LAIRD BARRON

[Hidden X]

My issue with Barron's comments about Ligotti is that, back when he was accusing him of sophistry on his blog, he didn't even read TCATHR himself (I don't know if that has changed since then - I doubt it given his feelings on that particular topic). Uninformed knee-jerk reaction. And the jab at Ligotti's fiction in "More Dark" is funny when you realize that you can see much the same worldview in a number of Barron's stories.
Though, it is kind of difficult to be too hard on him regarding "More Dark" nowadays, given that TL was later treated even worse by certain someone who was also made fun of in that story.

	TCATHR The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

[MadsPLP]

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute

Maybe I'm just burnt out on Weird Horror, but Joshi's complaints about Barron mirror those I have about the entire genre as it now stands. Indeed, I think Joshi's oblivious to his own influence here; he pushed loose ends and ambiguity as the epitome of Weird, so I find it somewhat hypocritical for him to criticize Barron for applying these techniques in The Croning. I'm likewise not much enthused when Joshi holds up Richard Gavin and Caitlin Kiernan as Barron's superiors. Gavin's not a bad writer - he's just not a good one either; he leaves me with the same mushy impression as Barron.

Admittedly, I feel the same. A sense of being burnt out. But then again, there's a lot of recent books by Tartarus authors that I have yet to read. Kiernan has written a lot. I've been impressed by what I've read, but haven't kept up.

Gavin isn't very interesting to me; however, there's usually been one or two really good stories in the collections I've read. At one point it would make for a very good best of.

[Speaking Mute]

Ligotti was sharing his views for several years before actually releasing TCAHR - I believe he was even recruiting TLO members to read drafts around the time I started lurking here circa 2008. So I don't think Barron needed to go through TCAHR to understand its content.

As a pessimist and antinatalist myself, I found TCAHR and many of Ligotti's statements about it frustrating. Ligotti makes a lot of radical ethical claims in an objective voice but then hedges himself against criticism by pleading literary self-expression. For better or worse, that is a double position; and whereas I ultimately believe Ligotti is sincere, it leaves him wide open to charges of duplicity and amateurism.

Casting Ligotti as a cult leader struck me as both funny and natural because I'd already thought of him that way long before either More Dark and TCAHR. Prior to the mass market publication of Teatro Grottesco, I could only read about him secondhand; that obscurity coupled with the overwhelming praise he received imbued his fiction with a Necronomicon-like aura. When I was finally able to read him, I'd often recommend him to friends by comparing him to Sutter Cane from In The Mouth of Madness. So I took Barron as spoofing more than trashing Ligotti. His blog post seems to reiterate that position - he deeply respects Ligotti as an author, but finds his personal views abhorrent:

https://lairdbarron.wordpress.com/20...d-of-darkness/

I don't agree with Barron about pessimism and antinatalism, but I can't fault him for being unfair or reactionary with Ligotti.

Quote Originally Posted by MadsPLP

But then again, there's a lot of recent books by Tartarus authors that I have yet to read. Kiernan has written a lot. I've been impressed by what I've read, but haven't kept up. Gavin isn't very interesting to me; however, there's usually been one or two really good stories in the collections I've read. At one point it would make for a very good best of.

I always have a certain amount of guilt as to whether I'm being fair to authors. On one hand, I've only read single anthologies by Barron and Gavin - but on the other, how much time and money should I invest when there's other authors out there? My opinion of Kiernan is admittedly harsh and unfounded, but Threshold was so punch in the face stupid that I won't read anything else by her on principle.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Robin Davies]

Quote Originally Posted by Speaking Mute

I think Joshi's oblivious to his own influence here; he pushed loose ends and ambiguity as the epitome of Weird, so I find it somewhat hypocritical for him to criticize Barron for applying these techniques in The Croning.

Where did Joshi do this? I thought he was a stickler for plots that are thought through. He wrote about Lovecraft's The Music of Erich Zann "There are those who find this sort of restraint effective because it leaves so much to the imagination; and there are those who find it ineffective because it leaves too much to the imagination, and there is a suspicion that the author himself did not have a fully conceived understanding of what the central weird phenomenon of the story is actually meant to be. I fear I am in the latter camp." And on Robert Aickman "There is a real danger that the events in a tale will seem random and unmotivated if they are not somehow brought together into a coherent scenario."

