Category: Horror

  • “Between Two Fires”/What I am Reading/What I have Finished

    Regular readers of this blog will know of my fondness for the band Cannibal Corpse. And, to be honest, one of the things I like about them is a consistent product. When you buy the new Cannibal Corpse record, you’re going to hear Cannibal Corpse songs. The newer albums will have better production, and they…

  • On not Finishing a Book/”The Luminous Dead”/What I am Reading

    I want to talk a little bit about not finishing books. My last didn’t finish was “Angkor and the Khmer Empire: A History of Cambodia’s Legendary Temple Building Civilization” which wasn’t a history of anything, but rather a poorly written guidebook which looked like it had been translated via google translate. It was awful, and…

  • “The Loop”/Horror Endings/What I am Reading

    I read “The Loop” this week; which was… ok? It showed up in a twitter thread from a horror writer I like, and was on sale, so I gave it a whirl. I note a number of horror novels I’ve read this year have trouble sticking the landing. It seems to be an issue with…

  • Religion Nerd/50% of “Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials”

    For a long time, I have been a religion nerd– I have traveled through two different denominations of Buddhism, three or four (depending on how you count it) of Christianity, at one point considering becoming a clergyman (that lasted a few months, so don’t get too excited), and a few other random things. I’ve read…

  • “The Doloriad”/Metaphors

    I’m writing this quite literally a few minutes after finishing “The Doloriad” and it’s a puzzling thing. There’s a part of this book that insists it’s about something greater; it’s filled with allusions, and references and dense, sometimes overly dense language. On the other hand, it also perpetually has itself in the gutter. Endless grotesqueries,…

  • “The Deep”/A Difficult Subject/”Moby Dick”/Storygraph/What I am Reading

    *This entry will contain some discussion of sexual abuse; if that’s something you don’t wish to read about, or are not in a place to deal with, I’m going to encourage you not to engage with it. You can scroll down to the first set of *** to skip that part, or not read at…

  • Winner/”The Deep”/What Actually Frightens

    Well, that was a bit bleaker than I had anticipated, but the winner is, ironically, “You Can’t Win”, so that is next on the list. While I was waiting, I started Nick Cutter’s “The Deep”. I read “The Troop” and “Little Heaven” a bit ago; and I remember the gross killer tapeworms of “The Troop”…

  • “The Pallbearer’s Club”/Booktube/A Definite Title

    A couple of anecdotes: A little bit ago, I was wasting time watching YouTube, which is something I do a little too much of, if I am being honest. There was a video on the movie “Incident in a Ghostland” which I saw some length of time ago, and decided to watch. The youtuber appeared,…

  • “Cunning Folk”/What is Scary/”Moby Dick”/What I am Reading

    We all have our prejudices, I suppose. I really dislike things written in the present tense, for the most part. It’s fine to add a little spice or create a sense of urgency. For an entire book, it can be a little difficult for me to take. I find it oddly distracting. I finished “Cunning…

  • Roger Ebert/Criticism/”Ghoul”

    Roger Ebert was basically America’s critic for a large chunk of his career. He was an excellent writer, and had a canyon deep understanding of the medium he spent most of his time writing about. He was also a passionate and thoughtful critic: watch this clip of him arguing with Gene Siskel about the film…