Three Recs

Hello there! Welcome to another month of Strange & Fantastic!

This month’s newsletter is going to be focused on three recommendations: one album, one book, and one film.

Before we jump right in, I wanted to say thank you again to those of you who have picked up a copy of my weird fantasy noir novella, City of Spores. It’s currently up to 32 reviews and 38 ratings on Goodreads, sitting at an average score of 4.13 stars! So thank you to those of you who have read the book and left reviews - and if you haven’t left a review yet, please do! If anyone hasn’t grabbed a copy of the book yet, you can get it here.

Also, this Saturday, April 27, is Independent Bookstore Day! I’ll be celebrating at Birch Tree Bookstore in Leesburg, Virginia, and taking part in their Local Author Showcase from 12-3pm. If you’re in the area, please stop on by! I’ll be signing copies of City of Spores and Goodly Creatures.

Image created by my bestie, B.C. Lienesch.

And last but not least, an update on Black Coral: I’m currently sitting at around 54K words. Progress has been a little slow because I’m trying to hammer out the ending; I’ve always had an idea for the ending, but it’s never been clear, which, for me at least, I need it to be clear in order to write it. So I’m writing in fits and starts at the moment, and brainstorming. I’m trying to give myself room to breathe so I don’t burn myself out or force myself against a wall; this is a marathon, not a sprint. But don’t worry, it’s coming. The end is in sight.

Alright, updates are out of the way, and now we get to what you came for: Three recommendations. Here they are.

Album Rec: Dark Matter by Pearl Jam

I’m loving this album.

As a whole, it captures the catchiness, punch, and energy of the band’s iconic first albums (Ten, Vs., and Vitalogy), and the ballads here harken back to the ballads on those albums, which is a big plus for me: I’ve found most of their slower songs post-90s have been insufferably boring.

I’ve been listening nonstop to this album front-to-back since it dropped this past Friday, and each time I listen I like it more. Dark Matter finds Pearl Jam firing on all cylinders, proving they’re just as relevant and important today as they were in their heyday.

Stand-out tracks: “Dark Matter”; “Wreckage”; “Waiting for Stevie”; “React, Respond”; “Won’t Tell”; “Scared of Fear”; “Setting Sun”.

Book Rec: Weaveworld by Clive Barker

I came to Clive Barker pretty late, as in the last two years or so. Based on what limited knowledge I had of his work (read: I knew he was the creator of Hellraiser, and that was about it), I assumed he mostly wrote extreme horror and splatterpunk, which I’ve never had an interest in.

Eventually I was introduced to Barker through the original Candyman film—he wrote short story that inspired it, “The Forbidden”—and I began to take a deeper look at his other stuff. I was pleasantly surprised to find that while yes, some of Barker’s work does fall within the extreme horror/splatterpunk genre, he mostly wrote dark fantasy—emphasis on the fantasy part: Strange creatures, whole other worlds, all of that good stuff. I loved his short novel Cabal, which was a great mix of horror and fantasy, which lead me to one of his best known books: Weaveworld. 

Weaveworld tells the story of a young man who stumbles into a world of magic and horror when he comes across a rug that secretly conceals an otherworldly realm peopled with incredible creatures called the Seerkind who just so happen to be hiding from a genocidal angel.

Yeah. It’s as crazy as it sounds. Crazy awesome.

To put it in no simple terms, I’m completely in awe of Barker now. I’m a fan. I want to read everything he’s written (except the extreme/splatterpunk stuff; it’s just not my jam). He writes the kind of phantasmagoric fantasy I myself yearn to write.

Weaveworld’s heady mix of fantasy and horror captured my imagination in a way few books have. It’s a truly wonderful book—as in, it’s a book filled with wonders: it’s epic, weird, horrific, beautiful, bizarre, and spiritual, all at once. 

I honestly can’t wait to read it again.

Film Rec: Chungking Express by Wong Kar Wai

Y’all, this film.

This film!

It’s beautifully shot, beautifully written, beautifully acted, and just…beautiful. It’s all about human connection, and the ways we can be so close to each other yet so far away, and vice versa. And what a soundtrack!

The story is actually split into two parts, both following police officers reeling from break-ups in Hong Kong: One officer crosses paths with an enigmatic woman involved in the local underworld and finds a moment of connection with her; the other officer eventually is pulled from his post break-up loneliness by the shy, quirky waitress at a midnight food stand he frequents.

It’s not action packed, or anything like your typical rom com, yet it’s undeniably enjoyable, and truly achingly romantic. There are a few scenes where a character is addressing the dish towels and stuffed animals in his apartment that are some of the most wonderfully human moments I’ve ever seen.

If ever a film could be called pure poetry, it’s Chungking Express.

Signing Off

Well folks, that’s it for April 2024. I hope you’ll give one or all of these recommendations a try, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. Please let me know what you think!

Thanks again for stopping by and reading.

Take care, and stay strange!

—Austin