Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale, "The Masque of the Red Death," is enjoying a spike in new interpretations mixing theater with terror. The Red Room by David Hughes, for instance, is one of these. The performance continues to make its way across the UK, immersing viewers in a lively drama that re-enacts Poe's horrific subversion from a different angle. "The Masque of the Red Death" has been adapted to media as diverse as film (such as Vincent Price's classic version) and music (see Diamanda Galas' Masque of the Red Death), but shows encompassing dance and music like The Red Room are rare.
The Berwick Advertiser recently gave the show a promising review. Despite its success, it's unclear when or where The Red Room will show up next. Check out its page on David Hughes' website for some spectacular photos and other details. With any luck, more well executed Poe dramas like these will surface in the coming years, signaling renewed interest in Poe's fiction and the macabre aesthetic as a whole.
A new publisher of literary horror is poised to stand with Chomu, Tartarus, Hippocampus, and others. Aklo Press is a start up that aims to combine the best in weird art and fiction into one product. Actually, this illustrated anthology or journal format is reminiscent of the heady days when great strangeness appeared in places like Dagon, Tekeli-li, and Crypt of Cthulhu.
The project is titled Aklonomicon and it should appear later this year. Its prospective lineup is impressive, including many weird horror writers who have been busy this past year: Simon Strantzas (Beneath the Surface), Livia Llewellyn (Engines of Desire), Laird Barron (Occultation), Joseph S. Pulver (Sin and Ashes), Richard Gavin (Charnel Wine), and many more. Likewise for visual artists, where Michael Zigerlig, Eric York, Andrea Bonazzi, and others are due to flood the production with their dark output.
This is an age where digital media has severely crippled the illustrated anthology and horror 'zine of old. Curiously, e-zines built on weird fiction are rarely successful. Probably because few are willing to be chained to a computer to enjoy otherworldly art and literature. Until such publications are Kindle worthy (and even then their success may be a tall order), we should all hope to see more Aklonomicons. These are atmospheric extravaganzas that work. Visit Aklo Press for further details.
Fans of the mannequin and corporate horror pioneered by Thomas Ligotti and his successors should experience a familiar chill in these scenes from China's stillborn shopping centers. Though lacking in the derelict aesthetic seen in corporate horror from collections like Teatro Grottesco, these spectral commerce palaces capture the same haunting, sometimes oppressive feel. In places, it almost seems certain stores were built solely for their mannequin residents.
Once again, mannequin horror enjoys a bizarre uptick in reality mirroring its expansion in books like Mark Samuels' The White Hands and Simon Strantzas' Beneath the Surface. Is life merely imitating art behind the wall of coincidence? Or is it a far more sinister phenomenon?
Wilum Pugmire continues to be a one man powerhouse of Lovecraftian stories. He recently announced a new and as yet unnamed story collection that should be out this summer from Dark Regions Press.
This development follows an exceptionally busy and successful year for Pugmire's work. Centipede Press published a mammoth collection of his fiction, The Tangled Muse, and several new short stories burst onto the scene in anthologies. Meanwhile, his other collections like Weird Inhabitants of Sesqua Valley are gaining attention in the weird community.
Pugmire continues to fire out quality Lovecraftian fiction at a fast clip, perhaps quicker than any other contemporary weird horror writer. And it doesn't look like there's any sign of him slowing down. This is great news for readers, since Pugmire's efforts are sure to continue enhancing his own literary portfolio, and the wider stature of Lovecraft's modern legacy.
Many have tried to blend H.P. Lovecraft's unique cosmic horror with traditional science fiction, but arguably, only a few have succeeded. The best Lovecraftian sci-fi tales go beyond Mythos name dropping with futuristic elements. These scant wins are usually blended into the pages of anthologies like Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos and The New Lovecraft Circle.
Other writers, such as Livia Llewellyn and Mark Samuels, add Lovecraftian elements to their black science fiction. The Engines of Desire and The Man Who Collected Machen are two recent publications with stories cross-breeding the Lovecraftian with darkly imagined futures. Now, as Innsmouth Free Press is soliciting submissions for an anthology called Future Lovecraft, it's worth pondering what good Lovecraftian science fiction is.
