green_dreams | Entries tagged with readables

In the future, I should probably not start on the last third of a Dennis Lehane novel before going to sleep. It is inconducive to relaxation.

(Also, iconed a quote in the book that had me grinning a bit:

I'd have used it here--I did on DW--but my paid account expired on LJ, and I am not paying for more-than-six-icons right now, dammit.)

Abby is being grouchy, and I suspect it has something to do with our cat-sitting Gizmo; will see. And it's currently -22°C (-30 with the windchill[1]), so I am thinking that perhaps it is a day to get as many things possible done from inside the house.
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[1]-7°F/-22, for those of you not using metric.

Bear with me for background: there's an author called Jay Lake. His weird short story "The Soul Bottles" was actually the first story I ever bought in e-format, and is still one of my favourites. He has cancer, and it's not going well. And someone organized an online fundraiser (I think around noon today, my time?) to see if they could get him a particular diagnostic tool, and it went really well.

It's... partly being happy that he's getting help, and partly "oh god internet I'm so glad you make nice things happen sometimes," and partly just... I hope it helps, I really do.

(

cmpriest doing a steampunk/gothic fashion show with her pets should also be cool.)

(Also

seanan_mcguire filking. I understand it's filk, and not "Wicked Girls", but still!)

I made dinner tonight; I got the A Feast of Ice and Fire cookbook last night, after deciding that dammit I really wanted to look up a few things, and today I made the modern leek soup. (Not the same as the blog recipe; the one from the book has less spice, and uses butter and potatoes.) It actually worked out really well; the book calls it comfort food and it manages to be that, despite being a large pile of vegetables. It's less odd when I remind myself that it has butter and carbs.

(At some point I need to figure out exactly which cooking tends to stress me and which doesn't. I know part of it is mood and part of it is familiarity, but that's not all of it.)

Also, I finished three books today, and am halfway through a fourth. Only started one of them today, but still. Am trying to actually write reviews on goodreads, so may be a bit before I toss them all up there, but still. Coraline is the fourth; I'm finding I like it better than the movie in most particulars.

Current Mood: content

Wildside Press has put out The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack for less than a dollar as an ebook. Ignore the slightly retro-sounding title, please, and note that in addition to 39 other stories which include ones by Lovecraft, Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, and Frank Belknap Long, it has T.E.D. Klein's "The Events at Poroth Farm".

I looked for a copy of that for years after reading it, and was significantly motivated to pick up the entire American Supernatural Tales anthology on the strength of it containing that. It is more than worth the price of admission all on its own, although given the low price that isn't quite the flattery it deserves.

Anyway! The ebook is available on both Kobo and Amazon; if you're going to pick it up on Amazon, consider doing so through the Lovecraft eZine link (it's the sixth one down)? They're a good 'zine, and if you're going to buy it anyway, it costs nothing more to be buying it through their link.

Current Mood: happy

Well. Leverage is over, and I went through way more books than I expected to this year (96, and still time to finish one if I focus). So while I still don't like to dwell on how many books I am in possession of that need reading[1], I figure my turnover is pretty good, and I will need some recommendations for next year.

What TV should I be watching that I'm probably missing (if it's not Doctor Who or an ensemble cop/crime-ish show, I'm probably missing it)? What books should I take a look at (you may consider Night Circus and everything by both ChiZine and Innsmouth Press to be on the to-read list) that I probably haven't?
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[1] Hush it's not very far into three digits.

Current Mood: hopeful

Dinner out tonight (was lovely, also there was much geekery), and stopped at Chapters on the way back. I picked up Dodger and The Killer Inside Me on the same trip and am mildly amused by the contrast.

In case of needing some assistance unwinding for the weekend, I have found that this image (completely work-safe!) is very helpful. May not be suited for ailurophobes, but then again, I don't think I know any.

Current Mood: happy

I noticed a certain common colouration in the books I had to hand:

Covers of /Lies and Ugliness/, /Bedlam/, /The Weird/, and /Breed/.

I'm cheating a bit with this picture, since both the hardback cover and the dustjacket of Breed are shown. (I took the dustjacket off because something about the paper just feels subtly repellant--some weird combination of sooty and greasy.) On the flipside, I'm not including The Rivals of Frankenstein, which continues the black-white-red theme, so it all balances if anyone's keeping score, which I sort of doubt.

Am mildly amused by this, especially since the other books I am reading, or have just finished, or have just started, have a black-and-white thing going for the covers. (Apparently the subtraction of red takes you from horror to crime, who knew? Although Bedlam is an exception to that.)

Not feeling well today; I'm hoping it's just after-effects of the flu shot, since those should clear up more quickly than anything I might have actually caught. Managed to get a little cleaning done, though, and get out of the house to pick up groceries and return library books. (Mildly annoyed that one of the books I have on hold has been in transit for just over a week, now, and is still not at the local branch. It's a Lovecraft collection, so I suspect I could find the contents on Gutenberg, but I find I really prefer physical copies of anthologies and collections. Screens and ereaders work best for single works, for me--novels or novellas or standalone short stories, any length is fine, just not several short stories.

Probably turning in early tonight; the nap after the vet's was nice, but I'm still wiped.

