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Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology
From the heart of The Velvet--a writing community built around the fervent love of neo-noir fiction--comes an original anthology. Stacked with brilliant emerging writers alongside some of the strongest established voices in contemporary literature, WARMED AND BOUND crosses literary boundaries on all sides, to deliver an altogether unique reading experience. Through seemingly opposed conventions, beautiful prose makes a hard impression on the short story form. From a scary love story to a nostalgic thriller, a hardboiled pursuit of salvation to the black humor that is existentialism, WARMED AND BOUND is rogue humility and lovesick noir, where humanity is a dirty puzzle.
It's Velvet Noir. Welcome.
With stories by: Matt Bell, Tim Beverstock, Blake Butler, Vincent Louis Carrella, Craig Clevenger, Craig Davidson, Chris Deal, DeLeon DeMicoli, Christopher J Dwyer, Brian Evenson, Sean P Ferguson, Amanda Gowin, JR Harlan, Gordon Highland, Anthony David Jacques, Mark Jaskowski, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Stephen Graham Jones, Nik Korpon, Gary Paul Libero, Kyle Minor, Doc O'Donnell, J David Osborne, Rob Parker, Bob Pastorella, Gavin Pate, Cameron Pierce, Edward J Rathke, Caleb J Ross, Bradley Sands, Axel Taiari, Richard Thomas, Brandon Tietz, Gayle Towell, Paul Tremblay, Pela Via, Craig Wallwork, and Nic Young.
"The writers of the Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas . . . The result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy." --Steve Erickson author of ZEROVILLE and THE SEA CAME IN AT MIDNIGHT
It's Velvet Noir. Welcome.
With stories by: Matt Bell, Tim Beverstock, Blake Butler, Vincent Louis Carrella, Craig Clevenger, Craig Davidson, Chris Deal, DeLeon DeMicoli, Christopher J Dwyer, Brian Evenson, Sean P Ferguson, Amanda Gowin, JR Harlan, Gordon Highland, Anthony David Jacques, Mark Jaskowski, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Stephen Graham Jones, Nik Korpon, Gary Paul Libero, Kyle Minor, Doc O'Donnell, J David Osborne, Rob Parker, Bob Pastorella, Gavin Pate, Cameron Pierce, Edward J Rathke, Caleb J Ross, Bradley Sands, Axel Taiari, Richard Thomas, Brandon Tietz, Gayle Towell, Paul Tremblay, Pela Via, Craig Wallwork, and Nic Young.
"The writers of the Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas . . . The result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy." --Steve Erickson author of ZEROVILLE and THE SEA CAME IN AT MIDNIGHT
408 pages, Paperback
First published July 22, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
September 15, 2011
If you take your fiction dark, Warmed and Bound is a rare collection: all killer, no filler. It’s amazing to imagine a collection like this, with so many authors and voices included, could come together to create something so solid from cover to cover. The range of emotion and tone in these pages is broad, even tending as they all do towards the darker, more depressing aspects of humanity. The reason for this, I think, is that most of the stories cling to, struggle with, and lift up the most important aspect of darkness in fiction: hope.
Nothing here feels morbid or sinister for the sake of pure emotion (writing just to sound edgy or brooding), but rather for examining the aspects of character and story in a multitude of seemingly hopeless situations and always finding something to strive towards. In some cases, only remnants of hope, embers and ashes; in others, a chance for the world to return to bloom.
The standout stories for me:
Edward J Rathke’s Tree of Life, a frightening, frustrating look at love in a world torn asunder. The world is literally going to hell as the story examines various aspects of love and what it means to be in love. It’s powerful and character driven, even though the premise is somewhat high-concept. A tightwire performance of writing, deftly maneuvered. Gordon Highland’s Headshot is full of gallow’s humor, delivering the kind of twisted fun and action I used to love so much on Tales From the Crypt. Pela Via’s Touch is raw, challenging, difficult family drama. Combined with Gayle Towell’s shattering Seed and Amanda Gowin’s melancholy The World Was Clocks, the ladies in this book seize their time onstage and leave you floored. And the grand finale, Chris Deal’s In Exile is intense, heartbreaking, and a truly amazing tale of… if not redemption, then as close as a damned man could come to it. I am rarely moved emotionally by fiction, especially short fiction, but Deal always delivers the goods, and the final notes of this story are simultaneously uplifting and a punch in the gut.
Naming only these stories gives short shrift to the other incredible voices in the book, from Stephen Graham Jones and Craig Clevenger to Richard Thomas, JR Harlan, Bob Pastorella… really, I could just print the entire table of contents here. I don’t buy many short story collection, but I liken the experience to buying an album. If four of the ten songs on the album are great, I’m happy. If six or more are good, I’m blown away. Anything over that number and I consider it near-classic. This collection, these authors, they sing. You should listen.
September 5, 2012
I first fell in love with Velvet fiction when I read Will Christopher Baer's Phineas Poe Trilogy. It still contains some of the most beautifully written sentences I've ever read. I was addicted, and went in search of more voices similar to Baer's. I found them in The Velvet. When I saw Warmed and Bound--an entire anthology of writers I adored--I bought it in an instant.
This anthology pulls together stories that are sad, funny, frightening, beautiful and haunting. The anthology doesn't present a direct theme, but the writers of The Velvet tend to draw blood from similar veins, so themes naturally work their way in. The writing is exquisite, painfully sharp and profoundly resonant. Reading Warmed and Bound is like cutting your finger on glass. It's unexpected, sometimes painful, but you can't deny that it makes you feel alive.
