that destroyed The Colin Malatrat Museum of Curious Oddities and Strange Antiquities.
The annotator who collected, collated, and published the documents disappeared shortly thereafter.
The narratives inside tell as much of the story as can currently be known.
Currently, it’s only available in paperback, but an ebook, hardcover and audiobook (performed by my wife and I) will be available by the end of the year.
I’m really proud of this collection of short fiction. It’s been in the works for five years, and I’m really excited and happy to have it finally available.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJ854YYS?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
Just letting everyone here know that my second collection of short stories entitled The House on Canterbury Hill and other Tales is now available on Amazon for $0.99.
"From the author of The Wisdom of Silenus and Other Tales comes another collection of short stories exploring the darkest recesses of the universe. A biographer, following the trail of an obscure writer, encounters more than he bargained for upon arriving at a Gothic mansion. A heartbroken patient receives the most unlikely of prescriptions from their doctor. A troubled artist pays the ultimate price for crafting the perfect statue. Lewis Richmond's The House on Canterbury Hill and Other Tales is perfect for those intrigued by macabre literature."
Have you read William Gay? Doom-filled southern gothic. Very dark. I really like his collected stories ; I hate to see that evening sun go down .I hate to see that ..
Hey, I'll go. I wrote a sci-fi novella titled Exogeny. it's available to purchase online from most local bookstores, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. eBook is free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
https://www.amazon.com/Exogeny-Nathan-Karl/dp/1088057713/ref=tmm\_pap\_swatch\_0?\_encoding=UTF8&qid=1660135417&sr=8-5
Cthulhu in the Deep South is a historical fiction saga featuring six different POV's from 1833 to 1867 in Charleston, South Carolina as they struggle against the Lovecraftian mythos. It covers the history of the Civil War and the aftermath for freed people.
The historic fiction essentially replaces Lovecraft's grim prose to create an ambience of horror while focusing on a solid sci-fi romp.
Ed Erdelac did a really awesome King in Yellow story in his historical fiction collection about Zora Neale Hurston. Orson Welles is putting together a version of Macbeth in Harlem when someone slips him a copy of the King in Yellow and things get weird.
There is an anthology of stories inspired by The King In Yellow called Under Twin Suns that might interest you.
It's not precisely horror (though there are definitely elements of it) or precisely like Neverwhere, but Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates is associated with Neverwhere in my brain.
Some of his covers are highly appropriate.
I think that one for Acolytes is also fairly apropos, since the stories within really are tributes to HPL.
For one thing, I tend to love philosophy and action and clever wordplay. Another thing is length, if a book is excellent and long, then I am very satisfied with the investment payoff (Novel Explosives is about 720 pages of full text, barely any quotes). You can see my review of it on Amazon, first rating you'll see:
My reasoning is: his best sentences are as good as Pynchon's best sentences, but, he is easier to understand. It will require effort, for sure, but it's doable.
Some of the scenes about identity, time and greed are the best I've ever read.
Finally, it reads like a thriller, literally. It's Pynchonesque, but, exciting to read, with much of Pynchon's best qualities like strangeness, paranoia, confusion with a lot of action, much of it quite smart, without the excessive obscurity that Pynchon tends to go down in GR or M&D.
I think V. was my favorite, but I did think Against the Day was quite unique.
Thanks for the other suggestions. I have some of them in my old "library", which I can't access for now (Burroughs, Bulgakov) but will get to them.
I will make sure to look at Carter's work, which looks very much up my alley. I suppose I'd want to ask, given all you've said, what did you like About Animal Money? Obviously you liked it, but you seems to be saying other books do aspects of AM better than Cisco, which is interesting.
Liminal Spaces edited by Kevin Lucia might fit the bill.
If you liked, or were even intrigued by, by Doctor Hoffman, I would recommend The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington. I can't even begin to describe it.... all I can say is it's one of the best books I've read and it's still in the back of my head a full year later.
Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve is maybe even more whackadoodle than Doctor Hoffman - it was really fun - but The Hearing Trumpet is for my money the best of the best.
Enjoy!
I didn't include a link initially because I wasn't sure if the subreddit would want me to or not, but here you go! (If you want to find it without a link, you have to search on Amazon for "poohthulhu" with the quotation marks around it; otherwise the search function gets confused.)
