nick_kaufmann 's State of the Genre column from Fear Zone has gone through some changes, including in name and in venue. He can now be found writing the Dead Air column at the Internet Review of Science Fiction. The first column is up now, and Nick spent some time asking me questions like I know something. Apparently I went on at such length that he's getting two articles out of it! The first one is live at IROSF under the excellent title "At the Mountains of Misperception."

Check it out!

Hey, lookee! I've got a livejournal!

Real life demands--mainly at the job--have kept me from posting much here, though I was the cause of some laughs in a couple of threads at message boards. Most of the most laughable threads are, however, now gone, though I may be able to share screen caps of stupidity later.

In more productive news, I was solicited for, wrote, and sold an essay about writing horror fiction this past weekend. I can't say anything else about it yet, but I'll share details of the venue and publication date when I can. Color me pleased, though.

My next task is to finish up a story that was solicited last summer but fell by the wayside for a while. I lost the entire first draft in the Great Malware Infection of 2008, so I've had to rewrite from scratch. I hope the story is better for it. It's also one of those stories that, if the editor ultimately doesn't like it, I can send out to other markets. While it's written specifically to the solicitation, the original market isn't obviously themed. But here's hoping that it will sell to the first place.

After some delays with submissions, editing, and printing, the fourth issue of Dead Reckonings, Fall 2008, is at last available. S.T. and I have both received our contributors' copies, and issues are headed out to the reviewers after the long weekend. Here's the final TOC for #4:

A Grab-Bag of Perverse Delight .........................Donald R. Burleson
[THOMAS M. DISCH, The Word of God]

Edge-of-Your-Seat Suspense .........................Hank Wagner
[JOE R. LANSDALE, Leather Maiden]

An Epic and Long-Awaited Publication .........................Donald Sidney-Fryer
[CLARK ASHTON SMITH, The Complete Poetry and Translations, Volumes 1 and 2]

Dissecting Thomas Harris .........................Bev Vincent
[BENJAMIN SZUMSKYJ, ed. Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris]

A Slow-Moving Tsunami .........................S. T. Joshi
[CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN, Tales of Pain and Wonder, Third Edition]

Horror on the Ice .........................Rob Latham
[DAN SIMMONS, The Terror]

"The Weird Old Hole" and Much More .........................Sherry Austin
[JONATHAN THOMAS, Midnight Call and Other Stories]

The Nightmares That Cling to Us .........................John Langan
[RAMSEY CAMPBELL, Thieving Fear; RAMSEY CAMPBELL, Inconsequential Tales]

Sometimes You Just Have to Gush .........................Matt Cardin
[STEPHEN MARK RAINEY, Other Gods; MICHAEL SHEA, The Autopsy and Other Tales]

Ramsey Campbell, Probably

A Shadow Across the Heart.........................Jack M. Haringa
[JACK KETCHUM, Old Flames and The Book of Souls]

Faster Than You Can Read Them .........................Ben P. Indick
[BRIAN KEENE, Kill Whitey; BRIAN KEENE, Ghost Walk]

Torture, Cannibalism, and Necrophilia .........................Tony Fonseca
[BILL BREEDLOVE, ed., Like a Chinese Tattoo; NICK MAMATAS and SEAN WALLACE, ed., Realms: The First Year of Clarkesworld Magazine]

Everyday Horrors .........................Javier A. Martínez
[BENTLY LITTLE, The Vanishing; BENTLEY LITTLE, The Academy]

Nightmares and Dreamscapes .........................Robert Butterfield
[PATRICK McGRATH, Trauma; GREG F. GIFUNE, Dominion]

Confessionals .........................John Langan
[CHRISTOPHER CONLON, Midnight on Mourn Street; GRAHAM JOYCE, How to Make Friends with Demons]

Vampires Doing Good.........................June Pulliam
[TANANARIVE DUE, Blood Colony; JEWELL PARKER RHODES, Yellow Moon]

Only an Abundance of Horrors.........................Tony Fonseca
[WESTON OCHSE, Scarecrow Gods]

Erotic Fantasies and Necromantic Mysteries .........................Hank Wagner
[POLLY FROST, Deep Inside; SARAH MONETTE, The Bone Key]

The Departure of "Enigma" .........................Kevin Dole
[NICHOLAS ROYLE, The Enigma of Departure]

Ambitious Reading and Ambitious Feeling .........................Michael Marano
[STEVE RASNIC TEM and MELANIE TEM, The Man on the Ceiling]