This anthology pulls together stories that are sad, funny, frightening, beautiful and haunting. The anthology doesn't present a direct theme, but the writers of The Velvet tend to draw blood from similar veins, so themes naturally work their way in. The writing is exquisite, painfully sharp and profoundly resonant. Reading Warmed and Bound is like cutting your finger on glass. It's unexpected, sometimes painful, but you can't deny that it makes you feel alive.
September 10, 2011
WARMED AND BOUND is the first book published by The Velvet Press, and what a debut it is. The Velvet Press takes its name from a Web site (The Velvet) originally set up in 2004 (with help from the folks behind Chuck Palahniuk's (FIGHT CLUB; CHOKE) Web site, The Cult) as a forum for neo-noir* authors Will Christopher Baer (KISS ME, JUDAS; HELL'S HALF ACRE), Craig Clevenger (THE CONTORTIONIST'S HANDBOOK; DERMAPHORIA) and later, the prolific Stephen Graham Jones (DEMON THEORY; IT CAME FROM DEL RIO). (*There is no apt description for this kind of writing, but neo-noir comes closest.)
The site quickly blossomed into something much more than a fan site, as many talented young authors, themselves fans of the authors mentioned above, began flocking to The Velvet to share and discuss their own stories. Flash forward seven years to the present and the list of people frequenting the site has grown to include established authors, fresh writers eager to express themselves, and more fans of independent artists in the book and film industries.
WARMED AND BOUND is a collection of 38 short stories from this community of misfits, miscreants and misanthropes. The stories have been described as "Velvet Noir," a variation of neo-noir which means nothing to those not familiar with the Web site and its family of writers. Yet the term fits, and like "Cyberpunk" (coined by Bruce Bethke and made popular by William Gibson and others), "Velvet Noir" may someday become a sub-genre unto itself. How does one describe Velvet Noir? I'll leave that to those with a better flair for words. To me it means dark, post-modern, non-traditional, experimental, creative, and most importantly, quality prose.
As for the 38 stories in WARMED AND BOUND, they share nothing in common, yet combined form one of the most talked-about and "must read" anthologies to come out in a long time. From the foreword by Steve Erickson -- one of, if not the, most original voices in contemporary literature:
"The writers of the Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas . . . The result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy."
It's hard for me to pick favorites. None of the stories are fillers, as seems to be the case in many anthologies. The styles of writing are varied but always gorgeous. I found myself touched on some unconscious level by Amanda Gowin's entry, "The World Was Clocks," in which a twin sister struggles with the sudden departure of her sibling and the death of their parents and her own daughter, only to be reunited with her sister in an ending that forced me to reconsider the entire story and the reliability of the protagonist's narrative. Gowin's prose is haunting and elusive, and fits perfectly in this eclectic collection.
The heartbreaking tale "Touch" by Pela Via also deserves mention. There is more emotion packed into seven pages than in most novels. Like all short stories, it's difficult to write a synopsis without giving away something that should be experienced alone and void of preconceptions or expectations. Sometimes a sentence or two is all that is needed to convey everything while revealing nothing. From "Touch":
"You killed me that day. Have you ever had to hold your mouth with both hands?"
(Pela Via also served as the anthology's editor -- a demanding role overlooked by most readers, particularly people (like me) whose written output is limited to e-mails, text messages and Facebook updates. While reading WARMED AND BOUND, I was impressed with Via's sequencing of 38 non-connected stories, and by her ability to impart to these sundry tales an undertow of familiarity in a sea of disparateness. The overall effect created by Via was that these stories belong together, and each is stronger by virtue of being in the company of the others.)
The heavy hitters in WARMED AND BOUND -- Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones and Brian Evenson, to name a few -- contribute pieces that alone make this an anthology worth checking out. But the truly amazing thing about this particular collection is that the stories from the authors whose names are not as well known (yet) are just as good. Writers like Richard Thomas, Caleb J Ross, Gavin Pate, Bob Pastorella, Gary Paul Libero, Nik Korpon, Anthony David Jacques, Gordon Highland, JR Harlan, Sean P Ferguson, Chris Deal and all the other authors assembled in WARMED AND BOUND are authors to watch. I know I will seek out their other works and look forward to their future projects. It's exciting to see such a gifted group of writers finally getting the exposure they deserve.
If you are tired of the same, recycled novels and stories, best-sellers and formulaic plot lines, read WARMED AND BOUND. If you are looking for offbeat, dark, uncategorizable, unique and, above all, exciting reading material, check out WARMED AND BOUND.
"Anthology of the Year" anyone? I'm casting my vote now. Welcome to The Velvet. It warms and binds. Highly recommended.
The site quickly blossomed into something much more than a fan site, as many talented young authors, themselves fans of the authors mentioned above, began flocking to The Velvet to share and discuss their own stories. Flash forward seven years to the present and the list of people frequenting the site has grown to include established authors, fresh writers eager to express themselves, and more fans of independent artists in the book and film industries.
WARMED AND BOUND is a collection of 38 short stories from this community of misfits, miscreants and misanthropes. The stories have been described as "Velvet Noir," a variation of neo-noir which means nothing to those not familiar with the Web site and its family of writers. Yet the term fits, and like "Cyberpunk" (coined by Bruce Bethke and made popular by William Gibson and others), "Velvet Noir" may someday become a sub-genre unto itself. How does one describe Velvet Noir? I'll leave that to those with a better flair for words. To me it means dark, post-modern, non-traditional, experimental, creative, and most importantly, quality prose.
As for the 38 stories in WARMED AND BOUND, they share nothing in common, yet combined form one of the most talked-about and "must read" anthologies to come out in a long time. From the foreword by Steve Erickson -- one of, if not the, most original voices in contemporary literature:
"The writers of the Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas . . . The result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy."
