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charlesdee

Posted 2016-01-10 8:22 PM (#12362)
Subject: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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There is no litmus test for weirdness. It crops up everywhere from Lovecraft and his followers to about half the titles that come out of Eastern Europe and Latin America. Let's use the forum to talk about what we are reading, introduce new authors, and report on specialty publishers. There is now a subgenre for "weird" in sf, fantasy, and horror. I have begun labelling things, but be sure to add the subgenre to whatever you read if it is not already there. This will build a searchable list of weirdness for those who follow.

pizzakarin

Posted 2016-01-13 4:01 PM (#12385 - in reply to #12362)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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While I don't think I have any more challenges in me this year (but who knows, maybe I'll find myself reading at least three), I did go tag my two favorite weird books from last year:

* Mort(e) by Robert Repino - which I didn't love, but going into it with the mindset of reading bizarro fiction would have made it better
* If Then by Mathew de Abitua - my favorite slipstream, military alt history, benevolent overlord algorithm, weird biostuff, exosuit, and so on book of 2015

Any feelings out there on whether Rudy Rucker's Ware tetrology counts? I've read Software and am into Wetware and it definitely has a weird vibe.

Engelbrecht

Posted 2016-01-14 2:33 AM (#12388 - in reply to #12385)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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pizzakarin - 2016-01-13 2:01 PM Any feelings out there on whether Rudy Rucker's Ware tetrology counts? I've read Software and am into Wetware and it definitely has a weird vibe.

Well, books 2 & 3 are certainly weird, and I would have to think that book 4 is as well...

charlesdee

Posted 2016-01-14 12:41 PM (#12394 - in reply to #12385)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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Posts: 39

pizzakarin - 2016-01-13 4:01 PM

While I don't think I have any more challenges in me this year (but who knows, maybe I'll find myself reading at least three), I did go tag my two favorite weird books from last year:

* Mort(e) by Robert Repino - which I didn't love, but going into it with the mindset of reading bizarro fiction would have made it better
* If Then by Mathew de Abitua - my favorite slipstream, military alt history, benevolent overlord algorithm, weird biostuff, exosuit, and so on book of 2015

Any feelings out there on whether Rudy Rucker's Ware tetrology counts? I've read Software and am into Wetware and it definitely has a weird vibe.

Come on, pizzakarin. Join up. At least be a Resident of Arkham.
I think I was a bit late out of the gate to attract many challengees.
One good thing about weird titles -- they almost all serves as titles on other challenges as well.
And I don't know Rucker's books. But given what I read about The New Weird, the category can be made very inclusive.

pizzakarin

Posted 2016-01-14 2:30 PM (#12395 - in reply to #12394)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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charlesdee - 2016-01-14 12:41 PM
Come on, pizzakarin. Join up. At least be a Resident of Arkham.

ooooooooooookay. I'll do it. I love the weird stuff.

dustydigger

Posted 2016-01-14 10:00 PM (#12399 - in reply to #12362)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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What a pity that this challenge wasnt around back in 2014. I worked my way through a lot of HPL.some Ashton Smith,Arthur Machen,M R James,even Carmilla! I loved all that stuff,but at the moment I am deep into 50s and 60s SF,and have filled in all my reading slots for the year. But if I may,I would love to pop in and comment on some of the stuff I read back then.Probably later in the year. I would have liked to chat last year,Charles,but you never set up a forum page. Tut tut!!!

Guest

Posted 2016-01-15 6:59 AM (#12401 - in reply to #12399)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

dustydigger - 2016-01-14 10:00 PM

What a pity that this challenge wasnt around back in 2014. I worked my way through a lot of HPL.some Ashton Smith,Arthur Machen,M R James,even Carmilla! I loved all that stuff,but at the moment I am deep into 50s and 60s SF,and have filled in all my reading slots for the year. But if I may,I would love to pop in and comment on some of the stuff I read back then.Probably later in the year. I would have liked to chat last year,Charles,but you never set up a forum page. Tut tut!!!