Put-Downable, But Pick-Upable Again.........................Darrell Schweitzer
[ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF, The Price]

A Gothic Landscape .........................Jim Rockhill
[JAMES DOIG, Ed. Australian Gothic: An Anthology of Australian Supernatural Fiction, 1867-1939]

Retropective Reviews: The Line of Terror.........................Arthur Machen
[WALTER DE LA MARE, On the Edge]

The Weird Scholar.........................S. T. Joshi

Capsule Reviews
Correspondence

That's 97 pages of reviews and essays on horror, dark fantasy, and suspense, and given that some of the small press material was also delayed, some of the pieces are even quite timely. As always, it's available directly from the publisher via http://www.hippocampuspress.com/journals/dead-reckonings-4.html or through the Horror Mall at http://horror-mall.com/DEAD-RECKONINGS-4-Magazine-Edited-by-S.-T.-Joshi-and-Jack-Madison-Haringa-p-18828.html

If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false.
--M. H. Abrams

On the death of literature: "You always hear about it, but it's always grossly exaggerated. The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives."
--M. H. Abrams

Has anyone read Abrams's Doing Things With Texts: Essays in Criticism and Critical Theory? I'm on the verge of ordering it for the department library but would like to hear some comments. I assume it is insightful, but is it also accessible and applicable?

is not being talked about. Or...is it?

First, there was a 24-page thread at Shocklines based on an S.T. Joshi quote dismissing Dean Koontz. The original quote, from Joshi's introduction to American Supernatural Tales, is: "Dean R. Koontz...can take his place with Judith Krantz and Danielle Steel as bestsellers whose work will be deservedly forgotten in the next generation."

Then there was the obligatory thread at TODP (started by moi) on the first thread, which had diverged into an argument about evolution and creationism.

Now there's a thread about how I'm a meanie-poopie head, with perhaps the best thread title ever seen at Shocklines.

And now that I've had my say in that last thread, I'm off to bed. I have to drive my wife and son to the airport tomorrow at godno-o'clock in the morning, as they are leaving for two months in Japan. Wake me if the internet explodes.

I just got an email from S.T. that the new issue of Dead Reckonings is available, and I see that the cover image is posted at both Hippocampus Press and the Horror Mall. A little gravy for me: I finally made the cover by-lines (something I have no control over as editor). And the new cover color is...green!



DR3 at Hippocampus: http://hippocampuspress.com/journals/dead-reckonings-3.html

DR3 at Horror Mall: https://www.horror-mall.com/DEAD-RECKONINGS-3-Edited-by-S.-T.-Joshi-and-Jack-Madison-Haringa-p-17985.html

Go forth and order!

But I managed to finish at last my feature review of Brian Hodge's Mad Dogs and John Connolly's The Unquiet for the third issue of Dead Reckonings. The piece came in at a little over 1700 words. The short version: both are worth reading.

Next, I need to complete my shorter review of Asa Nonami's Now You're One of Us. That should be under 1000 words. Oh, and capsule reviews of Piccirilli's The Fever Kill and Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys. And there may be one more, if time permits. Other things are distracting me, of course, and it's back to work on Monday, too.

Thanks to everyone for the kind and supportive words. Tomorrow's going to be rough.

Just in case there's someone on my f-list who hasn't seen the announcement yet, I'll post it here, too. I'm very excited about this whole thing, and I think it means something good for horror as a genre.

Note: I don't expect to be mentioned in the same sentence as Stewart O'Nan pretty much ever again, outside this context.

PRESS RELEASE: THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD

Contact: JoAnn F. Cox
Award Administrator
admin(at)shirleyjacksonawards.org

Award named for Shirley Jackson to Honor Writers of Psychological Suspense, Horror, and the Dark Fantastic

Inaugural year is for works published in 2007; Board of Advisors and Judges announced.

Boston, MA (January 2008) ? In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson's writing, and with permission of the author?s estate, the Shirley Jackson Award has been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, ?The Lottery.? Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem has called Jackson ?one of this century?s most luminous and strange American writers,? and multiple generations of authors would agree.

The Shirley Jackson Award will be voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards will be given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

A website, www.ShirleyJacksonAwards.org, will provide more information on the award categories and the selection process. The date and location for the awards ceremony will be announced soon.

