Re: Kathe Koja
 

Same happened with Clive Barker. Once he came clean out of the closet, he stopped writing horror altogether, and when he tried to come back with "Clodheart Canyon" the result was more pornographic than anything.

Not that he was 100% horror writer to begin with (I’ve always seen him as a mixed bag; his good stuff is great and his bad stuff is just bad) but he did write some classics like “Midnight Meat Train” and “Dread”

Re: Kathe Koja
 

Agreed on Barker. I'm interested in this phenomenon of writers abandoning horror (or being abandoned by it...?) In my own case, I think the only stuff I write that's halfway decent is horror, but I have to be in a particular mood to write it: if I'm feeling too morbid, then I just won't write anything at all, and if I'm not feeling morbid enough, then I either have no desire to write horror, or I try it and the results don't ring true. I've never had a talent for subjugating the Muse, either. I guess people like me are why there's a whole stratum of fiction about blocked writers.

re: vampires/cannibalism, the movie Ravenous was on TV a few days ago. I guess it could be called a Wendigo Western. It has its moments (and a Michael Nyman score.) Makes me wonder why there haven't been more "vampire Westerns," since the genres seem to overlap well.

It also got me thinking, if there were vampires in the traditional sense (i.e., everyone bitten is "turned,") and consequently the human population became 100% vampiric in short order -- well, wouldn't there be all sorts of vampire "health problems" popping up after they were forced to cannibalize and/or feed from animals for an extended time? (...unless they had the foresight to keep some humans around for blood-harvesting.) Maybe they'd eventually adapt back to some semblance of mortality. Maybe this progression has already happened! AHHH!

(boy, am I off-topic...)

Re: Kathe Koja
 

What the hell IS this topic...

I once tried writing an illustrated story about a vampire locked in a cell or bomb shelter, and he came down to having to bite his own hand/drink his own blood to "live." Stephen King later wrote one about a guy strabded on an island and cutting off his own foot to eat. Uh...the guy was a doctor, see.

Speaking of sucking, I never understood the big Barker craze. Maybe two or three of the "Books of Blood" stories and The Damnation Game were the only things I liked. as far as the Hellraiser series, the first two movies were much better than the books. Before discovering Ligotti, I would have rated my favorites as

Thomas Tessier
James Herbert
Stephen King
Kathe Koja

...no particular order. Not all they did was good. If you wanna get into Tessier, BTW, read his novels; his shorts aren't quite as tasty (heh-heh, we'll let that one slide as I saw it comin' from a mile). Really, try The Nightwalker and Finishing Touches.

Re: Kathe Koja
 

As I said earlier, Barker is (at least for me) a mixed bag... out of most of the stuff I read of him I can think of very few examples that shine out. He's actually one of the few writers who have managed to write a book that ultimately became a physical pain to read. (That book was Galilee... AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE).

Re: Kathe Koja
 

...Kathe Koja...

Okay, yeah: Barker. I can smell a "horror"-actually-nonhorror book quite a few a few racks away. That's why I avoided CB's later books, although I figured he might actually be becoming a better writer. But I wanted to be scared. Peter Straub had good stuff for me in Ghost Story but his writing was also kinda..."ghostly." Not in a good way. I gave him a shot with his S. King coauthorship The Talisman, but after that quit the series real fast. The only fantasy I think I ever enjoyed was Edgar Rice Burroughs as a teen. Fist two Tolkien books...

Re: Kathe Koja
 

Fantasy fiction is a bit like socialism, isn't it? (good in theory....)

Same thing with vampire stories. With very few exceptions, vampire stories strike me as Harlequin romances for overweight girls who have suffered from sexual abuse, wear crushed velvet, and own at least one ceremonial dagger.

And just so this post isn't 100% negativity/sarcasm... yeah, there were three or four "Books of Blood" stories that I enjoyed. :D

Re: Kathe Koja
 

Poppy Z Brite, anyone?


I must confess myself guilty of reading a Poppy Brite book, though, but you must understand it sprang out of my interest in Jeff Dahmer's case, and knowing that said book was partially inspired on this man's life, well, I couldn't help it. That book, you guessed it, was "Exquisite Corpse"... the good news is that I stopped reading less than halfway through... it was just bad.

Re: Kathe Koja
 

I've read a few of her stories and one novel, Drawing Blood, and they were all pretty good for me, esp. the novel. I saw that she was gonna repeat much of her subject matter and I stopped turning on to her.

All these people are simply a different strata of writer, however, from Thomas Ligotti. As well, Tom has a pretty well thought out philosophy to be reckoned with, so even as other than a writer of weird fiction he's a vital voice, pardoning the perhaps inappropriate adjective there. This is how we know that we can trace the line from Poe through Lovecraft to Ligotti. The rest ultimately will be forgettable in general.

Re: Kathe Koja
 

Has anyone used the website "Literature-Map"? If you type in a writer's name it will illustrate graphically which other writers are similar in style. The site ranked Kathe Koja very close to Thomas Ligotti.

Literature Map --

www.literature-map.com

Re: Kathe Koja
 

"Literature-Map" is quite interesting. I did about a half dozen quick searches. I was - at once - pleased, surprised, and disappointed. Who can argue, though, with the assertion that Groucho Marx is Harlan Ellison's cousin?