The Imago Suite

SJA

May. 1st, 2008 at 4:44 PM

The Shirley Jackson Award nominees have been announced. Thank you to the judges and advisors. I'm deeply honored.

I smell a Nobel!

May. 1st, 2008 at 3:05 AM

Alcohol linked to aggression

Jesus & Barney

Apr. 30th, 2008 at 4:26 PM

Yoinked from Jeff VanderMeer who got it from Matt Staggs who lifted it from I don't know where:

I just finished the ARC of Paul Tremblay's upcoming novella The Harlequin & the Train.

Lynch-style weirdness. Cryptic and strange, and more than a touch unnerving. Necropolitan Press will be releasing it at some point, although I couldn't nail down a date at the publisher site. Keep a lookout.

Also, kellyshaw reports that Michael Shea's The Autopsy & Other Tales has arrived. I'm honored to have written the introduction for that one.

The Leap

Mar. 29th, 2008 at 8:35 AM

So, after six years I handed in my resignation last week. Our school district failed its levy (and will probably fail a second levy in May. Hard times are in store) and that meant the powers that be wouldn't extend a leave of absence. My work situation had become untenable, so I pulled the plug. Friday will be my last day.

At the moment I'm working on a pair of novelettes for submission to major upcoming anthologies and a huge novella for what, I'm uncertain. This will clear the decks for the long neglected novel. I pitched it to my agent several weeks back and he loved the idea. I've all the time in the world to get it done, now.

The Lonely Death of Mr. Haringa

Mar. 6th, 2008 at 11:55 PM

The entomologist died with his bloody lips pressed to Mr. Haringa’s ear. A slimy seal burst with a pop! when the scientist’s head lolled, fell to the pillow. Mr. Haringa stepped away from the bed and its glassy-eyed passenger. The dead black bulk of a revolver lay near the corpse’s left temple. The revolver was still warm, still reeked of scorched oil. So much for their Person of Interest. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his gory earlobe.

The wind came against the farmhouse. A draft licked Mr. Haringa’s ankles. Limp drapes breathed like balaclavas to the small-mouthed windows. The windows were dark and cold. Everything rattled, sighed, subsided.

“Melodrama, day-o." Mr. Barton leaned against the door jam. A tall man, he appeared huge because the doors and halls were tacked up in the ‘40s when economy of design was king. “What did he say?”

Mr. Haringa wiped his hands, wiped his hands.

An antique clock ticked and clicked on an antique dresser; a bulb sizzled in a brass lamp. There were many framed pictures; generations of them, arranged by columns. The pictures existed under foggy glass, subjects made spectral by shadows, their abrupt irrelevance to any living being. Below Mr. Haringa’s shiny wingtips, the tattered throw rug and warped floorboards, came dim, aquatic creaks and bumps of other agents on the ground level. Men in crisp suits knocking about with flashlights and cameras.

“Hey, Jack.” Mr. Barton said.

“Yeah.”

“Did he say something?”

“Yeah." Mr. Haringa finished wiping his hands. He didn’t know what to do with the cloth, so he held it between thumb and forefinger. Something crashed downstairs; nervous laughter followed. A dog barked in the yard. “Goddamn it. Fifteen minutes sooner…”

“Fifteen minutes sooner he might’ve plugged you or me instead of himself. Want coffee?” Mr. Barton didn’t wait for an answer; he snapped open his cell, briefed Section. Section had alerted the local authorities, would coordinate the necessary details. After disconnecting with Section, he took a deep breath, visibly composed himself for the call to their field supervisor. It was a short conversation—Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. We’ll be back tomorrow in the PM, ma’am. The phone disappeared into his pocket. He shuddered, smiled in a perfunctory manner. “We’re done here. Want coffee? Let’s get some coffee.”

Mr. Haringa nodded. The techs would scour the room, ants on jelly. Maybe there was a note, a recording. Probably nothing. He followed his partner into the narrow hall, down the narrow stairs. They acknowledged the other men, the ones with the gloves and the specimen bags.

Once they were in the car and crunching slowly along the gravel lane, Mr. Haringa began to relax. He lighted a cigarette. Bony poplars clawed at the stars. Clouds blacked a steadily widening swath of the lower heavens.

Three cruisers from the Chelan County sheriff’s office met them head on, ghosted by, trailing rooster tails of dust. Red and blue flashes wobbled through the empty fields and imprinted behind Mr. Haringa’s eyelids.

“What’s with you?” Mr. Barton said.

“I couldn’t make it out.”

“Couldn’t make out what. What Plank said?”

“Yeah.”

“Looked like he had something on his mind.”

“Did it.”

“Yep. Hey, there’s that truck stop on 97. Burger and coffee.”

“OK.” Mr. Haringa cracked the window. Mr. Barton hated it when he smoked in the car. Mr. Haringa lighted another. His head felt thick, felt like a lead ball. The adrenaline was seeping from his system, leaving him shaky and depressed.