I know I've posted about my weird horror collection in previous months, but want to make sure that the message is widely shared for those the casuals here. When you have a niche audience, sometimes you have to speak loud to reach them.
The Cockroach of the Dada Movement: The Life and Selected Works of K. Ungeheuer
Back in print for the first time since the 1960s, K. Ungeheuer’s weird, dreamlike, and often horrifying tales of flash fiction were nearly lost to history. This collection covers his writings from the 1920s through the 1970s, including previously unpublished works and rare magazine reprints.
A recent five star review from Goodreads:
"Dang. Tiny bursts more than actual short stories, but losing none of the impact for the shortness of each piece. An almost bizzaro version of Kafka's Mediations meets Poe in the throes of opium. I had to force myself to let this linger, to let each new tale settle or reread them a few times to take it all in. I hoped to find something surrealistic or absurd, I found something extraordinary and unexpected."
I don’t want to assume you are looking for recommendations for weird fiction by female authors, but one of the best imho is Nadia Bulkin esp https://www.amazon.com/She-Said-Destroy-Nadia-Bulkin/dp/1939905338/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=WL255OUOZQYP&keywords=she+said+destroy&qid=1651594300&sprefix=she+said+destroy%2Caps%2C542&sr=8-1
Over the pandemic, I put together this collection of short/flash weird horror. If you want some casual weird that you can dip in and out of, give it a page turn:
The Cockroach of the Dada Movement: The Life and Selected Works of K. Ungeheuer
Check out "The Unhallowed Horseman" on Amazon as an ebook, kindle, paperback and hardcover.
It's a thrilling horror fiction and a contemporary reimagining of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow fame!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VQ7JT2L/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?\_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
My experimental novel-in-stories The Upright Dog was released by Alien Buddha Press on 2/14. It's a surreal retelling of the 12 labors of Heracles, and, while it initially presents itself as an academic work of translation, it becomes instantly apparent that something isn't right...
This sounds like exactly what you're asking for, and it's very good.
The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0047Y0FCS/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_ZAKV2RMGJK790NFP9BJD
It isn't entirely objective/characterless, but Michael Blumlein's The Brains of Rats involves a lot of scientific and medical descriptions that were informed by his life as a physician.
I started with this collection in middle school. Everything in here is good.
Some of the stories in Wonder And Glory forever are horror, but some are like cosmic anti-horror, finding, well, wonder and glory beyond the boundaries of the human.
Wonder and Glory Forever: Awe-Inspiring Lovecraftian Fiction https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NT41G9N/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_H8FYPZA6DY8DG3XYR87N
When I see requests for recommendations like this I like to push authors that I believe are lesser-known but deserve some creditability. Here is E. A. Copen's Cyber Spell and their book Beast of Babylon. Both of these titles are weird lit in their own way. I feel like Beast of Babylon is the superior story even if you don't like westerns. It's got a gunslinger in it that just won't die and a two-faced monster that eats people. Cyber Spell has an Eldrich detective that's favorite snack is lightbulbs. What isn't there to love.
Love VALIS and have read it many times. The underlying ideas that went into Fat's gnostic exegesis can be found in the tome, The Exegesis Of Philip K. Dick, available on Amazon.
Also, though it is (possibly) a slightly lighter read, Scott R. Jones' excellent Stonefish is very much a work in the mold of VALIS.
Weird westerns with a diverse cast of strong characters? Yes indeed! Western monster hunter novellas, books 1-3 are out with more on the way soon!
Many of you have read some Ungeheuer stories either here or over on r/WeirdLitWriters. I spent a good chunk of the pandemic finally pulling everything together and am excited to finally release the full collection. Here's the rundown:
The Cockroach of the Dada Movement:
The Life and Selected Works of K. Ungeheuer
Raised in 1920s Berlin during the Dada movement, K. Ungeheuer may not be a household name, but his short, weird, often horrifying stories found a hardcore fan base that has been collecting and trading his out of print work for decades.
Ungeheuer's world is one where young love sparks during the building of the Tower of Babel and beautiful women make their homes in teeth, where a bag of fingers can fetch a good price, and the curse of divine lineage results in the weight of the ocean on your chest.