The divide between H.P. Lovecraft the science fiction author and the horror writer is a historic and deep one. Today, many remain most drawn to his horrors, his bleak view of an indifferent universe, and his powerful wordsmithing. Weird fiction purists regularly argue that Lovecraft's more ambiguous, dream-like stories such as "The Music of Erich Zann" and "The Colour Out of Space" represent his greatest talents. But there's little denying the draw of his scientific horrors.
In fact, "At the Mountains of Madness," considered by S.T. Joshi and other scholars to be Lovecraft's finest use of scientific realism, came dangerously close to being a major Hollywood film. This story's prehistoric Antarctic horrors are very tangible, as much as the mental time travel seen in "The Shadow Out of Time," or the occult mathematics from "The Dreams in the Witch House." The magnetic draw of these stories for fans, as well as the fact that they represent late Lovecraft's writing abilities at their height, proves there is a real demand for sci-fi with a Cthulhu or cosmic component.
H.P. Lovecraft was never averse to using fantastic science fiction elements like extraterrestrials and time travel when it suited him. He always aimed to provoke a sense of frightful awe at existence, frequently accompanied by the realization of mankind's puny place inside a machine filled with indifferent or hostile natural phenomena. So, it seems to stand that Lovecraftian science fiction must echo a sense of terrible marvel. This atmospheric aspect may even make or break a good tale, and probably can't be overtaken with incredible gadgets, Mythos monsters, or exotic locales, however imaginative.
Curiously, the Lovecraftian sci-fi aesthetic pulses just as strongly outside literature, possibly more so. Games like Cthulhutech and films such as Ridley Scott's Alien warp already dystopian futures into starkly nightmarish realities by drawing on Lovecraft's work. Innsmouth Free Press' prospective anthology, Future Lovecraft, promises to give literary horror junkies a cohesive sampling of Lovecraftian sci-fi to pour over. Unintentionally, perhaps, this book may shed new light on what it really means to bring H.P. Lovecraft's vision into the stars, across time, or onto strange worlds.
Flood waters in Pakistan are responsible for this eerie set of photos. It seems they were taken after several million spiders fled the surging tide and ended up roosting in trees for an extended period. A mummified, otherworldly appearance is the result.
Aside from stirring up anxious prongs of arachnophobia, the sight is deeply reminiscent of weird horror. These scenes form a natural counterpart to "The Ash-Tree" by M.R. James (best enjoyed in S.T. Joshi's annotated edition, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories). Had someone set the plants on fire, a hideous legend may have been born.
Joshua Hoffine recently unleashed a series of high resolution photos based on H.P. Lovecraft's story, "Pickman's Model." The photo set captures the catastrophic moment when Pickman's artistic horrors are fully unveiled. Hoffine wisely keeps the macabre paintings relatively obscured. This ambiguity lends itself well to the imagination, much like another successful take on "Pickman's Model" not long ago, the film Pickman's Muse. It's also more faithful to the original story, since the best Lovecraftian horrors remain murky in all but the mind.
Hoffine's photographic abominations are painfully realistic, and stunning in their gruesome crispness. One hopes this won't be the last time he visits Lovecraft. Check out the full set and more at Hoffine's blog.
-Grim Blogger
HP Lovecraft's Pickman's Model in Art by Joshua Hoffine
Not by me. But I felt this duo's whimsical take on The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu says all that's important to say about this horror comedy. Skip to the 1:00 mark to get to the heart of the review.
-Grim Blogger
Video Review: The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu
The explosion in popularity for graphic novels means that more folks than ever before are getting introduced to classic masters this way. Weird fiction is no exception, and modern literary horror's founder, Edgar Allan Poe, is seeing a steady uptick in comic adaptations of his stories. The latest is The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories illustrated by Gris Grimly, which just went on pre-order.