We would love to hear from you. And sorry about the forum page last year. I am not very good at a lot of this stuff.

dustydigger

Posted 2016-01-15 8:44 AM (#12402 - in reply to #12401)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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Hah,tell me about it Charles. Friends over on the Shelfari website would often tease me when I would ask questions or be bewildered by technical stuff . They claimed my mantra should be ''eyes glazing,eyes glazing'' when someone tried to teach me something.
Unfortunately,Amazon is forcibly closing down Shelfari with only 2 months warning,and I am admin of several groups,and need to tranfer huge amounts of data over to a place with very different procedures and layouts.Its a steep learning curve,and the finger that presses the ''delete'' button is rapidly developing callouses as I struggle to cope with it all.!

charlesdee

Posted 2016-02-16 6:54 AM (#12693 - in reply to #12362)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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Posts: 39

I have been adding the various weird sub genres (Fantasy Horror, SF) to titles already in the system. This is a hit and miss process, something I do when I come across a title or author that fits or when I just feel like puttering. But it is something everyone who is reading in the weird category can pitch in on.
I am also adding some contemporary authors who do not publish as genre authors but who definitely belong with their weird cohorts. Blake Butler is a recent example. Please draw my attention to anyone you come across.

Engelbrecht

Posted 2016-03-05 11:12 PM (#12909 - in reply to #12693)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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charlesdee - 2016-02-16 4:54 AM Please draw my attention to anyone you come across.

I went through my to-read list and poked about on Goodreads and came up with a bunch of books that look weird but that are pretty much off the radar. It's a fair amount of experimental/surrealism/uncatagorizable stuff, with Europeans fairly heavily represented. There's also a little bit of bizarro stuff, but only a few - a little of that goes a long way! It's one book per author, and only authors that I haven't read (I think you have a good starter list of weird stuff I've read). Anyhow, here's more weirdness than you can shake a stick at!

Pussy, King of the Pirates by Acker, Kathy
North American Lake Monsters by Ballingrud, Nathan
The Deadly Percheron by Bardin, John Franklin
The Feverhead by Bauer, Wolfgang
Cataclysm Baby by Bell, Matt
The Letters of Mina Harker by Bellamy, Dodie
Aminadab by Blanchot, Maurice
You're an Animal, Viskovitz by Boffa, Alessandro
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Bolano, Roberto
The Hawkline Monster by Brautigan, Richard
Nadja by Breton, Andre
Such by Brooke-Rose, Christine
Two by Carrere: Class Trip/The Mustache by Carrere, Emmanuel
The Hearing Trumpet by Carrington, Leonora
Dolly City by Castel-Bloom, Orly
The Investigation by Claudel, Philippe
Lives of Notorious Cooks by Connell, Brendan
Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine by Crawford, Stanley
Pfitz by Crumey, Andrew
In the Time of the Blue Ball by Draeger, Manuela
Beneath the Liquid Skin by Ellingsen, Berit
The Adventures of Ingenious Alfanhui by Ferlosio, Rafael Sanchez
Scarecrow & Other Anomalies by Girondo, Oliverio
Daemon in Lithuania by Guigonnat, Henri
The Frog by Hawkes, John
Fantazius Mallare: A Mysterious Oath by Hecht, Ben
My Dream Date (Rape) with Kathy Acker by Hemmingson, Michael
Piano Stories by Hernandez, Felisberto
The Man Who Took a Bite Out of His Wife and Other Stories by Jafek, Bev
Exploits & Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, Pataphysician: A Neo-Scientific Novel by Jarry, Alfred
Chronolysis by Jeury, Michel
Geometric Regional Novel by Jonke, Gert
Thirst by Kalfus, Ken
The Book from the Sky by Kelly, Robert
Rastus Reilly: Or Dashiell Hammett, Charles Dickens, H.P. Lovecraft, Stan Laurel, and Oliver Hardy on Bad Acid by Kelly, Steve
Kornel Esti by Kosztolanyi, Dezso
The Melancholy of Resistance by Krasznahorkai, Laszlo
Death and the Penguin by Kurkov, Andrey
The Summer of the Ubume by Kyogoku, Natsuhiko
The Artist of the Missing by LaFarge, Paul
Gogol's Wife and Other Stories by Landolfi, Tommaso
My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist by Leyner, Mark
Giallo Fantastique by Lockhart, Ross E.
Lovers Living, Lovers Dead by Lortz, Richard
Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail by Luce, Kelly
Doubled Up: My Life as the Back End of a Pantomime Horse by Lustig, T. J.
MacIntyre's Improbable Bestiary by MacIntyre, F. Gwynplaine
The Book of Intrusions by MacNamara, Desmond
The Untameables by Marinetti, Filippo T.
The Lighthouse at the End of the World: A Tale of Edgar Allan Poe by Marlowe, Stephen
Gifts For the One Who Comes After by Marshall, Helen
The Sinking of Odradek Stadium by Mathews, Harry
The Throne of Bones by McNaughten, Brian
Satan Burger by Mellick, Carlton
Shadow Bones by Memmott, David
No Heaven for Gunga Din by Mirdrekvandi Gunga Din, Ali
Oedipus in Disneyland: Queen Victoria's Reincarnation as Superman by Molloy, Hercules
Zenobia by Naum, Gellu
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders by Nezval, Vitezslav
Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Nutting, Alissa
Journal of Albion Moonlight by Patchen, Kenneth
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Petrushevskaya, Ludmilla
The People of Paper by Plascencia, Salvador
Saint Glinglin by Queneau, Raymond
The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories by Quiroga, Horacio
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Raspe, Rudolph Erich
Eyeballs Growing All Over Me ...Again by Rauch, Tony
Terminal Weird by Remick, Jack
The Tumours Made Me Interesting by Revert, Matthew
Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Rampo, Edogowa
Fishboy: A Ghost's Story by Richard, Mark
The Dedalus Book of Surrealism by Richardson, Michael
Impressions Of Africa by Raymond Roussel
Pedro Paramo by Rulfo, Juan
The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales by Samuels, Mark
Weird Tales of a Bangalorean by Satyamurthy, Jayaprakash
The Gray Cloth: A Novel on Glass Architecture by Scheerbart, Paul
The Book of Monelle by Schwob, Marcel
Codex Seraphinianus by Serafini, Luigi
Memories of Amnesia by Shainberg, Lawrence
Blood Electric by Siratori, Kenji
Loath Letters by Stewart, Christy Leigh
Nightingale Songs by Strantzas, Simon
Up by Sukenick, Ronald
Salmonella Men on Planet Porno by Tsutsui, Yasutaka
Chasm by Tanning, Dorothea
Vermilion by Tanzer, Molly
Musrum by Thacker, Eric
Correspondence by Thomas, Sue
Vas: An Opera in Flatland by Tomasula, Steve
The Tenant by Topor, Roland
Our Lady of the Circus by Toscana, David
Self Portraits by Tuten, Frederic
Heartsnatcher by Vian, Boris
Nine Kinds of Naked by Vigorito, Tony
Minor Angels by Volodine, Antoine
Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book by Webb, Don
Colonel Mint by West, Paul
Salamander by Wharton, Thomas
The Mind Parasites by Wilson, Colin
The Kafka Effekt by Wilson, D. Harlan
Flats by Wurlitzer, Rudolph
The Last Lover by Xue, Can