The jurors for the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards are, alphabetically:

F. Brett Cox, co-editor (with Andy Duncan) of Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (Tor, 2004); author of numerous short stories, critical essays, and reviews; English faculty at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont.

John Langan, author of short story collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters (Prime Books, forthcoming 2008) and numerous critical essays and reviews; English faculty at State University of New York-New Paltz.

Sarah Langan, author of novels The Keeper (Harper, 2006; finalist for Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel) and The Missing (Harper, 2007); MFA in Creative Writing, Columbia University; freelance writer currently living in New York City.

Paul G. Tremblay, author of collection Compositions for the Young and Old (Prime Books, 2004), novella ?City Pier: Above and Below? (Prime, 2007), and novel The Little Sleep (Henry Holt, forthcoming); one-time co-editor of Fantasy Magazine and the anthologies Fantasy and Bandersnatch.

The Board of Advisors for the Shirley Jackson Award includes award-winning editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow; renowned scholar and editor S.T. Joshi; author, editor, and teacher Nick Mamatas, author and teacher Jack M. Haringa (co-editor, with Joshi, of the critical journal Dead Reckonings); editor Bill Congreve; author Mike O?Driscoll; editor Ann Vandermeer; and award-winning and best-selling novelist Stewart O?Nan.

www.ShirleyJacksonAwards.org


________________________________________________________________
Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn F. Cox, admin(at)shirleyjacksonawards.org.

I just finished up the line editing for the second issue of Dead Reckonings this afternoon. The issue clocks in at 117 pages, and once again I think it's a pretty stellar line-up offering a variety of voices on a very broad range of works. We even have a film review, though don't expect that to become a regular feature.

Sherry Austin--Ekaterina Sedia, The Secret History of Moscow

June Pulliam--Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising

Ben Fisher--Christopher Conlon, ed, Poe's Lighthouse; James Robert Smith and Stephen Mark Rainey, ed., Evermore

Tony Fonseca--Thomas Tessier, Wicked Things; Philip Haldeman, Shadow Coast

Hubert Van Calenbergh--Clark Ashton Smith, Collected Fantasies, Vol. 1 and 2

Steven J. Mariconda--Clark Ashton Smith, Complete Poems and Translations, Vol. 3

Reggie Oliver--S.T. Joshi and Rosemary Pardoe, ed., Warnings to the Curious

Rob Latham--Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day

Brian Showers--Margaret Oliphant, The Library Window; Cheiro, A Study of Destiny

John Langan--Laird Barron, The Imago Sequence

S.T. Joshi--Michael Cisco, Secret Hours; The Traitor

Ben P. Indick--Sean Wallace and Paul G. Tremblay, ed., Fantasy; Scriptus Innominatus, ed., Zencore!

Ramsey Campbell, Probably

Darrell Schweitzer--Kim Paffenroth, Dying to Live

Donald R. Burleson--The Short Fiction of Ambrose Bierce: A Comprehensive Edition

Jack M. Haringa--Tom Piccirilli, The Midnight Road

Scott Connors--Caitlin R. Kiernan, Daughter of Hounds

Tony Fonseca--Peter Crowther, ed., Postscripts #10; Robert Morrish, ed., Thrillers Two (2, II)

Paula Guran--Elizabeth Hand, Generation Loss; Illyria

Richard Bleiler--Peter Straub, Sides

Jim Rockhill--Lucius Shepard, Softspoken; The Dagger Key and Other Stories

Michael Marano--Michael Marshall (Smith), The Servants; The Intruders

Matt Cardin--Richard Gavin, Omens

Hank Wagner--Mary SanGiovanni, The Hollower; Sarah Langan, The Missing

Van Viator--Lee Thomas, The Dust of Wonderland; John Farris, You Don't Scare Me

John Langan--Conrad Williams, The Unblemished

Alan Warren--Jeffrey Thomas, Deadstock; with Scott Thomas, Seas of Flesh and Ash

Sherry Austin--Steve Berman, Vintage: A Ghost Story

Ben P. Indick--Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union

Jack M. Haringa--Michael Arnzen, Audiovile; Elizabeth Monteleone, ed., Dark Voices series; Gruesome (Giasone and Marcy Italiano), Johnny Gruesome

Darrell Schweitzer--Pan's Labyrinth

Stefan Dziemianowicz--The Darkling Plain (essay)

Capsule Reviews

As always, if you are the author of a forthcoming book or a contributor to an anthology, or if you are simply aware of a forthcoming book that you think would be of interest to DR, please let me know. You can leave a comment with contact info here or email me at uncletheobald _at_ yahoo(dot)com.