Grimly is one of visual horror's more unsettled contributors. His often crooked characters bring to mind an underground shadow land, and reflect psychological derangement in their warped bodies. Grimly's work is a fine accompaniment to Poe's fiction, and actually marks the third time the artist has applied his talents to depicting Poe's horrors. He previously illustrated Tales of Death and Dementia and Tales of Mystery and Madness.
Edgar Allan Poe by Gris Grimly
It's always nice to have more of a good thing - and a heaping portion of the Poe-Grimly blend may satisfy macabre hunger pangs for a little while. The third serving with The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories is due this August.
-Grim Blogger
New Tell-Tale Heart Graphic Novel Illustrated by Gris Grimly
This weekend sees an enormous pulp convention landing in Lombard, Illinois. So, this isn't strictly weird horror related, but then again, twentieth century weird fiction got its start in the pulps. The event, which runs from April 15-17, is sure to feature discussions relevant to H.P. Lovecraft and the original Weird Tales circle. Not to mention a whole lot of rare collectibles.
Since Bram Stoker's Dracula appeared in 1897, the vampire legend has taken on a curious afterlife, with gory fangs penetrating deep into all literature's rich veins. Every year, the struggle to keep the vampire original, interesting, and frightening grows harder. Now, in an age when most writers are looking for ways to siphon away Dracula's monstrous blood and fill him with a human soul, or launch him into the stars, hardly anyone has wanted to look back at the legend's roots. Until now. Reggie Oliver's new book, The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar's Tale, published by Chomu Press, takes us back to Medieval Transylvania. Armed with a formidable knowledge of history and a talent for spinning quality drama, Oliver banishes cliches and seeks to unveil Dracula's beginnings.
This novel is a departure in size and scope from Reggie Oliver's previous efforts, which include four popular short story collections. To call it an expansion of last year's novella, The Wounds of Exile, would be obscene, though the entirety of that storyline plays a small part. Oliver has instead unchained an original and highly elegant take on the Dracula horror that pierces through genres. One part historical fiction, and another weird literature, mixes with a rich overlay of adventures, fearful visions, and wartime drama. It is hard to say where history ends and legends begin here, but this is what makes the work a coherent human drama, and an unsettling one.
The Dracula Papers unfolds through a forgotten autobiography by Martin Bellorious, a brilliant young scholar who is summoned to Transylvania as an instructor to King Xantho's two sons. Along the way, Bellorious links up with a courageous dwarf, an introverted alchemist, and a wide cast of larger-than-life characters who each play a role in the succeeding drama. Oliver's celebrated capacity for wit, intrigue, and brutally vibrant detail is well on display before his band reaches Wallachia and encounters the book's true protagonist.
Vlad, the younger prince, is an enigmatic shadow. Though anyone can guess that this withdrawn adolescent is to bear Dracula, the Impaler, and perhaps many other titles, his fate materializes only through severe episodes that remain shocking and engaging even as they occur. Reggie Oliver's mythic Prince is a wonder to behold in all his aspects. His unlikely victories in combat are matched by savage tragedies with his royal peers, just as his demonic rage is equaled by a surprising tenderness for a noble girl. Although subsequent books in this series will reveal further critical episodes contributing to Dracula's historic potency, Oliver's portrayal of his formative years in this novel is sufficiently powerful to make the mighty destination awaiting the young man believable.
But is there any weird horror? This question, inevitably asked by longtime Reggie Oliver followers, is an affirmative. Amid the painstaking historic details and glamor of exotic courtiers is a dark atmosphere that occasionally slams readers with visions, ghosts, and real world horrors equal to or greater than the frights in Oliver's short stories. Castle Dracula conceals many anxious secrets, such as the abandoned chambers of a former Queen, who cursed the place with a terrible secret in her black quest for youth. It is often Bellorious' superhuman brainpower alone, or joined with the courageous explorations of others, that uncovers and brings sense to these terrible mysteries.
Later, ghouls, prophesying corpses, and a decrepit old prisoner who can talk to rats adds to the horror in The Dracula Papers. Additional blows arrive when Transylvania goes to war with the Ottoman Turks. The grim atrocities on both sides are grotesque not just because they seem like macabre fantasies from Oliver's imagination, but rather like plausible incidents from the lawless middle ages. Take the catapulting of human heads, for instance, or several scenes where infernos roast prisoners alive.