This is the first time Ungeheuer's work has been back in print since the 1960s. This collection covers his writings from the 1920s through the 1970s, including several previously unpublished works and rare magazine reprints covering his Numerolinguistic theory merging math and language.
more info on my website: cockroach.org
The Righteous Book of Truth. A collection of surreal comedy stories and absurd self-help articles.
Includes "Larry Grank Saves the Kilogram" (where a terrorist organization steals the concept of a kilogram), and "The Profit" (a satire on The Prophet where a rich guy gives financial advice).
Paperback & E-Book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Book-Truth-Johannes-Paine/dp/1775083551/
and E-book for other devices on Smashwords:
She doesn’t usually get labeled as “weird”, but I think Clarice Lispector has a few books that could definitely offer what your looking for. Specifically “The Hour of the Star” and “Near to the Wild Heartl”.
Monster Movies by David J. Schow.
Branching Chaos
When Anna sees shadows flickering, classes continue as normal until an adventure through multiple realities threatens to make this homework assignment her last.
Hi, Weirdlit. I released a book of short stories on Amazon last month and I think it's a good fit for you guys. It's called Stories Without Love because love is not a major theme in any of my stories. You can get it here, read it for free if you have Kindle Unlimited: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NCWCQB1
By the way, I don't know how the preview function works or if my book even has one, but I linked the first story in a twitlonger in my pinned tweet on Twitter, which you can find here: https://twitter.com/NotlandLEW/status/1470364968335945730
An Unlikely Messiah - About a bi-racial, Yaqui and Irish, young man named Gary who's raised by his parents traveling the carnival circuit of the American Midwest until he strikes out on his own and is thrown in jail, then into an insane asylum, from which he is rescued by a mysterious old woman. He and the woman then go on a little walkabout together until he is reunited with his parents, then all of them travel in an old school bus to the Yaqui Reservation for a big celebration. From there, Gary becomes a famous Las Vegas gambler, appears on TV several times and then travels with a rock and roll band, reciting poetry onstage during the band's break. The world then makes of Gary a prophet, and the story goes on from there.
Available at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Messiah-David-Hight/dp/1693252872
Thank you for providing a promo spot, it is appreciated.
All my books are certainly weird and arguably Weird. And it looks like Empire of the Undead (kindle version) is on sale for 99 cents for the next day and a half or so.
And weird lit awards sounds great to me.
I wrote a sci-fi horror about unfinished homework and multiple realities. I don't often emphasize the "weird lit" aspect of it, but others have described it as an acid dream meets The Matrix.
Awards are cool. Finding obscure stuff through this subreddit is often its own reward, and it would be nice to see those who take the effort to post awarded for their effort.
This is a stellar collection of The Weird from across the years to modern writers. Compiled by Ann Vandermeer and author husband Jeff Vandermeer (Annihilation)
I stumbled on Anthony Duncan's Beluthahatchie by accident a few years back and it quickly became one of my favorite anthologies. Why we don't hear more about this guy, I have no idea.
I write Weird Westerns, books 1 and 2 of my series are up now on amazon: check them out here!
Book 3 is launching later this month, with more to come soon!
I got a collection of just Zothique stories a long time ago, from Amazon I think but I can't find it now. I would suggest checking out this collection though: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H455DC3?notRedirectToSDP=1&ref\_=dbs\_mng\_calw\_0&storeType=ebooks
Joe Pulver wrote a lot of stuff related to the KiY. Mike at the Lovecraft Ezine put out at least one collection of his KiY short stories.
Joe's writing style was a lot more 'beat' in some ways but I think it works really well.
https://www.amazon.com/King-Yellow-Tales-1/dp/1511783389?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_marketplace
On my website you can order signed books, as well as chapbook subscriptions. On 10/31 you can subscribe to the 2022 chapbooks, whose covers will all be illustrated by the amazing Trevor Henderson. https://wxxt-gare-occult.square.site/s/shop
Also, Hymns to Abomination was recently released and features tributes to my WXXT/Leeds mythos by John Langan, Gemma Files, Brian Evenson, Cody Goodfellow, and many more. Hymns of Abomination: Secret Songs of Leeds https://www.amazon.com/dp/1954082029/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_KFQAAW0EJT4H1EWHW6BF
I think you just pose it as an exploration of the non-realist thread of literature from the 19th century to the present that isn't explicitly fantasy, sci-fi, or horror genre fiction. Literary realism always occupies the podium in "serious" lit classes, so you can offer this as a correction or counterpoint, to offer a richer view of literature over the past two centuries.
