Weird Fiction Review

This week on Weird Fiction Review, we’re giving our best congratulations to this year’s Shirley Jackson Award nominees! As many of you might already know, this year’s nominees were announced earlier this month. The SJAs have a history of spotlighting talented authors and noteworthy writing, and this year is no exception. Like last year as well, many of the nominated authors are friends of WFR and have had their material featured on this site in the past year. Of particular note is the fact that three of the authors considered under Single-Author Collection – Will Ludwigsen (for In Search Of and Others), Nathan Ballingrud (North American Lake Monsters), and Kit Reed (The Story Until Now) – had stories from their nominated collections reprinted on our site since last year.

And now, we can add a fourth author to that list: Christopher Barzak. We’ve just reprinted “A Resurrection Artist” from his collection Before and Afterlives, published last year by Lethe Press. Barzak is a master of fantasy with a strong grasp of character and language, and oftentimes his writing possesses a glimmer of supernatural weirdness to it. “A Resurrection Artist” is an excellent demonstration of Barzak’s ability as an author and the quality of his collection as a whole. It asks a strange, yet fundamental question of his characters – what can we make of death when it’s conquered? – while making the process and state of deathliness glimmer with strangeness, shock, and even beauty.

Once again, best of luck to all the SJA nominees this year, and we hope that all of our readers acquaint themselves with Barzak’s story and collection, just as we hope they do the same for all of this year’s honored writers and stories.

This week on Weirdfictionreview.com, we’re spotlighting a legacy of weird fiction that has been gaining an increasingly strong foothold in the public consciousness: the King in Yellow Mythos, created in the late 19^th century by American writer Robert W. Chambers. Through his short story collection The King in Yellow, Chambers gifted our literature with several enduring touchstones: the titular character himself, a mysterious being commonly depicted in yellow robes; the kingdom of Carcosa, an ancient, cursed city lying beyond our everyday perspective of time and place, on the shores of Lake Hali; and a cursed play inspired by (and written by?) the king himself and title after him, which drives its readers to madness, strange visions, and other things.

We’ve wanted to run some material on the King in Yellow Mythos for a while, for several reasons. It’s a hugely influential thread of weird fiction, which has inspired and continues to inspire many writers and readers alike. The stories themselves have also held up amazingly well. “The Yellow Sign” is still a spooky, ethereal story with the ability to unsettle readers through its unique imagery and ability to suggest horrors and figments of the imagination that take hold and don’t let go, which is why we’ve chosen to reprint it on site this week.

We’re also reprinting two other stories: “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” by Ambrose Bierce and “Carl Lee and Cassilda” by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. With his eerie story, Bierce introduced the concept of the lost city of Carcosa, laying the groundwork for Chambers to take that setting and make further magnificent literature of it. Pulver in turn updates the King in Yellow Mythos with his take on a serial killer seeking a lover’s communion with a woman named Cassilda, who readers familiar with the mythos will recognize from “Cassilda’s Song,” an excerpt from the play The King in Yellow that prefaces a story in the collection of the same name:

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind the lake,
The shadows lengthen

In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is

Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in

Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in

Lost Carcosa.

The King in Yellow Mythos has gained many new readers in the past few weeks, thanks to its incorporation into the central mystery of the acclaimed HBO dramatic series True Detective, written by Nic Pizzolatto, himself a fan and avid reader of both weird fiction (he has cited site favorites Laird Barron, John Langan, Thomas Ligotti, and Simon Strantzas in interviews, among others) and pessimistic philosophy (a touchstone for him is Ligotti’s thought-provoking and perhaps disturbing book-length treatise The Conspiracy Against the Human Race). Regardless of how True Detective resolves itself, and regardless of whether the one and only King in Yellow of Chambers’s work is at the heart of it, the literature that Chambers created (with an assist from Bierce) will carry on for quite some time.

