TEST PATTERNS

test patterns PLANET X PUBLICATIONS 2017

Edited by Duane Pesice
Introduction by Michael Adams
Work by D.L. Myers, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., H.S. Graves, William Tea, Ron Gelsleichter, Philip Fracassi, Sarah Walker, Ashley Dioses, Peter Rawlik, S.L. Edwards, Brian O’Connell, Jill Hand, Ruth Asch, Pete J. Carter, Sean M. Thompson, Scott Thomas, Nathan Carson, Frederick J. Mayer, Candace Wiggins, Frank Coffman, John Claude Smith, Scott J. Couturier, Rob F. Martin, Adam Bolivar, Don Webb, Russell Smeaton, Matthew M. Bartlett, Cody Goodfellow, Stephen Mark Rainey, K.A. Opperman, Duane Pesice.

When I review this book, my thoughts will appear in the comment stream below…

The Madness of Dr. Caligari

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FEDOGAN & BREMER 2016

My previous reviews of this book’s editor, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. – HERE

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Ramsey Campbell —– THE WORDS BETWEEN

Damien Angelica Walters — Take a Walk in the Night, My Love

Rhys Hughes ——— Confessions of a Medicated Lurker

Robert Levy —— CONVERSION

Maura McHugh — A Rebellious House

David Nickle —– The Long Dream

Janice Lee ——— Eyes Looking

Richard Gavin — Breathing Black Angles

S.P. Miskowski — Somnambule

Nathan Carson — The Projection Booth

Jeffrey Thomas — The Mayor of Ephemera

Nadia Bulkin —— Et Spiritus Sancti

Orrin Grey ——- Blackstone: A Hollywood Gothic

Reggie Oliver —- THE BALLET OF Dr. CALIGARI

Cody Goodfellow — BELLMER’S BRIDE, Or, THE GAME OF THE DOLL

Michael Griffin —– THE INSOMNIAC WHO SLEPT FOREVER

Paul Tremblay — Further Questions for the Somnambulist

Michael Cisco — The Righteousness of Conical Men

Molly Tanzer —– That Nature Which Peers Out in Sleep

Daniel Mills —– A SLEEPING LIFE

John Langan —- To See, To Be Seen

Gemma Files —– CALIGARISM

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When I start real-time reviewing these stories (hopefully before Christmas), my comments will appear in the thought stream below….

Autumn Cthulhu

Autumn Cthulhu8b

Lovecraft Ezine Press 2016

Introduction – Mike Davis
The Night is a Sea – Scott Thomas
In the Spaces Where You Once Lived – Damien Angelica Walters
Memories of the Fall – Pete Rawlik
Andy Kaufman Creeping Through the Trees – Laird Barron
There is a Bear in the Woods – Nadia Bulkin
The Smoke Lodge – Michael Griffin
Cul-De-Sac Virus – Evan Dicken
DST (Fall Back) – Robert Levy
The Black Azalea – Wendy N. Wagner
After the Fall – Jeffrey Thomas
Anchor – John Langan
The End of the Season – Trent Kollodge
Water Main – S.P. Miskowski
The Stiles of Palemarsh – Richard Gavin
Grave Goods – Gemma Files
The Well and the Wheel – Orrin Grey
Trick… or the Other Thing – Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
A Shadow Passing – Daniel Mills
Lavinia in Autumn – Ann K. Schwader

When I real-time this anthology, my comments will appear in the thought stream below.

The King in Yellow Tales, Vol. 1

THE KING IN YELLOW TALES, VOL. 1 : by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Lovecraft Ezine Press, 2015

I have just received this book as purchased from Amazon UK.

My previous real-time review of ‘The King in Yellow’ by Robert W. Chambers HERE

…and of the work of Joe Pulver as linked from HERE.

I intend to real-time review this book and, when I do, you will be able to find it in the thought stream below or by clicking on this post’s title above.

Year’s Best Weird Fiction – Volume One

I have just received YEAR’S BEST WEIRD FICTION Volume One as purchased from Amazon UK.

Guest Editor: Laird Barron – Series Editor: Michael Kelly

Undertow Publications (2014)

Stories by: Simon Strantzas, Paul Tremblay, A.C. Wise, Chen Qiufan, Sofia Samatar, Livia Llewellyn, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, W.H. Pugmire, Maria Dahvana Headley, Anna Taborska, Joseph S. Pulver Sr., Jeffrey Thomas, Richard Gavin, Scott Nicolay, Anne Sylvie Salzman, Kristi DeMeester, Jeffrey Ford, Michael Blumlein, Karin Tidbeck, John R. Fultz, Jeff VanderMeer.