John Updike famously said of Vladimir Nabokov: "[He] writes prose the only it way it should be written, that is, ecstatically." There's a lovely evaluation of Nabokov by Roger Boylan at the Boston Review online right now. In it, he captures an important aspect of what makes Nabokov so great a pleasure to read:

"He remains the master of the art of beauty in exactitude. Unexpected yet precise words are connected in his writing like the fine, unbreakable links of a silver necklace. Lesser writers settle for second best; he never does. He finds the right word, however unexpected."

Re-reading a number of classic and vaunted works of literature for my upcoming courses, I've been frequently reminded of why I regularly grow bored with much of what is published under the rubric of category fiction. The prose in genre work is often nothing better than utilitarian.

Utilitarian prose has its place (by definition, really): tracts, brochures, reportage, etc. It can also have a place in prose fiction on occasion, as in when plain, unadorned writing is a conscious stylistic choice that fits the particular story at hand. Unfortunately, for many authors of horror, mystery, sf, and fantasy (and perhaps western and romance, though I haven little data to compare), this is the default writing mode. Or, worse, writers intentionally go through their manuscripts and strip out stylistic flourishes. "Murder your darlings" may be some of the absolute worst advice ever given to writers in the last century and a half (though admittedly in no small part because it's constantly misinterpreted).

I know there's no shortage of readers (and, perhaps, editors) who prefer this workmanlike sort of prose, this simplistic, bare, "invisible" style that seems to push aside everything but "the story." Except that these readers don't really mean "story" when they say this sort of thing; they mean "plot." Pure plot, unsullied by things like character development, atmosphere, mood, or--God forbid--theme. What they want is the print version of a TV drama on the order of, say, Law and Order.

Now, before anyone gets in a huff, I'll say that I actually enjoy L&O (the original series only) in a superficial fashion. The acting is decent, the dialogue is fairly natural, the plots are usually well-constructed. I like Sam Waterston. I liked Chris Noth. I really liked Jerry Orbach, and especially when he was teamed with Jesse L. Martin. The characters have the appearance of depth, in no small part because they've been on television so long that they're comfortable and familiar. Also, the writers will occasionally drop little bits about these people's lives outside of the workplace that makes them seem a bit more real.

But these are not round characters. They don't grow and change--they are (admittedly interesting) servants to plot, and little else. There's nothing particularly interesting or ground-breaking about the direction; it makes virtually no impression at all. The writing is competent (which actually makes it above-average in television-land). But even through the multi-sensory medium of television, L&O isn't exactly an immersive experience.

This is what differentiates utilitarian prose from the practice of real style, the pinnacle of which is ecstatics (that is, the joyous use of language). When I read a novel by Nabokov or Chandler or Anthony Burgess or Thomas Pynchon or Peter Straub, I feel immersed in their worlds because the language envelops me and sweeps me away from the banal language of everyday reading (news, advertisements, work-related text). The language of writers who practice style constructs the fictional world in which I have invested money (the cost of the book) and time. If it is identical to all the other language I encounter, its value is diminished and the author's job of getting me to suspend disbelief (in the fictive sense) is likely to fail. Certainly he or she will have to work significantly harder on other aspects of the book (such as plot and dialogue and world-building) as a result.

I'm far more likely to be driven out of a narrative by clunky, "utilitarian" prose than by encountering an unfamiliar word. If I can't determine a word's meaning from context, I can look it up. If it's been used well, I'm reassured that I'm in capable hands. Bland, simplistic prose gives me no reason to be confident in a writer, which also hinders my willingness to suspend disbelief. Language that lacks elegance or rhythm distances me from the story. Let's not even talk about the many published writers who regularly display an incompetent's grasp of usage or baldly show that they have a tin ear.

Style, by the way, is not synonymous with pretentiousness. That's an argument founded either on ignorance or on anti-intellectualism. Language in literature should excite and intrigue; it should enrich the reading experience. Good style is consistent, fitting (in one way or another--i.e. complementary, juxtaposed, oblique, etc.) to the story, and immersive. It should engage the reader as much as it engages the writer, until both are ecstatic at having experienced the book.

Some of the folks on my f-list have likely already seen this article, but I just today was pointed at "A Reader's Manifesto" by B.R. Myers. Myers, an American critic and professor of North Korean literature at Dongeso University in South Korea, published this long piece first in the Atlantic Monthly in 2001. He later expanded it into a 160 page book published by Melville House in 2002, something I'm going to have to get for myself now.

