I'm not interested in romance or pulp fiction books at all, I just enjoy books that are clearly great in their own way (great prose, great concepts, great development etc), but happen to include a well written love connection.

I've been reading the Dune series. I like the love stories in there, though wish they had a little more prominence, without tipping it into "romance" category. I especially enjoyed the idea of the Sandworm/Human relationship, and, after just starting Perdido Street Station, love the idea of the bug lady and the human (gives me Morrowind/Caves of Qud vibes). That's exactly something along the lines of what I'm looking for. I heard The Night Land has some sort of love story too? I heard Clark Ashton Smith also has some stuff like that? Maybe some lovecraftian type love story. Idk, can't explain it, but would be interested in recommendations.

I've read many a weird literature book in my time but for whatever reason, only just got around to reading Annihilation this last week, not a problem in of itself.

I went to a conference on Wednesday and caught the latest gnarly UK variant of Covid and it's hitting me ridiculously hard this time (third time I think). Anyway, last night I had the full blown fever sweats and was tripping balls as I read from the last 20% or so of the book, it was so much weirder given I was spaced out. 10/10 cannot recommend.

recently finished Celebrant by Michael Cisco and it pretty much is exactly one of my favorite things - huge, sweeping phantasmagorias of adventure stories with as much genre-bending and maximalist prose as possible, and the weirder and wilder the better. Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon is my favorite novel of all time and is also my gold standard for this though it is technically not "Weird fic" (I'm not looking for any genre labels in particular though, it could be anything as long as it's a weird grand adventure that leans toward the surreal and fantastic).

Other stuff I've already read that I think comes close:

Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes
Nights at the Circus + Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman by Angela Carter
Animal Money also by Michael Cisco
Empire of the Senseless by Kathy Acker [maybe not the whole thing but has parts that do this pretty well]
Deep Time trilogy by Caitlin R Kiernan (Threshold - Low Red Moon - Daughter of Hounds)
I also already enjoy Vandermeer and Mieville's works, who seem to fall into this category at times.

Please recommend any and all that comes to mind, be liberal with what "weird" means as long as it's fantastical in its own way, and fits the sweeping adventure description. I seriously freaking love this sort of thing and need more. Also I prefer more literary prose to pulp but I don't mind if there are pulpier tropes obviously as long as they are well written.

Also, not a novel or really "weird", but Hunter x Hunter manga is also one of my favorite things and could also well-encapsulate what I mean with "genre-bending adventure" in its own way and it has some very horrific and bizarre stuff in it at times as well

I'm thinking about aquiring Christopher Slatsky's latest collection, which was published by Grimscribe in 2020. When I look it up the paperback edition available is said to be a second edition published by Lightning Source Inc. Is this a different edition from the Grimscribe Press edition? Just wanted to be sure it contains the foreword by Christine Ong Muslim, which I've read before and consider the best non-fiction piece about weird horror I've read in the last years, and the cover artwork of course. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I've not been a reader of weird/horror fiction until around the start of October. With Halloween approaching, I picked a few books by the early authors of ghosts/weird/gothic stories. And have, for the most part, enjoyed them. H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, Arthur Machen. All pretty tame, so I recently picked up The Books of Blood Vol 1 by Clive Barker for some more modern horror. And not so tame. The first story, Book of Blood, was a bit more edgy than the earlier authors. But, the second story, The Midnight Meat Train, was a whole new experience. I feel it's going to take me a while to get through the collection.

I have been trying for years to find/remember a book I read in college.

The challenge is all I remember: it’s American, and I believe it starts with a woman on a subway and the overarching goal is to reach like the core of the city where she must confront something. 20th or 21st century. It is written in the strangest way I’ve ever seen a book written, which is why I’m here. Punctuation, wording, all more like strange poetry than traditional writing.

I understand I am giving nothing. I have tried to work off what I remember for years and have gone nowhere. It’s driving me insane. I deeply appreciate anyone’s time

Just read Pedro Paramo and I was left speechless. The book was a masterpiece and I was fascinated with every aspect of it but mostly with the masterful non-linear storytelling.

Can you guys recommend me some more books/stories/novels with such non-linear storytelling?

What are you reading this week?

No spam or self-promotion (we post a monthly threads for that!)

And don't forget to join the WeirdLit Discord!