MY EVENTUAL REAL-TIME REVIEW OF THIS BOOK WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE COMMENT STREAM BELOW AS AND WHEN I READ IT.

Hashish and Ventriloquism

Excerpt from my review HERE of ‘The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies’ by Clark Ashton Smith (Penguin Classics) Edited by ST Joshi

The Hashish-Eater; Or, The Apocalypse of Evil
“And sung by moons and motes;”
Motes and atoms of infused imagination that form a dense ritual of recurrent hypnotic endless-seeming meandering clauses of a journey in mind and place. You will never again read a poem quite like this one, nor have you ever read a poem in the past like this one. A culmination of visionary sumptuousness and succulent words and mythic clusters and dark forebodings and aeonic mind-stretching…and the final vision of self that exceeds all these things in even further degrees of what they are. (Is “wyvers” at line 551 a typo for “wyverns”?)

My first reading-aloud of this poem today: http://www.ligotti.net/local_links.php?action=play&catid=1&linkid=63&page=1 OR http://www.filefactory.com/file/3syteh18grld/VN650626.WMA

[ My other readings aloud over the years: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/dfl-readings-aloud/ ]

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Excerpt from my review HERE of A Season in Carcosa and Grimscribe’s Puppets (Miskatonic River Press) Edited by Joe Pulver.

This Excerpt relates to my ‘Dreamcatcher’ philosophy of gestalt real-time reviewing.

20 Simple Steps To Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett
“Of course, you may think this is all complete nonsense to say, but a lot of things that people say – even most things – are complete nonsense. This is not the ventriloquist’s concern.”
This is a rule book that starts accretively building up sense, not nonsense, regarding the art of ventriloquism, and I am confident that I can reach a certain level and be an acceptable ventriloquist as a result of practising the first few stages. In 1950s UK when I was a boy, there was a very successful ventriloquist on the wireless by the name of Peter Brough with a dummy called Archie Andrews, neither of whom, of course, we could see. There is something sinister about that, and when I eventually saw them much later on black and white TV, I was amazed what a bad ventriloquist Peter Brough happened to be, but having listened to them most of my then short life, there seemed a reality to Archie the dummy which outdid the reality of Brough. Like Miss Rosalyn, later on Romper Room, whom I mentioned earlier in this review in connection with ‘Wishing Well’ by Cody Goodfellow — she brought me to life by looking through the grainy screen that TV Screens tended to be all those years ago and saying that she could see me, scrying me into existence. And this story brilliantly captures that process by a manner of artful means, and is probably one of the most frightening stories you are likely to read if you read it properly because, as in all reading of fiction, and like these very reviews I have been doing since 2008, there is an element of my manipulating the story so that it can manipulate me. You need to work with stories so that they can work with you, working them working you, feeling their tendrils come out of the words and tug your levers and pulleys with prepared ligatures or deceptively tied ligotti. As in the Morris story, ‘the play is the Theatre’. Test out Gardner’s Yellow Bird Strings, too. This Padgett story, if it isn’t already, should become a classic that will be anthologised several times in the future.

Puppets in Carcosa

I have just received these two books as purchased from Amazon UK.

A SEASON IN CARCOSA – THE GRIMSCRIBE’S PUPPETS : edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.

Miskatonic River Press 2012 & 2013

Stories by Eddie M. Angerhuber, Laird Barron, Allyson Bird, Michael Cisco, Nicole Cushing, Gemma Files, Cate Gardner, Richard Gavin, Cody Goodfellow, Michael Griffin, Pearce Hansen, Michael Kelly, Joel Lane, John Langan, Livia Llewellyn, Richard A. Lupoff, Gary McMahon, Daniel Mills, Edward Morris, Scott Nicolay, Jon Padgett, Kristin Prevallet, Robert M. Price, Joseph S. Pulver Sr., Ann K. Schwader, Darrell Schweitzer, Robin Spriggs, Simon Strantzas, Anna Tambour, Jeffrey Thomas, Paul Tremblay, Kaaron Warren, Don Webb.