THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK

THE NIGHTMARE NETWORK (https://www.ligotti.net/index.php)

- D. F. Lewis (https://www.ligotti.net/forumdisplay.php?f=203)

- - The Hawler (https://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=487)

Further to above, I have now started gradually posting the whole of the first typed draft of my first novel here:

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_hawler.htm

This is a continual process.

I say 'whole' but the last few chapters will eventually be kept for the printed version and not put on the Internet (assuming one day there is a printed version)!

Hope you enjoy it.
des

A pivotal part has just been added to
The Hawler: A Nemonymous Navigation.

Part 20 and to be continued. This is going to be a *long* novel!

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_hawler.htm

des

A long novel - or as some cheeky wag put in the comments:

a long hawl!

There is now an easier way to navigate to each part of the novel at the top of the page here:
http://www.augusthog.esmartguy.com/

Just posted part 23.
des

des: I'm reading a book an author friend sent me from Virginia, but I hope to get to reade The Hawler in the weeks to come. Keep up the great writing.

FINISHED!

http://www.augusthog.esmartguy.com/

There you will find fifty links to the complete THE HAWLER I. Nemonymous Navigation. II. Nemonymous Night plus 'coda'.

As great as GULLIVER'S TRAVELS! :-)

Writing is either (a) writing for writing's sake or (b) writing for the best market/money or award.

(a) and (b) shouldn't mix at the intention stage, though they hopefully can (as an accidental optimum) mix at the recipient stage. IMHO.

I've had a measure of success over the years with (a), sometimes with (a) and (b) together. However, I 've chosen my first novel at the age of 58 (great or crap as it eventually may be in interface with stage (b)) to be read freely on the internet because I can only see it as stage (a) at the moment and perhaps forever.

It's been serialised on a blog since some time in September (I actually started writing it in June) ... and I estimate the total wordage to be 100,000.

Its *nature* as a novel derives from the very act of immediate serialisation. (A bit like Dickens did?). That's one reason for doing it this way. The other is the sincere belief that nobody will publish it except myself. Which begs a lot of questions - many of which I've not yet faced.

A third reason for doing it this way: its fiction deals with or is inspired by current issues *currently*!

I hope you enjoy it in its current form.

des

I've dusted off my reading glasses.

Why?

I'm going to read D.F. Lewis' online book titled "The Hawler" over the next several days, perhaps a week or two.

Will a review follow?

Yup.

Thanks, Barry, hope you enjoy it.

Whilst writing on the DFL sub-forum (that was kindly raised for me here) these are my future plans:

As well as reviving Nemonymous when the backlog is finally sold, I shall be serialising two new novels by DFL on blogs (as soon as (or if) THE HAWLER is published in print by whoever).

Both novels are 'spin-offs' from THE HAWLER:-

KLAXON CITY (the further adventures of Greg in that Inner City plus those of Beth, Edith & Clare).

And the other novel will be the book that was discovered in Captain Nemo's library on the Drill:
Crazy Lope & Godspanker.

And I shall continue to post my previously published stories on the massive Weirdmonger Wheel here:
http://www.nymous.esmartbiz.com/

des

So far, there have been 1793 unique hits on my novel THE HAWLER. I don't know if this is a good or bad result. Very little public feedback so far, but now beginning to to get private feedback.
Navigation: http://www.weirdmonger.com

Since it was effectively first published in 2005 and will remain published for the foreseeable future (albeit on a blog) - I contend that it is at least eligible for the same review or 'honours' considerations that apply to any other novels first published in 2005.

Or am I wrong?

(I don't mean that presumptuously but simply as a question).
des

Hey - I was a little taken aback to find you (des?) on this forum - I just received your collection of stories titled Weirdmonger from Amazon after running out of new horror from Ligotti (waiting for Teatro) and have been blissfully enjoying the stories. I'm currently working on finishing a story that I've been turning over in my head for a week or so. However I'll definitely be checking out the Hawler. Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks, Not Available, for buying 'Weirdmonger'.

Re THE HAWLER, there is a very long discussion of my method of 'publishing' it here:
http://tinyurl.com/an4jb

des

I've read 30 chapters of The Hawler and hope to read more shortly.

That's a very interesting discussion you're having there, des. I can perfectly see what you're getting at. I always thought that such awards as Bram Stoker (among many others) tend to be a little bit unfair. In fact the problem is deeply embedded in people's mentality.