Oliver's visions of hell and other religious manias are particularly effective at inducing a shudder. His purgatory is a place where genuine, dehumanizing torture occurs. Fire is just the beginning, and the true evil hides in the darkness, where millions of buzzing voices consume the shrieks of the damned forever. These anti-miracles are often directly related to Dracula's accursed history, and especially to a monastery filled with “black monks” working a terrible sorcery in the affair that will probably not be clear until future installments are published.
Where Reggie Oliver's talent really shines is in his narrative's iron clad realism, which carries through diverse settings. Sixteenth century Eastern Europe never seemed so barbarically convincing in its horror. But then, the author carries this over to the Orient, where readers enjoy a brief rest from Castle Dracula's musty confines in the Sultan's marvelous palace. The lavish indulgences feasted upon by the Ottoman tyrant are sickening in their own right, but Istanbul and the Mediterranean also form a last proving ground for the scholar, Prince Vlad, and their aides as they fight to return to Transylvania. Before the end is in sight, Bellorious' harrowing story gives way to an exquisite chaos aboard a pirate ship that must be experienced to be believed, and a final secret about the vampire Prince.
By the time The Dracula Papers concludes, one wonders if fiction is finally stranger than truth. This four hundred plus page tome should be exhausting with its indulgent horror, passions, wars, and mysteries. Yet, by some devilish energy, weariness never sets in. Only an unquenchable desire for the next novel remains. Reggie Oliver has succeeded at mining a hellishly engaging story from an old quarry that has yielded only trite, brittle material for so long. If subsequent books in this series prove as momentous as The Scholar's Tale, then Bram Stoker may have finally found a worthy heir.
-Grim Blogger
Review: The Dracula Papers Book I: The Scholar's Tale by Reggie Oliver
The tireless S.T. Joshi is presently working on several H.P. Lovecraft related projects, and some should materialize in the near future. Dissecting Cthulhu is a new series of essays edited by Joshi, due to be published by Miskatonic River Press. Like previous scholarly volumes he's put together, the book will collect observations from the greatest minds in Lovecraft research. The preliminary list of contributors includes the following: Richard L. Tierney, Dirk W. Mosig, David E. Schultz, Robert M. Price, Will Murray, Robert D. Marten, Steven J. Mariconda, and others.
Meanwhile, Black Wings II seems to be nearing completion for a release later in 2011. The anthology is a successor to its well received predecessor. This new collection of Lovecraftian horror is due to see return contributions from authors in the first Black Wings, and some new names as well.
Stranger are reports that Joshi is piecing together his own Lovecraftian novel. Its working title is The Assaults of Chaos, and the storyline aims to mix elements from Lovecraft's life with the supernatural. This could potentially be the most interesting novel using Lovecraft as a character since Peter Cannon's alternate history, The Lovecraft Chronicles. It should at least be the most accurate fictional representation of Lovecraft, since no one is more qualified to do it than S.T. Joshi, who remains enthroned as HPL's definitive biographer.
Filmmaker Aaron Vanek notes a significant Lovecraftian presence is due at the Imagi-Movies Film Festival scheduled for later this week in Los Angeles. Unfilmable.com gives us Vanek's meticulous list of Lovecraft films that are on course to appear:
David Prior's AM1200 Andrew Leman's The Call of Cthulhu Andrew Jones's Frank DanCoolo: Paranormal Drug Dealer Late Bloomer by Craig Macneil Henry Saine's The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu The Necronomicon by Joseph Nanni Short films of Richard Corben (Dagon, The Canal, Recognition)
Several panels based around H.P. Lovecraft's fiction and adaptations on film are to be held as well. A panel based on The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu is particularly notable, since it will include representatives from the film's cast and crew. Full details about the Beverly Hills event, which runs from April 8-11, can be found on the ImagiMovies website.
