Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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holy ghost
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Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

Post by holy ghost »

(genre specific thread that might benefit from being separate from the general book thread)

Read all the Lovecraft, Howard, Smith, Machen, Blackwood, James and other weird tales writers as a teenager and went back to them in my 20’s and 30’s.

Recently I read through “Perchance to Dream” by Charles Beaumont that I really enjoyed. I read “Haunted Castles” by Ray Russell and the weird fiction of Thomas Ligotti and I loved those.

Recently got turned onto Schuyler Hernstrom and read his Sword & Sorcery collection “The Eye of Sounnu” that I just inhaled over a weekend. Simple uncomplicated stories that are just fun as anything. I’ve ordered a bunch of others from the same publisher (DMR Books) including a couple volumes of “Renegade Swords” that I’m excited to get into this summer. I ordered a few others based on the covers I’d like to tuck into this summer.

Definitely down to hear suggestions/real talk about fiction or comics in this genre.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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I'm not hugely well-read in the genre. I came into it all very casually from listening to Current 93, Morbid Angel, Rudimentary Peni and such.

I'd still call myself a "casual reader", though I've read all of Lovecraft and the bulk of Ligotti's available writing. If my username were not an obvious giveaway, I'm a great admirer of HPL and Ligotti.

I have only read a handful of stories by Lovecraft's contempraries and later ("post-Derleth") Mythos fiction and cosmic horror writers. Few ever really scratch the same itch that Ligotti does, which is why I guess I haven't read as much from newer authors, though I like to collect the odd old issue of magazines to sample different authors.

I remember enjoying the stories by Jeffrey Osier in Deathrealms, though I read so many bad stories, they were maybe only good by comparisson! A bit like Goosebumps for grownups, but with some of the same blackly absurd humor I associate with Ligotti. I need to re-read them some time.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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Just read a newer collection by Harry Piper called THE GREAT DIE SLOW from DMR Books.

It was fucking great. Sort of eerie Celtic inspired weird tales all set in the same universe and all of them extremely interesting. I would recommend this to anyone who likes odd stories of the disturbing and macabre.

I've read a ton of these books in the past year and I have enjoyed them all, but this one was just fantastic. Well worth $16 if you order from the tyrant retailer named after a river.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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A subject/setting in weird/speculative/cosmic horror that I find very interesting is the very, very distant, primordial past and the far-flung future. Periods before and after any thought of humanity in other words.

The most haunting recollection I have from reading the unabridged version of The Time Machine in school was the description of a far distant future after man had effectively gone extinct, and Earth had become a giant desert inhabited by massive crablike things.

If you've ever watched the two-part Devilman OVA, you will no doubt be familiar with the incredibly freaky opening sequence of the first OVA, "Devilman: The Birth", where primordial creatures duke it out in what at times looks more like a feeding frenzy than any sort of abstract struggle between good and evil (If you haven't seen it, it should be on youtube).

I wonder if you can offer some good recommendations to iritate my sensitivities the way these two examples do. No romance, no high fantasy, no heroes, no magic or metaphysical guiding light. Just the pure, matetrial brutality of nature described in fantastic extremes. Something to remind me of how tenuous my spiritual connection to this world actually is and make me feel sick to my stomach to feel like just another gob if gristle churning in the cosmic meatgrinder!

Thank you. :*
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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I recently re-read the Corum series. I've always loved Moorcock's Eternal Champion series', but I feel like this one gets overshadowed by Elric and Hawkmoon, and I've never understood why. They're concise, accessible, and have some really interesting concepts that can get lost in other S&S novels
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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Bubble-Congeries wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 7:38 pm If you've ever watched the two-part Devilman OVA, you will no doubt be familiar with the incredibly freaky opening sequence of the first OVA, "Devilman: The Birth", where primordial creatures duke it out in what at times looks more like a feeding frenzy than any sort of abstract struggle between good and evil (If you haven't seen it, it should be on youtube).
dang i LOOOVe devilman, in particular "Amon apocalypse" ..devil lady is pretty enjoyable too but nowhere as brutal or nasty. shape shifting and general "the thing" stuff has always fascinated me

lately ive been getting into Charles R Saunders, so far ive just read most of Imaro but Quest for Cush is next in line

what did yall think of the nicholas cage "color out of space" movie? is "magenta" a "real Colour" ??
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

Post by Bubble-Congeries »

Never saw TCOoS.

