Recently read:
Black and White by Lewis Shiner. I am hoping to write a review of this for sfsite. An interesting book that uses the tropes of horror — a creative type (not a writer for once) returns to his childhood home to uncover the dark secrets of his past. However, the story itself is without supernatural elements, being based extensively on the history of race relations in the Hayti region of Durham, NC.
The Bottoms by Joe Lansdale. Lansdale is the master of living master of southern horror, and this book is no exception. One part idyllic story of childhood in Depressian-era east Texas, one part loss of innocence, one part serial killer story. Reading this book, it occurs to me that much of horror is based on the collision of differing realities — in this book, that of black and white, child and killer, even child and grownup.
Deep Inside: Extreme Erotic Fantasies by Polly Frost. Another one I want to review. This is great stuff. I think it is really cool that this book was published by Tor — although the stories are thought-provoking and have genuine, meaningful fantasy or genre elements, they are also true erotica — not the tasteful, suggestive stuff, but actual one-handed reading. I hope the divisions between erotica and genre really are blurring as M. Christian has suggested.
In other news, my partner-in-crime Reesa Brown just made an exciting announcement about one of her stories appearing in print. She will also have a story in the upcoming Unspeakable Horror anthology from Dark Scribe Press.
And my computer is still broken. We recovered all my files from it, thanks to our local computer repair place, Micro Age. Dell sent me a box to return the computer to them last week. Only it didn’t have a return label in it for me to use to mail it back. In response, they told me they’d send me another box (that’s right, not just another mailing label) but that didn’t arrive. Now they are sending me yet another, third shipment of an empty box, hopefully with a mailing label. With luck I might have my computer back by… wel, probably around September 1st. :(
