Booth #5: ThoRns Grove - Where Books Eat YOU

[Thorngrub]

That's what I've heard, from various sources.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

The weird fiction genre is something I cut my teeth on when I was a kid. I grew up being a role playing nerd with Dungeons and Dragons. I read the Dragonlance novels, I was really into The Lord of the Rings and Ray Bradbury. After reading Edgar Allen Poe in the 8th grade, there was a bit on a blurb on Poe's influence that had "only Lovecraft has been as influential in Supernatural Fiction as Poe, but Poe was the first". There is this cool old Bookstore called "Miss B's" in my old hometown that had a ton of his stuff for a dollar. I wound up picking up everyone I could find and from there it was, as they say, history. I remember picking up Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" and I have rabidly devoured that very insanely well researched document. I have been getting back into more modern authors like Gaiman, Ligotti, and De Lint in the genre as well as collections that I stumble upon. Still though, I'm a bit of a classicist when it comes to the genre. I get Locus and Weird Tales magazines as well as Rue Morgue out of Canada, which as great reviews on weird fiction. It's nice to see someone into it, Thorn. Dude......I need to move to Salt Lake. Austin is soooo tired.

[Thorngrub]

dude... it's like your experiences mirror mine in some alternate universe. I could pretty much say the exact same thing as you did, count for count, w/the singular exception that I have yet to read Ligotti. Damn that's it, U done given me a wake up call on that. I need to get w/it.

As for Salt Lake... despite it bein' viewed as some 'clean Mormon' town, the black/death/underground scene, at least exists, haha. I wouldn't wanna talk it up 4u cuz Lord knows it ain't nuthin' like, say Seattle and other bigger West coast / East coast cities. . . but there are some interesting things brewin' here.

I'm tryin' to get my music chops up to par enuff to jam w/some friends, my one pal Gareth who used to play in this goth band Death Through Grace is my partner in crime w/our proposed 2-piece post-goth outfit SKELETON GARDEN.

Things move waaaaay slowly out here w/ me, though, seein' as how I got my writing projects cookin too. But I'm serious about wanting to fly in to Austin whenever our own the Pagan Dead plays there again . . . & I'll be lookin you up for sure when that happens. I partied w/Pagan Pat and Jodi at their house the other night (after that Noise Fest) till 7:30 in the morning, and Pat mentioned they've already played Austin 3 times.

p.s.

Still waitin' for myspace approval from scab sandwich and kosmodrome.... *koff*

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Ooo....I'll take care of that. For some reason the Scab Sand Witch site is locked out. I'll do the Kosmodrome tonight!

Dude, you guys come to Austin, it's going to be a party!

[Thorngrub]

Hell yeah it is. When the Pagan Dead is in town, the party don't stop till everyone's dropped ;D

[samplestiltskin]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

Wow. He looks CRAZY!

that's what happens when you find god and get sober.

just kidding.. JAC was crazy before and after.

[Thorngrub]

HAha ! ;b
'sup samps

[Thorngrub]

M. John Harrison. British bloke. Gifted writer. Spun off from the MIchael Moorcock school of writing, his talent has evolved to an incredibly well-critically-received prose style.

NOVA SWING is the sequel to the award-winning LIGHT:



Here's a little about LIGHT 4 yer edification:

"Harrison's talent for brilliant, reality-bending SF is on display yet again with this three-tiered tale, published (and highly praised) in the U.K. in 2002. It's 1999, and British scientist Michael Kearney and his American partner, Brian Tate, are studying laboratory quantum physics; unbeknownst to them, they'll become the fathers of interplanetary travel. Kearney nervously holds a pair of predictive dice he's stolen from a frightening specter called the Shrander, whom he keeps at bay by committing random murders. Four hundred years in the future, K-ship captain Seria Mau Genlicher has gravely erred in splicing herself with a hijacked spacecraft called the White Cat—and now she wants out. There's also Ed Chianese, a burned-out interstellar surfer now spending his life within a reality simulation machine. His problem? Monetary debt to the nasty Cray sisters. As Kearney continues to narrowly evade the Shrander, he discovers that company CEO Gordon Meadows has sold the lab to Sony. All three story lines converge and find heavenly closure at the cosmological wonder known as the Kefahuchi Tract, a wormhole with alien origins bordered by a vast, astral "beach" where time and space are braided and interchangeable. This is space opera for the intelligentsia, as Harrison (Things That Never Happen) tweaks aspects of astrophysics, fantasy and humanism to hum right along with the blinking holograms in a welcome and long overdue return. "

