KGB Fantastic Fiction Reading: Cisco and Langan

Two authors with more than a small tie to weird fiction are scheduled to read from their literary offerings at New York City's KGB Fantastic Fiction. The event will be held at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, October 21, 2009. The writers in question are Michael Cisco and John Langan, both of whom have acquired scrutiny as rising stars of supernatural literature in recent years, from the informal blogosphere to the professional pen of S.T. Joshi.


Cisco has often been favorably compared with Thomas Ligotti. His novels and short stories definitely add to the dark, surreal tapestry detailed by Ligotti and their mutual predecessor H.P. Lovecraft. Langan's work, on the other hand, seems to draw more from the ghostly and strange stories pioneered by M.R. James and Robert Aickman, best exhibited in his recent collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters. Like any notables in the weird realm, both men stamp their writing with an originality that somehow modernizes their subject matter while curling the familiar atmosphere of the bizarre into new mysterious forms.


New Yorkers and others in the area should definitely make time for this reading, if at all possible. I'm not sure if KGB Fantastic Fiction intentionally lined up two admirable gentleman from the weird niche, but by fluke or design, it's an incredible (and possibly historic) opportunity to breathe in the outre in a manner rarely seen outside themed conventions these days.

-Grim Blogger