Caligula: A Biography, by Aloys Winterling. It’s a fascinating work that puts forth the idea that Caligula wasn’t insane, but that he was a sort of grim prankster who wanted to be seen as a king—so he did various things to undermine the power of the senate. Like having his horse be a consul.
Current reads of the month. ?
A big inners guide to “ Backyard Beekeeping” by Aletha Morrison
I read between the lines and write my own story.
@HugsAndAttitude I did not know short stories counted.
@FunCartel Well you are always telling tall tales, so why not?
I just received the first deluxe edition of Berserk in the mail. I am pleased.
@hogboblin Lol. I can see where you would be. Corpses of cuddlers past?
@HugsAndAttitude Touché! Thank you for understanding the jest and returning serve on it.
@hobgoblin I find berserk to be incredibly cathartic ?
Just a bit of light reading ?
The world without us / Alan Weisman
@cuddlesfordays1
Berserk is delightfully vicious. I’ve heard more than a few people complain that the series is little more than shock for the sake of shock; even if that were the case (which it isn’t), I still think there’d be something of value to be mined.
Then again, as a fan of ultra violence and the macabre, I’m a bit biased.
@FunCartel
“I can see were you’d be.” You’re referring to the child curled up in the dirt, yeah?
I wouldn’t say that I’ve cuddled enough people to adequately adorn a tree. A large bush, perhaps.
I am currently reading "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov. This is the first book in the foundation series and it chronicles the fall of an Empire and the rise of another I believe. This is a series that analyses society and government. Pretty interesting so far!
@TheProdigy122: I love that series. It's great—if you like the first one, you'll definitely enjoy the others!
@DarrenWalker thats good to hear bro
Today, I intend to go through Negative Space, which is a comic that I recently acquired. It was recommended to me by a friend. “Hey, you’re super depressing all the time. You’ll totally love Negative Space.” And so I bought it used. From what I’ve read so far, it’s about a writer who suffers from depression, but is unable to finish his suicide note because of writer’s block. This works to the advantage of a mega corporation that, it turns out, is in service to an alien race that feeds on human emotion. The protagonist is basically a walking black hole of negative feeling, and the aliens adore him. Shenanigans ensue.
I also mean to finish the 2016 Rhysling Anthology, and to begin 2017’s installment. For those of you who are unaware, the Rhysling Award is given to the year’s best science fiction, fantasy, and horror poetry. It’s like the Hugo or Nebula awards, but for verse.
If you, dear reader, have any interest in speculative poetry, then I recommend the latter physical books:
Dreams of Fear collects weird poetry from antiquity to the present. It’s the book to get when it comes to bizarre and horrifying verse.
The Alchemy of Stars presents the winners of the Rhysling awards for both short and long-form poetry from 1978 to 2004.
Red Sky is another compilation featuring a wide range of weird poetry throughout the ages. It’s less comprehensive than Dreams of Fear, but is more readily available.
If you enjoy reading digital books, then I recommend the following:
The Horror Writers Association’s Poetry Showcase, which comes in five volumes for around $2.99 a pop.
Ebony and Crystal, by Clark Ashton Smith. Smith was a master of beautiful and unsettling verse. Imagine if someone smashed together the minds of Lord Dunsany, Poe, and Lovecraft, and sent the resulting person to be raised by satyrs in some ancient forest. CAS’s poetic voice is utterly unique.
Artifacts, by Bruce Boston. He has won more awards than any other living poet working in horror and fantasy. He’s sorta like the Stephen King of poetry, but his creative visions are far more compelling and focused.
A Collection of Nightmares, by Christina Sng, offers terror, dark comedy, and a special insight into the human condition—all in one book. Sng’s voice conveys the grotesque and the eldritch with a distinct familiarity, as if a friend were whispering dark secrets into your ear. She’s awesome.
And there you go. A wall of text regarding speculative poetry.
The back of my shampoo bottle ?
@hogboblin I emphatically agree haha
@hogboblin: Negative Space sounds fun. I think I'd like to read your copy sometime (and if I like it... well).
I'm reading articles about NASDAQ stock companies and their individual issues, articles about what to do in Bali and the Komodo Islands, and the novel I am on is My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding.
@hogboblin I'm deeply impressed by your poetry reading list. the thing about poetry books is you can't just read them through like a novel. You have to pick them up and sample them and then digest for a couple of days.
I have a lot of poet friends, so most of my poetry consumption is buying their chapbooks. I find I get more from poetry if I have a relationship with the writer.
Currently I'm reading three different books, and that's my idea of being disciplined--I can sometimes have as many as seven or eight books that I'm hopping between.
One is about the plots to rescue the Romanov family from the Bolsheviks in 1918 (spoiler warning, they all fail), one other is a biography of Halford Mackinder (you'd have to Google him), and the last is Paul Auster's City of Glass
the Fellowship of the Ring!
I'm rereading "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, about the amount of information we take in and process unconsciously.
Also reading " The Whispering Room" by Dean Koontz. Really interesting fictional thriller involving mind control via nanotechnology.
Still going through 鋼の錬金術師. I'm finally on book 22 of 27! Since I have the night off... I think I'll make myself a mug of tea, curl up on the couch, and see how far I can get before bedtime. Have a nice waking period, everybody!
I just read an interesting article about flight attendants in an old issue (December 2015) of Marie Claire magazine.
@Trese Dean Koontz is a nice choice for thriller, a genre I'm admittedly not versed in as far as novels go. Following my 10,000th re-read of King's Carrie and R.L. Stine's Blind Date (my lone ventures into horror/thriller novels), I'm currently working through Dean's 1990 horror novel, The Bad Place. The book is special to me because it's the exact limited edition copy that my grandfather owned, and I'm really enjoying it thus far.
Animal farm by George Orwell and the Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkein
I am currently reading The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, and The Collected Poems of Ambrose Bierce: Volume One.
I have mixed feelings about the former. REH is skilled at writing action scenes (which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has read a Conan/Solomon Kane tale), but this talent doesn’t translate so well into horror stories, I think. They can be tense, yet I don’t feel as if there’s anything truly at stake to lend substance to the thrills. A huge part of the problem is that all of his protagonists are supermen.
REH does make several attempts at cosmic horror, all of which fall incredibly flat because of his beforementioned fascination with supermen. It’s impossible to instill feelings of cosmic dread if your characters can accomplish anything.
Meh. Ambrose Bierce was a fantastic poet, though.
@hogboblin - Have you read "The House on the Borderland" by William Hope Hodgson?