pizzakarin

Posted 2016-05-30 5:11 PM (#13664 - in reply to #12362)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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Location: Austin, Tx

I just finished my 3rd and final "Weird" book, Don't Read This Book edited by Chuck Wendig. It's a bit of an obscure one (all the better for the weird catagory, right?) because it's a collection of short fiction based on the "Don't Rest Your Head" RPG. As with most short story collections there were some that were to my taste and some that weren't. And as with any short story collection where writers are commissioned to write stories, there is at least one that wouldn't have gotten published on its own merits. But, as far as weirdness goes, there was a lot of it. My favorite story, "Don't Lose Your drek" by Robin D Laws is about an insomniac music journalist who has invented his own invisible punctuation mark and is wandering the aisles of a convenience store trying to figure out which can of energy drink will keep him awake instead of making him crash.

dustydigger

Posted 2016-06-21 11:05 AM (#13839 - in reply to #12362)
Subject: Re: The Weirdness Challenge 2016

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Anyone here a member of LibraryThing? They have a group called <b> The Weird Tradition</b> which reads and discusses a weird short story every week,and the list is very, very impressive.
Once again we ex-shelfarians are on the move. The owner of Leafmarks ,to which we moved our stuff lock stock and barrel in Feb, has decided to close down,giving us one month's warning. Much hassle once again moving groups,lists etc to a new place,with yet another different layout and a steep learning curve....sigh....... But If I ever get settled in finally,I would love to get back into the weird stuff. I dipped a toe in the water last year and thoroughly enjoyed it,but this year is out of the question. If you continue the challenge next year I hope to join you!

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