Interesting post at the Reading Experience slapping reviewers on the wrist for their positive takes on Amy Bloom’s novel Away which Dan Green thinks is mediocre. I haven’t read the novel, so I have no opinion on it one way or the other. But I find the idea that reviewers may actually reward mediocrity and unoriginality interesting. It’s certainly true that some novels are easier for a reviewer to grok on a first read, and under the pressure of deadlines those novels may come off better than ones that require multiple reads to fully appreciate. There is a phenomenon in high schools, for example, related to the fact that writers who use a lot of symbolism are easier to teach because it’s something for the teacher to latch onto and create a discussion around. (This is, of course, a gross generalization, but I’ll throw it out there anyway.)

No publisher covers Decadent and Surreal literature in quite the same way as Dedalus in the United Kingdom. As someone more eloquent than me said, “Dedalus is an arts-council funded publisher of beautiful, decadent and dazzling books. Looking through their catalogue is like looking in a musty old cabinet of curiosities, filled full of sweets. Their author list ranges from Huysmans to Mirbeau, Robert Irwin to Voltaire. Along with some of the best dark classics, there are modern English and translated works, and some exceptional concept books, such as The Decadent Handbook, The Dedalus Book of Absinthe and The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides.” They’ve been having a hard time lately, and there’s even an online petition to save their funding.

This time in the Shadow Cabinet article on overlooked books that I do for Heliotrope, I single out some deserving Dedalus titles:

The Other Side by Alfred Kubin (original publication, 1908)
Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf and Confessions of a Flesh-Eater by David Madsen (Dedalus originals, 1995 and 1997)
Primordial Soup by Christine Leunens (Dedalus original, 1999)
The Mysteries of Algiers by Robert Irwin (original publication, 1988)
The Book of Nights by Sylvie Germain (original publication, 1985)

(with a brief recommendation to seek out The Man in Flames by Serge Filippini, Memoirs of a Byzantine Eunuch, and Alembert’s Principle by Andrew Crumey)

Below the cut find more detailed photographs of my entire Dedalus collection its utterly decadent glory…

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My second feature on First Second’s vampire graphic novels at Amazon. This time about Life Sucks and Night Watch. See also my previous post on this blog.

The offer detailed here ends Thursday night for a personalized, airship-drawing-laden Steampunk antho. The anthology just went back for reprint today, which means you’re also getting a first edition. Although you can still get first editions in the bookstores, that won’t last for long.

Jeff

Okay, so the clip above isn’t SF, but it’s very surreal, and that’s what I like about The Golden Girls TV Show. Yes, it has been suggested I now need to turn in my man card, but I really enjoy this show when it’s not being preachy. Rose’s St. Olaf stories are utterly bizarre and surreal.

Also, the show has had its science fictional moments, as when they wind up as heads on ice-surrounded plates in a dream sequence about being cryogenically frozen….

Margo Lanagan’s leading an expedition/workshop into the Tarkine. So if you’re a beginning writer and have a few thousand spare dollars on ya, sign up now!

Oh, that? In the background. Just a kind of super sekret project that popped up.

Below the cut you’ll find a summation of where and what I’m reviewing these days. I also review for SF Weekly, Washington Post Book World, and Publishers Weekly, but I do not get to pick what I review for them. In any event, it’s boring below the cut unless you’re an editor or publicist, no doubt…

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Thanks to Larry at OF Blog of the Fallen for agreeing to do what may be one of the first (possibly the first) English-language reviews of Zafon’s new book, currently only available in Spanish. Zafon’s previous novel, The Shadow of the Wind, was an international bestseller. Check out this exclusive Amazon feature.

First Second has declared May Vampire Month in honor of their own
Little Vampire by Joann Sfar and Life Sucks by Jessica Abel et al. Their blog is keeping track of related features, like the one I just did on the Amazon book blog (about Little Vampires and Bunnicula).

So, let’s get serious about vampires for a second. Vampire fiction is one of the most mined-out, debased subgenres in horror. But like any form, it has its dangerous, edgy, and experimental incarnation. Eschewing the ordinary, what’s the strangest, weirdest, craziest vampire fiction, in book or short story form, that you’ve ever read–and why.

(Little Vampires, btw, may not be dangerous, but it is a wonderful book, and I’m putting it in my sidebar of recommendations. Life Sucks I’m reading later today.)

I couldn’t sleep last night so I got up and just kinda browsed YouTube for anything interesting, calming, whatever. I found THIS instead, which really didn’t help put me to sleep…