Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

I've just received a few airmail copies of The Terrible Changes and it looks great. The cover image is grimmer than the one originally planned (changed due to repro problems) and the whole thing has a stark and sombre beauty. Even the paper used to line the covers is the exact same shade of blue as a night in which winged and faceless things come to take you away.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Thank the Lord!!

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Simon, it would have been too much horror in one book.

Mark S.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

[Chokes on his tea and spills snuff all over the sofa.]

You've never read anything by Robert Aickman....?

Forget about buying books from Ex Occidente (heresy I know).

Take an extended holiday from TLO.

Go to Amazon or Bookfinder and acquire some Aickman collections and then spend the next fortnight acquainting yourselves with the texts (the US edition of 'Cold Hand In Mine' is as cheap as chips).

Seriously, you should do it. Aickman is to contemporary horror what The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones are to post Presley rock music.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Aickman is one of the greatest weird fiction authors in terms of expanding your sense of what supernatural fiction can be about: the psychological, the erotic, the social and the metaphysical come together in his work. He's also a master of ambiguity who can crack the reader's assumptions apart with a single innocent comment – the last five words of 'No Time Is Passing' are a case in point. He owes a lot to de la Mare in terms of technique, but has different things to say about the human condition. A few Aickman stories strike me as arrogant and narrow in their attitude, but far more are breathtakingly original and challenging. 'The Swords' is among the greatest weird stories of the last half-century.

Aickman considered M.R. James a superficial populist – which only seems arrogant if you don't see how much more ambitious and serious Aickman's approach is. He belongs to a tradition of psychological and metaphysical ghost stories that includes Oliver Onions, Henry James, Walter de la Mare and John Metcalfe before him, Fritz Leiber as a contemporary and Charles L. Grant, Ramsey Campbell and M. John Harrison after him. Aickman quite openly despised the Jamesian principle of the 'pleasing terror' or cosy chill that entertains without challenging the reader's assumptions. His stories pose serious questions about human nature and the world we have created.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Chris is quite right.

Unless you have the misfortune to happen across, at the start of your Aickman exploration, his oh-so-tedious short novel The Model. In which case, it may put you off Aickman for life.

Mark S.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Or, indeed, 'Never Visit Venice', where Aickman delivers a choleric anti-Italian rant of incredible length and tedium before eventually deciding he might as well get on and tell a story.

But the Aickman masterpieces come thick and fast in most of his collections. My favourites include 'Into the Wood', 'Bind Your Hair', 'The Inner Room', 'Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen', 'Pages from a Young Girl's Journal', 'Wood', 'No Time Is Passing', 'The Stains'...

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Oh, to one day pen a tale even half as good as "The Inner Room"...

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Interestingly, Ligotti is (or has been) an Aickman sceptic: he describes Aickman's work as "a closetful of cliches" hidden behind a contrived difficulty of reading. If it weren't for that, one could draw parallels between the two writers as creators of allegorical weird tales – 'The Bungalow House', for example, strikes me as quite Aickmanesque. Perhaps it's worth doing regardless.

But we are waaaay off topic and this thread is getting too long to open up. I can't see how to start a new thread, but that's probably my usual technology-blindness.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

It's is a bit your blindness, but it's also a bit the site itself, with its labyrinthine nest of topic areas, all hidden from view by a deceptively inviting front page (I say this with love, of course). You'll need to go into the "Content" tab up top and muddle your way into a forum. In there, you'll find a button to start a new tab.

Brian Lavalle, the fellow who runs the Aickman website (or should I say former site, as a trip to it just now revealed a "space for rent" sign), posts here occasionally, and has himself drawn parallels between Ligotti and Aickman. I can certainly see similarities between their work as well, "The Bungalow House" being a prime example. Still, I don't think the idea was ever fully investigated as I suspect many here on the Ligotti boards are Aickman-ignorant — through no fault of their own, of course, but that one hasn't been able to buy Aickman off the shelf, especially in the Faber-free USA, for many years.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

I've created a thread on the topic, Joel, as I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

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So you mean it wasn't you on the cover of Glyphotech?

Joking apart I'm looking forward to reading some of your stories Mark.

Hmm you think highly of him then. Thank you for the recommendations. I do remember seeing several paperback collections of his stories on Amazon published by Faber and Faber so they might be worth me having a glance at.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Jerry Springer: "And next up we have 'Julian' from UK, England, which is in Europe. Julian, is there anything you'd like to share with us today?"

JK: "I see dead people."

