Jesse > Recent Status Updates

“Hell’s Event”

A charity race in London is the battleground for the future of the world. It’s a fun short story with Joel’s narrative and the bit with Cameron that reveals the race’s origin. There’s a bunch of religious and Satanic symbolism mixed in here, like the way in which infernal forces twist around people’s heads, a big plot point in the mystery portion of The Exorcist.

lol this familiar turned into a bee-thing. Is this part of the inspiration for the demons from Fallen London?

“Dread”

The intersection of philosophy and psychology with an amoral villain who is looking to further his understanding of human fear a la Dr. Crane. It’s pretty clear where this story is going once Quaid starts relating his experiment, though I wasn’t expecting the end until we kept following Steve. It’s hard to feel bad for the… villain once he meets his “poetic” justice.

I really loved the first volume! The only other pulpy horror writer I’ve read is Stephen King and I think that Barker’s dark poeticism is different from King’s in an appreciable way (I like them both, but I think that I prefer Barker’s humor). I’m also loving the queer-informed POV. I’m excited for this!

“In the Hills, the Cities”

A gay English couple (teetering on the edge of a breakup) tours Yugoslavia. I like the conflict between Mick and Judd; the symbolism made literal of the Cities and how the two lovers react to their reality, one a socially material journalist and the other an artist, is a wonderful, darkly philosophical moment to conclude the first collection.

“Sex, Death and Starshine”

This one is squicky in parts but altogether one of the lighter stories. A theater run of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is rehearsing quite poorly until an old patron displays his interest in the production, which will be the building’s last performance. Part of this feels like a meditation on the seeming immortality of actors and the energies that sustain them.

“Pig Blood Blues”

A former police officer starts a job at a juvenile detention center, and there’s something not quite right about the residents. Or the faculty. It’s a disturbing story that implicates some kind of magic at play but the means by which the forces operate isn’t spelled out. Barker also draws some parallels between literal consumption and sexual dynamics.

“The Yattering and Jack”

A darkly funny one about a demon who is trying to snatch the soul of what appears to be the most blithely oblivious man in existence. Apparently the M. O. of demons is to do poltergeist tricks until the target loses grip with reality, apparently rendering their soul vulnerable. There are rules to be followed, after all.

“The Midnight Meat Train”

This story starts out as part of the Jack the Ripper mythos before going incredibly cosmic horror. There is something in it that suggests a nefarious intent behind the gathering of human beings into enormous metropolitan locales. Actually, it goes even broader, as if human evolution was fostered for the colonization of America… in order to feed something unspeakable.

“The Book of Blood”

The title track, as it were. Barker sets the tone, also in his introduction to the collection. What makes a haunted house a HAUNTED house, and how do you enrage the ghosts that make it thus? And if they can somehow bridge their way to our world, then what happens?

It’s a ripping adventure with the barest pretense for romance. I’m baffled how cool Anne is with her multiple attempted murders but, well, it is a much better action story than The Big Four.

lol no it’s totally eustace.

… but what if it’s Suzanne somehow and the criminal mastermind has been a woman all along?

Light speed enemies to lovers romance within the detective story. Most of the mystery is unraveled now but the big question is, who is the “Colonel”? My money is on Sir Eustace with the diary that he is keeping being an Agatha Christie red herring on the order of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Anne’s dogged determination to avoid involving any man but her criminal LI is quite a character flaw

Well uh it got weird with Anne falling passionately in love with a violent man whose life she saved. Later, after saving her life, he demonstrates how he could kill her by wrapping his hands around her throat, and she is thrilled by it 😬😬😬 i feel like I’m reading a YA novel lol

This is a fun book. Anne and… I wonder if it’s any coincidence that her lady friend is SuzANNE? … are combing over the case. This feels like a true Detective story as opposed to the Poirot novels, which - while fun as murder mysteries - feel opaque in the process of Poirot’s investigations. Anne’s desire to keep the case free of any male assistance is spirited, though self-destructive.

This is way more fun with secret agents and spies and the like than Christie’s Big Four. Anne Beddingfield is a fun protagonist, a recently orphaned woman with a background in Anthropology (due to her father’s profession), experience as a nurse during World War I, and aspirations of becoming an adventuress. She’s forceful when she wants to be and not above playing up waifishness to mollify the wife of her host.

Uhhh Vigilantes is def the sus title. This one opens with a trio of sexual assault-themed villains. Thanks, Japan

The final section details the tragedy of Arthur’s apparent death, where even forewarned he is fated to pass out of the world. Malory doles out a lot of redemption for characters who contributed to the tragedy not directly but by their passions. It’s a very Christian ending as befits a history in which is enshrined the grail quest. I’d love to read translations of Malory’s sources some future day.

The beginning of the end. The old grudges of the impious clan of Arthur’s nephews (and son 😬) causes the rift of the round table… and Gawain is actually the moderate, up until Lancelot unknowingly kills his two brothers, incidentally the best two of the clan. The action and drama is weighted down by long lists of names and realms. It’s bizarre that the Pope intervenes between Arthur and Guinevere.

Umm. This starts with Guinevere getting kidnapped, Lancelot bailing her out, and them almost getting found out. In a dark moment, Guinevere covertly directs him to battle the offending knight to the death. Then a knight from Hungary is brought to the court and Malory proceeds to list EVERY knight that laid hands on him in an attempt to heal him - all 110 of them. Here, in an aside, we hear about Tristram’s death.

The further adventures of Lancelot as he falls out of his piety and back into his liaison with Guinevere. It ends with a very metaphorical passage about the nature of love and how much better “love” was back in the heavily romanticized Arthurian age vs. Malory’s age, some 1000 years later. Also - Lancelot gets shot in the ass by a huntress on accident 🤣😂🤣

This ends the story of the grail. It’s flush with mysticism and the general theme is that England was no longer worthy of having the holy grail (if it ever was) which prompted a grail quest to find those worthy of removing it. According to this rendition a divine hand in fact removed it from the earth entirely. I believe that this summary misses out on a lot of collateral events; I’d love to have a fuller log.

Bors has a horrible time in his grail quest. Percival had some temptations, but Bors had his own brother set against him, false counsel from demon-priests, and numerous apparently no-win scenarios. Also an aside where Gawain and Ector are told they are unworthy of the grail… and they don’t really care, blowing off the whole thing. Like, Ector walks away in the middle of the lecture!!