AND [from bookmarks magazine]

"Reviewers call Light “complex,” yet seemed more than willing to forgive the complexity—as well as the shortage of sympathetic major characters—because of the award-winning author’s style and sheer intelligence. They also lauded the ending, deemed “suitably transformational” and “connection-rich” (Guardian). Harrison brings a far deeper wisdom and maturity to science fiction than other writers typically do, and poses important questions that reach far beyond the old conceits of the genre. Most intriguing of these: “By what moral calculus is [Harrison’s] mad scientist any madder than the legions of researchers who kiss their families goodbye each morning and spend their workdays developing weapons of mass destruction?” (New York Times). It’s an eternal mystery."

[Thorngrub]

This sequel features the same inexplicable charm that LIGHT offered; which is to say, you may find yourself reading this tale w/out nary the least clue as to wtf is goin on, but enjoying the hell out of it nonetheless.

In Nova Swing, we return to a galactic outpost on the periphery of the Kefahuchi Tract (a section of space wherein the laws of physics/time & space are repealed, and the biggest tourist attraction is the illegal exploration of these regions by thrillseekers & adventurers who must pay blackmarket tour guides to transport them there.

There's a detective character who looks just like Albert Einstein (being one of the more popular 'bodies' available by cosmetic surgery in the future) who follows our protagonist Vic Serotonin, a black-market tourguide living on the sprawl.

It is, in effect, post-noir science fiction filtered through a quantum processor. Perhaps some of the smartest & coolest sci-fi being written today -- give M. John Harrison a chance if you're looking for something new to spice up your summer reading.

[Thorngrub]

*Retards need not apply

[Thorngrub]

I love China Mieville.

[Thorngrub]

[Thorngrub]

My monthly order from the Ziesing's just came in:






I only thumbed through a few pages, but this title seems to deliver on its promise of "adults only" generaly sickery. I think I just made up a new term: sickery. Haha. Anyhow this isn't exactly what you'd think; i.e, there's no clear and discernible "movie entries" per se (that I could find upon thumbing through the pages); rather, this is a very DIY - looking assemblage of shocking cartoons, artwork, and the author's extended rant on, I suppose, all the sickest sequences in the weirdest underground movies he could collect. Definitely an interesting "coffee table" item (assuming your coffee table is in a "kid free" zone).



Here's the eagerly-awaited 2nd volume in Elder Sign's Press series of short stories of "Terrifying Realities" and "Strange Creations". I've got the first volume, and its got some pretty neat-o Lovecraftian stuff in it. This one arrived with the frontispiece signed by nearly every contributor. I'm especially eager to dive in, considering the very first story is by John Shirley - my favorite author -- and its a new story of his I've never read.



Zoran Zivkovic's latest re-issue (originally published in 2001) is delivered in a truly beautiful bound book. Billed as a "mosaic - novel", this Serbian master of post-modernism has, in the last few years, swiftly climbed the ladder to become one of my Top 10 favorite writers alive. Here is a brief synopsis of this book:

"Seven stories about moments of divine revelation through music, which leave no mark beyond the ephemeral instant of their perception: a teacher whose autistic ward inexplicably writes down one of the fundamental values of theoretical physics; a librarian whose dream of the Great Library is reenacted upon her computer screen; a man who buys a music box that when played provides a glimpse into his alternative life; an elderly woman that, hearing a hand organ in a train station, begins to have visions of the death of everyone she encounters; a retired SETI scientist who, despite having no real interest in art, suddenly begins to paint a strange first contact signal; a dying professor who finally has a chance to hear in the form of music the answers to the ultimate questions; and a violin-maker's apprentice who knows the truth behind his master's mysterious suicide."


I simply cannot recommend the stories of Zoran Zovkovic enough.

[skovrecky]

I need to come for a visit and check out your book collection, dude.

[Thorngrub]

Yes, indeed you do skvor. And if I were you, I'd time the visit to coincide with one of our many black/deathmetal shows. We have a guest room that's all yours should you come visit for a weekend of literary mayhem and the crankage of much vinyl.

Which is your primary myspace (that you check the most) ? I'll try and forward our local metal bulletins your way