And of course Jeff Vandermeer's The Weird would be your text book.
1/2 Hymns Of Abomination is out now on Kindle from Silent Motorist Media (physical book coming soon!) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09DZ38NPT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_F4SBQ2255TD0WW5N23FF
Here's a little commercial I made for it-I really believe this is the best anthology this year! https://youtu.be/e49YDNYQjso
Hello, Dr. Locrian. Familiar name!
I wrote Organ Void for a William S Burrough's tribute anthology some years ago: https://www.amazon.com/Junk-Merchants-Dean-M-Drinkel/dp/1539800865/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=junk+merchants+burroughs&qid=1630532129&sr=8-1
Burrough's prose is thoroughly disgusting, and I did my best to keep up.
I've never heard any such rumors, and I can only say that Ligotti is in a different stratosphere than me as a writer. If I can write something that holds up to the least of his stories, I'm happy. Thank you!
Thanks so much! I'm humbled. Origami Dreams is by far most of my readers' favorite story. Fun fact: it was rejected close to 40 times before it was published in the collection. I almost cut it because I thought it must be a weak story.
I would definitely love to develop an audio drama.
I wrote a literary essay on this subject, which appeared in Mannequin: Tales of Wood Made Flesh. My piece was called To a Puppet, From a Dummy. Your question is absolutely central to it.
Hey all. New here and wanted to share a couple of my books that are available on Amazon. “Coffin Dodgers” and “Things Were Easier Before You Became a Giant Fucking Mantis.”Things Were Easier Before You Became a Giant Fucking Mantis
Cats. Cyberpunk. 80s.
Join sassy space cat Lee and his Desert Eagle-toting, soda-swigging human partner, Ali, in a future that never was. Board the dynamic duo’s ship, the mythical Kitty, as they bounty-hunt their way through a solar system where the Soviets got to the Moon first; where space is a lawless void; where cats talk and pizza comes in a can. It’s an alternate history as only the 80s could have built it—so lock and load and shout Cowabunga! because it’s crime-fightin’ time!
"The future that never was" is an action-driven science-fiction book series borrowing from different sub-genres such as space opera, space western, cassette futurism and cyberpunk. Its first story, KITTY KITTY, focuses on a unique and deeply retro universe. Because, in this uchronia, the Soviets planted the Red Flag on the Moon in 1955. Since then, mankind has relentlessly pushed its colonies to the ends of the solar system. It devotes all its scientific and industrial resources to it. Thereby, its cultural codes seem frozen in some alternative 1980s where Floppy disks are kings and David Hasselhoff is the ultimate galactic superstar; robots do all the work and the packs of cigarettes are cheaper than ever! Yet, as humanity is expanding through the Kuiper Belt and the New Worlds, the overly consumerist society is slowly collapsing because of the never-ending corpo-wars and the blatant technocratic corruption.
So… what are you waiting for? Dive into this strange future of punks cyborgs and flying shiny Chryslers! Bloody, irreverent but always hilarious, The future that never was' KITTY KITTY will allow you no respite!
My horror novella, Ghost Flesh is out on Kindle and free until 5/28/21. Its a weird body horror story about possession. From the blurb: Maggie's body is no longer her own. She feels the other inside her as it reworks her flesh and twists her form. Something in that darkness pulls at her, begs her to slip into it. To give in and give up. Can her friendships, her loves, pull her from that abyss?
If you give it a try, I hope you enjoy it. (Maybe leave a review, would be cool of you. Just saying.)
My weird-comedy book "The Sick Book of Lies" gets a strong reaction from a small number of people, and I'd like that number to grow! It's a series of fake blog posts from pen names that I made up (and one story from an old friend). Very bizarre short fiction from fake authors.
<strong>The Future That Never Was - KITTY KITTY</strong> (free)
Join sassy space cat Lee and his Desert Eagle-toting, soda-swigging human partner, Ali, in a future that never was. Board the dynamic duo’s ship, the mythical Kitty, as they bounty-hunt their way through a solar system where the Soviets got to the Moon first; where space is a lawless void; where cats talk and pizza comes in a can. It’s an alternate history as only the 80s could have built it—so lock and load and shout Cowabunga! because it’s crime-fightin’ time!