At the risk of sounding like a clueless dork for responding to a rhetorical question: The color magenta has been used for a long time in association with Lovecraft. I suspect because it's the easiest visible representation we have of ultraviolet light that translates well to print/film media.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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I just finished Robert E Howard’s Solomon Kane collection. Damn that book was super racist even by 1930’s standards.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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Bubble-Congeries wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2022 6:52 am Never saw TCOoS.

At the risk of sounding like a clueless dork for responding to a rhetorical question: The color magenta has been used for a long time in association with Lovecraft. I suspect because it's the easiest visible representation we have of ultraviolet light that translates well to print/film media.
no it was a literal question, some people think magenta is an unreal color or doesnt really exist ~uh maybe im spoilering it.
is it magenta or is it just HOT PINK ?? (imo t.c.o.o.s. is really fun, worth watching. i watched it with my dad and he had no idea what he was in for and was pretty freaked out, especially the last 3rd or so)(not as good as uh. the nic cage movie where he chainsaw fights. Sally? Molly? ITS MANDY)

another great cosmic horror author ive only read a little bit of but it was a real treat, not anywhere near as dour as HPL but a lot more like Vibrant and Fantastic is clarke ashton smith, i think they might've even been friends and exchanged letters and possibly cowrote some stuff but i dont feel like fact checking that right this second so it might be totally false LOL
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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lol i self quoted instead of edited. woops
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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Gene Wolfe "Book of the New Sun" series is pretty incredible
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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Cementimental wrote: Thu Oct 06, 2022 8:28 am Gene Wolfe "Book of the New Sun" series is pretty incredible
Agreed - an INCREDIBLE series!!
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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Bubble-Congeries wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 7:38 pm

I wonder if you can offer some good recommendations to iritate my sensitivities the way these two examples do. No romance, no high fantasy, no heroes, no magic or metaphysical guiding light. Just the pure, matetrial brutality of nature described in fantastic extremes. Something to remind me of how tenuous my spiritual connection to this world actually is and make me feel sick to my stomach to feel like just another gob if gristle churning in the cosmic meatgrinder!

Thank you. :*
"star maker" and "last and first men" by olaf stapledon
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

Post by Bubble-Congeries »

chryptusrecords wrote: Tue Oct 11, 2022 2:51 pm
Bubble-Congeries wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 7:38 pm

I wonder if you can offer some good recommendations to iritate my sensitivities the way these two examples do. No romance, no high fantasy, no heroes, no magic or metaphysical guiding light. Just the pure, matetrial brutality of nature described in fantastic extremes. Something to remind me of how tenuous my spiritual connection to this world actually is and make me feel sick to my stomach to feel like just another gob if gristle churning in the cosmic meatgrinder!

Thank you. :*
"star maker" and "last and first men" by olaf stapledon
Thank you! I will certainly look into them.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

Post by PetiteSoles »

I have a book collecting all of Robert Chambers’ Weird Fiction stuff but have only previously read The King in Yellow. Pretty excited to dive in but also, a little nervous. Surely if they were all as good would they not be as known as The King in Yellow?

My favorite of those stories was “The Demoiselle D’Ys” which I know is not everyone’s favorite. Anyways, hoping for some gems in there.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

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I have not read The King In Yellow - I gotta add that to my list this year.

Currently reading To Rouse Leviathan by Matt Cardin. VERY Liggoti-ish but I'm enjoying it. I started it last year, wasn't in the mood and put it down but now I'm right into it.

I also read The Fisherman by John Langan and that hit the Machen/HPL vibe just perfectly. I gotta get on more of his stories.

King of thinking I might just take the fall and just read the collected HPL again. Been a hot minute.
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Re: Weird Tales / Sword & Sorcery

Post by ASN »

holy ghost wrote: Tue Jun 20, 2023 6:43 pm


Currently reading To Rouse Leviathan by Matt Cardin. VERY Liggoti-ish but I'm enjoying it. I started it last year, wasn't in the mood and put it down but now I'm right into it.
Matt Cardin has written a lot of essays on Ligotti, the influence is definitely there. His religious leanings come through in his work which in his best stories adds an interesting dimension to his work. It becomes a quasi-Gnostic take on cosmic horror.

For contemporary weird fiction I’ve been devouring Mark Samuels for the past few years and wish he was more widely published. Stephen J Clark is incredible too.

For classic weird fiction recently picked up a couple of fancy Machen editions from Tartarus Press and earlier this year revisited Clark Ashton Smith’s Hyperborea cycle, which still holds up, a good mix of cosmic horror and Conan style fantasy.
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