It's hard for me to pick favorites. None of the stories are fillers, as seems to be the case in many anthologies. The styles of writing are varied but always gorgeous. I found myself touched on some unconscious level by Amanda Gowin's entry, "The World Was Clocks," in which a twin sister struggles with the sudden departure of her sibling and the death of their parents and her own daughter, only to be reunited with her sister in an ending that forced me to reconsider the entire story and the reliability of the protagonist's narrative. Gowin's prose is haunting and elusive, and fits perfectly in this eclectic collection.
The heartbreaking tale "Touch" by Pela Via also deserves mention. There is more emotion packed into seven pages than in most novels. Like all short stories, it's difficult to write a synopsis without giving away something that should be experienced alone and void of preconceptions or expectations. Sometimes a sentence or two is all that is needed to convey everything while revealing nothing. From "Touch":
"You killed me that day. Have you ever had to hold your mouth with both hands?"
(Pela Via also served as the anthology's editor -- a demanding role overlooked by most readers, particularly people (like me) whose written output is limited to e-mails, text messages and Facebook updates. While reading WARMED AND BOUND, I was impressed with Via's sequencing of 38 non-connected stories, and by her ability to impart to these sundry tales an undertow of familiarity in a sea of disparateness. The overall effect created by Via was that these stories belong together, and each is stronger by virtue of being in the company of the others.)
The heavy hitters in WARMED AND BOUND -- Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones and Brian Evenson, to name a few -- contribute pieces that alone make this an anthology worth checking out. But the truly amazing thing about this particular collection is that the stories from the authors whose names are not as well known (yet) are just as good. Writers like Richard Thomas, Caleb J Ross, Gavin Pate, Bob Pastorella, Gary Paul Libero, Nik Korpon, Anthony David Jacques, Gordon Highland, JR Harlan, Sean P Ferguson, Chris Deal and all the other authors assembled in WARMED AND BOUND are authors to watch. I know I will seek out their other works and look forward to their future projects. It's exciting to see such a gifted group of writers finally getting the exposure they deserve.
If you are tired of the same, recycled novels and stories, best-sellers and formulaic plot lines, read WARMED AND BOUND. If you are looking for offbeat, dark, uncategorizable, unique and, above all, exciting reading material, check out WARMED AND BOUND.
"Anthology of the Year" anyone? I'm casting my vote now. Welcome to The Velvet. It warms and binds. Highly recommended.
October 11, 2011
“Warmed and Bound” is thick with morbid surprises and vibrant prose. I read the thirty-eight-storied beast on an eighteen-hour flight from Vienna to Los Angeles, during which I thought my head would explode and my lungs disintegrate into chalk; the way most folks feel on those kinds of flights.
In Steve Erickson’s dramatic foreword, he described “W&B” as a place where “fixation and fetish swap meanings and moments” and I thought he must’ve been referring to Matt Bell’s creepy and great “Mantodea” where temporary lusts grew into voracious hunger for self-destruction: glass-swallowing fun. Or, he could’ve been referring to Amanda Gowin’s “Yellow urine on a stick turning pink, pails of blue paint obliterating the room” in her intriguing, “World of Clocks.” I yearned to slip and slide in those places of fetish and fixation. You will too.
In the foreword, Erickson asked, “What is your soundtrack?” My Austrian Air flight was shoulder-to-shoulder crammed. A chubby baby cried across the isle, held by a twenty-something girl with wet armpits. She fell asleep holding him, unaware that his head jerked and slid towards the armrest. The panic rose in my fingertips as the wobbling baby hit his head. Those cries were my “Warmed and Bound” soundtrack.
Like my flight, “W&B” was crammed with fleshy, contorted characters on the brink of disaster. Unfortunately, only two of the thirty-eight tales were written by women and one by its editor, Pela Via whose searing Parkinson’s love story, “Touch” was especially potent. She wrote about the squirmy parts of a loved ones’ illness: the rage and dignity and the “grief that settled in bones like cement.” There were many stars that dazzled me, like Via, but for this review, I had to pick the ones that shimmered the brightest.
Where the female authorship was lacking, the femme fatale quotient was high so I’ll begin there: Nik Korpon’s gorgeous, violent story “This Will All End Well” was a shocking setup gone terribly array and a seething love affair with chance. His French femme fatal was wicked, powerful and vulnerable. Dangerous dames also haunted Craig Clevenger’s sexy, restrained “Act of Contrition.” It began with a disturbingly hot, petulant teenage cousin sipping a swiped beer in a bikini. “I’ve been good my whole life” was the tightrope Clevenger walked with clenched teeth throughout his bizarre ride through the desert night. Clevenger knows tension like a family pet and describes “silence like a sleeping dog between us.” He knows the silence of hookers in headlights. His words ached with the lonesomeness of knowing.
There were bad girls, runaways and little girls with guns in Kyle Minor’s jaw dropper “They Take You” where religious cult elders abducted kids from a birthday party and it was a downward-spiral lollipop from there. My favorite story was Richard Thomas’ brave “Say Yes to Pleasure” because it was horrendous perfection: believable and impossible guilt folded into an origami swan. He played with victim/perpetrator in a farm fresh way, steering his tractor of self-punishment from a terrible accident he caused into an internal avalanche of remorse and hot sex. His vital crisp story contained the most delicious sentence in the anthology: “This one moment of beauty in our lives, always hidden under a cloud of despair.”