JS: "That's not what it says on my card."

JK: "28 days 6 hours 42 minutes and 12 seconds. That is when the world will end."

JS: "Hey, what's with the rabbit suit? Security! SECURITY!"

JK: "No, it's OK, I suddenly remembered what it is I have to share with you, Jerry. I....I...there are....certain Robert Aickman stories that I loathe and despise."

[Shocked intakes of breath from audience. JK takes off rabbit head.]

JS: "Did you just say what I think you said?"

[Angry catcalls and hisses from audience. Someone throws a cushion at JK.]

JS: "You DID just say what I think you said!"

JK: "The stories about pseudo-intellectuals going on holiday to remote Greek islands and then gliding about from room to room having pretentious conversations with unattainable and enigmatic lesbian women."

Angry Man In Audience: "You leave our pseudo-intellectual lezzers alone, you filistine!"

JK: "I think Aickman is trying to be clever in some of his stories. He takes classical, mythological and operatic themes and tries to fuse them with the weird tale. It's too ambitious and it fails to deliver. Elsewhere he plants his stories firmly in the here and now - placing thoroughly plausible characters into contemporary locations such as foggy Northamptonshire villages, surburban Birmingham, etc - and then uses both personal nightmare and Pinteresque innuendo to create a sinister, surreal alternate world out of the one we all know and experience on a daily basis. Sure, there are nods stroke homages to other genre authors - 'The Inner Room' is M.R. James' 'The Haunted Dolls House' for grown-ups, 'The Unsettled Dust' owes a significant debt to L P Hartley, 'Into The Wood' features a very Machenesque denouement - but Aickman subverts and juxtaposes his influences with such dextrous ease that it is impossible to accuse him of plagiarism. He injects such a powerful sense of his own unique identity into his work that even if he borrows a basic central premise (for example, a haunted dolls house), that it qualifies as anything but derivative. For these reasons, I wish that he had limited his forays into experimentalism to tales inspired by experience, whether that be real life (waterways, politics etc) or dream-inspired. His seemingly premeditated attempts to experiment even further - theming his collections (one collection strikes me as containing each of the seven deadly sins), or referencing operas and classical myths (for example, Sweeney Todd) - suffer from being stretched in too many directions."

[Long awkward pause. Solitary cough from someone in the audience.]

JS: Put the rabbit head back on again, 'Julian'. Next up we have Brad. Brad had an affair with his sister's father's twice-removed cousin who just happens to be--"

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

I'm now going crazy trying to find my one collection by Aickman. I've had to cram a bunch of books into a huge seven foot cabinet that my aunt got me, in which I have three rows of books on each deep shelf. Makes finding books a bloody chore. I think it would be much easier if I merely went to Amazon and ordered a couple of his collections, and then placed them on my newly organized horror bookcase. Your descriptions of his tales make his work sound deliciously captivating, Julian.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Ok, I couldn't resist. Assuming that the collection in question is "Tales of Love and Death", (i.e. the one with seven stories in it), and bearing in mind I don't have a copy at hand to check with, I'm going to go for:

"Growing Boys" - Gluttony
"Marriage" - Lust
"Le Mirroir" - Vanity
"Compulsory Games" - Envy
"Raising the Wind" - Sloth
"Residents Only" - Anger
"Wood" - Greed

I can't remember too much about "Residents Only", so I had to do that one by process of elimination...

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Out of the three Faber & Faber collections is there anyone you'd particularly recommend to start off with?

The Wine-dark Sea
The Unsettled Dusk
Cold Hand in Mine

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

It's been some years since I last read Aickman (4-5 years exactly :(), but
I would definitely go for Cold Hand in Mine. Then, judged from what I remember, I would go for The Unsettled Dust and then The Wine-Dark Sea.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

The Wine-Dark Sea and The Unsettled Dust are each half of a 'selected stories' edited by Peter Straub. While their existence is as good thing in itself, it's regrettable that these are becoming known as Aickman collections when they lack the internal coherence of the original collections, each of which had its own distinct feel (though some are definitely better than others). Cold Hand in Mine is an original collection and a very, very good one. Others I particularly love are Sub Rosa and Intrusions.

Can I suggest we continue all Aickman-related discussion on the 'Aickman and Ligotti' thread? :)

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Well done that man!

A couple of years ago it occured to me that RA may indeed have deliberately set out to compose the stories from this collection so that each one had a deadly sin as its theme. I'll have to refer to the pencil notes I made at the time but your choices appear to concur with many of my own (though some tales could qualify for more than one sin).