They made the highway. Every mile reduced Mr. Haringa’s sensation of dread, until what remained curled in the pit of his stomach. It hit him this way sometimes, but not often, not in years. This wasn’t the suicide, either. Plank was a photo, a paragraph in a dossier. A pathology report now. Meat.

No, it was something else, some indefinable thing. The other team members had felt it too, judging by their flared nostrils and unhappy smiles. Mr. Barton felt it as well; he drove too fast. Barton always drove fast when he was in a mood.

Maybe the team would uncover something. Maybe there was a secret stash of chemicals, guns, incriminating documents. Bomb-making supplies. Mr. Haringa didn’t want to go back and hang around. He preferred to wait for the report.

He said, “You think she knew?”

“She called it. She must’ve known something.”

“Could be a coincidence…”

“And what do you say about coincidence?”

“Fuck coincidence.”

“Right. So she knew, she was right about that much. But, if they don’t find anything hot, it’s going to look like another circle jerk.”

Mr. Barton said, “You think they’re going to post us in Alaska, huh? Don’t worry—Alaska’s pretty nice in the fall, long as you pack some electric underwear.”

They drove in silence for a while. Then, Mr. Haringa said, “I wish I could’ve made out what Plank was trying to say.”

“Uh, huh." Mr. Barton’s eyes were slits in the dashboard glow.

“He…slurred. Mumbled. You know.”

“Probably didn’t see you, Jack.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Brains all over the wall. He didn’t see you.”

“He was pretty gone.”

“That’s what I told Section.”

“Good.”

“Good. Not our problem.”

“We got enough of our own.”

“Yep.”

The men chuckled, and now it shrank to a sliver, the wedge of ice in Mr. Haringa’s gut. Later, after a greasy dinner at the Rattlesnake Prairie truck stop, they checked into a no-tell motel, left a 5am wakeup call with the night clerk. The drive to Seattle would burn at least three hours and there might be snow in the pass even though spring was upon them.

Mr. Haringa donned his reading glasses and burned the midnight oil, scanning a briefcase load of papers, including geological surveys on the substrata of the Wenatchee Valley region and a corresponding environmental report documenting its effects on the local ecosystems. Then there was the twenty-page compilation of homicide, assault and missing persons statistics. This latter read like a segment from the Inner City Beat crime insert rather than the description of an agrarian county populated by vineyards, orchards and farms. Eventually he switched off the bedside lamp, sat against the wall, sipping bottled water. Mr. Barton snored across the room. Mr. Haringa couldn’t banish Plank’s red mouth from his mind. Freezing rain pelted the roof. The wind returned, hungry. The tall sodium lamp in the parking lot emitted a blurry glow and at some point it wavered and snuffed like a blown candle.

Black.

Right before Mr. Haringa went down for the count, the night terrors of childhood rushed over his skin and paralyzed him on the cheap bed in the unlit room. A door squeaked softly as it swung to and fro, to and fro and stopped. The blinds shivered.

Plank whispered into his ear, They Who Wait love you, Jack.

Mr. Haringa began a scream, but the blood was already pouring in.

Hoi Polloi

Mar. 2nd, 2008 at 9:23 AM

William Mingin reviewed The Imago Sequence and Other Stories for Strange Horizons. The review is here .

I found this bit interesting:

"Barron's work is genre fiction that embodies the popular/literary split. He's telling pulp stories of the Lovecraft brand welded to protagonists from pulp mystery and suspense. If he told them today with Lovecraft's level of complexity and indirection, he would have to go stand in the literary dunce corner. Naturally, he wants to hang out with the cool—or at least smart—kids. To break off from that metaphor: the schizophrenic nature of his stories allows Barron to have his cake and eat it, too, writing "popular" fiction of the Lovecraft/Machen sort pitched at a level of difficulty and obscurity far beyond them, moving it toward the aesthetic Cheney expresses."

And:

"But what else is a horror writer to do, in an age when the directness once so common in popular fiction is looked down on (if not explicitly) as simpleminded and downmarket, the province of the hoi polloi? If the dear polloi are still reading anything at all; and if they're not, why have stories cater to them?"

Lastly:

" I believe that despite this level of detail, this is fundamentally hoi polloi fiction redshifted (or, to take our cue from political notation, blueshifted) in the direction of complexity, without being, in itself, for the most part, complex. At the risk of seeming a bit schizophrenic myself, however, I do not mean to dismiss or demean Barron's writing by saying this."

If the province of hoi polloi includes an appreciation of sex and violence, pulp mysteries, and car chases and explosions, count me a member. Complexity as an affectation, my appeal to an unspecified contingent? Well, complexity is in the eye of the beholder. Rightfully or not, I gauge my rather egalitarian literary tastes as a barometer when putting together a story. Frankly, Mingin seems reluctant to afford the reading audience much credit. I think that's a mistake.