UPDATE: it is West of Matamoros, North of Hell by Brian Hodge. I appreciate you all helping me stop going crazy failing searches for it.

this tale, a metal band and photography crew travels to Mexico for a shoot and encounters a sinister cult. They discover a statue dedicated to a death goddess, leading to their capture and subsequent torture by cult members. The narrator forms a connection with the deity, which ultimately spares him from the fate that befalls his colleagues. This connection, however, unleashes a malevolent force that extends beyond their immediate surroundings. What is the title of this and who wrote it ? Bonus of you can tell me what anthology it's in.

They published a few dozen limited-edition Weird Fiction novels in the late 90s anc early 2000s most of which hadn't been published for almost 100 years i own 9 of them and wanna get the rest but i can't really find much information on most of them because of that they're all rather expensive

My schedule has been crazy lately and I haven't had time to commit to any novels. I keep starting novels and then unable to finish because I can't pick it up again for weeks. Which feels very disjointed.

So I'm looking for some good wierd short reads. I don't might dark/wierd, I saw a post recently that William S Burroughs was extremely dark and I love his work.

Anthologies would be great!

Thanks fellow weirdos

When I travel, I read authors from the place I am traveling to. Next place I go it is the Philippines. Any recommendations?

I am OBSESSED with Lost Souls by Billy Martin (as Poppy Z. Brite)

I bought the book and I keep it with me wherever I go, I got my hands on an old copy so it has that library scent. Zillah and Nothing are my favorite characters, I dislike Steve and Ghost a lot.

I have been dying to meet other fans of lost souls, everyone I already know just doesn't understand or care or pay attention.

I was so inspired by Zillah and Nothing after rereading Lost Souls that I started my own novel series about multiple clans of hedonistic Chartreuse drinking musician biflexable mostly gay vampires. Though my universe vampires have vampire religion based laws, they worship Dracula and males and females are two separate biologically incompatible species.

Won't start self publishing it till I finish book 3, half way done with book 2 atm.

I fucking love Lost Souls so much its one if my biggest inspirations next to Anne Rice's vampire chronicles and Clive Barkers work

Authors, publishers, whoever, promote your stories, your books, your Kickstarters and Indiegogos and Gofundmes! Especially note any sales you know of or are currently running!

As long as it's weird lit, it's welcome!

And, lurkers, readers, click on those links, check out their work, donate if you have the spare money, help support the Weird creators/community!

Join the WeirdLit Discord!

If you're a weird fiction writer or interested in beta reading, feel free to check our r/WeirdLitWriters.

Many of you may be unaware, but Scott Connors passed away on 28 Oct 2024. He has been for many decades the leading scholar into the life and fiction of Clark Ashton Smith, but he has also contributed work on Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft.

In memory of the deceased, Hippocampus Press has discounted his works The Freedom of Fantastic Things: Selected Criticism on Clark Ashton Smith and Clark Ashton Smith: A Comprehensive Bibliography 50% off.

I only ask because this bad boy is thicker than the bible. I don’t want to spend time reading the whole thing only to realize that it’s not my cup of tea lol

Any fans of Steve Erickson here? I know he's mostly thought of as a "writer's writer" but that term has never made sense to me.

Rubicon Beach is in my top ten novels ever. I love the tripartite structure, I love the mishmash of detective fiction and Jules Verne-esque adventure. And the final third, where that mathematician finds a secret number, is just incredible, particularly the train ride he takes "west" right near the end.

Erickson's novels have never sold well, so I was happy for him when he won a Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. Much of the family's financial troubles in 2012's These Dreams of You are autobiographical, so I was happy to see the guy finally get some much-needed financial relief. For a while there, he was an instructor for a creative writing class, the editor of a literary magazine (Black Clock), a parent to a young adopted child, a novelist, and a journalist (he regularly reviewed films for various L.A. magazines). That's a lot of responsibilities to juggle, especially when you're fighting to save your house from foreclosure.

Erickson's first four novels are basically one big long postmodern masterpiece. Characters and events and themes are returned to in unexpected ways throughout Days Between Stations, Rubicon Beach, Tours of the Black Clock, and Arc d'x.