Current Mood: tired

John has made my day SIX BILLION times better.

ETA: He did it twice. I've mentioned this one nearly seven years ago, and then again three years back.

Current Mood: ecstatic

You know how when a character's described in a book and something about them isn't specified, there's a default assumption about them? If gender isn't specified, they're assumed to be cis male[1]; if orientation isn't specified, they're assumed to be straight; if ethnicity isn't specified, they're assumed to be white.

Is there a word for this other than "cultural default assumption"? And is there a source that confirms this kind of thing happens that you can point to?
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[1] I still remember being bitten in the ass by this one. The story was written in the first-person perspective, and I was two-thirds of the way through before I realized the narrator wasn't a man. I don't think the author was trying for a clever dodge or anything, it just... gah. *embarrassment*

Rather quick, rather flip notes, as I down coffee before work...

First; There are movies I haven't seen. Quite a lot of them. Two that came up this morning were Scarface and Johnny Got His Gun (because the morning drive music included "Jack Sparrow" and "One").

What else am I missing? What movies are really worth seeing (and trust me, the expectation that I've already seen it is not to be trusted)?

Second; So I'm on goodreads. It allows for a five-star rating system, and for me that basically seems to boil down to (1) I'm rating this because I want to establish I thought it was terrible, not that I just didn't bother to rate it; (2) pretty bad to not-great, but with redeeming moments; (3) decent way to spend some time; (4) everyone interested in the genre or subject matter should try reading this; (5) everyone should try reading this.

There's a whole lot of things falling into the three-star category, including some things that I'm feeling a little bad about, because they'd be four-star books if five-star ratings weren't reserved for truly amazing things. And I'm wondering if I should reorganize, give everyone-should-try-this books their own shelf and stretch my ratings out so that there was a middle ground between "decent" and "everyone interested in the genre or subject matter should try reading this".

I may be putting a bit too much thought into this, but I wondered.

Current Mood: thoughtful

On my way home on the bus yesterday, I was flipping through my copy of American Supernatural Tales, looking to find the excellent "The Events at Poroth Farm", when a fragment of text caught my attention:

...not an "animal of some kind," as he put it. Something with a dragging tail, with scales, with great clawed feet--

And in the back of my head, a little voice is going wait, wait, I remember this...

--and I knew it had no face.

Yes.

"The Lonesome Place", by August Derleth.

It's been so long since I read that that I have no idea, now, where I first saw it. It's been printed in a ton of places, but none of them ring any bells. I was surprised to discover it was by Derleth; I always thought of it as a children's story, the kind of thing you'd find sitting on a shelf with A Touch of Chill and Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Witches. It's got a sort of calm tone to the horror, nothing giddily overbearing. Puts me in mind of Bradbury:

"See, baby? Something bright... something pretty!"
A scalpel.

(It occurs to me, as I write this, that I might have a mildly elastic definition of "children's story." Might. I'm just tossing that out there for consideration.)

But yeah; I just thought I'd make a note of that feeling of recognizing an old acquaintance, is all, one I didn't expect to see there.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Hey, guys. I know I've mentioned Innsmouth Press before; I've got all their anthologies, and their magazine is the kind of awesome that leads to me buying the magazine even though it's free. (Admittedly, it's $2, but does that not make it even better?)

Anyway, their fourth anthology (Fungi) is coming out, and they're preparing for their fifth. They want to pay full pro rates for that one, a Sword & Mythos anthology; and since they're in Canada, they can't run a Kickstarter, but they're set up on Indiegogo. To quote:

What kind of anthology will Sword and Mythos be? Well, it’ll have the sword and sorcery flavor you are looking for, but it will also thread further into unexplored reaches. Why should the worlds of wizards and heroes be limited to faux-European shores? We plan to look for international writers who can provide unusual backdrops and points of view. We want to feature tales of daring female warriors. We will look for kick-ass female writers, established authors and new voices. In short, we want to excite and inspire. We want to take you from cold mountains where icy palaces hide dark terrors, to distant deserts where ghouls roam in the sand dunes, and beautiful pagodas which shadow wizards of might and magic.

Sword and Mythos would be released in October 2013.

Honestly, I know times are tough all over, but even if you can't chip in, maybe pass the word along? They're a pretty amazing little micropress.

Current Mood: hopeful

By then serials were dying anyway, and of what use was a green suit with a long cape and wings on the sides of its cowl? In the real world, there was no room for Green Falcons.

Got to work this morning and I couldn't get "Night Calls the Green Falcon" out of my head. It's from Robert R. McCammon's Blue World collection, or at least that's where I first read it.

A shriek like the demons of hell singing Beastie Boys tunes came from the speakers.

So I went looking, and bless the man, he has the whole thing up on his website. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; it's written as a serial, it really suits being posted online.

"No, I haven't seen him for a while, but I know what his name was." He grinned, gapped-tooth. "John Smith. That's what all their names were." He glanced at the Green Falcon. "Can you breath inside that thing?"

It's about a man who used to play a hero in the old movie serials--you know the kind, right? Ten chapters to a story, dramatic cliffhangers, come back next week for the next thrilling episode in this dynamic mystery, "The Star and Question Mark"!