Paul Tremblay reminded me of Rebecca Brown’s (The Terrible Girls) severed arm beautifully, offering stolen limbs with ribbons and memory loss. His story hung vignettes one by one as if by a clothesline and his sentences stung with beauty like “fried air poured over my skin.” He wrote about desire and power in a casual place where expectation and resentment collided. His story hooked me here: “I’m supposed to think about having sex with him, but he makes me feel tired instead.” Nic Young’s “My German Daughter,” a story about first times and happy accidents was painfully concise, but too short. I wanted more, more, more. But Stephen Graham Jones, God Damn, did he deliver. “The Road Lester Took” had wonderful, awful characters with their scabby flaws on parade, playing cards while dipping into the Pharmacy bowl for mystery powders. His characters were ego-driven, desperate and sad. His characters played that poker hand that’s never good enough in lives that fall short with men who are only good for daytime television and betting video footage of their wives boobs. “The Road Lester Took” isn’t about getting away with shit. It’s an emotionally inappropriate text message to the loser in all of us with dialogue that’s tense and full of secrets. He showed that mighty awkwardness between lovers who know, but don’t know each other. The ending was a tender and painful drive to the smooth road with his wife: a sweet and twisted ending
In Steve Erickson’s dramatic foreword, he described “W&B” as a place where “fixation and fetish swap meanings and moments” and I thought he must’ve been referring to Matt Bell’s creepy and great “Mantodea” where temporary lusts grew into voracious hunger for self-destruction: glass-swallowing fun. Or, he could’ve been referring to Amanda Gowin’s “Yellow urine on a stick turning pink, pails of blue paint obliterating the room” in her intriguing, “World of Clocks.” I yearned to slip and slide in those places of fetish and fixation. You will too.
In the foreword, Erickson asked, “What is your soundtrack?” My Austrian Air flight was shoulder-to-shoulder crammed. A chubby baby cried across the isle, held by a twenty-something girl with wet armpits. She fell asleep holding him, unaware that his head jerked and slid towards the armrest. The panic rose in my fingertips as the wobbling baby hit his head. Those cries were my “Warmed and Bound” soundtrack.
Like my flight, “W&B” was crammed with fleshy, contorted characters on the brink of disaster. Unfortunately, only two of the thirty-eight tales were written by women and one by its editor, Pela Via whose searing Parkinson’s love story, “Touch” was especially potent. She wrote about the squirmy parts of a loved ones’ illness: the rage and dignity and the “grief that settled in bones like cement.” There were many stars that dazzled me, like Via, but for this review, I had to pick the ones that shimmered the brightest.
Where the female authorship was lacking, the femme fatale quotient was high so I’ll begin there: Nik Korpon’s gorgeous, violent story “This Will All End Well” was a shocking setup gone terribly array and a seething love affair with chance. His French femme fatal was wicked, powerful and vulnerable. Dangerous dames also haunted Craig Clevenger’s sexy, restrained “Act of Contrition.” It began with a disturbingly hot, petulant teenage cousin sipping a swiped beer in a bikini. “I’ve been good my whole life” was the tightrope Clevenger walked with clenched teeth throughout his bizarre ride through the desert night. Clevenger knows tension like a family pet and describes “silence like a sleeping dog between us.” He knows the silence of hookers in headlights. His words ached with the lonesomeness of knowing.
There were bad girls, runaways and little girls with guns in Kyle Minor’s jaw dropper “They Take You” where religious cult elders abducted kids from a birthday party and it was a downward-spiral lollipop from there. My favorite story was Richard Thomas’ brave “Say Yes to Pleasure” because it was horrendous perfection: believable and impossible guilt folded into an origami swan. He played with victim/perpetrator in a farm fresh way, steering his tractor of self-punishment from a terrible accident he caused into an internal avalanche of remorse and hot sex. His vital crisp story contained the most delicious sentence in the anthology: “This one moment of beauty in our lives, always hidden under a cloud of despair.”
Paul Tremblay reminded me of Rebecca Brown’s (The Terrible Girls) severed arm beautifully, offering stolen limbs with ribbons and memory loss. His story hung vignettes one by one as if by a clothesline and his sentences stung with beauty like “fried air poured over my skin.” He wrote about desire and power in a casual place where expectation and resentment collided. His story hooked me here: “I’m supposed to think about having sex with him, but he makes me feel tired instead.” Nic Young’s “My German Daughter,” a story about first times and happy accidents was painfully concise, but too short. I wanted more, more, more. But Stephen Graham Jones, God Damn, did he deliver. “The Road Lester Took” had wonderful, awful characters with their scabby flaws on parade, playing cards while dipping into the Pharmacy bowl for mystery powders. His characters were ego-driven, desperate and sad. His characters played that poker hand that’s never good enough in lives that fall short with men who are only good for daytime television and betting video footage of their wives boobs. “The Road Lester Took” isn’t about getting away with shit. It’s an emotionally inappropriate text message to the loser in all of us with dialogue that’s tense and full of secrets. He showed that mighty awkwardness between lovers who know, but don’t know each other. The ending was a tender and painful drive to the smooth road with his wife: a sweet and twisted ending
March 30, 2012
I bought Warmed and bound when it first came out and was pretty excited to read it. When I got it in the mail I was still excited just by looking at it. The Velvet did a really great job with this book. I started into it, there’s a very nice forward by Steve Erickson followed by an intro by Logan Rapp, the thread sky marshal over at The Velvet. And then the stories. Upon completing them all I was left in awe at the fact that there was not a bad one in the bunch. Usually when you read an Anthology, especially one of this size, there will be the few stories that just didn’t do it for you. As unbelievable as it may seem, that is not the case here. Every story in this book is good, really good. One should not skip over a single one, you would be missing out on something very worthwhile.
