Kiernan's prose provides the greatest part of that wonder. Achingly beautiful, always strange and never quotidian, she never lets the reader find any firm ground. Fittingly for a story which involves a Manson-like cult, it feels hallucinatory, dreamlike. And unlike most stories that fit, even peripherally, into Lovecraft's mythos, the story does not try too hard to replicate the feeling induced by the Master's works.
Read MoreAre you Dead, or, When you write, are you trying to say something?
Of course its an absurdity to ask such a question. Be it resolved that everyone is different. Be it resolved that all writing is different. Even so: when you write, if you write, are you trying to say something?
Read MoreAnother Story for Another Day
After the fall of Antioch during the First Crusade, the knights were restless and without leadership. The papal legate had died, leaving the princes in charge and bickering among themselves. The Fatimid Caliphate brought talk of peace to the Crusaders' table. But the Crusaders, though partly divided, were hungry for war. They trekked their way down the coast of the Mediterranean Sea towards Jerusalem.
On June 7, 1099 CE, the Crusaders arrived at the city walls they'd so longed to reach. Some of the soldiers fell to their knees in gratitude to the Lord that had ferried them here. They prayed that God grant them the strength to take the city from the Fatimids, and 5,000 knights rushed into battle.
Read MoreRepeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat...
Today — June 3rd — is National Repeat Day. While the origins of this celebration of repetition are less than clear, it is nonetheless an auspicious day to pick something to do and repeat it, ad nauseam. Send the same messages, watch the same movies, eat the same foods.
To celebrate, we're posting a story by one of our murderers, CJ Miles IV, about the horrifying repetition of death, featuring artwork by Krowjak Illustration. "Repeat After Me" was originally published in Happy Days, Sweetheart.
Read MoreUnashamed to Be Proud
Summer is here, and so is LGBT Pride Month! As we gear up for the raucous celebration to commemorate the Stonewall riots, I can already hear the complaints of well-meaning individuals—there's too many leather-clad men, why don't people wear more clothes, oh the debauchery! If LGBT people want to be accepted, why do they work so hard to be different?
It's LGBT Pride Month. That's why.
Read MoreFive Types of Horror Movies
What's the Opposite of a Horror Movie Buff?
I have a shocking confession to make: I don’t like horror movies. At this point, I’m assuming you’ve either picked yourself up from the floor, or else the confession isn’t really that shocking. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen plenty of horror movies. I just don’t go out of my way to watch them because I can’t shut off my overactive imagination. Whether it’s mirrors, the dark, looking through windows into the dark, open closet doors, or the thought of a monster ready to grab me by the ankles and drag me under the bed, seeing these things on the big screen only reinforces the real-life fears I have.
So, now that you know what you’re dealing with, I thought I would further humiliate myself and tell you about my top five embarrassing reactions to some horror movies I’ve seen.
Read MoreThe Twenty-Eighth Day of May
Two thousand six hundred two years ago, the Medes and the Lydians were enmeshed in all-out war. While the two sides had much to war over, what had finally brought the two sides to raise arms against each other was the murder of the Lydian prince. A group of Scythian hunters had been hired by King Cyaxares. When they returned from their hunt empty-handed, the king insulted them. The hunters killed his son and, as part of their revenge, served him up to the Medes as a meal.
Read MoreDon't You Love Your Mother?
Mother's Day has come and gone, but motherhood is forever. And forever is a long time. Long enough, surely, to drive some people crazy. Chances are your mother was pretty cool, generally speaking. Not everyone's so lucky. For us, celebrating Mother's Day with a list like this one is just what the counselor ordered. Here are...
The 5 Worst Mothers in Horror Film
Read MoreThe Narcotic Erotics of Inspiration
Hello again, dear reader. Last time we were together I wrote about writer's block, a subject near, if not dear, to my heart. As you can tell from the length of time between posts, its something with which I have continued to tussle over the last month or so.
The reasons why are myriad and personal, and are certainly too boring to do more than hint at here; suffice it to say that my living situation has changed recently, and I don't do change well.
Read MoreThe Horror of Writer's Block
Though a lot of folks smarter than myself have argued, one way or the other, as to whether or not "writer's block" actually exists, I tend to think it does. Not the least before I periodically suffer long fits of it several times a year.
Its the kind of thing that makes you feel some real ennui, because I'm the kind of person who has said, aloud if not to a person, that all I really want to do is be allowed to write. If its true that we're all given one thing at which we're better than everything else, I think mine would be writing. This is not to say, of course, that I'm better than F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Nabokov, or you, or R.L. Stine, or anyone at all. Its only to say that of all the things I try to do (sleep, occasionally exercise, talk to people, do math, balance my checkbook, connect with someone or something), writing is the one which I do with the most success, which is: maybe a little.
Read MoreHistory as Speculative Fiction: Some thoughts on reading "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" and "From Hell" While Under the Influence of Robitussin
Having come down with a nasty cold the last few days, I did what I always do when I feel like total shit, and tucked into the biggest, thickest, most difficult books that I could reach without having to get out of my chair. In this case they were Susanna Clarke's magnificent Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Alan Moore's almost appallingly excellent From Hell.
Read MoreWhat We're Afraid of When We're Afraid of the South
Eyes of My Mother is 76 minutes long, but you feel every minute as if they've been crammed down your throat. It has pretentions to artistry and pathos. It is filmed in black and white, lavished on long static shots of its character's face. Long, static shots of a woman, bound in chains, shuffling out of the barn in which she has been prisoner. Long, long static shots of body parts arranged on a counter, shrink-wrapped, waiting to be stowed in the freezer. Its fairly boiler-plate horror content, different from less ambitious horror flicks only in the presentation.
Read More