"Hey, amigo," the man said, and flame shot from the barrel of the small pistol he'd just drawn.

I mean... okay, it is not entirely surprising that I am a sap for stories about people trying to live up to the stories; ones about the power of stories to change the world. Galaxy Quest. Shakespeare in Love--not the romantic plot or subplot or whatever it was, but the sheer weight of the theatre, the "I don't know. It's a mystery." Hogfather, and the difference between the sun coming up and a giant ball of flaming gas illuminating the world.

He kept going to the stairs, burdened with age.

"‘Dear Davy,’" the voice rang out. "‘I am sorry I can't come to Center City this summer, but I'm working on a new mystery...’"

The Green Falcon stopped.

I'm not saying it's great art. It's a four-colour story, bright and simple and clear. It has a grim and bloody moment or two, but then of course it does; they always did.

Who was he? somebody asked. The Green Falcon? Did he used to be somebody? Yeah, a long time ago. I think I saw him on a rerun. He lives in Beverly Hills now, went into real estate and made about ten million bucks, but he still plays the Green Falcon on the side.

Oh, yeah, somebody else said. I heard that too.

I heard that too.

Current Mood: enthralled

32°C as of 3 p.m., calculated to come across as 41 with the humidity. (That's 105 down south, I understand.) I'm going to grit my teeth, get through the trip home, and then not move outside the air-conditioning until a civilized temperature is re-established.

Going to give the e-reader a factory reset. The Kobo help desk suggested this might also solve the battery problem[1], which could be due to a firmware issue, but I confess to being somewhat skeptical. Will be very happy if it works, though.

Also! Pretty things, for values of pretty things that cover post-apocalyptic video games (no, not Fallout).

Current Mood: tired

Proof that it's been a long busy week: I haven't mentioned this yet...

The latest issue of Innsmouth Magazine, available here for free (online or in PDF), and here for $2 (buyyyyyy ittttt... It's $2! When was the last time you got half a dozen good stories for $2?). Enjoy!

Current Mood: cheerful

Was driving home from dinner with John, and the "Were you born in the 80s?" test came on. So I got weepy, as I tend to; poor Lir, after all. And we started talking about lines; the bright standalone ones that brought something home to you, and that stay with you.

This is by no means anything close to exhaustive, and some really well-done lines aren't here; "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" comes to mind, as does "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream", and "So it goes." And there are some excellent stories that aren't represented, because for me no one single line could sum up Machen's "Lost Hearts" or Michael Shea's "Fat Face" or Tiptree's "The Screwfly Solution"[1] or Susan Palwick's "Gestella"[2] or Stephen King's "N" (and yes, I am aware I have reasons to be partial to that one that have nothing to do with the Mythos) or Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" or Bradbury's The Hallowe'en Tree.

So here they are: lines of prose, occasionally reworked by the fuzzing of memory. How many of them mean something to you? Which ones do you have?

One side of his face cuddled too hard into the sand, and one leg kicked the air three times.

But in Bedford Falls, it was always Christmas Eve...

I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.

There's nothing behind those eyes. There's just clay and magic words.

O embleer Frith!

I have no doubt that it will happen, none at all. None at all. Because I have positive proof that Loob can undo his interference with the past.
The proof is this: they are here, the Goster County dogs.

Sometimes we forget to blink.

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[1] I am nearly done my anthology of apocalyptic fiction. I have skipped the Tiptree story towards the end, because I have not been up to reading it these last few days. I'm not saying the story included will be one of the ones that leaves me shaking. I'm saying it's Tiptree, and after my introduction to her, I do not approach James Tiptree Jr. casually.

[2] It's in her The Fate of Mice anthology. I'd heard it was the darkest story in the book, so I skipped straight to it--it's the second--rather than reading them in order. Then I read it through. Then I wept. I can loan it to anyone local, as soon as I get it back.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Why do you own the books you do? I mean, why did you buy them instead of take them out of the library; why did you keep them instead of reselling or trading or giving them away?

What makes them worth it?

Current Mood: anxious

...I only very very very rarely say this, but I think there will be a little break from book acquisitions for a while.

There are a couple of exceptions. First, I've already spoken to the best beloved local independant bookstore, and they are holding a copy of The Weird for me.

Second! Innsmouth Press is coming out with its Fungi anthology this autumn (oh lord, when day next dawns it will be May, where is the time going?). The table of contents is up, and they're still looking for examples of fiction-with-fungi for their database. It's their first anthology in both paperback and hardcover, too, and I'm actually really glad for them. (Also, you could do worse than check out their other books!)

Current Mood: shocked

I was actually looking at my bookshelves. There are, for the record, a lot of Night Shade Books products on there. So! The company that brought you The Mall of Cthulhu, Ellen Datlow's The Best Horror of the Year, The Book of Cthulhu, London Revenant, and oh my god they have Manly Wade Wellman reprints...!

Ahem. Yes. Anyway! Times are tough, and they're having a sale. Fifty percent off everything, both what's currently available and what's getting printed in 2012.

Want The Best Horror of the Year Vol 4 (or earlier volumes)?

