Tales of the Grotesque

Satanic Pandemonium

2011-06-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

Friends! Readers!! Horror fiends!!!

So it's time for this very short-lived literary blog to come to an end, kind of.

To make a long story short, I had two other blogs (one for film reviews and one for music). My primary blog, Axe Wound, unfortunately shared a name with another blog/zine Ax Wound Zine. So it was time to get a new name.

I've been throwing names around for awhile now, but the magic lightning bolt of inspiration finally went off in my head today. In honor of the wonderful film SATANICO PANDEMONIUM, I've chosen Satanic Pandemonium. It also seemed reasonable to combine all three blogs into one.

Obviously, there is much work to be done, but if you like this blog, please continue following me at my new home, Satanic Pandemonium.

Thanks for reading. Hail Satan.

Man, Myth & Magic

2011-05-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

I hate borrowing books. I don't really know why - I think it must have something to do with my crazy personal space issues - but a couple of days ago I reorganized my ENTIRE book collection (well, minus the books in the basement) and realized that I need to get over it and start borrowing things from friends and the library. I need to be damn sure I want to own something before I shoe-horn anything else into my collection.

Which brings us up to my current reading list, mainly a long list of borrowed comics:

-Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Film - a series of short essays by horror authors (and sometimes people loosely associated with the horror lit/film community) about a variety of horror film-related topics. Sometimes really interesting, sometimes really pointless.

-Hellboy. For some reason I've been on a big Hellboy kick. I read a couple of comics a few years ago and was unimpressed, but so far I've made my way through Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (volume 1 of the trade paperback series, which I own), Hellboy: The Right Hand of Doom (vol 4, borrowed), and am almost finished Hellboy: The Chained Coffin and Others (vol 3, borrowed). I've totally changed my mind.

-With those two Hellboy trade paperbacks, I'm also borrowing Mignola's Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah and one of the original Solomon Kane collections.

-I also hit the borrowing jack pot and have the COMPLETE COLLECTION of Lucifer trade paperbacks to read, plus Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries.

The problem with all this is that I will drink three pots of coffee and stay up all night reading to get through them as fast as possible.

I'm currently visiting family in the Maryland suburbs and just had the chance to visit Wonder Book, an amazing, dusty adventureland of used books. I found a lot of good stuff, but finally left with the trade paperback of Sherlock Holmes Versus the Invisible Man: A Case of Blind Fear, which could be absolute crap, but I can't resist anything Sherlock Holmes related that is less than $2.

I also hit pay dirt when I found a bunch of Man, Myth & Magic volumes for cheap. Normally, if you find these in a used bookstore, they are either in terrible condition or sold as a set (there are 24 volumes) ranging between $100 - $150. I found a third of the set (from the '70's edition) and paid about $20. VICTORY. I picked up volumes 1 - 6, plus 9 and 10.

Now I need to go finish Hellboy, drive back to Philadelphia, and rip through the first volume of Lucifer.

May 2011

2011-05-13T17:33:00.001-07:00

At some point I'll get around to writing actual reviews, but I wanted to at least get down what I've been reading in the last two or so month.

*Game of Thrones (A Song of Fire and Ice, book 1) by George R.R. Martin

*The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle and edited by William Baring-Gould

*Lots of articles from the sadly defunct Kino Eye, mostly relating to Czech and German cinema

*Various internet articles on runelore

*Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire

*Thomas Ligotti's A Conspiracy Against the Human Race

*the very thorough Phaidon guide to Dada and Surrealism

*Laird Barron's short fiction collection The Imago Sequence

I also need to make a list of all the books I've acquired recently. I went on a trip to Milwaukee, which is basically the mecca of used bookstores. It's wonderful. I'm considering moving there, but I would soon spend all of my money and run out of living space. I also traded in a bunch of books to the Book Trader here in Philadelphia. I went in with two full bags of books and came home with one bag of new books. I also just got two new bookshelves.

Books are taking over my life. It could be worse.

What I really, really, really want are the highly out of print Lord Horror books by David Britton. There are three. Lord Horror, Motherfuckers: the Auschwitz of Oz, and Baptised in the Blood of Millions. I NEED TO HAVE THEM.

First post

2011-05-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

It took me long enough, but I finally caved and started a literary blog. It was really only a matter of time...

This blog will mostly be concerned with horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, the occult, some fantasy and sci fi, comics, and probably pulp murder mysteries. Which is to say that there is no real theme other than what I happen to be reading and enjoying.

As an introductory gift, I leave you with one of my favorite literary horror websites that I've followed for a number of years now: Literary Gothic. It's a great resource and you should check it out immediately.