I have one thing out right now that I published earlier this year. It's a short story collection called When Death is Playing Dead.
While it does have some weird fic stuff in it, genre-wise, it's all over the place.
Here's some of what you should be expecting:
A slice-of-life story featuring Lovecraftian creatures
A detective story about something inexplicable
A former cop with information about the kind of power no one understands yet
A WW1 soldier writing about life in the trenches
A journey through the limbo of death itself
And aliens visiting a haunted Earth long after humanity has died.
Thanks for taking a look!
“Okay, Sweet Universe”
I wrote this book after reading “Primitive Mythology” by Joseph Campbell. The rituals and beliefs he describes older religions having got the weirdness in my mind rolling and I decided to write a book about dreaming to save the universe that quickly loses control and turns into a story of strange worlds and impossible scenarios. I hate summarizing this book because it’s so damn weird I can’t really explain it. It’s incoherent, yet understandable. That’s how I like my weird fiction.
Also, I’m trying to incorporate books into my Twitch stream. If anyone out there enjoys video games and books feel free to drop me a line!
I look forward to reading everyone’s stuff. The weirder the better.
Hans Henny Jahnn (17 December 1894, Stellingen – 29 November 1959, Hamburg) was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder. Some of his weird fiction has been translated into english, including the eerie novel, "The Ship," and the collection "The Living Are Few, the Dead Many" (trans. Malcolm R. Green) which includes his novella "The Night of Lead."
"The Night of Lead," has been described by another reviewer as "a complete submersion into a thousand foot deep vat of tar that our disembodied protagonist attempts to swim his way out of. He is a soul dropped onto the streets of a nameless city, apparently left by some colossal presence to navigate the landscape." Well worth a read!
A few items to check out if parody counts:
The Orford Parish Murder Houses: A Visitor's Guide (Currently on sale for .99 on kindle): https://www.amazon.com/Orford-Parish-Murder-Houses-Visitors-ebook/dp/B01C0EYQ12/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#customerReviews
The Scarfolk Annual
Discovering Scarfolk
I released a short story collection about a week ago. I believe some of it can be considered weird. I usually write sci-fi or fantasy with horror elements. Here's the link:
The collected edition of my trilogy of weird, surreal, folk horror, acid western, Badwater, is out now on Malki press: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08MTTL9N2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabc_thE9Fb95T4M45 and received a wonderful review that made me go all watery-eyed just in time for Xmas in the latest astoundingly good issue of Mycelia, available here: https://www.hederafelix.com/product/mycelia-issue-4-winter-20-21/
Anyone who liked this and likes novels would probably like Starfish by Peter Watts.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087RC718R
A collection of my short stories. I'm a huge fan of all things weird (particularly the weird that looks out the mirror at me every evening), and this influences all I write. Don't let the initial story fool you, it's not all zombies and fast food!
If anyone's still interested in buying a paperback copy, it's up on Amazon now!
Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Tindalos Asset was released just last month.
And Kathe Koja deserves all the love in the world. May I direct you to Velocities?
Flicker by Theodore Roszak. A film studies guy falls down a rabbit hole of cheesy old horror movies. One of my favorites of all time. It was optioned by Daren Aronofsky at one point.
For disturbing books in this category, strongly recommend "Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials," by Reza Negarestani. Here's an accurate description from the Amazon page.
:At once a horror fiction, a work of speculative theology, an atlas of demonology, a political samizdat and a philosophic grimoire, CYCLONOPEDIA is work of theory-fiction on the Middle East, where horror is restlessly heaped upon horror. Reza Negarestani bridges the appalling vistas of contemporary world politics and the War on Terror with the archeologies of the Middle East and the natural history of the Earth itself. CYCLONOPEDIA is a middle-eastern Odyssey, populated by archeologists, jihadis, oil smugglers, Delta Force officers, heresiarchs, corpses of ancient gods and other puppets. The journey to the Underworld begins with petroleum basins and the rotting Sun, continuing along the tentacled pipelines of oil, and at last unfolding in the desert, where monotheism meets the Earth's tarry dreams of insurrection against the Sun."
https://www.amazon.com/Cyclonopedia-Complicity-Materials-Reza-Negarestani/dp/0980544009