Laird Barron's Blog, page 13

Black Light Gods & Psychedelic Thunder

Weird Fiction Review #6 is ready to go. I wrote an essay called “Black Light Gods & Psychedelic Thunder” about the Third Eye Marvel posters from the 1970s.

From the publisher:

SYNOPSIS

The Weird Fiction Review is an annual periodical devoted to the study of weird and supernatural fiction. It is edited by S.T. Joshi.This sixth issue contains fiction, poetry, and reviews from leading writers and promising newcomers. It features original stories and essays by Laird Barron, Jonathan Thomas, Mollie Burleson, James Goho, Jason V Brock, and Michael Aronovitz; a lengthy interview with Clive Barker and a new interview with T.E.D. Klein; a 24-page full-color gallery of art by Christopher Conn Askew, an essay on Robert E. Howard-inspired art in the comics; an essay on the artwork of L.B. Cole, extensively illustrated; and much more. The list price on this item is $35 and it is on sale for $25.

image via Centipede Press

Matthew Revert

I recently participated on a round table discussion regarding weird fiction with Justin Steele and Scott Nicolay over at The Outer Dark podcast. Here’s a link to the show.

Meanwhile, I am kicking myself for misplacing my notes, because while the discussion ranged far and wide, I neglected to cover one topic that had been on my agenda–cover art and illustrations. I basically had a Steve Harvey moment. Perhaps Scott will revisit the subject of illustrations, or even better, have some artists on his show.

I have been blessed with with cover art over the years. Take a gander at the sidebar or browse my Books tab and you’ll see what I mean. David Ho’s cover for The Light Is the Darkness remains a favorite, as does Matthew Jaffe’s painting for Occultation and Other Stories. I published a novella with Bizarro Pulp Press. It was my great fortune to land Matthew Revert as the cover artist/designer for X’s for Eyes. The results blew me away, but he does that all the time. He’s among the hottest cover artists on the scene and with reason.

Packaging is important. Books are artifacts; cover art and layout can go a long way to elevating the visual experience. Doubly good when the exterior art captures some glimmer of nuance from the written material. I hope to get many more Revert covers down the road.

Matthew also scored an insane new horror flick, Cat Sick Blues.

images by Matthew Revert via Amazon

Five for 2015

This isn’t a best-of list; I read too much good material in 2015 to boil it down to five. Consider this a Christmas list for fans of the weird.

Skein & Bone by V.H. Leslie. It’s a terrific, slow burn collection of Gothic and surreal horror stories. One of my favorite collections this year.

Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts by Orrin Grey is one of the best sophomore efforts I’ve read. Grey makes short work of ye old monster archetypes. This collection has me looking toward the next one.

Cassilda’s Song, edited by Joseph Pulver. An anthology dedicated to the King in Yellow. Pulver’s third major tribute anthology in recent days and probably the best. Selena Chambers, Maura McHugh, and S.P. Miskowski set the pace for a sleeper anthology of 2015.

The Ballad of Black Tom. Victor LaValle is serious business. This won’t debut for another couple of months, but it’s up for preorder and it’s a bad to the bone take on the Cthulhu Mythos.

A Head Full of Ghosts. Paul Tremblay has been out in the field plowing for a few years, doing the hard work that’s the backbone of our genre. Now he’s got a breakout novel of a family that doesn’t require demonic possession to be unhappy, but, hey, just in case.

Release Day!

Today marks the official release of two projects I’m proud to take part in. First up, The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft edited by Aaron French and including works by Adam Nevill, Jonathan Maberry, and Martha Wells.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My own story, “We Smoke the Northern Lights” is the first half of a novella, X’s for Eyes. The novella is essentially an expanded version of the the former story. Thanks to Aaron French and Chris Payne for publishing these books. Giveaway drawings for Gods and X’s continue at Goodreads

A Collapse of Horses

I’m reading A Collapse of Horses, the latest Brian Evenson collection, for review. A master of the surreal, the weird, and the disquieting, Evenson is among the living greats and on my top ten list of contemporary authors.

image via Coffee House Press

Robert Levy Speaks

Robert Levy is interviewed on this week’s Outer Dark podcast. I strongly recommend his debut (dark, dark fantasy) novel, The Glittering World.

