yeah that collection’s cover gives me positive 70s Brit Scifi impressions. I am absolutely going to slip it into my to read list around the next Ballard collection I have.
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i like this one a lot
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oh that’s good. creepypasta done well is rare
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i understood it was creepypasta on tweet two when they said it would “modify a frowning picture into a smiling one”. would have liked it to be a little more ambiguous for longer, but the conceit is good
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yeah it’s on the nose and the ending is not new BUT it still worked for me
anyway since the ebook is no longer available I read through the SCP version of this, stayed up way too late last night to do it. it’s good! I love extradimensional memory eating monsters (hello John Dies At The End) and I think this one even takes a solid stab at having emotional resonance, a thing SCP stuff rarely achieves.
Also I had fucked up dreams last night lol
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Octavia Butler is great. Fledgling is sicko shit (in a good way)
I haven’t read Oryx and Crake since I was 16 but I remember liking it. It’s probably aged poorly as atwood’s writing tends to
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ive been reading her short story collection “bloodchild and other stories” and it’s great…
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I finished reading Yoko Tawada’s Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel. It’s a small book, but one I had trouble finding an entrance. The story focuses on a man who is obsessed with the 20th century poet. The man also has a very tenuous grasp on reality, recalling memory only in fragments and mostly shutting himself in with his opera DVDs and discursive meditations.
The main character thinks in associations, leaping wildly from one topic to another whenever he imagines a foothold in Celan’s poetry. Tawada wrote this during the height of COVID isolation, and it reminds me of what that did to my own mental state at that time.
I have never read Celan, but this book makes me think I really should.
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The titular story bloodchild is an all time classic. I don’t remember what else is in the collection
My fav butler is Wild Seed
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i read oryx and crake at 25 and the overly hamfisted and broad social messaging was part of the appeal. i thought it was pleasingly stupid like some electronic dance music can be
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speaking of aging poorly I think often of her friendship with ghislaine maxwell
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hmm, that definitely puts the character oryx (who was sex trafficked) in a new light
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Always happy to see Butler love. I need to reread Xenogenesis/Lilith’s Brood at some point soon. I really enjoyed those the first time I read them
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It’s Gormenghast time baybeeeee
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I took a trip this week and decided I wanted to read a “space opera” novel while traveling. It’s been a few years since I last read one of those.
Decided to go with A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. It’s one of those books that several people have told me to read over the years, and I liked it.
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ive heard good things about this one… its on the list
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Reading SKY DADDY by Kate Folk. About a woman who’s sexually attracted to airplanes and dreams of “marrying” one by dying in a plane crash. Book is more Miranda July than JG Ballard tho. BUT, I want to share this passage, from our introduction to Karina, Linda’s coworker at a content moderation farm.
The Violence vertical seemed ill-suited to Karina’s sensitive disposition. I was confused why she stayed, month after month, without at least requesting a transfer to H&H, Porn, or Spam. Karina’s credentials surely qualified her for better jobs. She held a bachelor’s degree, spoke Spanish and Portuguese, and was friendly and likable, unlike the rest of us. Why remain in this role, subjecting herself to videos of torture and gore? I’d asked Karina this in my first week at Acuity, and she’d replied simply that it was what she deserved.
I guess this is my same attitude to my job and by extension my life? I wouldn’t say I have a terrible job (it’s permanent with full entitlements), and some days it’s quite nice, but it doesn’t really pay much. So yeah, it’s the job I deserve for never putting myself out there and trying to achieve anything. I guess it doesn’t help that I have a really messed up brain that has always found something vaguely erotic about being poor.
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