Tachyon Publications

The New Weird

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Edited by Ann Vandermeer, Jeff Vandermeer

The New Weird takes its name from the literary movement of the same name that includes speculative fiction and horror stories popularized in pulp magazines by authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. The New Weird movement can best be described as, well, weird, and the stories in Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's anthology tend to focus on the images created, as opposed to the plot or the characters. As a result, some of the stories feel a bit disjointed, like you are reading someone else’s fever dreams. This allows for some of the images to be truly horrible and lack easy explanations. The New Weird also includes some scholarly essays about the movement, if you would like explanations.

Michael Moorcock, famous for his Elric of Melnibone stories, contributes a fairly straightforward World War III story with a deeply disturbing rape description buried within the story. Clive Barker, writer of the game changing Books of Blood and director of Hellraiser, contributes a story called “In the Hills, the Cities,” where people tie themselves together to fight a battle for long forgotten reasons. In one of my favorite stories, “Watson’s Boy” by Brian Evenson, a boy learns to assert himself by collecting keys despite his father’s disapproval. The entire story takes place in a building that may or may not be a prison or perhaps a mental hospital. The refusal to explain the context is part of the charm of the story.

One of the interesting aspects of this anthology are the images of the female. A good number of the stories are written by women. Some portrayals, like the women so easily disposed of in Moorcock story, are traditional portrayals of women in horror stories—but they were in the minority. I was very surprised by two stories. The first, "The Neglected Garden" by Kathe Koja, tells the story of a wronged woman who, for want of a better description, cruxifies herself on a garden fence. Her boyfriend refuses to get her help, and Mother Nature helps her take revenge in a truly original and very gratifying way. I wondered while reading it, with the horror focused at the beginning and the triumphant ending, if a man reading it would see the exact opposite, with my triumphant ending as the true horror.

These stories will burn themselves into your brain in ways that are uncomfortable and thought-provoking. You can’t find anything better than this anthology.

Written by: Taylor Rhodes, September 16th 2009

Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:15:00 +0000

By Suzy McKee Charnas

Tachyon Publications

Recently, during a discussion on the flaws of Twilight, an acquaintance of mine made a rather insightful statement. “The vampire is supposed to die. Period.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love a sexy paranormal as much as the next chick, but lately I’ve noticed that a lot of vampires have, for lack of a better pun, lost their bite. The recent trend with all things horror and fantasy has been to either neuter or glamorize what were once considered spine-chilling denizens of darkness. Soul-less vampires and bloodthirsty werewolves have been replaced by pretty boys wearing leather who have brooding puppy dogs. Sexy? Yes. Blood curdling? Not so much. It is for this reason I say, thank God for Suzy McKee Charnas.

Winner of such prestigious science fiction/fantasy awards as the Hugo, Nebula, and Tiptree, Charnas reminds us why we are afraid of the dark. In her works, creatures of the night are sinister, vicious, and yes, even downright scary. Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms is a collection of Charnas’s previously published dark fantasy short-stories, plus two new autobiographical essays. The first essay, “The Stagestruck Vampire,” is about Charnas’s exasperating experiences trying to turn one of her works into a play. In the other, “They’re Right, Art is Long,” Charnas explores how her own personal feminism has shaped her works and career. Both are charming, informative pieces that give the reader a nice insight into the author’s mind.

The best in the bunch is “Beauty and the Opera,” an alternate ending to the classic Phantom of the Opera story. In this version, Christine agrees to live with the Phantom for five years as his wife in exchange for Raoul’s life. Told from Christine’s point of view, the story is equal parts horror and romance. The Phantom featured here is the disturbed, disfigured killer from the novel, not the tragically romantic character that usually dominates the movies and stage. Charnas’s writing is dark, seductive and engaging, drawing the reader into a tale of macabre beauty.

My other favorite story was “Boobs,” a tale of a teenage werewolf who gets revenge on a boy who has been teasing her about her chest size. Probably the most unusual coming-of-age story you’ll read this year, it was satisfying in an A Rose for Emily kind of way. The other stories in the collection are a showcase of horrific oddity. Edgar Allen Poe meets The Twilight Zone.

This is real horror, not the gruesome blood fests that have come to dominate the genre in recent years. The stories are a creepy good time, and while you won’t lose sleep after reading them, you’ll probably want to check under your bed. Just in case.

Written by: Victoria Kroeger, September 2nd 2009

©ontent: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future

admin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:39:00 +0000

By Cory Doctorow

Tachyon Publications

He’s been dubbed the “William Gibson of his generation,” but Cory Doctorow is more than a cyberpunk novelist or futurist. He’s an activist, a Creative Commons advocate, tech blogger, and journalist. I don’t come to Doctorow’s non-fiction work by way of his sci-fi novels. In fact, I only know the Doc as a gizmo and copyright guru famous for sites like Boing Boing and essays in Wired and Salon.

A book like ©ontent is an excellent case study in the impermanence of information. In a world where technology can evolve in a day, Doctorow’s work is both informative and outdated. The book begins with multiple essays about the failures of DRM—digital rights management, which is that obnoxious anti-piracy copyright code that makes it impossible to share downloaded files—but anyone who follows headlines about the issue knows that in the past year, the DRM battle has largely been won by laypeople; Apple has ceased selling DRM tracks in iTunes, for example. That isn’t to say Doctorow’s analysis isn’t useful. His now two-year-old essays serve largely as historical information in an era of meteoric technological and ethical shifts.

Doctorow is often too much of a technophile, incompatible with my own neo-Luddite tendencies; but I nevertheless respect his outlook and options. I suspect his work is most accessible to folks already engaged in analysis of copyright and new media. I’m most fond of his love of relaxed copyright regulation—though whether or not I think his theories are plausible is another matter. As a man who gives away his own ebooks, his early distaste of Amazon.com’s Kindle is charming. When he spends four pages defending fan fiction, it is in part because of his own history writing the genre. I love anyone who practices what they preach.

Doctorow also makes one sizable contribution to misinformation that I’d be remiss to not mention. In his essay “Why Is Hollywood Making a Sequel to the Napster Wars?” he mentions in passing that YouTube was founded by “two guys in a garage.” One of the largest myths of tech start-ups, the men in the garage story is not only an overused cliché; in this case, it is categorically untrue. YouTube was founded by three San Francisco PayPal veterans, supposedly at a dinner party, but despite widespread reports to the contrary, the idea grew over time and was not conceived in one evening of eating and drinking with friends. It may seem small, but when it comes to avoiding such blatant fact-checking mistakes, I expect more from an expert like Doctorow.

His largest contribution as a writer—both as a freelancer and a novelist—is his unrepentant championing of free books. ©ontent has been simultaneously released as a free ebook, so while I held a hard copy in my hands because I don’t personally believe tangible books are a dying medium, I respect Doctorow’s commitment to accessible media. I also happen to believe people like him when they say, “Giving away my books has made me a bunch of money.” Making yourself valuable and indispensable, in whatever form, is something for which we can all strive.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, July 23rd 2009