-Grim Blogger
Significant Lovecraftian Presence at Imagimovies Festival this Week
Like the contents inside the fearful Necronomicon, Fall River Press' latest book entitled, H.P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies, is a mystery. At least, that's the way it stands now. Despite showing up for pre-order on quite a few book related search engines (Amazon, Borders, etc.), information is skeletal. The book is slated for an October, 2011 release, and it's too early to say who the author is. Much less what the book is actually about. At four hundred pages, though, it seems it will be a substantial tome. The Fall River Press label also released H.P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural several years ago, collecting favorite weird tales mentioned by HPL in his treatise, "Supernatural Horror in Literature."
One shouldn't judge a book by its title, but in this case, it's hard not to. Is it an unseen novel preparing to burst from the depths like Cthulhu's mighty tentacles? Or, more likely, a new book collecting info and observations about Lovecraftian films, much like the encyclopedic book, The Lurker in the Lobby: The Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema. The latter seems more probable. In fact, one wonders if H.P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies could be an expanded re-issue of Lurker in the Lobby, since the latter is just a bit shorter.
Whatever the case, Lovecraftians may be able to look forward to a new dark treat at the hands of a sizable publishing imprint. Further updates will be coming, even as the Masques of Nyarlathotep roll on.
Any respectable H.P. Lovecraft biography mentions the Providence author's fondness for coffee. It's very possible the caffeinated brew fueled his daemonic muse to satisfaction, or rattled HPL's already deranged nightmares up another notch. He made no secret about his affinity (or addiction?). S.T. Joshi discusses Lovecraft's diet at length in H.P. Lovecraft: A Life (and again in I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft), and the horror writer's gushing over sugar loaded cups of coffee is well documented. In a 1931 letter to J. Vernon Shea, he confesses, "I like coffee exceedingly, but relish its imitation Postum just as much."
The connections between Lovecraft and coffee run deeper, though, and perhaps breach the boundaries between life and death. Today, he can stake a legit claim to being one of the few authors who has inspired notable coffee related endeavors. The most interesting experiment is the now defunct Cthulhu Coffee. For a couple years, this enterprising group served up their own Cthulhuvian coffee beverages at various conventions, and attempted to launch a short lived direct order coffee. Alas, the project never really got off the ground.
While a truly Lovecraftian coffee remains elusive, there are more eldritch logos and parodies than lesser wordsmiths could ever hope to inspire. Looking on any search engine for Lovecraft related coffee cups will bring up a glut of products. Coffee turns up again in the Role Playing Gamer community. The Propnomicon Blog posted this design for a Lovecraft brand coffee container a couple years ago:
Even Chaosium managed to get in on the action with their own horrifying logo, which also carries the "Cthulhu Coffee" title:
Finally, there's the bizarre synchronicity recently unveiled by a traveler to Providence. It seems a Starbucks now rests on the old site of Lovecraft's childhood home, the Angell Street Mansion he never really got over losing, after his family was forced to abandon it due to financial duress.
Coincidence or the result of certain stars aligning? You decide. Maybe over an afternoon cup in one of the better Lovecraftian mugs.
All writers seek to plunge readers into their pages, gently coating them with a psychic grease that clings and drips its residue well after the books are re-shelved. Then there are authors like Simon Strantzas, whose stories are more like a suffocating tar, cocooning readers in a thick blackness certain to contaminate and continually affect the desiccated soul within. His first true debut, Cold to the Touch, already worked its black magic in this way. Now, Beneath the Surface, a previously rare short story collection, is poised to do the same thanks to a reprint by Dark Regions Press.
This book rounds up fourteen tales exploring familiar Strantzean underpinnings from new angles, but flails its tendrils differently than in Cold to the Touch. As in the other collection, these stories deal with bulging human dams who need only a slight provocation from the supernatural to unleash their melancholy contents. Here, however, the flavor of the gruesome sap that washes over us is infused with aftertastes owing more to H.P. Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti than to Robert Aickman. Cold to the Touch also saw stories set in far flung locales, while Beneath the Surface witnesses its terrible enlightenments occurring in strictly urban settings. Strantzas' city, possibly based on Toronto, is an epicenter for the gruesome, the degenerate, and the occult in this collection.