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl (Hugo winner! Nebula too)
or Pump Six collection?

The Book of Cthulhu (or the Book of Cthulhu, Vol 2)?

Joe Lansdale's formerly out-of-print The Boar?

Trial of Flowers by Jay Lake?

Elizabeth Bear's The Chains That You Refuse?

Some Agatha Heterodyne books?

Fallen angels vs. fae in 1970s Ireland?

Or The Lurker in the Lobby
(rumours that I am thinking of using it as a checklist are totally false)?

And it's all half-price. Plus there are raffles every day.

How can you go wrong?

Current Mood: ecstatic

This isn't a destash, mind.

I need a way to organize my ebooks; mostly fiction and RPG. I don't like Calibre; I don't like the way it creates its own library which you are strongly advised not to touch, and I don't like the lack of folders and sub-folders (yes, I know there are tags; I'd still like a more concrete division, and the only thing it seems to offer for that is separate libraries).

I do like the tags and the cover previews. If I could find something that behaved like Windows Explorer (including the not possibly deleting files if I rearrange them) but gave me tags and thumbnails of the cover page, I would be happy. If it also let me load books onto my Kobo, I would be delighted, but there's always drag-and-drop.

Suggestions?

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Location: 45.42172, -75.68971

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
- Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind"

Just one of those days.

Current Mood: content

Experiments demonstrate that animals and humans respond to their earliest experiences by internalizing a cognitive classificatory system based on the creatures they regularly encounter. After a certain time, however, the classification system “solidifies” into a cognitive framework, and any subsequent strange and unclassifiable encounter produces fear in the knower. Categorical mismatch makes the knower very uncomfortable.
- Stephen T. Asma, Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

"What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?"
- Arthur Machen, "The White People".

Current Mood: thoughtful

Apostrophes-before-"s"s show up (1) in a contraction or (2) to indicate the possessive. If you see an apostrophe-before-s, you should be able to figure out which one. There are limited options:

"The error's aftereffects are serious." Possessive. Discusses the aftereffects belonging to or caused by the error.

"The error's really blatant." Contraction. States that the error is really blatant, except that i has been replaced with '.

"This writing is plagued by error's." Neither. Is plagued by the error's what? Is plagued by error is? No. Bad. Wrong. Fired.

Exception: when indicating something belonging to an "it", then "its" is used. This allows you to distinguish from "it's", which is a contraction of "it is".

"Oh god, this writing. Its punctuation is terrible. It's obvious it needs editing."

Aside from that, don't use the "apostrophe-before-s". Not when something draw's near, not when you are shopping for clothe's, not when the video game's are on sale[1], not when driving around looking for ATM's or gas station's, not when reading a Cthulhu mytho's story, not while playing DVD's during spring cleaning. Just. Bloody. Well. Don't.

Thank you. That is all, since if I get into how "sediment" is not the word for the loose earth overtop a fresh grave and the fact that choking someone is not squeezing off their ability to breathe, I will be here all damn day and it's actually nice out.
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[1] When the video game's DLCs are on sale, totally fine. Note that that is not "DLC's".

The mercury (does anyone actually own a mercury thermometer?) is slowly creeping up from this morning, when it was -17°C (-26°C with the wind chill). Looking forward to Wednesday, when it's meant to get up to 11°C. Not - 11°C. 11°C. Okay, yes, that's the low of one day against the high of another, but that's still a 28 degree difference in two days, ignoring the damn wind.[1]

Oh, March. Aren't you just an interesting time, meteorologically speaking. And I cannot wait for the time when I no longer need to worry about my ereader freezing. Literally.

(Yes, yes, paper books don't freeze. However, the pages get blown around, they fare much less well in precipitation, and turning the pages takes longer, which at the temperature that causes my Kobo to freeze is actually a significant consideration because I do not want my fingers out in that cold. Also, Innsmouth Magazine.)

((Possibly this last could be remedied with knit gloves that had leather patches sewn over the fingerprints? Hmh.))
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[1] That's 1°F, -15°F, 52°F, and a 51 degree difference for those of you using Farenheit.

Current Mood: cold

It's February again, so a tiny Canadian micropress is gearing up for another year of extravagantly doing things like "buying cover art" and "paying authors" and "distributing free stories". So if you'd be interested in their books, or the latest or second-latest issue of their magazine[1], it'd be a good time to pick one up. (I am torn on which one to suggest, but I think I would say Historical Lovecraft if you had to pick just one.)

Also, if you happen to, er, own all their books and all the ebook copies of their magazine, you can just donate. There's a link on the main page and donating enters you into a draw for a prize.

On the strength of the magazine alone, which has been running for three years now and which makes me squeak happily and go buy a copy even though all the stories are free, I figured I'd skip a couple of fluffy coffees and send the money their way. They're worth it.
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[1] Available in formats for browsers, Kindles, Nooks, Apple iPad/iBooks, Sony Readers, Palm readers, and any word processing program at all ever for 99 cents (total, not each).

