Tag Archives: weird fiction

Oobmab and other Weirdnesses

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So I found a clean version of Oobmab’s “The Flock of Ba-hui” in (GB) Chinese (「巴虺的牧群」2013). The source is a very interesting Fantasy dojinshi and translation discussion forum called “The Ring of Wonder” (which looks completely different in its mobile format btw). There are many other works of HPL-inspired horror available on their Cthulhu board and, interestingly, the “Cthulhu” board is only one of three subforums of “the  Mirror of Obscurity – 幽暗之镜” category–which also includes subforums “Surreal Lullaby: General Subcultures 异夜咏谣” and “SCP Foundation.” A lot of translations from “CopyPasta” and things like Charles Stross’s Lovecraft-inspired SF “The Laundry Files.” Cha has a detailed review of “Flock,” and this site has a brief one.

Why Cosmic Horror is at the root of post-modern nihilism.

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Why Cosmic Horror is at the root of post-modern nihilism.

tl;dr

The version of existence which acknowledges the horror of an unknowable cosmos has been called “weird realism” or “speculative realism”[7] and it undermines all anthropocentric belief systems (religious or humanist). There is a tendency, even nowadays, to think of the world in which we live as a product/representation of mind or language: a human construct[8]. As John Gray of The Atlantic put it: “For Lovecraft, human beings are too feeble to shape a coherent view of the universe. Our minds are specks tossed about in the cosmic melee; though we look for secure foundations, we live in perpetual free fall.” [9]

Lovecraft’s Otherworldly Xenophobia – Areo

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Lovecraft’s Otherworldly Xenophobia – Areo

Other qualities further entangle Lovecraft’s horror fiction with his personal ethnocentrism. As well as fear, Lovecraft’s creatures vividly evoke disgust and the threat of disease—they are “oozing,” “gangrenous,” “gelatinous,” “putrid” and trickling with “foetid greenish-yellow ichor.” Lovecraft was acutely sensitive to his own health, complaining throughout his life of various miscellaneous ailments: headaches, dizziness and “spells of poor concentrating power,” which at least some observers attributed to hypochondria. One can speculate, without being too reductive, on the influence of the death of Lovecraft’s father, apparently from syphilis, on his son’s preoccupation with illness and hereditary contamination.

Weird Fiction: A Primer

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Weird Fiction: A Primer

Some of the recent attention trained on weird fiction can be attributed to Jeff VanderMeer. His acclaimed Southern Reach trilogy shows off weird fiction’s range, encompassing elements of science fiction, Lovecraftian terror, paranoid conspiracy thrillers, and body horror. He’s written about literature as it relates to the first season of True Detective, and has acted as an advocate for authors who deserve a wider audience, including Michael Cisco and Thomas Ligotti. His work as an editor includes (in collaboration with his wife Ann) The Weird: A Compendium of Dark & Strange Stories. (The two also founded the site Weird Fiction Review, which “exists in a symbiotic relationship” with the periodical Weird Fiction Review, edited by H.P. Lovecraft biographer S.T. Joshi.) The Weird is stun-your-enemies huge: over 1,100 pages in length, and covering over a century’s worth of fiction. Its afterword is by China Miéville, whose generally indescribable fiction has also helped raise the profile of weird fiction.