hooray for world fantasy award nominations!!!!!http://worldfantasy2014.org/awards2.phpfriday night, i killed a bug.now, i don't like to kill things, even bugs, but i have a code: if you are a spider, or a moth, or a housefly, or one of these teeny tiny black beetles we seem to get every summer, you get to go out the window. i will spend a very long time, in some cases, chasing you and containing you in a juice glass, and setting you free. where you will probably be eaten by a bird, but that's ou...

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All is a collection of short stories by Laird Barron.Laird Barron is my latest literary obsession so I was glad to have this on my kindle when I finished Swift to Chase.The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All covers a lot of ground, from noir to supernatural horror to cosmic horror to the horror of a puppet show about the end of the world performed by Thomas Ligotti. However, the tales are linked, albeit more loosely than Swift to Chase. Ransom Hollow gets menti...

This awesome collection is only $1.99 today at Amazon U.S. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B0SBF1Y?t...Quote: "There are cracks in the world. These cracks are inhabited by...marvels undreamt of in our philosophies." From the short story, "The Siphon." I've heard a lot about Laird Barron in various book groups to which I belong. Most especially I hear from fans of Lovecraft that Barron is even better. I have to agree. Ever since I read "The Light is the Darkness" I knew that I would be reading more o...

4 stars--I really liked it. There were a couple stories here that didn't work for me, but this volume also contains two of my Barron favorites: "Blackwood's Baby" and "The Men from Porlock."If you like Lovecraft-influenced cosmic horror about cults, squiggly monster-things, and gazing into the void, pick up one of Barron's books. You'll love it!

“When I was six, I discovered a terrible truth: I was the only human being on the planet. I was the seed and the sower and I made myself several seconds from the event horizon at the end of time—at the x before time began.” I have mixed feelings about this book. My initial reaction was of extremely positive, and when I finished the first couple of stories, I was almost sure this was going to be one of my favourite books of 2019. Unfortunately, as I went on reading I gradually lost interest and I...

Inevitably, when you want to praise a new horror writer and make him sound like the Next Big Thing, you compare him to Stephen King. Or maybe H.P. Lovecraft. Or maybe even Edgar Allan Poe.Laird Barron isn't any of those guys. Oh, sure, you can see the influences - especially Lovecraftian. And he claims the Pacific Northwest as his territory in which unspeakable cults, and monsters walking as men who make bootleggers, loggers, and gangsters piss their pants, and hidden enclaves of villagers in th...

This is definitely the furthest plunge into darkness Barron has taken. The events take place in the well known settings of the Olympian peninsula, Blackwood Lodge, and the Broadsword Hotel, the universe he has created in his previous works. If you expect explanations, straight to the point storytelling and great revelations you will get none, and you will be left guessing. The prospects are bleak for the actors and actresses in the great cosmic drama, there are no winners, the departed are those...

Just when I was wondering if I would ever come across some true, genuine, scary-ass cosmic (or otherwise) fiction in my gullet before Halloween, I finally come across something beautiful. It was awaiting me all this time... within my gullet.It crawled out, said a few pithy lines, and then proceeded to claw my eyes out.What did I do?I thanked it, of course. What else could I do? *It had my eyes*My favorite stories were:Hand of Glory - totally immersive Noir that got dark and stayed there the enti...

October spooky read #4!I love the weird world that exists in Laird Barron’s head: I’m not sure I’d want to live there, but visiting it from time to time is hard to resist. Ever since I read “The Croning” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), I have been drawn back again and again to his stories, to his elegant, uber-creepy prose, isolated settings and gloomy characters. I enjoyed two of his previous short story collections earlier this summer, and decided to save this one for my October re...

As always, because I can't resist being a chatterbox, I have a longer review of this book here; read on for the bare minimum.John Langan notes on the back cover of this book that he "can't sum up Laird Barron in a single, pithy sentence," and neither can I. If you've read his work, you already know that he is one of the best horror/weird fiction writers out there; if you haven't, then you seriously don't know what you're missing. I don't actually remember how I got started reading his stuff, bu...

Continuing my catch-up of the new wave in North American horror (as a metal fan that's a handy classification for my own shelves), I thought the new anthology from Laird Barron (just finished reading it) - THE BEAUTIFUL THING THAT AWAITS US ALL AND OTHER STORIES - was tremendous. 'Blackwood's Baby', 'Hand of Glory', 'The Siphon', and 'The Men from Porlock' being my personal favourites from stories that are nearly all epic in their range. As well as the writer's own vision, many of the same quali...

Congratulations to Laird Barron, who won a Bram Stoker award for this book! It is a well-earned award for an awesome book.Book Info: Genre: Short story anthology, dark/Lovecraftian fiction Reading Level: AdultRecommended for: Fans of Lovecraft, dark fiction, the authorBook Available: August 13, 2013 in Hardcover (click link to preorder)Trigger Warnings: violence, cannibalism (implied), murder, fighting, terrors from beyondMy Thoughts: This is a short-story anthology, so there isn't a lot I can t...

This is my second collection read from this very overrated author and I have decided that he is not for me. His stories are distinctly unsatisfying, usually with a long and irrelevant biographical portion followed by "something weird" which leaves you only wondering WTF did you just read. The only story here I liked (hence the extra star) was "The Redfield Girls," which had characters I cared about and a haunting quality. "Vastation," on the other end of the spectrum, was sheer nonsense.Also, ca...

H.P. Lovecraft, the undisputed Grand Master of early 20th century weird fiction, died in 1937. Why can’t we just let him lie rather than endlessly rehash his Cthulhu Mythos themes lo these seventy six years later? Especially since my own first fiction publication was in Weird Tales, where Lovecraft himself once reigned supreme, I realize that to suggest this is heresy, that even now Yog-Sothoth may be speeding across the cosmos (his path to me illuminated by the burning rage of scores of Lovecra...

I have never been to the Pacific Northwest, and thanks to Laird Barron, I'm far too afraid of the place to ever make a trip.

I waited for The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All to be released for what seemed like years, and began devouring it immediately. Because Laird Barron is about the best thing going in the horror branch of the weird, it's no surprise that it gets my five glowing stars. Barron's prose just gets richer and his cthonic mythology more resonant with each publication. I did find some surprises in this collection, but I want to do this book justice, so I'm starting my second read through now. Stay tune...

Featuring two of the finest hunting stories I’ve read, Barron’s third collection is best consumed near a healthy fire, and filtered through a decent scotch. I’m convinced there is a tsunami of readers that have yet to discover Barron. “More Dark” could be the most misunderstood story of 2013. With teeth, it plants Laird’s flag at the summit, and in deft contrasting brush strokes, succeeds in paying tribute whilst offering challenge to writers and readers alike. It doesn’t get better than this.

Another solid collection from one of my favorites. A couple of these were less Barron-ey than I anticipated but I enjoyed them all.

A short take:A few stories really drew me in, and I finally enjoyed Barron's work to the degree that I expected (based on both critical opinion and the flashes of awesome that I experienced in other stories). My favorites, by far, were "Men from Porlock" and "Hand of Glory," both of which cast their characters in the early 20th century, which is a ripe period for a supernatural plot and gritty, earthy protagonists. "Men from Porlock" was one of the creepier entries, and I loved the ending. More

Wow, what a collection. That last story gave me the same feeling of perfect unease that his novel The Croning did. I'm working on short descriptors of each story, but in the meantime, my favorites were:The Carrion Gods in Their HeavenThe SiphonMore DarkOthers read:Blackwood's BabyThe Redfield GirlsHand of GloryJaws of SaturnVastationThe Men from Porlock