Current Mood: hopeful

(1) How had I not noticed Bob Leman before? I'd read "The Window", and it made enough of an impression that as soon as I saw the title mentioned on this page I thought I knew which one it was. And I was right, and it was still good, and the quote from "Loob" is still stuck in my head, that weird slip and sorrow and the disconnect of hope found in the truth of things turning back to the bitter way they were before.

(2) And if anyone can point me towards a source for his Goster County stories that isn't the absolutely-lovely-looking-but-extremely-limited-edition Feesters in the Lake & Other Stories, which is currently going for about $250, I'd really appreciate that. Really. It's too early in the year to do something fiscally stupid.

(3) What is with Wikipedia? No-one who doesn't care about putting up story summaries puts them up, so why are they so off? I can see leaving out the details of the crumbling demise in "The Colour Out of Space". I can. But you look at the review of "The Window" and it's wrong. It's like ending a summary of "Pickman's Model" with Pickman coming back into the room after shooting a few rats, except the truncated bit leaves out even more. I get being rushed, but leaving out the last two pages of a barely-22-page story? The best two pages? Not even bothering to note that there's more, but that summarizing it would be a spoiler? Gah.

(4) Yes, I'm going to update their summary, as soon as I'm done grumbling and have slept.

Current Mood: frustrated

I have no doubt that it will happen, none at all. None at all. Because I have positive proof that Loob can undo his interference with the past.

The proof is this: they are here, the Goster County dogs.

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/01/loob/

Current Mood: weird
Current Location: 45.38945, -75.71858

Anyway, Piper has had a cheerful one-hour walk through places that are interesting because she hasn't been there since all the smells changed, so that at least is productive. And I suspect I am going to have relatively little trouble getting to sleep. (Memo to self: I need a book light. Reading before sleep is important. So is not waking people up.)

Also need to e-mail local computer store, since my laptop screen now flops through a roughly 20° arc and I am sure that should get fixed. (Possibly I will look at a new battery, too.)

Have been scanning a lot of books into Goodreads lately, and am starting to feel that my initial estimate of our owning ~12-1300 might have been low. This is a bit unsettling. I love my books, and am happy to be a forever home to them, but... Well. If there was a fire, I think that some of the ones I lost I would not worry about replacing, and that suggests to me that some of them might be better suited elsewhere. Will look at weeding things out next month, maybe.

Current Mood: tired

When did the Repairman Jack series get up to number fourteen?!?

Current Mood: shocked
Current Location: 45.32038, -75.88059

I got out early today, which was nice. They're asking if I can come in next week, and stay late tomorrow, and we'll see how all that plays out. But for tonight... nice.

Also! I got home to find that Future Lovecraft had made it to my mailbox, with a bookmark and a little holiday card.

I'm going to try to get in early tomorrow, and stay late if I need to. Tonight, I'm going to the SnB potluck, and I understand there are zombies to deal with in Papua New Guinea. (I may be fuzzy on the details.)

Current Mood: relieved

Okay. There's a certain group of writers; think J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Algernon Blackwood, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the wonderful Montague Rhodes James[1], William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen...

("Green Tea". "Carmilla". "The Yellow Wallpaper". "The Willows". "Lost Hearts". "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You, My Lad". "A Voice In The Night". "The House on the Borderland". "The White People". "The Monkey's Paw".)

What do you call those guys? (Not looking for superlatives, here. I mean, you've got the Romantics, the Victorians, the Post-Modernists, even the Inklings... and then you have these. And I will be damned if I know what the word for them is. And I know Perkins didn't write a lot in that vein; I'm not sure I should include her if I left out W. W. Jacobs. But "The Yellow Wallpaper" is one hell of an example of what I'm talking about.)

*gives in and adds Jacobs' story to the list above*
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[1] It's "Lost Hearts", really.

Current Mood: thoughtful

I am emerging from the sort of fuzzy haze of coughing bits up that has shrouded the last week, and it's occurring to me that it's oh god December December seventh waugh holidays year-end gifts flail.

(I like to think it's a bit more dignified than that. Also, I have now for the first time ever actually gone and bought an app for my phone. It's a Cthulhu countdown to Christmas, and forget the bit about it being less than a coffee at a coffee shop; it's less than a coffee at Tim Horton's. Innsmouth Press mentioned it.)

(Anyway.)

And there is something I am feeling strongly ambivalent about.[1]

(1) I am aiming to read 83 books this year. I've read a lot more than just books, mind--magazines and individual stories and etcetera--but I am aiming for the books. I am at 75. (I am also partway through five, at the moment--possibly six--so this isn't as difficult as it might sound.)

(2) I am aiming to get something knit for my mother and sister this year.

I cannot reasonably aim to do both. I might be able to get both done, but planning to do both will have me frazzle and burn out and result in neither knitting nor reading being fun, and that is sort of the antithesis of what those activities are supposed to be like. So... thoughts?
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[1] Not ambiguous.

Current Mood: busy

This Saturday, in Toronto, there is going to be a release party for Future Lovecraft. I was really hoping to go--I like Innsmouth Free Press, I like trips, I like anthologies and the Mythos, I highly approve of the Merril Collection, and three of the book authors were going to be there.

