Leo X. Robertson's Blog, page 10
July 17, 2017
July 12, 2017
New Episode of Losing the Plot, with Danger Slater!
This episode’s guest is Danger Slater, author of four books, most recently Puppet Skin, one of the best books I read last year! He has a new book out this year with a tentative release date of August.
We talk about what it means to be successful, the process of self-reinvention, and fear of flying! (I brought the last one up, naturally.)
Buy Danger’s books here
Check out his own podcast here
As always, if you’re a reader, writer, editor, someone with something to say, you can always get in touch using losingtheplotpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. I look forward to hearing from you!
Review copy of The Grimhaven Disaster
Hello everyone! I’m pleased to announce that a digital review copy of “The Grimhaven Disaster” is now available—please do get in touch if you’d like to read and leave a review.
Themis and his buddies celebrate the end of high school by taking a trip to, of all places, Grimhaven’s abandoned nuclear plant, where Themis’ insane grandfather, who religiously devoted himself to nuclear energy, worked up until the hideous accident that put the plant out of commission. When Themis and his girlfriend explore the plant at night, they discover that the plant isn’t as dormant as it seems, and the background radiation of Themis’ family history threatens to result in a full-blown sickness. The Grimhaven Disaster is a horrific, surreal and positively radioactive vision of what happens when youthful hubris clashes with the sobering decay of adulthood.
Hope you enjoy if you find the time for it!
July 11, 2017
New Robertson—THE GRIMHAVEN DISASTER—Coming Aug 8!!!
Hey everyone! You’ll have seen this announcement on my list of publications this year but NOW is the time to get excited about “The Grimhaven Disaster”, my surreal radioactive horror novella coming out with Unnerving August 8th!
Themis and his buddies celebrate the end of high school by taking a trip to, of all places, Grimhaven’s abandoned nuclear plant, where Themis’ insane grandfather, who religiously devoted himself to nuclear energy, worked up until the hideous accident that put the plant out of commission. When Themis and his girlfriend explore the plant at night, they discover that the plant isn’t as dormant as it seems, and the background radiation of Themis’ family history threatens to result in a full-blown sickness. The Grimhaven Disaster is a horrific, surreal and positively radioactive vision of what happens when youthful hubris clashes with the sobering decay of adulthood.
I’ll let you know how to preorder and give you more updates asap. Thanks for the support so far and please do let anyone know if you think they’d be interested. I hope fans of Bonespin Slipspace are ready for another weird and wild ride of twisted imagination!!!!!!!x∞!!
July 10, 2017
Review of Rusticles, by Rebecca Gransden
Gransden is perhaps my favourite indie author, certainly one of my favourite people. I’ve been looking forward to the release of this collection and I hope you’ll check it out too. Here’s a link to buy it on Amazon, and below is my review.
I’ve read this collection several times. While the stories themselves are elusive, there is one unanswered question that interests me the most: what are rusticles?
I think they are icicles made of rust. There are no such thing, and they don’t explicitly exist between these pages. That is, they are not objects that exist in these stories but perhaps something imagined by its characters. Something seemingly nonsensical, fantastic, inexplicable, seemingly purposeless maybe, but something new and disturbing and curious and worn and forgotten. Corroded but not yet dust. Natural and yet not. Imaginable and yet non-existent. Relatable and yet never seen before. Fantastical yet grounded. And really, if there is an apt symbol to represent the feel of Hilligoss, the mood and content and style of these stories, it is one that the reader must invent themselves, and one that itself goes unexplained.
Anyone who has read anemogram will likely be familiar with Gransden’s uniquely lush and organic minimalism, her “ivy-laden shopping cart in a drained, mossy swimming pool at night” aesthetic (as I like to think of it), and have probably been clamouring for this next collection. Anyone who is yet to discover Gransden, well, first of all what the eff, and secondly, this is an excellent starting point.
These roaming stories build Hilligoss. Or rather, like a streetlight pushed over by a fox when no one was looking, they reveal what seems inopportune, partial, exterior, and ask you to fill in what’s missing. For that, you’ll use your own tools, which means that Hilligoss is no longer just Gransden’s but also yours, and that your Hilligoss is your own. And when you see it like this, you think, the fox has as much right as anyone to contribute to what’s worth looking at. You think, why is observing what’s so frequently considered best to look at what I want to do? Wouldn’t I rather see what the fox wants me to look at? Or, maybe we spent so long expecting to see a rigid circle of streetlight along the highway that it took the chance interruption of an unnamed fox to suddenly let us see the world in a way both familiar and yet so different. And if that’s true, how can you be so sure, when you examine your memories, your environs, yourself, that you know where you’re supposed to look? What if the most salient information passed you by? In which case, why not look where you want to, if any angle will reveal just as little, or as much?