We want to draw the attention of WFR readers to this interview that Justin Steele of Arkham Digest conducted with Pulver about the King in Yellow, the writing of Robert W. Chambers, and Pulver’s own involvement with the mythos as a writer and editor. It’s well worth listening to, whether you’re a neophyte to the King in Yellow or a seasoned reader, to gain valuable insight into the literature and how it differs from other strains of weird fiction (don’t call it Lovecraftian, for instance; it didn’t inspire Lovecraft’s writing so much as he was just a fan of it). Be sure to follow the link to Arkham Digest as well for a useful King in Yellow-centric reading list. And, of course, make sure to read the stories we have here this week!

Happy Halloween to all of our readers! We’re a few days early on that count, but we still wanted to give that sentiment now instead of later. More importantly, we have a special treat for all of you, an especially weird, creepy story that up until now has been unavailable in English: Leonid Andreyev’s long story “He: An Unknown’s Story,” translated by Vlad Zhenevsky.

“He” is a powerful story that stands up amazingly well alongside other classic stories of early 20^th century weird and supernatural fiction. It has a darkness limning its edges at all times, ever present, even in comparatively quiet or serene moments. This is also a deeply psychological story, crawling far into the headspace of its narrator and protagonist as he takes up temporary residence at the country home of his wealthy, eccentric employer. While the narrator explores the mysteries at the heart of his employer and his employer’s home and family, he finds strangeness at every turn and is in turn haunted by his own weird visitor. In his introduction to Andreyev elsewhere on this site, which we highly recommend reading before checking out “He,” Zhenevsky aptly points out the influence of Poe and his work on Andreyev’s story, which we think a very fitting comparison. To say more would spoil the experience of the story, however, and we think of it as something absolutely worth experiencing.

As we mentioned before, this is the first appearance of this story anywhere in English, and we’re delighted to share it with our readers, functioning as it does as a brilliant piece of weird fiction. We’ve also made the original Russian version of the story available to our readers for their own examination of it in its original language. We are deeply thankful for the efforts of Vlad Zhenevsky and his able translation of this story, and we hope this serves as a stirring reminder of Andreyev’s talents and also the wealth of great literature waiting to be unlocked for wider audiences via translation.

This week on Weirdfictionreview.com, we’re featuring the work of Nathan Ballingrud, a supremely talented writer whose first book finally came into print this year: North American Lake Monsters, courtesy of Small Beer Press. The stories published in this collection range across the better part of a decade, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from reading this collection. These stories feel like they were meant to be published together like this.

What’s striking about North American Lake Monsters, besides their uniformly excellent quality, is their unrelenting darkness, and a special kind of darkness at that. These stories often involve people who are hard on their luck, trapped and unsure of the directions their lives have taken, constrained by their own decisions or the simply the bleakness of their environments. More often than not, though, the characters are overcome or possessed by obsessions they cannot seem to help. The protagonist of “Wild Acre” may be driven to hunt some kind of werewolf after it wreaks havoc on his life and those of his friends, but grappling with that monster only brings out something just as harmful and wild in him. Meanwhile, in “The Monsters of Heaven,” a deserved recipient of a Shirley Jackson Award, the arrival of a weird, possibly heavenly being is sharply contrasted with the violent, brutal urges and fantasies of a man who cannot cope with the loss of his son. The darkness in these stories comes from the characters themselves, and as we read them, we can’t help but be sucked into their darkness as well, perhaps out of sympathy, but also perhaps out of a recognition of empathy we can only acknowledge through reading.

The story we’ve reprinted on this site, the title story from Ballingrud’s collection, is a great story in and of itself and also an appropriate primer for those interested in reading the rest of the book. We also have an interview with the author, discussing how he came to write his stories the way he did, as well as the influence of horror and other forms of literature on his creative process, among other things.

No doubt, readers have already noticed our first big feature of this week: a giveaway for copies of The Weird and Nathan Ballingrud’s collection North American Lake Monsters. The rules and regulations are covered in this post from yesterday, but the gist of it is that in order to be eligible for the giveaway, you need to donate funds in support of various artistic endeavors. That can mean directly donating money to artists or writers badly in need of it. It can also mean donating money to an art museum or workshop, or pledging support for a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign.