KGB

Feb. 19th, 2008 at 4:48 PM

As swiped from elsewhere in the blogosphere:

Wednesday February 20th at 7pm.
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs).

Nathan Ballingrud, Elizabeth Bear, Jeffrey Ford and John Grant read from the stories they contributed to Ellen Datlow's Stoker Award-shortlisted anthology, Inferno.

*drinks are on Jeff Ford*

How I wish I could be there swilling it up with my comrades. I'll just set aside an hour to swill it up at home and ramble incoherently to my lovely, ever-patient wife!

All praise the Devil Frog!

Feb. 19th, 2008 at 3:10 PM

My INFERNO contribution "The Forest" will appear in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 21.

Selling Out

Feb. 18th, 2008 at 9:35 AM

The Imago Sequence & Other Stories looks to be all but sold out on Amazon. Night Shade books still has copies, but the limited edition is no longer on offer....

On the whole, it appears sources for the book are drying up everywhere. I'm happy the collection appears to be selling through. Go little book, go! Perhaps it will reappear as a second edition or trade paperback in the next life.

In any event, thanks to everyone who read the book. A lot of folks took time to review Imago; many recommended it to friends, linked it on blogs, etc.. I'm grateful.

F&SF Online

Feb. 18th, 2008 at 7:53 AM

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (as reported by John Joseph Adams) has moved into the blogosphere. Check out the new blog, and also the new forum. JJA has several author interviews up and Gordon Van Gelder is blogging in response to a recent Simon Owens article/essay.

Go say hi!

FearZone

Feb. 11th, 2008 at 9:04 PM

Nick Kaufmann reviews The Imago Sequence & Other Stories: http://www.fearzone.com/blog/imago-sequence

Commentary at Writers Read

Feb. 10th, 2008 at 9:29 AM

WRITERS READ is an an interesting site: once or twice a week they post comments, essays and mini reviews from various authors regarding their reading habits. Here's my contribution: Writers Read

The American

Feb. 9th, 2008 at 11:45 PM

Each month Douglas Clegg will be posting a free short story at his site. Check out The American. The man is a smooth operator.

The Occultation

Feb. 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 PM

Sold: "The Occultation" to Mike Allen for Clockwork Phoenix . A 4500 word horror story that I wrote while soaring high above the clouds on various types of cough syrup and medicinally applied whiskey. The anthology should appear sometime this year.

Clarkesworld Solid Gold

Feb. 2nd, 2008 at 1:40 PM

I highly recommend Stephen Graham Jones. Check him out at the latest issue of Clarkeworld: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/jones_02_08.html

There's an essay by Rick Bowes, as well.

Strappado

Jan. 31st, 2008 at 3:05 PM

Sold to Ellen Datlow: "Strappado," 6000 words. It's dark. The story will appear in Ellen's anthology called , Poe: 18 New Tales of Suspense, Dark fantasy, and Horror inspired by Edgar Allan Poe ; sheduled for early 2009. The anthology includes M. Rickert, Glen Hirshberg, Pat Cadigan, and others.

My Introduction to The Autopsy and Other Tales

Jan. 27th, 2008 at 6:21 PM

Now it may be told:

I recently completed and delivered the introduction of Michael Shea's upcoming collection The Autopsy and Other Tales. It's a massive tome. Centipede Press plans to bring it forth later this year. Going over all those old stories just reestablished in my mind what a terrific author the man is -- I think the mega-collection will be a classic and I'm very proud to have contributed in some small way.

Edit* Link: http://www.centipedepress.com/home.html

No release date, so 2008 may be a guess. I'm pretty sure Michael said 2008 at WFC, however.

However...

Jan. 25th, 2008 at 3:57 PM

Via Locus: press release

The American Library Association Reading List Council named The Imago Sequence among the year's "outstanding genre fiction" in horror alongside books by Sarah Langan, Dan Simmons, Sarah Pinborough, Mignola & Golden, and Philip Haldeman.

Take that, NY Times!

NY Times Upside My Head

Jan. 25th, 2008 at 3:01 PM

A couple of choice pimp slaps The Imago Sequence received from T. Rafferty of the NY Times Book Review:

"The mythology Lovecraft cooked up was, God help him, personal and passionate; it carries a whiff of madness. Lacking that authentic, unfakable, belief-compelling insanity, stories like those in “The Imago Sequence” can’t achieve anything much better than nuttiness. And that’s not scary.

Reading Barron, though, I realized that part of the reason his stories leave me cold is that they assume, as too much genre fiction does, a highish level of reader credulity, and I resent it. What kind of reader do you think I am? I’m not easy."

That quote isn't the worst, but it captures the essence. Ah, a beatdown by the Times. Mama, I'm a man!

PS: Linkage: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/books/review/Rafferty-t.html?8bu&emc=bu

PPS: He kicks Clive Barker's ass, too!

SJA