Search Results for: Laird Barron

Riddles, Intrigue, Occult and Super-Science: A Review of Laird Barron’s The Light is the Darkness

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In just a few short years, Laird Barron has become something of a superstar in horror fiction, especially horror in the tradition of H. P. Lovecraft. In my last post, I reviewed The Croning, Barron’s keenly awaited debut novel after the success of his award winning short story collections The Imago Sequence and Occultation. And many horror fans are waiting (still!) for the release of his new collection, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All — an unfortunate victim set back by…

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Cosmic Horror Skills at Novel Length: A Review of Laird Barron’s The Croning

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As regular readers of Black Gate are fully aware, the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons has had a huge influence upon post-1970s fantasy writers and fans. A case in point, Tor.com is currently delivering a series of posts exploring Gary Gygax’s (the original creator of Dungeons and Dragons) suggested readings in Appendix N of the first edition Dungeon Masters Guide (the first two are here and here). The authors in this list are the usual suspects in fantasy literature: Robert…

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New Treasures: Laird Barron’s The Croning

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Howard and I first met the talented Laird Barron at the World Fantasy Convention in Austin, Texas in 2006. At the time he’d published only a handful of short stories in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, SCI FICTION and a few other markets — but what great stories they were, including”Hallucigenia,” “The Imago Sequence,” and “Shiva, Open Your Eye.” Laird turned out to be a fascinating and entertaining guy. Seriously, next time you’re at a convention, hang with this…

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Track Down Michael Kelly’s Year’s Best Weird Fiction While You Can

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Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Volumes One – Five, edited by Michael Kelly and Divers Hands (Undertow Publications, 2014-2018 ) Two weeks ago I caught this brief note on Michael Kelly’s Facebook page. It was 5 years ago that I published the fifth, and final, volume of the Year’s Best Weird Fiction. My proudest publishing endeavour. These are all out of print, now. Could that be true? Were all five of these fabulous volumes no longer available? Alas, it appears to…

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Devil Dogs and Haunted Highways: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XIII, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XIII (DAW Books, October 1985). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XIII was the thirteenth in the DAW Year’s Best Horror series, and the sixth edited by the great Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). The book was copyrighted and printed in 1985. Michael Whelan returns as cover artist after taking a hiatus from Series XII. This marked Whelan’s tenth cover for the series! The newest cover is more fantasy than horror…

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400 pages of the Best of the Modern Weird: Weird Fiction Review #12 from Centipede Press

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Weird Fiction Review #12 (Centipede Press, October 2022). Front and back covers by Stephen Fabian Weird Fiction Review, edited by John Pelan and published annually by Centipede Press, has gradually established itself as the premier magazine of modern dark fantasy. It’s published a dozen issues so far and has included fiction by Simon Strantzas, Steve Rasnic Tem, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, Victor LaValle, Stephen Graham Jones, Marc Laidlaw, Joseph S. Pulver, Brian Stableford, Darrell Schweitzer, John Shirley, and many,…

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Creeping Dread and Strange Melancholy: Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies by John Langan

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Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies (Word Horde, July 5, 2022). Cover by Matthew Jaffe I consume a lot of literature from a lot of genres: everything from the vibrant, mystical fantasies of Tolkien to the grim blood-and-thunder of McCarthy, and more besides. But it is with horror fiction that I find myself at both my pickiest and my most ravenous. The horror I enjoy, I love. The horror I do not enjoy, I hardly stomach. So, when I find a horror…

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New Treasures: Isolation: The Horror Anthology edited by Dan Coxon

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Isolation: The Horror Anthology (Titan Books, September 27, 2022). Cover by Kerry Lewis I know that plenty of you lot like to keep your horror reading seasonal, and once Halloween wraps it’s time to put the spooky tales away with the other decorations. But for me winter time, with its desolate landscapes and long dark nights, is the perfect time to curl up with some shivery tomes. Dan Coxon’s Isolation: The Horror Anthology has successfully commanded my attention for much…

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Datlow’s Scary Monsters: SCREAMS FROM THE DARK

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Screams from the Dark (Tor Nightfire, June 7, 2022) Monsters are among the most common, classic characters in horror, so it’s not surprising that the latest from famed horror anthologist Ellen Datlow is devoted to them. Datlow’s call for contributions generated a massive response from some of today’s most acclaimed horror writers, and the result is a mega-anthology with twenty-nine original stories. The average quality is obviously high although, due to the theme, there is a certain, inevitable tendency to…

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Fantasia 2021, Part LXVIII: Midnight In A Perfect World

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“Aquatic Bird” is an 18-minute short film from Chinese writer-director Zhang Nan. It weaves together the stories of three interrelated characters — a prostitute (Bird), a man who admires her from a distance (Aqua), and one of her regular clients. The first two are brought together by the light of a green laser pointer; there is a lot of surrealism in this film. It looks very nice, and the script’s very taut — but given the weirdness of the film,…

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