JK

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

I empathise, Wilum. I have two extremely destructive twin boys who delight in tearing books apart or scribbling over the pages, so I have to keep most of my books secure in a study with a lock, as well as having locks on bookcases round the house, and one on the bedroom door. This means I can't keep anything alphabetically.

Having said that, there are a small number of writers whose works I keep in a book case right next to my bed, so that I can dip into them before sleep. They include: Robert Aickman (all of his works); Walter de la Mare (ditto; in fact, I have four different editions of 'On The Edge'); A.J. Alan; E.F. Benson (all of his collections); Thomas Ligotti (two collections: 'Grimscribe' and 'Noctuary'); Reggie Oliver (all of his books); Phyllis Paul (several novels); an anthology illustrated by Gorey; several Equation Chillers; a small number of reference books; two copies of Stoker's 'Dracula' (the 1904 Constable edition in art nouveau boards and the recent Folio Society edition); and several non horror titles by Peter Ackroyd, Evelyn Waugh and William Golding.

If I won the Euro Millions lottery- modest £50m would be welcome - I would employ a team of skilled carpenters to travel around the world fitting custom-made, wall-to-wall bookcases for every member of the TLO, along with a butler cum librarian for each of you, so that you could all summon books on request, safe in the knowledge that everything was archived carefully.

It's the least we readers of discernment deserve!

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Thanks MadPLP I'll go for Cold Hand in Mine next time I get a little money to spare on book buying.

Yes... errm sorry about the whole "breaking the thread again" thing.
I was thinking of posting my previus question the one you mentioned but I decided against it incase I accidentally turned the thread away from comparison between the two authors. Either way I'll go with Cold Hand in Mine.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

At the risk of appearing both self-promotional and pedantically on-topic, can I just note that the Ex Occidente Press website has been updated and you can now see the actual cover of The Terrible Changes – as well as details of some additions to the EOP list?

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Thats allright plug away we're happy to hear it. The cover art of Terrible Changes really looks differant now - far more low key and ambivilent compared to the strong reds of the last one. Do you think it fits the collection better Joel?

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Maybe. The other one was great too in a different, more dramatic way. It was dropped due to repro problems. The new cover is more bleak, there's no doubt about that.

I seem to be generally lucky with covers. Perhaps because I don't work with mainstream commercial publishers. Every book of fiction I've had published has had a really strong cover.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

I much prefer the new artwork. The naked lower body part in the other illustration repulsed me a little (though the red-cloaked individual and cabalistic sign were fine).

But then again, I'm a philistine when it comes to modern art. Pickled sharks and Tracey's bed have always seemed like a disingenuous con to me. Not that I like twee chocolate box designs; no, Sime, Clarke and Beardsley are my favourite genre artists.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

The fellow who did the artwork for my first book was, quite frankly, a genius. He amazes me more and more each day, and I'm not afraid to let him know it.

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I know, Simon. It's such a shame that the way you could really let him know it is difficult logistically. :)

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Difficult, yes. But experience tells me that, for me, it's far from impossible ...

(And there, my friends, is the first joke of that kind from me on this forum; believe me, it only goes downhill from here.)

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Ex Occidente Press - Putting the Pieces in Place

I presume this blurb by TL on Ex Occidente site is new, or have I accidentally overlooked it when I visited their site the last time?

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

It's new – part of a batch of review comments that have come out recently. As the book is now sold out, the purpose is clearly to make those without it see the error of their ways too late – not unlike one of Russell's characters.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Thomas Ligotti made a comment on one of the stories published in the book "Tales of Devilry & Doom" by John B. Ford. Published in 2001, with a print run of 250 copies. If you check Abebooks you can still see 8 copies available. More copies on other websites. Even worse, Ligotti himself made longer comments on three of my stories, and I'm certainly not published, and will probably never be. Many of these books from small press publishing houses are bought as an investment. This fact explains why some of these books are in fine condition (i.e. never read). To prove my point I bring into attention my pristine copy of Jean Ray's "My Own Private Spectres" ($ 200). The copy I bought comes from someone (a bookseller? a visionary? perhaps a madman?), who probably bought it as an investment. Of a batch of 350 copies. Question: How many of the copies of Jean Ray's book from Ex-Occidente Press were bought by potential readers? Or how many by investors?

