Tag Archives: weird fiction

Short Tuesday #14: “Cult” by Brian Evenson

June 4, 2019Uncategorizedabusive relationship, assault, brian evenson, cult, emotional abuse, female abuser, horror, male victim, new weird, short story, short tuesday, weird fictionKatie Jane Gallagher

This week I took a look at Brian Evenson’s short story “Cult.” I don’t remember exactly how I got turned on to Brian Evenson’s work, but I can tell even from reading just the one story that he is an author right up my alley. You can read the short story here…

I loooooved this. The story features an unnamed protagonist who receives a call from his abusive ex-girlfriend asking him to pick her up from a so-called cult. Both the protagonist and his ex-girlfriend have rock-solid characterization, and the prose is exactly as it needs to be: matter-of-fact, with a stream-of-consciousness feel. Somehow it reminded me tone-wise a bit of Haruki Murakami.

And the relationship between these two characters felt so real. We get a granular insight into the MC’s thought cycle, and how he is slowly but surely being dragged back into a relationship with his abuser, like a leaf circling a whirlpool. I highly recommend this short story, and will definitely be looking at more work by Evenson.

Just wanted to add a little tidbit at the end here… BECAUSE THERE WILL BE A COVER REVEAL FOR SPECTER THIS THURSDAY!!!!!! So keep watching this space. 😀

Short Tuesday #11: “The World is Full of Monsters” by Jeff VanderMeer

May 14, 2019Uncategorizedaliens, jeff vandermeer, parasite, sci-fi, science fiction, short tuesday, the world is full of monsters, weird fictionKatie Jane Gallagher

This week I returned once more to Tor to look at another piece of short fiction. I was especially intrigued to read a story by Jeff VanderMeer, since he’s actually been on my radar for a while as one of the editors of The Weird. Side note that his wife, Ann VanderMeer, also edited The Weird, as well as some of the other Tor stories I’ve read for Short Tuesday thus far, plus edited this story as well, which adds a whole different layer of interesting. You can read the short story for free here…

I’ll be honest—I’m a bit flummoxed by this story! It documents one man’s interactions with an alien force that has engulfed the Earth; the narrative focuses more on the MC’s discovery of the world and the realization of what is happening than on any kind of plot. The aliens are of the parasitic variety, rather than laser gun toting sort, and the focus throughout is on the natural progression of the parasite—what happens to Earth’s flora and fauna, as well as how the parasite (called the “story-creature”) physically and mentally manifests itself in the MC.

And while I stood there in the shadows of the moonless night, beyond the street lamps, beyond the circling moths and with the nighthawks gliding silent overhead…while I stood there and pleaded, the story-creature sprouted out of the top of my skull in a riot of wildflowers, goldenrod, and coarse weeds.

There are many instances throughout where it’s difficult to get a sense of what’s happening, which adds to the story in my opinion. With a kind of Lovecraftian flair, the MC is presented with beings and creatures that don’t really make sense, and all he can do is relay what’s happening as best he can based on his human capacities. At the same time he is uncovering truths about himself; contact with the alien parasite has changed him in irreparable, unexpected ways.

I think this is the kind of story that really needs a few reads. The prose has such a driving momentum that you kind of can’t help reading onward, even as your brain is trying to parse what’s happening, so I felt like there was quite a lot I was missing. Even so, I like to think that there would be so many unknowns in the event of actual extraterrestrial contact that this story conveys that uncertain feeling exceedingly well. Who knows—maybe I’ll read through it again sometime and see how the story hits me a second time around.

Short Tuesday #3: “The Specialist’s Hat” by Kelly Link

March 12, 2019Uncategorizedkelly link, magical realism, review, short story, short tuesday, stranger things happen, the specialist's hat, weird fictionKatie Jane Gallagher

This week I read the third short story in Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen, “The Specialist’s Hat.” You can read the short story here… FYI that there are vague spoilers in this review.

Now that I’m three stories into the Kelly Link book, I’m starting to get a pretty good grasp of her style. I went into this anticipating I’d have little to no concrete answers at the end of this story, and I was right, but again I was left with that eerie, uncomfortable, awful things are happening in the background feeling that Link does so well.

One thing I did notice was the emphasis on the concrete, in particular the constant numbers throughout the text. The chandelier has “exactly 632 leaded crystals shaped like teardrops,” the house has eight chimneys, the twin main characters’ game has three rules. (A few things in the story even smell like Chanel No. 5.) And then there’s the difference between “gray” and “grey,” and “dead” and “Dead.” It feels like everything that is happening to the girls is so vague and creepy that they rely (subconsciously or otherwise) on numbers, definitions, and rules to define their slippery reality.

Overall, I can’t say I loved this story; I have the sense that it’s well-written, just not for me, or maybe not for me right now. It might have to do with the fact that I kept getting interrupted while reading, so I had to read the story in a very fractured way. In any case, I think I’m going to set down Stranger Things Happen for a week or two and try something else for next Tuesday.