Of course you have the heavy hitters, the guys you already know will have some quality stories, like Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones, and Richard Thomas. Chances are if your checking this book out you may know Cameron Pierce and Bradley Sands, two leading Bizarro authors. The biggest treat for me though were the stories by authors I had never read anything from before. I won’t go through every single one of these stories but I will touch on a couple of my personal favorites.
Right off the bat the book starts with Axel Taiari’s Death Juggler, which doesn’t just raise the bar for the rest of the stories, it launches that bar into orbit. It didn’t matter though when the following stories are by such talent as Caleb J Ross, the before mentioned Cameron Pierce, Paul G Tremebly, and Nik Korpon to name a few. Edward J Rathke’s The tree of Life was only the beginning in a series of emotional head trips that kept me page turning.
But soon after this I set the book down, and for one reason or another I didn’t pick it back up until about a week ago. Realizing I never finished all the stories I jumped back in at Jeremy Robert Johnson’s Laws of Virulence, a story that will make you know JRJ deserves all the praise he receives about his books. From here I went on to read some of the best short stories I have ever read. One that really came out of nowhere and took me off guard as far as quality and enjoyment was Bruised Flesh by Craig Wallwork. This story began a trifecta of absolute perfection that was completed by Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Men By Craig Davidson and Three Theories on the Murder of John Wily by J David Osbourne. That’s three names that are now at the top of my radar.
To try and wrap up this lengthy review I want to mention Richard Thomas’s Say Yes to Pleasure. I have read quite a few of his short stories and his debut novel Transubstinate, but this story has become my favorite by him so far. This piece will tear at your heart, it has a sadness that can only be matched by Pela Via’s story Touch. Finishing out this massive collection is Chris Deal’s In Exile, to use a word that may be thrown around quite a bit describing this anthology, heartbreaking. A fitting end to a collection of dark and fierce literature.
I’ve said all this just to say this is an extremely great collection of stories. I have yet to find an anthology that contains so much excellent work by so many authors I had not read before. I can’t recommend this book enough.
Of course you have the heavy hitters, the guys you already know will have some quality stories, like Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones, and Richard Thomas. Chances are if your checking this book out you may know Cameron Pierce and Bradley Sands, two leading Bizarro authors. The biggest treat for me though were the stories by authors I had never read anything from before. I won’t go through every single one of these stories but I will touch on a couple of my personal favorites.
Right off the bat the book starts with Axel Taiari’s Death Juggler, which doesn’t just raise the bar for the rest of the stories, it launches that bar into orbit. It didn’t matter though when the following stories are by such talent as Caleb J Ross, the before mentioned Cameron Pierce, Paul G Tremebly, and Nik Korpon to name a few. Edward J Rathke’s The tree of Life was only the beginning in a series of emotional head trips that kept me page turning.
But soon after this I set the book down, and for one reason or another I didn’t pick it back up until about a week ago. Realizing I never finished all the stories I jumped back in at Jeremy Robert Johnson’s Laws of Virulence, a story that will make you know JRJ deserves all the praise he receives about his books. From here I went on to read some of the best short stories I have ever read. One that really came out of nowhere and took me off guard as far as quality and enjoyment was Bruised Flesh by Craig Wallwork. This story began a trifecta of absolute perfection that was completed by Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Men By Craig Davidson and Three Theories on the Murder of John Wily by J David Osbourne. That’s three names that are now at the top of my radar.
To try and wrap up this lengthy review I want to mention Richard Thomas’s Say Yes to Pleasure. I have read quite a few of his short stories and his debut novel Transubstinate, but this story has become my favorite by him so far. This piece will tear at your heart, it has a sadness that can only be matched by Pela Via’s story Touch. Finishing out this massive collection is Chris Deal’s In Exile, to use a word that may be thrown around quite a bit describing this anthology, heartbreaking. A fitting end to a collection of dark and fierce literature.
I’ve said all this just to say this is an extremely great collection of stories. I have yet to find an anthology that contains so much excellent work by so many authors I had not read before. I can’t recommend this book enough.
October 18, 2011
After reading Warmed and Bound, you might be convinced that the writers of this anthology were all raised in hell, but you would be mistaken. For if the devil had this much talent, he’d throw away his pitchfork and start cranking out prose on the typewriter he borrowed from the Unabomber. It’s more likely that the writers are the love children of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Bukowski —raised in an orphanage run by a senile Rod Serling.
This volume of 38 stories include:
• Stephen Graham Jones hosts a poker game where the pot is pot and everyone loses more then he wins.
• Craig Clevenger brings us a man in the endless American desert, searching for god and redemption for crimes he only dreamed of committing.
• Brian Evenson is a magician, except that what he pulls out of his story within a story is not a rabbit, but a killer. Or perhaps, there is no killer, perhaps the protagonist has an over active imagination. Perhaps he is paranoid. Or maybe he isn’t paranoid enough.
The twists are numerous, the narrators unreliable, sometimes blood appears or hearts are broken--just when you think you know what’s going to happen next you are confronted directly by a story like Touch (by the book’s editor, Pela Via). The story grabs your soul, shakes it like a dog torments a rodent, and then gently places it back on your La-Z-Boy where you may or may not fully recover.
Buy this book. The authors are going places, places that don’t require a passport, but rather strength of character and a willingness to stare into the abyss for long enough to witness the darkness staring back at them. When you return from your journey you will not be the same person as when you left, but you will thank the authors, and eagerly await your next encounter with each of them.
This volume of 38 stories include:
• Stephen Graham Jones hosts a poker game where the pot is pot and everyone loses more then he wins.
• Craig Clevenger brings us a man in the endless American desert, searching for god and redemption for crimes he only dreamed of committing.