Sadly, between the cost of travel and the small fact that I've spent the last two mornings coughing up muck, I don't think I'm gonna make it. :(

That said, since I do have one more book that I am letting myself buy this year, I think it will be Future Lovecraft. It's still on pre-sale, and hey, it'll be here in time for Christmas. It's got a Nick Mamatas story, and one by Molly Tanzer--she wrote the Ivybridge Twins story from Historical Lovecraft, which is quite seriously awesome--and between the table of contents and the sample story I am quite looking forward to it.

Meantime... well. It's almost December, and I'm halfway to getting paid for the week, and I'm tired. Sleep is the way, and hopefully I won't wake myself up coughing.

So, back in early October, I hit a bookstore--a very nice one in Niagara Falls called Fiction Addiction. 36 books for $32.49, which I realized was an error so we went back the next day and gave the owner $42 and change. And then I sort of got five more books for $32.02, which while a lot more reasonable is still quite a good deal, especially when one's a hardcover.

Complete list here.

I have discovered two things--that I am very fond of Goodreads to organize books, and that entering in books that are too old for ISBNs takes ages. Also that at least fourteen of the books I got don't seem to have a decent cover picture, so I will get to add them.

I have the impression that some of you reading this might be the sort who enjoy genre fiction. (Can't imagine what I based *that* idea on.)

Therefore, I bring to your attention two details regarding works by Innsmouth Free Press.

First, that in December in Toronto their Future Lovecraft anthology will be having a release party. ...migod, I might actually make it to that.

Second, that next year they will be putting together an anthology of the micotic, and they would like help compiling a list of stories/movies/novels/shows on that theme. I suggest checking the list they already have first--I very nearly embarrassed myself by duplicating the "Grey Matter" entry--and then going on to submit your suggestions here.

Now, can anyone tell me the name of that short story from one of the Hot Blood anthologies that involved a mycologist in the Amazon discovering an incredibly virulent fungus that grew on mammals, and infecting his faithless fiancée back home by breathing on his letters to her? I think her name was something like Carla, and it ended with a couple of campus police breaking down the door to find a mass of red shelf-like fungus in a white string bikini with a shock of yellow hair at one end... Not one of the greatest, I know, but it's stuck in my mind.

Current Mood: hopeful

In the name of not being utterly out of it, or something...

* surgery on relative seems to have gone well, yay.
* work. So tired.
* Canada's Penitentiary Museum in Kingston got my name right. Three times. They are awesome. I have a little laminated card.
* a collection of stories about the Ivybridge family is coming out next year. For those of you who don't know them, may I recommend the Historical Lovecraft anthology?
* oh lord, I still need to turn over the laundry.

Current Mood: exhausted

Yesterday I was up until four in the morning. And then I was up and functional by eight. Somehow I'm still not tired. Admittedly there was a nap in there, but...

One of the people I write with a fair bit of the time is doing NaNoWriMo. It's rough going so far (mind, that doesn't mean much yet), but she's doing it. I, meanwhile, have written maybe three hundred words of fiction in two fragments this week.

I mean, it's just been Hallowe'en; I practically feel guilty about not trying. It's the time of year for (proper Lovecraft) ghouls and curiously meaningful scratches and shapes standing in the dark in the still of your room and just watching you.

You think.

You can't see their eyes, after all.

(Oh yes, this is absolutely going to help me get to sleep. Because I needed a chaser after reading a third of the way through the House of Fear anthology. It's a nice mix; part actual ghosts and part haunted houses, with a side order of the weird.)

Beginning to get sleepy, at least. The nice thing about the phone is that I can post in my room and don't get distracted by the joys of the internet or the horror of the Sierra Madre. Much easier to lie down and go to sleep if you don't need to tear yourself away from a computer motor.

(That's the Sierra Madre from Fallout: New Vegas - Dead Money. Which is a quite well-done little horror story set in a haunted house... one which both corrupts its victims and is inhabited by ghosts, now that I think of it.)

Tomorrow I'll try and get my books sorted, I suppose. And maybe I'll hear back about work. The estimated start date just keeps creeping forward; at this point I'd be surprised if anything happened before Monday.

Current Location: 45.31978, -75.87998

Scottish crime writer's night as part of the international writer's festival tonight. I had a lovely time. :D

Stuart MacBride, who was the author whose name caught my attention in the first place, is very funny in pretty much exactly the way you'd expect a man who writes gritty (and/or morbidly cheerful--Jenn, don't click that link) stories about serial killers to be. He read the short story I just linked, too; said it was the first time he'd read it for an audience. He signed my copies of halfhead and Flesh House, and seemed pleased to hear I'd liked halfhead. Apparently he got a lot of grief for writing something that wasn't in the series he's best known for; I think that's a serious shame, as it was a good book and a damn fun story.

Ian Rankin I had heard of and read before; Denise Mina I hadn't. I'm rather regretting the last, now; I would have picked up her book The End of Wasp Season if I weren't on that strict self-imposed moratorium of Only One More Book This Year Dammit.

Having surveyed the results of the last month, I have come to a decision.

I am not putting a moratorium on buying any more books this year.