Let's make something clear: The Hawler was published in 2005 and it should be treated the same way as any other novel published that year!

This very day, I posted the final part of my separate novel entitled KLAXON CITY:
http://www.weirdmonger.com

The third self-contained novel (entitled 'THE ANGEL MEGAZANTHUS') in The Tenacity Of Feathers trilogy will only be available for reading if it is accepted for traditional publication as a book, following similar publication in turn for 'THE HAWLER'* and 'KLAXON CITY'*.

*both these novels are currently freely available to read on the internet.

I hope the above will happen, although I am myself not taking any positive action towards this end, ie by submitting the works to agents or publishers one by one.

First come, first served. Or at least, first come, first contract considered.
:-)

df lewis

After two months, I've finished D. F. Lewis' The Hawler. Instead of writing a review as such, I wish to review the actually writing. You see, I shant lie, I am an admirer of des, as an author and as a person. He has published over 1,500 short stories and who I am to gauge what is a good story plot and what is not. Alas! I shall speak upon the writing structure and save a sword slicing into my heart.

A sword? Was the story that bad? Nope, of course not. But I found the story itself extremely difficult to comprehend. Should you ask me what the story was about, I could tell you vaguely. So why bother.

The writing is excellent. In fact, each chapter I emailed des and told him my favorite sentence. Sometimes I explained why I had chosen that particular sentence. Sometimes I had several sentences I adored, but would always narrow it down to just one sentence. Easy? Try it. Des' writing is crisp and tight and the imagery is that of a hawk sitting on a cliff overlooking a riotious ocean.

So perhaps I fail as a reader. I know there's more intelligent people out there that will read The Hawler and will be able to explain it all. I simply cannot. Saying that, some stories I've read that Thomas Ligotti has written went way over my head as well.

I think that's a compliment when you really think about it.

All in all, reading des' The Hawler was an experience I've never had in my life. I'm usually a short story writer, but by gosh I stood by this book and chapter and chapter I kept reading.

I do hope someone else will read this book and perhaps give a detailed review of the book itself. I hope I have not disappointed the author or other readers. That was not my intent.

I haven't read The Hawler, but I admire des' writing very much too, Barry. Sometimes I get in the mood for a Des Lewis story and nothing else will do. One of my favorite sentences comes from the opening of his short story "Dognahnyi."

"Of East European descent and bearing a grudge in the form of a crook-back, he used to haunt the birdhides of Lower Cablestreet; along with all the other down and outs of our City's populace that are trawled by the through-draughts and crosscurrents between the towering, teetering warehouses of Dockside ...."

Now that is some beautiful writing. The closest thing I could liken it to, that I have read, would be something out of James Joyce's Dubliners.

Thanks, Ben, much appreciated.

And, Barry, what can I say? I can't thank you enough - both for the comments above and for the continuing emails throughout your reading period of The Hawler. I never predicted which sentence you'd choose as your favourite in each part!

And indeed expectation is the key word, I feel, in reading any fiction - whether one's expectation is fulfilled or not. In fact, whether one *wants* one's expectation to be fulfilled or not.

I see fiction on a spectrum:

5. Almost pure music.....4........3.......2.......1. basic story

I'm not saying any part of the spectrum is better or worse than any other part (this is partly down to taste) , but you seem to identify my 'book' as squarely 3.5. Which is fine and very gratifying. I don't 'understand' parts of the story myself but it just seemed necessary to write them that way. Like an experiment...

Coincidentally (a few minutes after receiving your feedback, Barry, here on TLO!), after months of no feedback at all on my 'book', last night I got some more from someone else in an email and he seems to identify the same part of the spectrum as you, Barry, and I quote him in full:-
***********

Still reading THE HAWLER and am almost finished. I have to say that, 75% of the way through I think I know where the story is going on one page and then the next page I have no idea again. It's eerie and dreamlike and it feels logical in the same way that a lucid dream makes sense until you have the perspective of "reality" later. I've never read anything like it. It may never see major publication because it is a bold, uncompromising vision and a lot of readers are groomed on predictability and the comfort of knowing what comes next. This is the age of instant gratification, books as mind candy. To steal the name of a newer magazine, THE HAWLER is "mental floss" and we know how many people bother using their mind these days, much less endeavor to clean the plaque around its grey matter. When reading I feel that if I just pay a little more attention everything will come into focus - which is one of the reasons I haven't found as much time to read it; I try to do so when there are few distractions
**************

As I'm providing the 'book' free, it is nice to repaid with some feedback. I have no idea whether my 'book' is any good or not. I am still in great doubt about it. I probably always will be in great doubt about it.

