Justin Howe's Blog, page 39

From Swedish Royalty to Pulp Trash

So maybe you’ve already heard about that creeptacular painting of the Danish Royal family. The one by Thomas Kluge pictured above. If not you can read about it here. Isn’t it something? It’s like every VC Andrews book cover I remember from when I was a kid.

When I posted this to Facebook and made the Andrews comparison I asked what was the appeal of her books, and what people told me was that she was basically “like Lovecraft for girls”. Here’s a blog post by the writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia on...

I Don’t Remember Playing This Game As A Kid

It’s always wise to check the class material you find online.

One Book, A Bunch of Covers: The Strugatsky Brothers’ Roadside Picnic

The Strugatsky Brothers’ novel Roadside Picnic is one of those books I read when I can’t find anything else to read. I can pick it up, read a bit, at least any of the Red Schuhart sections, then put it down for months on end. I was doing this last week while waiting for some other books to arrive.

For folks who haven’t read it, Roadside Picnic is an SF novel that takes place in a city after an alien visitation. These aliens are gone, but they or their technologically advanced artifacts have al...

Meanwhile in Saragossa…

One Book, Six Covers: Isaac Bashevis Singer’s The Slave

One of the books I read last month. When I was finished with it I checked out the different covers and decided to do a Four Covers posts.

Here’s what the book’s about: It’s the 17th century. A Jewish scholar is captured and sold into slavery after his town is massacred. He is devout, and does his best to maintain his faith among the rustic peasants he must now live among. His position among them is tenuous and he fears for his life. The one bright spot is the kindness shown to him by his owner...

Books October 2013

1. The Slave – Isaac Bashevis Singer

Singer’s The Slave tells the story of a Jewish man, Jacob, sold into slavery by the Cossacks and forced to live in a remote mountain village where he tries to maintain his traditions amid the idolaters and his own desire for Wanda the widowed daughter of his owner. Eventually the two fall in love only to have society, both Jewish and Gentile, spurn them.

It’s a terrific read, by turns beautiful and brutal, that attempts to explain why bad things happen to go...

Stay Off The Road

The roads were dangerous at night. The King’s Daughter, filthiest of witches, confused travelers and shoved them into bogs. The demonic Lillies made their homes in caves and the hollows of tree trunks. Ygereth, Machlath, and Shibta enticed men off the highway until they defiled themselves with nocturnal emissions. Shabriry and Briry polluted the waters of springs and rivers. Zachulphi, Jejknufi, Michiaru, survivors of the generation that had built the Tower of Babel, confounded men’s speech a...

The Black Book AKA Reign of Terror

I’m on a bit of a French Revolution kick, mainly because I’m reading that Tom Reiss biography of Alex Dumas, French revolutionary era general, ex-slave, hero, and dad to the novelist, Alex Dumas. It’s proving to be a pretty great read.

One thing that surprises me is the fact that no one’s ever done a Cthulhu mythos, French Revolution mash-up. So much of it seems like it would fit together: secret societies (the Jacobin clubs), the Cult of the Supreme Being, the master/pupil relationship betwee...

One From A Month Or So Ago

And to the person that found my blog from asking “is Pohang a good place to teach”…

It’s all right.

Junk From the Notebook 1

Politics won’t harm a writer’s career. It’s talking crap about the genre and “loving” it insufficiently that do you in.

Their enthusiasm for writing doesn’t match their enthusiasm for talking about their enthusiasm for writing.

When someone asks what your tastes are and all you do is hold up your hands and say, “Gah! Who the fuck knows?”

People that talk about “geek cred” should probably see an analyst to resolve their middle school hang-ups.

Fruit on the bottom. Hope on top.