If someone was to ask me, then, what it’s like to read this book, I could say, ‘It’s like discovering a rusticle for the first time.’
You then might respond, ‘What’s a rusticle?’
And I’d say, ‘Don’t ask me. Ask yourself.’
July 9, 2017
New Losing the Plot with Marc Molino!
This episode our guest is Marc Molino, a writer, blogger and graphic designer of such works as the Losing the Plot logo and the cover of Bonespin Slipspace!
We talk about reading, writing and life at large.
You can check out Marc’s blog here: textualmadness.wordpress.com/
And follow him on Goodreads here:
www.goodreads.com/user/show/18218857-marc
and Twitter here: twitter.com/monkeelino
If you’re a reader writer editor, someone with something to say, you can always get in touch using losingtheplotpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. I look forward to hearing from you!
(And here’s a piece of fiction inspired by the “landlord” issue :P www.wattpad.com/myworks/109755572/write/413960006 )
June 24, 2017
New Episode of Losing the Plot, with Johnny Scarlotti!
This week’s guest is Johnny Scarlotti, the prolific author of such transgressive works of poetry as Just Die, Molly is a Faggot, Fuck Utah and so many more. We talk about the process of writing poetry, contemporary fiction, and the joys of playing Everquest!
Find out more about Johnny’s NSFW poetry here: www.johnnyscarlotti.com/
Follow him on Twitter @johnnyscarlotti
Buy his books here: www.amazon.com/Johnny-Scarlotti/e/B012SPXHZ4
And as always, if you’re a reader, writer, editor, someone with something to say, you can always get in touch with me at losingtheplotpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. I look forward to hearing from you!
June 19, 2017
Stuff that’s happening!
Hello again,
So here comes another update mostly so I can remember all the cool stuff that’s happening!
Latest Losing the Plot is with author and journalist Josh Schlossberg. We talk about the writing process, fracking foxes and “microbial horror”!Deadman’s Tome’s extra special Monsters Exist anthology is available for preorder on Amazon. If you fancy a paperback copy, look no further! Plus, there’s a Goodreads giveaway for it here. You can also read my story behind my story “Kelpies”, which is in the anthology, here.The latest Helios Quarterly is now available! Features a story I’m particularly proud of, called “Levels for Sustainable Living.” Extra cool is that Helios recently qualified as a semi-prozine under SFWA guidelines, so, uh… see you at the Hugos Open Pen Issue Nineteen is now out! My story in that is called “The Other Half”: it’s about a woman whose husband comes home one day, only the right half of him has been stripped down to its central nervous system. I have huge respect for Open Pen’s mission and the type of literature they publish, so I am thrilled to take part in this one. Open Pen is a free zine that you can find in your local indie bookshop: check here for where you might find it! Once my copies arrive I’ll be looking into finding stockists in Oslo also I entered “Diary of a Prostitute’s Landlord” in the running for the #Wattys2017. I have no idea what they’re looking for; I just checked that the story qualifies and sent it in. I don’t know if you vote for it or whatever, but needless to say I’d be very glad if you did. Or you can just read it to discover how to avoid becoming a prostitute’s landlord. Don’t think it’ll happen to you? Neither did the character based on me!Author Daniel Clausen is starting a series of guest blog posts, featuring stuff I sent him ages ago and forgot about, so it’s been cool helping him get the posts into shape and reading about, for example, my fantasy that Pierce Brosnan becomes a friend of my dad’s. The first such rambling is called Everything You Need to Know About Daniel Day Lewis or Extreme Sitting for Beginners. I assume it will be informative What, more? Isn’t that enough? Are you not entertained?!In all likelihood there’s something else I’ve forgotten about. But with time I will have even more news, even more exciting, I’m sure!Chat soon!!June 18, 2017
New Losing the Plot, with Josh Schlossberg!
This episode’s guest is Josh Schlossberg, a journalist and horror writer with upcoming stories in the latest Bards & Sages Quarterly and Deadman’s Tome Campfire Tales! So look out for both of these releases. We talk about the writing process, fracking foxes and “microbial horror”!
Follow him on Facebook, Twitter (@JoshsNightmare) and check out his blog: joshsworstnightmare.com
If you’re a writer, reader, editor, someone with something to say, you think you’d make an interesting guest? Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at losingtheplodpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. I look forward to it!
June 13, 2017
New Review/Analysis of Bonespin!
New Review/Analysis of Bonespin!
Hey! So now that Bonespin Slipspace is now available on Amazon, Selcouth Station marked the occasion by reviewing and providing some analysis along the way