The essay and book are both subtitled, "An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose," and Myers has constructed just that, heaping detailed calumny on what he sees as the tendency of critically-acclaimed and prize-winning works to be awash in deliberately obfuscatory prose. The word "literary," in his lexicon, has become a pejorative.

This is, of course, a somewhat different attack on the literary than one sees in genre--particularly horror--circles. When Myers puts "literary" is scare quotes, I believe he's referring specifically to the genre of literary fiction, rather than to any and all stylistic approaches other than close-third-person narration with a minimum of modifiers and no sentences longer than two clauses. That's the "meat and potatoes" writing called for by too many anti-intellectual genre readers (and, sadly, writers) to list. "Aw, gorsh, I'm just a storyteller," isn't the banner Myers intends writers to wave.

Nonetheless, I'm of two minds about the article. On the one hand, I dislike attacks on style on such a broad scale, and his message strikes me as dangerously anti-intellectual--while being framed quite formally and intellectually. It's not like there's any shortage of easily-accessible, simply told stories on the bookshelves of America's stores. I'm also not entirely convinced that this is a specifically American phenomenon; an examination of some Booker award finalists might yield the same conclusions for Myers.

On the other hand, I do quite frequently cringe when I try to read works (or even excerpts) of some of the winners of prestigious American (and international) literary awards. I remain varying degrees of baffled as to why many of our current literary stars are so valorized by major-market critics. And I find much of what the NYT Book Review covers (and praises) in its major articles often dull and uninspired. I also agree that many university based literary critics and writers for the major book reviews tend to disdain or at least marginalize anything that smacks of "popular" fiction unless it's by an established literary writer who's either "slumming" or "subverting the genre." Plotless narratives seems to be favored over "page turners" by such critics, and for some just the whiff of a speculative element will cause them to dump the book onto the desks of monthly genre columnists.

Myers's essay is worth a read; it's written in an engaging style for such a jeremiad, though he does occasionally stoop to the criticism of taste (the "this is bad because I don't like it" attack). Here's the opening paragraph to the essay, linking to the piece at Atlantic Monthly's online archive.

Nothing gives me the feeling of having been born several decades too late quite like the modern "literary" best seller. Give me a time-tested masterpiece or what critics patronizingly call a fun read—Sister Carrie or just plain Carrie. Give me anything, in fact, as long as it doesn't have a recent prize jury's seal of approval on the front and a clutch of precious raves on the back. In the bookstore I'll sometimes sample what all the fuss is about, but one glance at the affected prose—"furious dabs of tulips stuttering," say, or "in the dark before the day yet was"—and I'm hightailing it to the friendly black spines of the Penguin Classics.

Any thoughts?

lokilokust has some nice things to say about the first issue at his livejournal.

He also started a thread at Shocklines that garnered some positive comments.

Has anyone else read Dead Reckonings #1 yet? Criticize the critics here.

Hey there.

It's been a pretty mad July thus far, hence the significant lack of posting. Hot on the heels of Readercon, I had to attend a week-long course on teaching the AP English program. Today I leave for my favorite convention, Necon. It will be my tenth. In between these events I've been dumping money into both my car and my wife's (brakes for me, bearings and bushings for her, oil changes for us both....ow, ow, ow).

Readercon was a great time, though I did get tired of commuting the hour each way every day. So far, however, the gas is cheaper than the hotel costs, and there's not a lot going on at the con after 10 most nights (unless you're one of those crazy Mafia players--looking at you pgtremblay). I hung out with or at least talked in passing to more people than I can probably remember, including plenty of lj-ers.

I sold a bundle of Dead Reckonings #1, and gave a few away as well. John Langan (jplangan) interviewed me about the journal, though for a bit less time than we were originally scheduled. I need to ramble more, apparently. Unfortunately, no one in the dealers' room was selling issues, so once I ran out that was it. Hopefully next year there will be copies for all. Did I mention that DR is available direct from the publisher and also from Bloodletting Books? Well, now I did.

A group of 20 or so of us horror-oriented folk descended upon the local Chili's thanks to the orchestrations of John Harvey (johndharvey), and a good time was had by all. I spent a lot of the time talking bad movies with nihilistic_kid, buymeaclue, and Stefan Petrucha.