Take the book's opener, “A Shadow in God's Eye,” for instance. A faith seeker has his natural sight cruelly stripped away, only to gain insight into an unsuspected manifestation of the almighty holding dominion over this world. Strantzas' monstrosity is an original secret revealed, and effectively communicates the bleak despair within so much of his work. It is “The Constant Encroaching of a Tumultuous Sea,” though, that lays bare the urban terror aesthetic. It may take a saunter through a mass grave to convince the story's narrator that he has made a serious error by coming to the city, but what better way to reveal the unmistakable foulness of a metropolis functioning like a tomb for all its inhabitants?
“Off the Hook” is the finest example of the vicious knowledge concealed in assuming cities, and a serious contender for best story in Beneath the Surface. A librarian encounters a mysterious notebook, and then begins receiving strange phone calls from a garbled voice bringing some chilling news. This is serious philosophical horror. It posits quasi-theological possibilities truly unsettling to contemplate. The uncertainty clouding the story is as chilling as its outright conjectures. Another story, “The Autumnal City,” rests on dark ambiguity of another kind. A man in a tarnished city, oppressed with a borderline dystopian air and its eternal decay, seeks his salvation in a pale, wandering girl. Strantzas' prose excels in this piece, flexing his stylistic powers with imagery rooted in seasonal degeneration.
While urban horror writhes within nearly every story, several mix it with strong, unabashed Ligottian elements. In “You Are Here,” Strantzas guides readers into an underworld seething with dereliction and populated by mannequins. It quickly becomes apparent that the dolls have a bizarre connection with the urban explorer, sweeping him into fate's grasp. Mannequins crop up again in “Thoughtless,” where a woman undergoes a psychological experiment conducive to piercing reality's many disguises. Simon Strantzas seems to share Thomas Ligotti's obsession with a sham world, where the day to day splendors and terrors are mere trapping for an overwhelming existential blackness – the true form hiding beneath many costumes. “Behind Glass” echoes Ligotti's corporate horror. A wage slave finds much more to deal with than crabby co-workers and pompous supervisors after his company undergoes restructuring. Strantzas manages to put an original spin on a niche within weird fiction that's beginning to grow crowded. His shadowy office and aloof drones conceal a nastier secret, one on par with other workplace demons summoned by Thomas Ligotti and Mark Samuels.
Beneath the Surface is a predecessor to Cold to the Touch, and thus features labors born by Strantzas' earliest dark imaginings. Many tales are shorter than those found in the other collection. Most of the time, this causes no problem, as Strantzas is a gifted practitioner of the weird, with a proven ability to dispense his horrors dose-by-dose or in one painful blow. A couple stories, however, fail to satisfy with the three three dimensional depth seen in most works. “More to Learn” sees a researcher straining to free himself from a nauseating parasite. While capably written, it lacks the emotional and intellectual body slam Strantzas has rapidly become known for delivering. The same can be said for “Leather, Dark and Cold,” where an ominous tome haunts a college student into adulthood.
Fortunately, these stories are brief, minor imperfections in a collection filled with brilliant continuations of the horror enjoyed in Cold to the Touch. The most polished tales are often the more Lovecraftian as well. Just look at “A Thing of Love,” where an introverted writer tormented by his mother's death receives a curious package that transforms everything. This story's horror is also a dilemma: is it the writer's nightmarish transition that is the true horror, or is it the grotesque creature that has captured his heart? “In the Air” is a beautifully written rendezvous between the Lovecraftian and the Aickmanesque, skillfully married by Strantzas' drama about a wife and sister mourning a dead pilot.
Other tales seep unparalleled woe and wonderment tinged with cosmic horror. “The Wound So Deep” aptly completes the parasite stories contained in this book, as a bullied office worker is possessed by a tentacled growth that enables him to pursue his tarnished dreams by other means. A near apocalypse plays itself out in “Drowned Deep Inside of Me.” Another isolated misanthrope suffers through a blanket of suffocating blackness, inside and out, when the world inexplicably darkens at mid day and he is forced to comfort a neighbor and her young daughter. Both stories are symptomatic of the deeply human spirit embedded in Strantzas' oeuvre, and see a glimmer of hope, or at least relief, from strange quarters for the bitter parties involved.
