Thursday, December 25, 2025

Christmas loot 2025.

Quite a haul.
The books were cheap.
This is gonna be Weird Fiction marathon 4.

Maplecroft (2014)
Chapelwood (2015)


Lizzie Borden as a good-guy vs Lovecraft monsters.
They had me at Lizzie Borden!

Lizzie Borden captured my imagination from the moment I saw a very weird elementary school play about her. I was a little Pugsley Addams, I guess. 😏

Goth chicks have made her a weird feminist icon, and these books are the result.
And now they're mine.


Winter Tide (2017)
Deep Roots (2018)


The second most racist Lovecraft story after "The Horror at Red Hook".
Victor Lavalle took care of "Red Hook" with "Black Tom".
Ruthanna Emrys takes a whole duology to patch up "Innsmouth".
I thought it was a trilogy, but part one is just a short story you can only read for free online.
I'll read and review that too. Natch.


Hammers on Bone (2016)
A Song for Quiet (2017)


About a sentient Shoggoth who becomes a P.I.
Shoggoths originate in "At The Mountains Of Madness" and are kinda wink-wink code for black people. So, if original recipe Shoggoths are a race allegory, a humanoid one must be an allegory for mixed people who pass.
I'm guessing. We'll see.


The City We Became (2021)
The World We Make (2023)


Sounds like Avengers meets Planeteers, vs Lovecraft-verse.
Also, sounds like the most wik-wak-wikkety-woke of all the rebuttal-quels.
Multiple Amazon reviews are like "waaahh!! Racist to white people!! 😭".
That's always some Klan shit.
Normal-ass whites are minding their business, not looking for offense.
If it's pissing off Klans, I have to have 'em.
That was an easy buy.


The House on the Borderland (1908)


I've spoiled the main plot points on Wikipedia, and it's so good it doesn't spoil it.
It's got time travel, dimension travel, cosmic acid-trippy-ness like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and it came out in 1908.
190-fucking-8!!!
It conjured images on my head of shit from "Heavy Metal" and holy shit, Richard Corben who drew "Den" that got adapted in "Heavy Metal" did the graphic novel of this.
I may or may not get that, but I wanted to start with the regular novel first.
Weirdly, the novel is graphic novel sized.
I've never seen that before.
Goddamned odd.
But, for such a weird timewarp of a book, it fits.
Be funny if the graphic novel were paperback sized. πŸ˜†


Lilith's Brood (2000)


A trilogy.
The cover makes it look like a sexy romance, but I assure you, it's a sci-fi saga.
I wanted more stuff like the Hainish books, and Octavia Butler's name came up.
Doing the research dive, she was inspired by being horrified by Ronald Reagan's nuclear dick waving.
She had me at anti-Reagan.
These actually came out in 1987, 1988, 1989.
The trilogy was collected in 2000.


Lagoon (2015)


I watched a panel podcast with Matt Ruff (Lovecraft Country), Victor Lavalle (The Ballad of Black Tom), and Nnedi Okorafor.

Ruff and Lavalle were there for their obvious connections to Lovecraft.
Nnedi Okorafor was there, because her Lovecraft connection was, she got the World Fantasy Awards to change their trophy from a statue of Lovecraft to something more abstract.
I did not know it was that.
WTF were they thinking?
Best case scenario, it was blind naΓ―ve white privilege.
Anyhoo! She actually didn't want to raise a stink about it, but just her little bit of "hey..wait a minute.." got her death threats, and internet toxic waste.
So, the Lovecraft fandom does have an asshole problem, so there was a problem.
It needed changing, and the CHUDs can die angry.

So, I needed something from her.
This and the next one are her space ones.
And this particular one is recommended by Ursula Le Guin, so there you go.


Binti: The Complete Trilogy (2020)


As far as I can tell, looks like Star Trek meets Black Panther.
I'm sure it's more than that, and I'll look like a goober when I've read it, and am reviewing it.

My copy is all beaten to shit.
I may re-buy it sometime.


The Devil in Silver (2013)


By Victor Lavalle who did "Black Tom".
Saw a YT interview with Lavalle where they talked about it.
About a guy with a violent temper who gets sent to an asylum, and the monster the crazy people are seeing is real.
Underneath the supernatural story, is how the mental hospital system is a crooked racket.
Lavalle has mentally ill relatives, and has first hand experience.
But, you can change it to VA hospitals, nursing homes, or hospice care, and it's the same shit.
I just went down the nursing home roller-coaster ride with Ma, so I'm thinking I'm going to relate to this a lot.

Sadly, my copy of this came even more beat to shit than "Binti".
I might re-buy this too.

Funny how the black author books came beat to shit.....πŸ˜’πŸ”


Mercy (2014)


"Gramma" the movie.
Stay tuned.


In The Mouth Of Madness (1995)


John Carpenter gets meta with the Lovecraft-verse!
Stay tuned!


All of that, and a terabyte flash drive for dirt cheap!
I've dreamt about a terabyte since the 90's.
I finally got it!
😍😊

And, that's all that!


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