Shameless plug for friend: Stefan's first hardcover release is due in October, and it's a terrific satire for young adults titled Teen, Inc. I just finished it last night and found it a fast-paced, funny, and compelling read. In fact, I wished it were longer.

And it looks like I also sold a short story to a new anthology, though I can't announce particulars until I get the all-clear and the contract. I'm feeling rather pleased about it, though. It was a story that came out of a challenge I placed to my crit group at the end of last year and which was workshopped back in March. The title changed from the original challenge to "A Perfect and Unmappable Grace," mainly since "Porn for Einstein" didn't really fit the content of the piece anyway.

I'm off to Necon in a few hours, where I've been placed on the evil, evil, evil Saturday at 9:00 a.m panel (traditionally nick_kaufmann's personal circle of hell), where a group of us will be talking about "what's hot and what's not" in horror. I'm still not sure what I'm going to be recommending. I'll take notes, though. I'm sure I'll see some of you there. And I will have copies of DR to flash around.

Catch you Monday!

So, via John (jplangan ) Langan, I have learned that I'm on the schedule at Readercon next weekend. He and I have a prime spot at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, though I've no idea what we might be up against on another track. Here's the description:

Saturday 2:00 PM. Discussion (60 min.)
Dead Reckonings.

A discussion with Jack Haringa about the new review journal of the horror field, edited by Jack and S.T. Joshi.

Here's a good example of what not to do on a message board, particularly when you're a published author.

Mark Samuels is a good writer. His stories regularly appear in the Stephen Jones-edited Best New Horror anthologies and other premier venues; he has a collection available from Tartarus Press; and a novella, The Face of Twilight, was published last year by PS. He seems, based on his fiction, like a pretty smart guy.

All of that's been tainted recently, at least for me, by his antics on Shocklines, where he's decided to appoint himself Nick Mamatas's personal troll. They've gotten into arguments in the past, but the biggest blow up can be found on this locked thread about the IHG Award nominations, where Samuels worries the lack of a nod to Thomas Ligotti's latest collection like a bulldog on the neck of a Jersey.

Then yesterday, in a thread about Dan Brown, of all places, Samuels decided to leap in for no other reason than to attack Nick's use of the word "orthogonal." He later edited his post to be less openly hostile and more passive aggressive, and I wish I had saved the original. It demonstrated how angry, obsessive, and--strangely, for a writer of his caliber--anti-intellectual he can be.

By the way, on the same thread I noted how tired I am of people using the word "literary" as a pejorative. In so many genre circles but especially horror, anyone using long sentences, polysyllabic words, and anything beyond strict linear plot structures is "pretentious" and "high-fallutin'". Get your ass back in the ghetto where you belong, little horror-man. It's an anti-intellectual, reverse-snobbishness that makes me grind my teeth in frustration and is one of the major reasons why horror gets so little critical respect. Because that attitude comes not just from reader-fans but from far too many writers as well.

About twenty posts later, someone names "adman33" writes "Evidently I'm retarded because I think Dan Brown's books are great fun. Yes, I've read Cormac McCarthy, O'nan, and the other "literary writers" the book snobs like to throw out there. While their books may be better written, more fun they are not."

Call me the Amazing Kreskin.

End result: I won't be looking for Mark Samuels's books much anymore and will continue to expect uninspired dreck to be vomited up by many micropresses and lapped with joy by their core constituency.

With Shocklines closing its doors imminently, I've had to start hunting for a new bookstore by which I can consolidate my small press orders. There will be some publishers from whom I order directly, and others whose books I'll get via Amazon, but I still want a central clearinghouse for the majority of purchases--especially of overseas publishers.

Enter Bloodletting Books. Bloodletting has been around for a while, and its owner, Larry Roberts, is a stand-up guy who has begun venturing into publishing over the last few years. He's put out some gorgeous and extravagant lettered editions (the one for Elizabeth Massie's The Fear Report was spectacular) and fine limiteds of a variety of authors. Larry has pretty broad tastes in horror, and I've recently been surprised to find that they overlap with mine more than I has been lead to expect.

To wit, Larry is now carrying Dead Reckonings and a good number of other Hippocampus titles. If you're browsing the site for Hippocampus stuff, click on the "Classic Horror" link on the left.

And you know, while you're there, you could also pick yourself up a copy of Dead Cat's Traveling Circus of Wonder and Miracle Medicine Show. I haven't pimped that one in quite a while. Larry has it for five bucks off the cover price, and all orders come with free shipping.