I am buying one more book this year. Maybe. But only one. And I might not. I probably won't. That's just there as a rider so that I don't announce that I'm not buying any more books only to have the universe drop in and say "Hey, look! It's a signed copy of James Lovegrove's Days and you can't buy it, mua-ha." God loves to make a man break a vow, and all that.

Current Mood: determined

There are a couple of short stories I've read. They involve (never as the narrator, but always prominently) a lawyer nicknamed Pinkie. He lives in Arizona or New Mexico or someplace similarly arid. Big guy, bald, dry skin, lovely voice.

Strong implications are that he's a Deep-One-to-be who broke with his family; the protagonist of one of the stories is a human lawyer, and the protagonist of the other is a Hound of Tindalos in human form.

Anyone know the stories, or the author?

Current Mood: curious

I accidentally a bookstore.

A whole bookstore.

A bookstore with a "Vintage SF/F paperbacks 3/$1 and Vintage SF/F hardbacks 3/$5" deal. It's a very nice bookstore! You can see about it here. (Feel free to click on it. I understand it will help their Google ranking or something and they are very nice.)

But yes. They called a cab for us even. Which was really pretty necessary, because I think I got 35-40 books for about $33 and and and. Bookstore.

Details post later yes-yes.

Current Mood: surprised

Cutting through the mall by work to get home today, and discovered that the Friends of Library and Archives Canada were having their annual book sale.

I got off lightly...

the Dark Forces anthology hardcover;
du Maurier's Don't Look Back collection;
In Darkness Waiting (I haven't read much John Shirley that's just John Shirley);
James Herbert's Others;
Matthew Lewis's The Monk[1];
Stephen King's The Colorado Kid (am interested to see how it ties into the Haven TV show);
John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar, my very own copy in lovely condition--I may have squeaked in an undignified fashion when I found it;
Rough Trade by Dominique Manotti, translation of a French crime novel;
King Solomon's Mines (from original copyright edition);
an ARC of Graham Masterton's Master of Lies;
the Short Sharp Shocks collection; and
the Bloom County collection Classics of Western Literature.

Most books there seem to be going for a dollar each, and the sale is on all weekend, so if you're local it might be worth visiting.

========

Back from dinner and walking the dog, and browsing the movie theatre site.

The Straw Dogs remake is out. Interested, but it'll be a bit of a downer--either because it's meant to be or because it was a bad adaptation.

Fright Night remake still playing. Only in 3D and only at the nearby theatre, though. I may go see it anyway; 3D non-matinee showings are stupidly expensive, but I liked that movie. It was a weirdly comforting thing that is pleasant for emotional associations that are not fully defined (because I do not feel like dissecting them, although I may get to it later). Like a fluffy chai latte.

And Rise of the Planet of the Apes is still on, and can still be seen as a matinee. So that is also a possibility.
---
[1] *waves tiny flag for gothic novels, here. And on that note, Candle in the Attic Window is on presale and there's a contest for free copies here*

Current Mood: thoughtful

Dear human-exterminating overmind Archos?

I am actually fairly sure that not all babies are pink, and that not all of the brilliant tool-using scientific progress that went into your creation stemmed from the ones that were. Maybe "flushed". You could have gone with flushed as an adjective. I would be rather less annoyed.

Current Mood: irritated

In Sault Ste Marie. This is okay. Had to wait at airport for my sister. This is okay. (This is less than as good as okay, since (half?) her flight got cancelled and she had no sleep, but right now she is catching up.) Last room had a ton of fruit flies, so moved to this one. This is okay.

The state of the hotel wifi?

Not.
Okay.

Anyway, I might be able to get a connection to stick around, if I put the laptop on the chest of drawers and hunch. Am reminding miyself that downloading and installing Fallout: New Vegas out of spite is a petty thing, and I should not do it.

Getting picked up in forty minutes. Need painkillers. At least it's a fast change.

Keep itching to fire up DW--Dreamweaver, not DreamWidth--and poke around with site ideas. Will not have time, I know. Maybe after the reception or tomorrow morning.

May drop on an episode of Mifits or something, not sure. Am torn between being comforted by and being annoyed at the sameness here. It sort of highlights the monoculture in Babbitt, which I am currently reading through and which is making me wince rather a lot.

Hoping the chance to actually be in a space that does not have a lot of other people in it will help me unwind before the wedding.

Current Mood: restless

So I was thinking of organizing my books on Goodreads, as you do. Was thinking about putting on a "haunted houses" tag. And I've been going through a lot of stuff on TV[1], and now watching Marchlands, and...

I like haunted house stories. And I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what they are. Asked John what he thought the best written and movie ones he'd read or seen were, and he said The Shining and The Others, respectively. Switched the book choice to IT, though, and I cannot dispute.

There's the Haunting of Hill House, of course. And The Shining. Hell House, The Others. Then you get Rose Red, The House Next Door, House of Bones, Apartment 16, the Dionaea House, Ghost Ship, The Overnight, The Dwelling, The House of Lost Souls (which I actually just finished)...

John also suggested Event Horizon. I will agree and add in the town from Uzumaki, in the same "well, yes, but wait?" vein that his selection of IT gave me. Yes, absolutely, but the fact that I'm including them both makes me think that I don't understand my own definition as well as I thought.