Which brings us to today’s feature: a story reprinted from Shadows and Tall Trees #4, “Senbazuru,” written by V.H. Leslie. The editor of Shadows and Tall Trees, Michael Kelly, is also spearheading an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for an inaugural volume called Year’s Best Weird Fiction, for Undertow Publications. The first volume is set to be edited by acclaimed writer Laird Barron, with a different guest editor to be featured for every volume after that.

This is a more than worthy initiative, and we’re encouraged by its potential. We’re especially intrigued by the possibility of having each volume curated by a different guest editor. We’re very keen to see a variety of tastes and approaches featured in volumes of weird fiction, and so this bodes well in our view. That’s why we’re glad to show our support for the project and reprint Leslie’s “Senzaburu” here for our readers.

As of now, the fundraiser has met its stated goal for funds with 3 days to go, but that doesn’t mean you can’t contribute before it’s over. According to Kelly, any money gathered over the stated goal will go towards funding future volumes of The Year’s Best Weird Fiction, as well as future issues of Shadows and Tall Trees. It’s a relief to see this inaugural volume meet its desired goals, but it would be even better to see the project continue much farther than that for some time to come.

Who wants a free copy of The Weird? Or maybe Nathan Ballingrud’s fantastic new collection North American Lake Monsters? Jeremy L.C. Jones, the co-director and founder of the Shared Worlds program at Wofford College, thinks a few of you might want one or the other. He also believes in the power of charity and supporting artists, writers, and creative endeavors in general.

That’s exactly why Weird Fiction Review is teaming up with Jeremy on a new giveaway for our readers, which will give you an opportunity to win either a copy of The Weird or North American Lake Monsters. Below, you’ll find Jeremy’s account of how he came across his copies of these books in the first place. At the very end, we’ll have the contest rules and regulations, which you can enter effective immediately. Read on, and read closely! – The Editors

***

The executive director of a local arts organization came up to me at a wedding last week and said, “I’ve got three boxes of weird.”

My 10-year-old daughter, who was standing between us, looked to me for guidance.  I shrugged.

“Would you like them?”

Still not entirely sure what we were talking about, I said, “Sure!”

After all, who wouldn’t want three boxes of weird?

“Great,” she said, clearly relieved.  “Come by the bookshop on Monday and pick them up.”

Ah.  The bookshop.  We had scheduled a few readings there during July as part of Shared Worlds, the world-building and creative writing camp I co-direct with Jeff VanderMeer.  And the “weird” was The Weird: a Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories that Jeff co-edited with Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer.

Monday morning came – overcast and ten degrees cooler than Sunday.  After a few minutes of confusion, the clerk at the bookshop found the manager who said the executive director was busy in her office, so the manager lead me over to three boxes stacked next to the Biography and Current Events shelves.

The boxes were taped tight, except for the top one.

“How many are in each box?” I asked the manager.

“Not sure,” she said.  “Weird is a really big book.”

I slid my hand into the box and tried to count spines.  It was hard to count with all the slick and glossy paper, wrapped in butcher’s paper and bubble wrap.

“Pull your car around,” she said, hefting the box I’d just palpated.

I hustled to my car which was in the side lot next to the wine store, drove around, and double-parked by the front door.  She met me at the curb.

“In the back?”

“Yeah,” I said.  She had stacked the other two boxes just inside the door where they usually set up the signing table at readings.  We each got one and wedged the remaining weird between the dog crates in the back.

“So,” I said, hoping she’d ask what I planned to do with all that weird.

“Yeah,” she said. “’So.’”

There was a ripple of energy in the air, like you feel when someone else discovers you left the bathroom door unlocked.

“All right,” I said.

“Sure.”

“That Marly Youmans reading in November,” I said.  “I sent her an e‑mail about the date change — “

“There’s time for that later, Jeremy,” she said, nodding toward my double parked car and the three boxes of weird inside.  “Plenty of time.”