• Brian Evenson is a magician, except that what he pulls out of his story within a story is not a rabbit, but a killer. Or perhaps, there is no killer, perhaps the protagonist has an over active imagination. Perhaps he is paranoid. Or maybe he isn’t paranoid enough.
The twists are numerous, the narrators unreliable, sometimes blood appears or hearts are broken--just when you think you know what’s going to happen next you are confronted directly by a story like Touch (by the book’s editor, Pela Via). The story grabs your soul, shakes it like a dog torments a rodent, and then gently places it back on your La-Z-Boy where you may or may not fully recover.
Buy this book. The authors are going places, places that don’t require a passport, but rather strength of character and a willingness to stare into the abyss for long enough to witness the darkness staring back at them. When you return from your journey you will not be the same person as when you left, but you will thank the authors, and eagerly await your next encounter with each of them.
September 8, 2011
A must read for fans of dark fiction. Filled with stories of loss, love and loves lost this is one of the best short story books I've ever read. You may have never heard of some of these writers but, don't be fooled. It's filled with major talent and I mean full. With thirty-eight authors of varying styles ranging from Lit to SciFi to Bizarro, pitch dark and well written, this book is worth the money.
Some notable favorites and names to watch for: Axel Tairi-"Death Juggler", Amanda Gowin-"The World Was Clocks", Cameron Pierce-"Crazy Love", Nik Korpon-"This Will All End Well", Christopher J Dwyer-"Midnight Souls", Edward J Rathke-"The Tree Of Life", Kyle Minor-"They Take You", Pela Via-"Touch", and on and on. I could easily just copy the table of contents.
Bottom line. If your looking for something new, something dark and something that will make you feel a little bit on the inside look no further. Highly Re-readable. Highly Recommended.
Some notable favorites and names to watch for: Axel Tairi-"Death Juggler", Amanda Gowin-"The World Was Clocks", Cameron Pierce-"Crazy Love", Nik Korpon-"This Will All End Well", Christopher J Dwyer-"Midnight Souls", Edward J Rathke-"The Tree Of Life", Kyle Minor-"They Take You", Pela Via-"Touch", and on and on. I could easily just copy the table of contents.
Bottom line. If your looking for something new, something dark and something that will make you feel a little bit on the inside look no further. Highly Re-readable. Highly Recommended.
August 31, 2014
An absolutely amazing collection from The Velvet. Long live Velvet Noir!!!
September 1, 2011
Read Gavin Pate's story!
April 21, 2013
A truly dark and haunting anthology written from the edge of human experiences. Neo-noir at it's best.Compelling and tormenting in it's brilliance.Loved every painful moment of it.
April 8, 2014
See, I don't think I've lost my appreciation for the wonderfully weird in fiction. I really don't think that's the case -- or, at least, I hope not. But...I used to love bizarro fiction. I used to love when strange, unexplained stuff popped up out of nowhere. I used to love revolting descriptions that have nothing to do with the plot simply by virtue of the fact that they were visceral.
Am I getting old? Am I growing up?! Perish the thought. I do think, though, that I'm outgrowing weird fiction. At least this particular brand.
I picked up this book based on two factors: the first, and most important, was that Steve Erickson (king of my literary heart) wrote the foreword -- and if he was down, then so was I. The second was the excellent description of the Velvet movement, included as a back-of-the-book summary. "Neo-noir twisted love stories" with "beautiful prose;" sign me up!
Problem 1: Erickson's foreword was a paltry two pages. I've read forewords he's written where he firmly believes in the material (Krilanovich's The Orange Eats Creeps), and they're beautiful, raw, like his fiction. This one wasn't. I should have suspected.
Problem 2: The summary was misleading. Beautiful prose? No. Affected, purple prose? Occasionally. Eye-rolling cliched prose? Sometimes. Prose that couldn't quite disguise the flaws? Almost always.
There were a few stories I enjoyed (though none stand out with any strength), but as a rule, they felt like snapshots of college lit/MFA boys writing through their darker desires and feelings. That's fine -- that's totally fine -- but I'm at the point, now, where I just don't care. My interest in the darker parts of humanity is still alive and kicking -- but I don't want to read about the same trailer-trash drunks having bad affairs in 75% of the stories. They were formulaic, patterned, uninteresting -- writing exercizes, instead of full-fledged stories.
To that end, strangely (and call me out on the sexism, go ahead, I've heard it before) -- although for various reasons I tend towards male authors, I found myself anticipating the female authors in this collection. Their stories seemed to take the more relevant parts of the Velvet and spin them into something more interesting. The male authors -- not all of them, but most -- stuck to the formula, even when they appeared to be doing something unique.
I guess that's the major problem -- I feel like, after 400 pages, I read the same story about 30 times, with slight variations. It may be that the movement is too narrow for my interest; it may be that I am no longer interested in weird fiction at all; it may just be that I can't relate to this particular type of young male experience. But I don't like the feeling I get from books like this anymore. And while that is too bad for my past raging lit-degree self, I am sure there are people out there who will devour this collection blissfully. I might have even been one of them, once upon a time.
Am I getting old? Am I growing up?! Perish the thought. I do think, though, that I'm outgrowing weird fiction. At least this particular brand.
I picked up this book based on two factors: the first, and most important, was that Steve Erickson (king of my literary heart) wrote the foreword -- and if he was down, then so was I. The second was the excellent description of the Velvet movement, included as a back-of-the-book summary. "Neo-noir twisted love stories" with "beautiful prose;" sign me up!
Problem 1: Erickson's foreword was a paltry two pages. I've read forewords he's written where he firmly believes in the material (Krilanovich's The Orange Eats Creeps), and they're beautiful, raw, like his fiction. This one wasn't. I should have suspected.