So, yay Bloodletting!

Next Thursday I'll be flying down to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for the 28th International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts. I've been a member of the IAFA (and subscriber to the Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts) for most of the last seven years, and I attended this conference as a graduate student back in 2000. That was my first real introduction to academic conferences, and my first time presenting a paper (the second chapter of my thesis, which also became the chapbook Drafts from the Moon Pool, published by Hippocampus Press). It was a great experience, both socially and professionally, and I'm looking forward to next week's trip. It doesn't hurt that my employer is footing the bill.

I won't be presenting a paper this time around, though; I'm going for the purpose of expanding my understanding of gender studies in genre fiction. This year's theme is "Representing Self and Other: Gender and Sexuality in the Fantastic." And there look to be some very interesting panels and round-tables, as well as a screening of a film based on the short fiction of Michael A. Arnzen, who'll be in attendance.

But at the same time, there are some fairly ridiculous-sounding panels as well. Part of the problem is the seemingly-required "academic" titling scheme, which demands a "pithy" title, a colon, and an actual, descriptive sub-title for each panel and paper. I'm guilty of this sort of thing myself, I won't lie. But add to it the absurdities of identity-politics criticism and po-mo hipsterism, and you end up with panels like this one:

93. (IF) Phallus, Phallus, Who’s Got the Phallus?: The Fantastic (Re)Negotiation of Gender                                        Hatteras
Chair: Dale Knickerbocker
East Carolina University

I can only imagine the handouts that will accompany this presentation.

Nonetheless, anyone else attending this event?

I wrote the following response, with some edits, to a thread about a thread about reviews. The thing that started it all can be found at this Shocklines thread. Personally, I think the dismissive "oh, it's just one person's opinion" is a palliative writers tell themselves to prevent lasting wounds or silly arguments with reviewers. But I also think a lot of people who call themselves reviewers in the horror field are nothing of the sort.

What's a quality review?

A good (positive or negative) review is more than just an expression of taste (which is what most people are nattering on about when they try to dismiss reviews as merely one person's "opinion"). it shouldn't say "I liked it" or "I hated it"; it shouldn't really have much of an "I" to it at all.

The reason that's so is because we tend to have, culturally, a set of functional definitions for "successful" and "unsuccessful" writing, and of narratives. When the scope of narrative is limited by form (novel v. play v. short story, etc.), we have a particular group of rules that we apply to assessment and evaluation. When the narrative is further limited by classification in a particular genre, we have another group of rules. The rules are somewhat elastic, but culturally we agree on levels of success for narratives. It's not a free-for-all.

At the base level, one can criticise things such as basic grammar skills, punctuation, spelling, word usage, and the like. This is for all writing. As we add the narrative component, we examine a list of essential components: character development, plot structures, viable dialogue, establishment of setting, and all those other elements of fiction you studied back in high school. There are fairly objective measures of success for these, and of course the measures depend on the type of narrative, date of composition, date of setting, and other variables. At a higher functioning level, where deep criticism becomes apparent, the reviewer looks at depth of theme, complexity and quality of figurative language, gradations of character growth, subtexts, social commentary, and things of that type which require significant inferential reading.

Can you do all this in 400-500 words? Not really, and this is why most reviews in horror and small-press genre magazines suck. Nonetheless, even with limited verbiage, a reviewer of reasonable talent can speak about the book beyond basic plot summary and the adolescent reaction of "it rocks" or "it sucks." Because those are expressions of taste, not opinion. Opinion is considered and intellectual (i.e. rational). Taste is reactive and emotional. Everyone's taste is equal in value at the most basic concept of the term. Not all opinions are equal.

Another requirement for an excellent reviewer is that he or she be well read. And that doesn't just mean well read within the genre, but rather well read enough to have internalized the aesthetic and structural rules and definitions of narrative and in such a way that critical evaluations can be made. That provides an informed opinion, which contributes to the distinction between opinion and taste.

Good reviews are hard work, and the absolute essential element of them that many writers forget? The reviews aren't for you. If a writer learns something from a review, that's an added bonus. Good for him or her. If a publisher recognizes a flaw in the book, bully for him or her. But that's not the point. The audience for any review worth its salt is the reader who has to decide where to place her or his hard-earned dollars.

Reviewers should be beholden to no writer or publisher; nor should they be swayed by fans of any author. The reviewer's responsibility is the paying reader.