Cosmic

[close] Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space ~ Carl Sagan “Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.  The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny #world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”  Join us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JJBOOKS100?s=09

[close] The rarest of rare, a book that makes you aware that reality is gossamer. A story that bears down on your moorings like an existential 18-wheeler with a thick-gauge bullbar. One that degloves your sense of security like that semi degloves a deer. Most often found in the horror genre. I like to call it a 'sense of cosmic dread'. It can be found in any genre, but it almost certainly invites a perception within the reader of the supernatural or the inexplicable. Fears about social games are scary indeed but not the object of this group's search. This group is searching for those rarest types of stories. It is typically only a few moments within a novel or short that offers this unsettling, eerie, spooky experience. For me: Stephen King The Shining - topiary scene IT - several moments; best I've found so far The Mist The short story about the oil patch on the lake (I think?) Crichton - Sphere House of Leaves VanderMeer's Area X trilogy Most of Lovecraft's stories Algernon Blackwood's Willows and Wendigo William Sloane's The Rim of Morning etc. What is perhaps more helpful is what *doesn't* unsettle. Let's not waste time with that--it's quite fine to be blunt and highly-selective in here. King wrote many good books that never rose to the level of 'Actually Unsettled Me'.

[close] Ocean, author of The Sea Wraithe, will answer questions about her book and about the genres of mystery, suspense, and of horror books, about mythology, history, world cultures and also about the paranormal - ghosts, the afterlife and other cosmic themes prominent in her wriiting.