Problem 2: The summary was misleading. Beautiful prose? No. Affected, purple prose? Occasionally. Eye-rolling cliched prose? Sometimes. Prose that couldn't quite disguise the flaws? Almost always.
There were a few stories I enjoyed (though none stand out with any strength), but as a rule, they felt like snapshots of college lit/MFA boys writing through their darker desires and feelings. That's fine -- that's totally fine -- but I'm at the point, now, where I just don't care. My interest in the darker parts of humanity is still alive and kicking -- but I don't want to read about the same trailer-trash drunks having bad affairs in 75% of the stories. They were formulaic, patterned, uninteresting -- writing exercizes, instead of full-fledged stories.
To that end, strangely (and call me out on the sexism, go ahead, I've heard it before) -- although for various reasons I tend towards male authors, I found myself anticipating the female authors in this collection. Their stories seemed to take the more relevant parts of the Velvet and spin them into something more interesting. The male authors -- not all of them, but most -- stuck to the formula, even when they appeared to be doing something unique.
I guess that's the major problem -- I feel like, after 400 pages, I read the same story about 30 times, with slight variations. It may be that the movement is too narrow for my interest; it may be that I am no longer interested in weird fiction at all; it may just be that I can't relate to this particular type of young male experience. But I don't like the feeling I get from books like this anymore. And while that is too bad for my past raging lit-degree self, I am sure there are people out there who will devour this collection blissfully. I might have even been one of them, once upon a time.
November 16, 2011
Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology, is a collection of tales unlike any that I’ve read before. The Foreword and the Preface attempt to explain the idea of “Velvet” to people, like me, who are unfamiliar with the term. The “Velvet” is dark, first of all – an aesthetic, anarchic, rebellious genre whose very nature defies definition and labels. The stories themselves are modern and chilling. A few remind me vaguely of Poe’s gothic horror; others seem to present dark twists on ghost stories, love stories, and human drama. It is difficult to define the connection between the different tales, except that each one has that same unflinching darkness, that same “feel.” The stories, which are short, tightly written narratives that can be read in a single sitting, are a varied collection of love, of hate, of pleasure, of pain, of despair, and, mercifully, of hope. I was therefore able to step outside my reading comfort zone in small increments, a few stories at a time. An extreme book that pulls no punches, it provides a fascinating (and terrifying) experience. I recommend it not just for lovers of horror or noir, but also for anyone who loves short stories, drama, or excitement. I received this book free through Goodreads First Reads.
December 31, 2011
I have to admit - I skipped around after a while. The aesthetics of the stories got a bit repetitive. Every one of these stories, save the Clevenger one, could probably have been written by the same person.
That being said, I enjoyed the anthology and the writing was overall refreshing.
I was going to do an individual review of each story I read, but that would probably take longer than it's worth. The stories I actually got through can be grouped into four categories. So, here's your reader's guide:
Great:
"Act of Contrition," by Craig Clevenger
Good (in order of goodness):
"In Exile," by Chris Deal
"Death Juggler," by Axel Taiari
"Fading Glory," by Brandon Tietz
"Click-Clack," by Caleb J. Ross
"Say Yes to Pleasure," by Richard Thomas
Good writing, but with nothing particularly interesting to say:
"The World Was Clocks," by Amanda Gowin
"Crazy Love," by Cameron Pierce
"Bad, Bad,Bad Bad Men," by Craig Davidson
Bad (in order of badness):
"Midnight Souls," by Christopher J. Dwyer
"The Road Lester Took," by Stephen Graham Jones
That being said, I enjoyed the anthology and the writing was overall refreshing.
I was going to do an individual review of each story I read, but that would probably take longer than it's worth. The stories I actually got through can be grouped into four categories. So, here's your reader's guide:
Great:
"Act of Contrition," by Craig Clevenger
Good (in order of goodness):
"In Exile," by Chris Deal
"Death Juggler," by Axel Taiari
"Fading Glory," by Brandon Tietz
"Click-Clack," by Caleb J. Ross
"Say Yes to Pleasure," by Richard Thomas
Good writing, but with nothing particularly interesting to say:
"The World Was Clocks," by Amanda Gowin
"Crazy Love," by Cameron Pierce
"Bad, Bad,Bad Bad Men," by Craig Davidson
Bad (in order of badness):
"Midnight Souls," by Christopher J. Dwyer
"The Road Lester Took," by Stephen Graham Jones
September 9, 2011
Yeah, I have a story in this so my opinion could be viewed as biased.
But it's not.
The plethora of talented authors destroying the page word by word makes this antho easily one of the best I've read in the last five years. What impresses me most is that, if you removed the names, you wouldn't be able to tell the 'established' authors from the 'emerging.' Every story is rock solid, full of vivd descriptions, complex characters, ridiculous jokes and bloody revenge. It's everything I could ask for in an anthology and I consider myself very lucky I was able to dupe them into taking my story.
But it's not.
The plethora of talented authors destroying the page word by word makes this antho easily one of the best I've read in the last five years. What impresses me most is that, if you removed the names, you wouldn't be able to tell the 'established' authors from the 'emerging.' Every story is rock solid, full of vivd descriptions, complex characters, ridiculous jokes and bloody revenge. It's everything I could ask for in an anthology and I consider myself very lucky I was able to dupe them into taking my story.
August 29, 2011
Full disclosure: I actually appear in this anthology. But don't take that as any indication that I'm not a reliable reviewer. There are some phenomenal authors in this collection you seriously need to read. I won't get into a litany of names, since I'm sure I'll forget somebody, but for the price tag, 38 neo-noir short stories is a helluva deal.