So. What makes something a haunted house story, rather than just a ghost story?

( By the way, might be spoilers. Very very incoherent rambling and spoilers. )
---
[1] Okay, Fright Night is pretty much what you'd expect from an 80s horror movie, but that last scene with Peter Vincent (who has awesome eyebrows, FTR) and Evil Ed? That was actually quite beautifully done.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Started reading Lies of Locke Lamora. Lot of fun.

Started and finished reading Moonlight Mile thank you Mr. Lehane I was hoping to knit on those bus rides. Still. I think it was shorter than Gone, Baby, Gone, but still a good read.

I get paid tomorrow, unless there has been some sort of hiccup. I really hope there has not. It would be very nice to get paid. I've been feeling a bit tetchy at work yesterday and today, and I think the nearly-three-weeks-without-meeting-a-paycheque-yet is getting to me. (I don't see this as a flaw on their part; I started work two days before they would have had to submit the first electronic deposit, so they didn't have time to get me in. But it still wears on me a bit.)

I am going to bed early tonight, I think. I have not slept well or not slept enough since Sunday night (where going to bed was delayed by an hour because Angus committed a Great Escape, which he has attempted to re-enact five times since). This might also be affecting my mood at work.

Other news... not much other news. --oh, yes. You can't write notes on the Kobo Touch either.

Hunting food now, I think.

(Dear LJ: I wonder if you will post this. I wonder if anyone will see if you do.)

Current Mood: tired

Work seems to be going well. Have not been late, have not embarrassed myself (I think), have not annoyed anyone. Commute's a bit long, but hey--I haz an ereader. So okay. Once I get a bit more organized I will bring along knitting, too.

Speaking of which...

It's not mine. I *wish* it was mine; I think it's absolutely lovely. It's one version of the Pretty Twisted Cuff pattern from the new Knitty, and it is leading me to consider casting on. I am currently crushing the impulse like the snake in Montresor's family coat of arms, but it may yet prevail.

Still cleaning, and hope to have at least one dresser out of the house tonight. In a couple of days I'll put up some more books to get out of the house (list of those still available is here if you missed it).

Ereaders are interesting. I find them more absorbing than regular books, and I think it's due (at least in the Kobo) to the screen size. Constantly tapping on the screen to turn the pages makes you focus, and the relatively small amount of text onscreen means that if you get distracted, you don't have an entire page to glance at to reorient yourself[1] and might actually need to consciously read the last sentance or three to reorient yourself to the story.
---
[1]You know--get distracted, need to deal with something, come back, pick up the page, and without really paying attention to the text you already read you see it and your memory's refreshed. ...does anyone else do this?

Current Mood: working

There is a ~~gentleman~~ skeleton I may have mentioned on occasion by the name of Orrin Grey. He writes. And come October, he is getting his collection Never Bet the Devil and Other Warnings published, and is going to be in The Burning Maiden anthology along with Tim Lebbon, Joe R. Lansdale, and Sarah Langan.

(And a lot of other people, but I haven't woken up yet and those are the three names I know best. Am wondering what it says that all their last names start with "L". Probably not anything.)

I think I need to go get coffee or I am going to *completely* descend into inarticulate babbling, but... congratulations, seriously.

Current Mood: content

So I ended up getting my hands on a copy of De Profundis a while ago. Wasn't really sure what to expect, but the bit about being good for people with minimal time appealed.

It's basically a guidebook for writing in-character documents in a Lovecraft horror setting, how to organize people to play that kind of... I'm not sure I'd even call it a game. Collaborative story-telling with integrated prop-making, maybe. Still working through it; they've got a couple of suggestions for how to set up a group (e.g.; people who signed a pact with the devil several years ago at a party and are now realizing that they really signed a pact with the devil and would like to break it), and suggested random events or useful items that you can weave into the background for your various characters.

I'm not sure how to balance the interaction as more than one-on-one. I have been rather spoilt by the facility of adding names to the "To:" field, not to mention the "Cc:" and "Bcc:" options, but you could try simply writing to more than one person. Not hard, just unusual.

And, of course, I am getting my interest in this sparked while we are having rolling postal strikes. Can't win for losing, I guess.

'd anyone be interested?

Current Mood: thoughtful

Not to spoil anything for anyone reading Deadline (which is the sequel to Feed, which is *very* much worth reading IMHO), but...

Dear Protagonist, you did not just say that. O.O

Current Mood: shocked

A friend from knit night at the local yarn store loaned me a book called Gods Behaving Badly. It's about gods in modern London, slowly fading and making their less-deistically-powered way through life.

It's specifically about the Greek gods, too, so the title is rather apt. And there's a mortal. Or two. Poor mortals.

Anyway, I just ran across

"I'm on television," said Apollo.
"You are?" said Zeus. "Have you ever been on Doctor Who?"
"No," said Apollo.
"Oh," said Zeus. "I like Doctor Who. He's a god too."
"I don't think he is," said Apollo.
A split second later, Apollo found himself bouncing like a tennis ball off the opposite wall of the room.

and was amused, so I figured I'd share.

Current Mood: amused

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