Melchor writes books that embody evil, that live in the intrusive thought, the seeds of loathing (of the self & others) scattered across every human mind that systemic social atrocity and inequity bloom into bigotry and violence. Incantatory, unrestrained, brilliant, awful.

It's got me wondering about how much re-reading we generally do. I suspect not much given how much new stuff is always competing for our attention, but there's a lot of value in returning to something and seeing how we respond to it at a different time in life or at a different moment in history.

I just re-read Liliana Colanzi's short story "The Cave" and it was such a different experience the second time round. The first time was surprising and bewildering in its scope; the re-read allowed me to appreciate her skill as a writer in a much deeper way. What a writer she is.

Some "reviews", some "takes", a reminder to check out @gifcon.bsky.social, and yet another plug-slash-plea to share ARB's super-cool fundraiser: it's the Wow! Signal for May!

After being sold out for a bit, got a new wave of FEAST OF THE PALE LEVIATHANs in 🫡 It’s like a 2020’s Jonah and the Whale story but the Whale is a giant kaiju Hobbes’ Leviathan that devours lost souls in order to sustain a deathless Atlantis. An odd, dreamy anti-oligarchic dark fantasy adventure

Started Michel Nieva's DENGUE BOY (trans. Rahul Bery) and it's compellingly weird; anthropocenic climate anxieties mutating into a Cronenbergian nightmare of humanity in horrific flux. The capitalist apocalypse unearthing and channeling cosmic dread. Science fiction grotesque.

What I read in April. Really impressed with the scale and sense of place in Train Dreams, even as a non-American. Nausea rocked me just as much on a re-read, parts of that book are just soul-searing. Colanzi's collection was phenomenal, and some stunning short fiction in ergot. & BP in particular.

So hyped for this. I got hooked on Raab's unique, reality-warping style after reading The Secret Goatman Spookshow and Other Psychological Warfare Operations. Can't wait to see what he brings to a sword and sorcery science-fantasy dungeon crawl in space.

Good night.

"Atomic Chess" is a contender for my story of the year so far. Starts out as a sci-fi espionage thriller that keeps delving deeper into realms of cosmic weirdness and parapsychology, layered in the language of nuclear power as alchemical sorcery. Josh Pearce is writing some fantastic stuff.

A DESPERATE DUNGEON CRAWL THROUGH A HAUNTED STAR FORTRESS Enter the DARKVOID DEATHSHIP in this psychotronic sword and sorcery novel. Cover art by the mega-talented @elkowalczuk.bsky.social Preorder here: www.muzzlelandpress.com/shop/p/darkv... Releases May 25 in print and ebook

If this sort of thing is of interest to you, I have great news about a stupidly long essay coming to ARB soon; I had a lot of notes and thoughts left after the podcast, apparently.

Short fiction needs more Dark Sun style post-apocalyptic hellscapes with blurred lines between fantasy and horror with intentionally dislocating prose.

These three characteristics come from Zach Gillan btw, one of the best contemporary critics of the Weird. This was mentioned on an episode of A Meal of Thorns as part of a critical discussion of VanderMeer's Authority.

I really REALLY want more capital W Weird dark fantasy in the STP Magazine submissions. Dark fantasy that bends and blurs genre boundaries, insists on the inexplicable, and unsettles the world for both the characters and the reader. I yearn for it.

when we mourn le guin, we mourn one of our greatest writers & thinkers. but we also mourn one of our all-time greatest haters

North Sea at Night

And the stuff you like. And the stuff you're not even sure if you liked but made you feel something.

Post something you're proud of. "Blanquitos" was the first time I tried to intentionally write a TropiWeird story Partly influenced by my dog's illness at the time, I wish it had won some stuff I'm just happy it reached a lot of people www.typebarmagazine.com/blanquitos/

We published Ian's "Blue Movies" a little while ago, a strange, horrid little story about drug addiction, friendship(?), shady digitised VHS tapes, and unpleasant creatures in water tanks. If you want to read more Kappos, we've got you.

ergot. is firing on all cylinders, this Ian Kappos story is one of the best things I've read this year. Ian is one of the most under-hyped writers of strange, irreal, genre-melding speculative fiction. Read Ian Kappos, people.

after the revolution we're passing legislation that all TV shows of all genres must end with a grim proletariat-awareness-raising disaster out of left field

"Sisyphus, Bound" by David Stevens is such a banger. Experimental fiction that almost actively resists being read. God bless ergot. for being out there publishing the really unappealing stuff most other places wouldn't touch with a barge pole.

I think we could do with a little less "Don't worry, I'm allowed to make this art because I'm traumatized in these ways." and a lot more "Don't worry, I'm allowed to make this art because I'm allowed to make any art. And also, it's none of your fucking business whether or not I am traumatized."

Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, and Liam Neeson on the set of Excalibur by John Boorman (1981)

This little bitch has been out for a month! She can lift her head up without assistance now. Read it for: the underground, fairy tale labors, grandmas, depression, psychopomps, creepy ragdolls, fratricide, slow plotting, water filtration, the guardian of the threshold, musings about community...

Saw this meme and I did it. Opening line to Neuromancer.

A lot of journals that say they're open to weird fiction mean like this

I agree with the larger point here and don’t want to fall prey to a no true Scotsman fallacy but: I would submit that the example texts here aren’t weird fiction in the first place

Is there any critical writing out there thinking about the inherent conservatism (or otherwise) of the past superior fallen civilisation framework in fantasy?

More ships.

you would have played as literal Keanu Reeves and his partner named **Dune Kojima**. they should let us do this actually

in 2016 i was briefly obsessed with working on a detective visual novel here's what would have been the title screen music

Jumping into my first non-Culture Banks

What is the novel of ideas? What are novels? *What are ideas*?!! Some of these questions are addressed in my latest Snap! Criticism column for @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org.

"The surgeon asked me not to move my eyes. He was specific. He told me if I moved them, the red dot would lacerate my retina." If eye surgery wasn't already horrific enough, Nora Ray adds a whole new layer in the unsettling displacement of her weird horror story "LASIK".

Also as a cosmic horror writer tbh.

Sartre missed his calling as an edgelord horror writer.

Recommendations and assessment as a potential reader tool are obviously v important parts of the critical space, but I do think it’s key to /also/ have bits of crit completely untethered to whether or not someone will/won’t/should/shouldn’t purchase something.

Recent acquisitions

Coming soon to STP newsletter subscribers’ inboxes. I don’t know what you signed up for but this is what you’re getting.

Gonna spend all tomorrow reading Nausea so I can talk about it for half a sentence in a newsletter primarily about Amélie.

Really enjoying the BBC Good Food website.

Part of 'Folkish' is a series of poems about the Lambton Worm here's one of them: The Devil Monologues by Kym Deyn "If God comes hollering I was never here. I get these terrible, oh, what would you call them? Boils? Pustules? I come out in frogspawn and glitter when I think about them."

Reading @kymdeyn.bsky.social's 'Folkish' and whispering "fuck offfff" after every poem because it's just so good.

This is especially important in online reading communities because one of the dangers of how the modern internet is structured is that it can easily trap us in a perpetual present that we should actively defy.

I'm making one last push to let people know about this online talk -- sponsored by the British Library in conjunction with their current exhibition on fairy tales. The live stream starts at 7:30 tonight, but if you buy a ticket *before* the event you can watch it any time over the next 7 days.

How To Live A Good Life #oldknees

Art by • Jeff Easley