And I remember "Payne Brennan's Stories and Darkness and Dread", 100 signed copies that he himself bought from Arkham House, with certainly the intention of resale (according to what I read). Signed copies are sold for $100, and regular copies just for $ 25.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

To your list of possibilities, I would add, "vermin?"

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

But doesn't the fact that your copy is still pristine contaminate your point?

One can't always trust the bookseller, of course. My own copy of "My Own Private Spectres" looks pristine, yet I can assure you I read it. Not to take away from your point, but I don't think there are that many "investors" in the small press field of "weird" fiction as one might suppose. If there were, I suspect we'd see a lot more books on the secondary market commanding large prices. Most, I'd wager, are in the hands of collectors interested in the field.

That's my experience in these circles, at least.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Noctarium:

It's very interesting to see that the first comment you made, after you just registered, is about my words and on this particularly thread. May I know your name? Or perhaps hiding yourself in anonymity allow you to give such a viewpoint?

Unless I know who I'm talking to, your comment is void.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Simon:

No, it doesn't. I am very lucky to read Spanish, and I have a collection of 25 tales by Jean Ray, along with others that were not translated to English yet. Regarding this copy, from Midnight House, I bought it for the other few tales (probably 2 or 3) that were not in the Spanish collection. I didn't pay $ 200, who is so silly to pay that much for a book that contains tales that he already read? The amount I paid, is considerably low. I used to buy books from booksellers in quantity, thus reducing the final cost. I bought both books by Belknap Long, Arkham House edition, for a ludicrous amount. Considering that both copies are probably the most pristine copies on the web. I didn't have time to read the books, just 3 tales of one of them, so I probably say that there are quite fine.

I consider myself to be very lucky to share my viewpoints with a writer like you. However, I think that if someone wants to buy books from Ex-Occidente Press, I did, I bought two, just do it. Does a writer (that considers himself to be good) need to promote his new book over and over and over and over, all the time, with this sign: "buy me"? And specially to promote his new book on someone else's webpage. As far as I know this is "ligotti.net", and not "famouswriter.net".

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

It's been on the Ray Russell webpage for quite some time. I thought about posting it here, but I must have forgotten to do so.

The link is here:
http://www.tartaruspress.com/russell5.htm

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Alberto,

I'm not really sure why you've taken the conversation in this direction, on this thread, when it might have been more appropriate on a number of others here. Nonetheless, I'll answer you.

I can only speak for myself of course so perhaps others feel the same way, but the world of writing is a difficult one for those involved in it. I know the illusion that "good will out" pervades, but the truth is there is so much noise that fiction, even good fiction, can disappear without a trace. I have come to Ligotti.net and mentioned my books when they were available. I try to be judicious amount the amount I do so, and also endeavour to balance my "pimping my wares" with commentary, where I can provide some, on other topics. I have chosen to do so on the TLO because, quite frankly, I believe there are many here who might enjoy what I can offer, but may not have been exposed to it in the past or travel in circles that might bring that exposure. I am, after all, a writer who would like his work to be read (if I didn't, why would I publish it?) and to do that in today's world the reality is that I must mention that work to potential readers.

The larger question is, of course, does this degrade the TLO in some way? Does the crassness of people selling their wares diminish the TLO in some way? To be honest, I'm not sure. I must admit these forums have gone surprisingly pimp-free for their life so far, and frankly I expect them to remain that way. But when you're dealing with venues devoted to writers, you have to expect, to some degree, fledgling writers peddling their wares.

But, please, if the members here have an issue with my notifications of new books (which has happened twice in the years since I've been contributing here) I'll no longer do so.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Yes but most of the books mentioned are either written by members of the Thomas Ligotti Online community or books that are likely to be of interest to them. If people started turning up and using this site just to advertise their own fiction I would agree but in the admittedly short time I've been here I haven't seen that going on.

Personaly I'm really glad to have been able to talk to many of the author's of these books. Its really interesting to hear what they have to say about their own stuff.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

I am glad to hear about new books by the writers here at TLO. One of the reasons I enjoy this site is because I get info on possible reading material. Keep the news coming. Thanks.

Re: Ex Occidente Press
 

Simon:

I'm about to order a few books by the end of the month. Yours is one of them. You know that Canada is not doing well right now.I love reading short stories, and I'll do anything to support your work, from whom I honestly didn't read much. I'm even behind with Belknap Long, as I said, so your turn will come too. I know that you are a very talented writer, but what else can I do? I cannot afford to buy more than just one copy of your book. If you could dedicate it to me and my family, I can buy it directly from you.