Well, Barry, this is what it says at the end of The Hawler on the blog where it resides:

++++++++++
This blog version of THE HAWLER was first published on Nov 27 2005 when this final part was posted. Anyone who wants to do a review of it in an independent outlet (ie. independent of both reviewer and DFL) will receive -- instead of a tangible reviewer's copy of THE HAWLER -- BOTH:
1) a full signed set of the acclaimed Nemonymous 1-5 and 2) a signed beautiful edition of WEIRDMONGER (The Nemonicon), until stocks last.
+++++++++++

Your comments are not published as a review in an independent outlet, but for your very kind work on reading and feedbacking on this novel over a few months and it being the first comments at length *of any kind*, as a small sign of my gratitude, I shall be sending over to you in Canada a full signed set of Nemonymous and a copy of Weirdmonger trade paperback. This will be surface mail, so please expect these in 6 to 8 weeks.

I am providing these for reviewers (when the review appears) as compensation for not receiving a tangible copy of The Hawler, as reviewers would normally expect to have a free copy of what they are reviewing. Of course, their eventual review can be scathingly critical or praising or whatever!

Expectation is everything.

des

Thank you, des. I'm absolutely thrilled. I never expected to get anything as it's not really a review. So thank you very much. As you know, I like hand-signed items.

We'll have to watch this posting to see who else reads The Hawler. And of course when it is published in print, I'll be buying a **signed** copy.

Cheers,

Barry

Thanks, Barry. I know you have received the Weirdmonger book, but not the editions of Nemonymous that I sent at the same time. Sorry about that, but I'll be sending more Nemonymi if you don't receive them in the next week or so.

I have just discovered that American TV viewers are about to be presented with a frightening fictional film about Bird Flu entitled Fatal Contact. Also, that migratory birds are about to land in USA as they always do about this time of the year.

As some may know, my trilogy of separate self-contained novels The Tenacity of Feathers (written and blogged between September 2005 and March 2006) is woven into a tapestry (or carpet!) of Bird Flu symbols and fantasifications. The trilogy starts here: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_hawler.htm with The Hawler.

Please try this specimen chapter here: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/kla...art_twelve.htm (part twelve of the second novel Klaxon City).

For those of you above who read 'The Hawler' novel when I first wrote it in 2005/6, you may be interested to know I have been reading it aloud on the internet and I'm halfway through doing this!
See: http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the...read_aloud.htm

It's making more sense this time round!

PS:
This is a raw reading aloud. I've not re-read it since 2005. If there is surprise in my voice, that's because I am surprised. I think this is the authentic way to read it aloud, even if it does result in a few stumbles as I go through. Please tell me what you think.

I'm now pleased to report the links to each chapter's reading-aloud are now speedy ones! Please try them. Any feedback technically (as well as artistically!) will be welcome. This is a sort of novel that's been percolating for far too long. But it does sort of change with each passing moment even if the words themselves don't change. http://www.knibbworld.com/campbelldi...part/happy.gif

http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_hawler_read_aloud.htm

This is a raw reading aloud. I've not re-read it since 2005. If there is surprise in my reading voice, that's because I am surprised. I think this is the authentic way to read it aloud, even if it does result in a few stumbles as I go through. A real-time reading to go with my real-time reviews?

THE HAWLER, KLAXON CITY, THE ANGEL MEGAZANTHUS

These three novels were the base material for my distilled novel NEMONYMOUS NIGHT (Chomu Press 2011).

Now available in December 2015 for downloading free of charge on Word Documents:

THE HAWLER 94,000 words
https://dc2.safesync.com/FJrmYtd/dfl...?a=UOg0cJ-GdDE

KLAXON CITY 80,000 words
https://dc2.safesync.com/FJrmYtd/dfl...?a=p8gJCZAUGuw

THE ANGEL MEGAZANTHUS 88,000 words
https://dc2.safesync.com/FJrmYtd/dfl...?a=Mfi_Sdqzzq8

These novels were written in public on piecemeal blogs over the period 2005/6.