By the time he wrote 1995's Amnesiascope, he was ready to try a different approach. He was also nearing the end of his rope. There's only so long you can be a "promising young writer" before you turn into a "writer's writer." Meaning your books are critically well-received but don't sell for shit.

I loathe academia but I was offered a bit of money to do a Master's in English Lit at a small Canadian University back in 2013. When they told me I could write my thesis on Steve Erickson's oeuvre, I said yes. The thesis isn't worth a damn, but I got to close read Steve Erickson's books for a whole year, so I'm not complaining. I corresponded with him a few times and found him to be incredibly gracious and humble (though he doesn't sell himself short either...he knows damn well how talented he is.)

Erickson's non-fiction works are terrific too because he weaves a lot of his fictional stuff into those works. 1989's Leap Year and 1996's American Nomad are great even if the elections they cover ended up being far less consequential than Erickson thought they would be. He has since joked that he "only covers boring elections."

His most recent non-fiction project, which he has dubbed "an Hallucinyx," American Stutter, is a non-daily journal covering Erickson's life from July 2019 to January 2021. It covers the collapse of his marriage, his near-cancellation after posting a rather innocuous opinion of Facebook, and his inability to write fiction anymore because he feels anything his imagination might concoct can't possibly be an insane or fucked up as the reality of American life between 2019-2021.

American Stutter can be read online @ the excellently-titled Journal of the Plague Year (and yes, I know it's a Daniel Defoe reference*)*: https://www.journaloftheplagueyears.ink/long-player-special-edition
You can also order a physical copy from that evil bald middleman, Jeff Bezos, but it's way cooler to support your local bookstore if you can afford to. If not, get your local library to order some of Erickson's stuff for you.

The novelist Brian Evenson wrote a great article back in 2003 about Erickson. You can read it here: https://www.thebeliever.net/the-romantic-fabulist-predicts-a-dreamy-apocalypse/

The best part of the Evenson article is this passage:

Erickson seems as baffled by his own almost-success as anyone. In Amnesiascope, a narrator who resembles Erickson in all literary particulars but who lives in a devastated, possibly futuristic version of Los Angeles, suggests that “because that small breakthrough had been so elusive, such a monstrous mountain to scale, I had this idea that once having scaled it, everything else about the Dream would finally lie at my fingertips. Having caught the tip of the Dream, I assumed the rest of it was simply to be taken. I don’t know why, five novels later, it didn’t happen. Any conjecture would only sound graceless, bitter, and self-justifying.… Looking back, I’m not sure I ever believed the Dream was possible.”

The narrator of Amnesiascope raises the most alarming possibility: “I’ve seriously considered the most obvious answer, that I was never as good as I hoped or wanted to believe. That the Dream was fantastic relative to what my talent really was.”

Bookslut, which I think stopped publishing articles, did a great interview with Erickson around the time Zeroville was published. You can read it here: https://www.europaeditions.com/news/345/bookslut-s-excellent-in-depth-interview-with-steve-erickson

The novelist David Leo Rice has also been a constant advocate for Erickson's work. Here's his review of Shadowbahn: https://www.thebeliever.net/logger/american-afterlife/ He has other Erickson-related stuff floating around the internet too. His novel A Room In Dodge City is very indebted to Erickson's visionary post-apocalyptic fiction, especially the earlier books.

And if you're REALLY bored, you can read my 110+ page Master's Thesis, which is not so much an example of rigorous scholarship than unabashed hagiography, here: https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/items/58983a81-293a-4130-b690-1fc39a1301d1

If I was trying to introduce someone to Erickson, I'd recommend that they read his first four novels in order, followed by These Dreams of You (the last paragraph of that novel is the best writing Erickson has ever put to page. As far as I'm concerned, it's as good as that brilliant last paragraph in On the Road or the last page of The Great Gatsby.) If they balk at the notion of reading four novels, I'd sat start with Rubicon Beach, my fav, or Tours of the Black Clock (the critics fav).

Erickson's weakest efforts, in my opinion, are Our Ecstatic Days and Zeroville but they are both still miles better than most novelists novels. Having read American Stutter, Erickson seems so damn fed up with the state of his country and career that I'm not sure he has another novel left in him. If this turns out to be the case, it will be a great loss for American literature, but Shadowbahn is a hell of a way to go out. And Erickson will have left behind one of the most unique bodies of work ever.