Driving away, I squeezed the steering wheel, hummed along with the Grateful Dead, checked to see how much time I had before I need to pick up my daughter, and tried not to think about why we hadn’t talked about why I was being given these boxes of weird or what I planned to do with them.

Somewhere past the brewery but before the stuffed gorilla on a step-ladder, a hole opened in my gut and I kept thinking about the opened box of weird, my hand sliding into the slick, perforated entrails, trying to take an accounting of all that was there.

And I knew what I had to do.

***

Now, if you want a chance to win one of the free copies of The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories or North American Lake Monsters – free, packed up in a box, bag, or oily satchel and mailed right to your door – here’s what you need to do:

Donate any amount to an arts organization of your choice
OR
Contribute any amount to a crowd-sourced project of your choice
OR
Buy something directly from a small press
OR
Provide support of any amount to a writer or visual artist directly

The guidelines are intentionally broad.  We won’t split hairs.  There’s no need to ask us if a recipient qualifies.  We’re more concerned with the spirit of the rules than the letter of the law.  The idea is simple.  You give, they receive, and you’ve entered.  Enter as often as you like but don’t spread your donations too thin.  And once you’ve given, provide the name of the beneficiary below in the comments section.

That’s important.  You have to enter the recipient in the comments or you won’t be entered in the contest. Also, make sure to include links to who or what you donated to whenever possible.

We have a total of seven copies of The Weird and three copies of North American Lake Monsters, so please indicate your preference in your entry in the comments. Those copies of Lake Monsters would be especially great for those of you who already have a copy of The Weird, of course.

You can enter in to this giveaway between now and September 30. On October 2, we will select TEN people at random, then contact each person via e‑mail for shipping information, and mail each person their respective prize.

All Best,
Jeremy L.C. Jones
Founder & Co-Director
Shared Worlds @ Wofford College

We’re back! After a month-long hiatus to end the summer, we’ve returned rested and ready to post and reprint quality material for the rest of the year, and we’re returning in a big way. Starting today and running through this month and into October, we will be serializing the entirety of Michael Cisco’s novel The Divinity Student.

Cisco is a favorite here at WFR.com, and for good reason: his body of work stands as one of the most impressive, darkly imaginative and wonderful achievements in weird fiction. When it was initially published by Buzzcity Press back in 1999, The Divinity Student quickly garnered high praise as a tour de force of gothic fantasy and a stellar debut novel. It eventually won the International Horror Guild Award and set the stage for the rest of Cisco’s writing career, which has seen many other fantastic novels and stories.

However, for as high regard as Cisco holds within weird fiction and related communities, we believe his writing hasn’t gotten nearly the level of fandom it deserves, which is why Cheeky Frawg Books has recently released Cisco’s first four novels in e‑book form. Besides The Divinity Student, that also includes The Golem, The Traitor, and The Tyrant. You can find them in Amazon.com’s Kindle Store and also at Weightless Books.

As you may know, we’re always open to take donations here at WFR.com, which you can do via the PayPal link at the bottom right of this page. That said, as extra incentive, any donations we receive for the duration of The Divinity Student’s serialization will go towards the author. Cisco will also take a higher-than-average slice of income from the purchase of his e‑books, as is common practice at Cheeky Frawg.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll also feature various material related to either Michael Cisco or The Divinity Student. Today, we’ve posted Ann VanderMeer’s introduction to the novel, originally written for the Centipede Press edition published just recently, to provide readers with excellent commentary and context on the novel from the editor and publisher responsible for putting it in print in the first place. In weeks to follow, we will also have an essay by returning WFR contributor Alistair Rennie and an interview with Cisco himself.

We hope you enjoy The Divinity Student, whether you’re reading it for the first time or rereading it. Likewise, if you enjoy the serialization of the novel, please consider either making a donation to the site or buying the e‑book so Cisco can receive much deserved compensation for his work.