 

image via Amazon

Autumn Cthulhu Kickstarter

Mike Davis has initiated a Kickstarter for Autumn Cthulhu, an anthology of cosmic horror and assorted terrors. I think it’s fair to say that title notwithstanding, this is as much a weird fiction anthology as a Lovecraftian collection or anything else.

My contribution is a novelette called “Andy Kaufman Creeping Through the Trees.” Cheer-leading captain Julie Vellum is having a bad year. Her dad is dying of cancer. She sprained her neck on the trampoline. Rival Jessica Mace plans to do her more bodily harm. Worst of all, she’s hired an old pal to impersonate Tony Clifton for a private show. Totally worst idea, ever.

Here’s the ToC:

Andy Kaufman Creeping Through the Trees, Laird Barron

There is a Bear in the Woods, Nadia Bulkin

Anchor, John Langan

The Stiles of Palemarsh, Richard Gavin

The Night is a Sea, Scott Thomas

In the Spaces Where You Once Lived, Damien Angelica Walters

Trick or the Other Thing, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

Grave Goods, Gemma Files

After the Fall, Jeffrey Thomas

A Shadow Passing, Daniel Mills

Lavinia in Autumn, Ann K. Schwader

Memories of the Fall, Pete Rawlik

The Smoke Lodge, Michael Griffin

The End of the Season, Trent Kollodge

The Black Azalea, Wendy Wagner

Cul-De-Sac Virus, Evan Dicken

image vi Lovecraft

Apex, Nemesis

Thank you to Jason Sizemore for reprinting my short story, “Nemesis,” (which originally appeared in Primeval #1) at Apex Magazine.

Apex is a fine magazine that covers a spectrum of speculative fiction from post modernist HiFi science fiction to horror and the weird. As an editor and publisher, Jason quietly and methodically kicks ass.This is my first appearance in an Apex ToC and I’m happy to be there.

 

 image via Apex Magazine

Deutschlandradio Kultur on Hallucigenia

Golkonda recently published a German edition of my stories, Hallucigenia.

ToC: Hallucigenia; Procession of the Black Sloth; Strappado; Mysterium Tremendum.

From the publisher site (auto-translated):

A man who gets on a trip to India the opportunity to participate in a unique art performance, and accompanied by a group of cynical, sensationalist businessmen in an insidious nightmare slipping … A couple who makes a macabre discovery in the no man’s land north of Oregon, seriously injured returned to civilization and watch helplessly needs as slipping him health, money, happiness and intellect … an occult book, a harmless camping trip to a fact mentioned place, a group of young men who well with alcohol and violent excesses are familiar – and the helpless solidify the face of terror, which they confronted, …

Hallucigenia contains four long stories of the most important horror writers of our time. Deliberately exaggerated Barron his stories on those dramatic moments, with which he brings the reality of the Lot. Piece by piece disintegrates to his protagonists around the reality, until they to suffer wild thrashing the final physical and mental breakdown.

Thematically rich in Hallucigenia stories contained by summoning cosmic horror to the psychological thriller. The cover story of the core pieces of its mythology is included.NIC PIZZOLATTO, creator of the television series TrueDetective, has declared to have been significantly influenced by Laird Barron.

 

Deustchlandradio Kultur has given it a review.

 

image via golkonda

Sing Me Your Scars Review

Here is my Locus review for Damien Angelica Walters’s collection, Sing Me Your Scars.

An excerpt:

 

Sing Me Your Scars contains 21 stories, eight of which are original to the collection. Walters’s narratives travel a spectrum of pure horror literature to the out-and-out weird. She throws aside the curtain on a macabre universe of body horror, ghosts, and murder. She writes of damage and trauma and doomed relationships, and does it with powerful affect that reminds me of Livia Llewellyn and Nathan Ballingrud for its lyric rawness and psychological flensing of numerous protagonists. Recurring scenes of surgeries, mutilations, and self-inflicted poisoning are also reminiscent of Brian Evenson’s best work, a contemporary master of the surreal and Kafkaesque. Also redolent of Evenson, in a Walters narrative, mythology and supernatural forces routinely impinge upon mundane reality; quotidian existence is punctuated by intrusions of the existentially horrific and the absurdly fantastical. One’s diminishment leads to power, one’s loss is often a net gain (of awfulness), and one’s scars do indeed sing.

 

image via Amazon