Quote

I'm likewise not much enthused when Joshi holds up Richard Gavin and Caitlin Kiernan as Barron's superiors. Gavin's not a bad writer - he's just not a good one either; he leaves me with the same mushy impression as Barron.

On the contrary, I think Gavin is often excellent and his collections At Fear's Altar and The Darkly Splendid realm are particularly strong. The only current "weird" writers I would rank above him are M. John Harrison (No.1, as always), Thomas Ligotti, Quentin S. Crisp, Jeremy Dyson and Mark Samuels.

[Ibrahim]

Quote Originally Posted by Robin Davies

The only current "weird" writers I would rank above him are M. John Harrison (No.1, as always),

Indeed. Don't understand why Harrison's work is so seldom discussed here.

[Shadenuat]

I'm definitely looking forward to Joshi's "21st-Century Horror". It will be interesting to hear more of his thoughts on Oliver, here's hoping that his opinion of him hasn't dropped too much (his write-up on Oliver in "Driven to Madness With Fright" was pretty positive).Also, I think that I can already guess which acclaimed authors from that WIP list on his blog might receive one of his... trademark treatments, he he.

[xylokopos]

Coming May 2018:



Barron makes his crime fiction debut. From his blog:

Quote

Isaiah Coleridge is a mob enforcer in Alaska–he’s tough, seen a lot, and dished out more. But when he forcibly ends the moneymaking scheme of a made man, he gets in the kind of trouble that can lead to a bullet behind the ear. Saved by the grace of his boss and exiled to upstate New York, Isaiah begins a new life, a quiet life without gunshots or explosions. Except a teenage girl disappears, and Isaiah isn’t one to let that slip by. And delving into the underworld to track this missing girl will get him exactly the kind of notice he was warned to avoid.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

To be fair, the blurbs of big and mid-size publishers are 95% bad.

[Shadenuat]

If I didn't know better, I'd say that it was custom-built to annoy some folks around here! I mean, it even has Pizzolatto up there.

Joking aside, I wish him all the luck if that is what he wants to do. Nobody ought demand more weird fiction from him if he isn't feeling like it. He's got his considerable fanbase, and I'd say that those among them who had no issues with his continuous detour into noir won't have any issues with following him to straight-on crime fiction genre either.

[Frater_Tsalal]

I think with Gavin I like the idea of the guy more than the actuality. My main fascination in him is his occult interests (he's one of the only modern Weird Fiction writers aside from myself who has been very upfront about his interest in the work of Kenneth Grant). Sadly, IMO this aspect rarely manifests in much of the stories of his that I've read (though I should add that I haven't read his earlier collections, so perhaps those are different). Having said that, he has done some stories I found effective.

Kiernan I would say is much better, though her blog (and some aspects of her social persona) are pretty much infuriating: I once joked on Facebook "I know the odds of my ever getting invited to contribute to a Caitlín R. Kiernan tribute anthology are slim, but just in case I already have a story title prepared: '57˚F in Providence, 76˚F in Birmingham'." Like many Weird Fiction writers I would say her short stories and novellas are far superior to her novels, though of her novels I would certainly say that Silk, Low Red Moon, and The Red Tree are certainly very good (maybe The Drowning Girl as well). Kind of sad to see Kiernan trashing Silk on her blog as of recent. She may dismiss it as juvenile now but IMO it's far superior to the last novella she did, Agents of Dreamland: I summed it up on Goodreads thusly:

"Unfortunately the main plot (a kind of X-Files meets "The Whisperer in Darkness") is Laird Barron-lazy: the usual hardboiled noir nonsense and conspiracy theory fetishism (Area 51? Really?) involving surly hard-boozin' secret agents and government spooks (most of whom are somewhat sketchily developed) investigating a mycology-obsessed cult named The Children of the Next Level (seemingly modeled after both the Manson Family and the Heaven's Gate cult, with a dollop of Lovecraft tossed in because of course it is). I also get annoyed at how Kiernan's narrators always feel the need to make a special point about how some stories have no resolutions or explanations: I suppose this is helpful for novices to her work but for those who have read most of her other work it can get repetitious. I docked one star for the tired subject matter and another for the fact that it opens with a Nic Pizzolatto quote (talk about making a bad first impression)."

I know this is getting off-topic but one of the things that REALLY drives me crazy about Kiernan's characters (especially in her novels) is how the main characters often act surly and unpleasant to people who are trying to explain what's happening to them.