Unlike many other books, where authors intentionally keep their secretive mystique tightly guarded like professional magicians, Beneath the Surface concludes with Strantzas' illuminating afterward. Rather than a full expose, the afterward is a road map to the fiction and an interesting look at his creative process. Anyone who has ever worshiped at the altars of Lovecraft and Ligotti should get their hands on this book. So should wild eyed seekers after cerebral weird horror. Sampling this affordable and accessible collection now is a fantastic introduction to Simon Strantzas, and a twisted bridge to his forthcoming collection, Nightingale Songs.
A bolt of lightening is set to rattle the literary horror community and world politics simultaneously from an unlikely source: North Korea. It seems the reclusive "Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il, is due to release a weird fiction collection entitled, Midnight in Pyongyang and Other Trodden Stories. Details are sketchy, but a Workers' Party of Korea source tells me it will be a book of eight stories with one novella length piece. Here's the contents:
Starving Demons Beneath Juche Tower
Imaginary Murals in the Metro
King Tongmyong's Howling Resurrection
Binding the Tentacle: An Unpublished Fragment from the Great Leader's Personal Diary
A Shadow Engulfed Mount Paektu
Midnight in Pyongyang
The Sweeping Roar of Decay
The Final Re-Education of a Wayward Marionette
Unknown to many, Kim has been a lifelong collector of weird literature, particularly stories by H.P. Lovecraft. He reportedly came upon the genre in the late 1960s, when an envoy recently returned from Japan presented him with an Arkham House edition of Lovecraft's Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. Since then, he has rapidly expanded his library of macabre works by well known masters and contemporaries. The forthcoming stories were conceived over the last few decades and "revised to heavenly perfection."
Midnight in Pyongyang hopes to communicate the "legendary terrors and triumphs which test the Juche idea." Judging by the brief summaries provided, one also wonders if the inner fears and secrets of the evasive head of state will leak, coiling up from the pages like the enormous Ryugyong Hotel. For instance, "Imaginary Murals in the Metro," offers a look at what happens when emaciated, hellish paintings begin inexplicably appearing next to the well known Socialist realist art in Pyongyang's metro. "The Sweeping Roar of Decay" chronicles the fevered dreams of a soldier who lives in two DPRKs: one filled with unimagined affluence, marvelous technologies, and golden tributes to the Party towering into the sky. The other is a broken place consumed with tears, deserted buildings, shabby denizens, and moldering monuments to Juche accomplishments everyone seems to have forgotten.
"Binding the Tentacle," which purports to be an unseen page from Kim Il Sung's diary, takes readers back to the elder Kim's days as a guerrilla leader during World War II. His warrior band aims to destroy a mysterious book bringing unspeakable terror to Koreans occupied by forces under a Japanese general with the "Innsmouth Look." This is clearly a Lovecraftian horror tale. "Midnight in Pyongyang" is the book's longest tale, and begins when a nameless successor to the Kim dynasty awakens in a pitch black capital to sounds of war. Thinking the "imperialists" have attacked, the Juche Prince rushes outside with his staff, but finds an impenetrable haze blanketing Pyongyang and a curious Buddhist temple no one has ever seen before.
The book's exact purpose and where it will appear are unknowns at this point. Is it a product of Kim's obsessions, ready to pour onto a Korean society that may struggle with strange concepts they have never before encountered? It's hard to see Midnight in Pyongyang gaining a large Western distribution either. Despite fascination with the introverted DPRK regime, Kim Jong Il is reviled by Westerners, by far the largest weird fiction audience. Still, the collection should gain serious interest when it does appear, barring a change of heart by the ailing Kim or his successors, if only due to its bizarre origins.
-Grim Blogger
Kim Jong Il Set to Publish Weird Horror Collection