August 24, 2011
Buy this book, you will not be disappointed.
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION: I have a story in here, but there are 37 better stories in this collection, by 37 better authors. That's all I'm going to say.
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION: I have a story in here, but there are 37 better stories in this collection, by 37 better authors. That's all I'm going to say.
September 1, 2011
Warmed and Bound is this month's book club pick at Chuck Palahniuk's site. Join the discussion. http://bit.ly/qSBtZ1
wish-list
June 28, 2011Features new short fiction by Craig Clevenger, Brian Evenson and more. Foreword by Steve Erickson.
January 8, 2013
Mind blowing. Totally Original. The Velvet is a strange and beautiful place...
February 8, 2012
Three stars is collective here. There are some five-star stories in Warmed and Bound, several fours, a lot of threes. And, yeah, a few each of two and one-star stories.
Standouts here include the usual suspects. Craig Clevenger, Gordon Highland, Stephen Graham Jones, Nik Korpon, Caleb J. Ross, and Richard Thomas are the first that I recall with good sharp, punchy stories. But then, they are among my favorite contemporary writers and I've come to expect outstanding work from them, so no surprises there.
Standouts here include the usual suspects. Craig Clevenger, Gordon Highland, Stephen Graham Jones, Nik Korpon, Caleb J. Ross, and Richard Thomas are the first that I recall with good sharp, punchy stories. But then, they are among my favorite contemporary writers and I've come to expect outstanding work from them, so no surprises there.
July 31, 2013
Awesome collection of neo-noir and transgressive fiction as one would expect from The Velvet. I mainly bought it for some of my favorite authors like Craig Clevenger, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Richard Thomas and Stephen Graham Jones but I discovered some great new voices along the way. It's dark and compelling all the way through, but three stories above all others really stood out to me: "Acts of Contrition" By: Craig Clevenger (no surprise there), "All The Acid In The World" By: Gavin Pate and "The Tree of Life" By: Edward J. Rathke. Those three really blew me away ("The Tree of Life" was probably my favorite) and after reading them I immediately ordered Pate and Rathke's books. I'll be posting future reviews of those books as soon as I tear into them along with several of the authors in this collection that I've already added to my "To Read" list. Stay posted.
April 3, 2012
i really liked this collection of short stories. as usual though, some really didn't belong, i felt, and should have been left out by the editor, or else other stories in the writer's repertoire could have been used instead. others though were absolutely amazing and i'm looking forward to seeking out certain authors chosen for the anthology to read other works written by them. i mean, some really blew my mind. others i thought were rather pedestrian, shit that belonged in my high school or college lit mag. some i felt were over-indulgent and self-congratulatory. but overall i thought the book was definitely worth reading if you're into pulp, and with many of the short stories i was left wanting more, and not in a bad way.
August 19, 2012
Great collection. Great folks, though some aren't members of The Velvet, which sorta leaves a taste like ear wax in your mouth.
December 29, 2012
Good collection.
August 15, 2013
Well...
... huh...
... here's the thing:
There are some stories in here that are absolutely spectacular. I made a list of those authors, and will immediately seek out more of their work, and totally expect to find one or two "new favorite writers" in that batch. (That "batch," by the way, in case you're interested is: Matt Bell, Nik Korpon, Christopher J. Dwyer, Craig Davidson, Blake Butler, and Vincent Louis Carrella.)
And there are stories in here that are, quite frankly, the worst things I've ever read in my life. They are akin to when one of your friends writes a short story over the course of an afternoon, and then asks you to read it while they watch you expectantly. And the whole time you're reading, you're thinking, "What. In. The. Fuck...?"
What this collection mostly is, though, are writers who, if nothing else, mean very well. They have wild ideas and concepts, and try their best to hone them here into something readable. Even if not in quality, this collection still has a wonderful DIY feel that makes it worth suffering through the low spots.
... huh...
... here's the thing:
There are some stories in here that are absolutely spectacular. I made a list of those authors, and will immediately seek out more of their work, and totally expect to find one or two "new favorite writers" in that batch. (That "batch," by the way, in case you're interested is: Matt Bell, Nik Korpon, Christopher J. Dwyer, Craig Davidson, Blake Butler, and Vincent Louis Carrella.)
And there are stories in here that are, quite frankly, the worst things I've ever read in my life. They are akin to when one of your friends writes a short story over the course of an afternoon, and then asks you to read it while they watch you expectantly. And the whole time you're reading, you're thinking, "What. In. The. Fuck...?"
What this collection mostly is, though, are writers who, if nothing else, mean very well. They have wild ideas and concepts, and try their best to hone them here into something readable. Even if not in quality, this collection still has a wonderful DIY feel that makes it worth suffering through the low spots.
January 20, 2022
Great collection of up-and-coming dark writers. There were only a couple of stories (no names) that I wouldn't go back and read again. All in all, a great anthology showcasing the best of the new gen.
June 16, 2012
An interesting but uneven collection
December 25, 2013
Some good stories, some bad stories.
September 7, 2022
38 short stories. Picked it up for J David Osborne and Paul Tremblay, but my favorites ended up being from Gordon Highland and Kyle Minor. For how hard this book was to track down it was a little disappointing. A lot of one star ratings towards the end. I'm into the noir fiction, but not so much the violent love. Still, it's always great to find some new authors!
Axel Taiari - Death Juggler ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Caleb J. Ross - Click-Clack ⭐
Amanda Gowin - The World Was Clocks ⭐⭐
Matt Bell - Mantodea ⭐⭐
Gavin Pate - All the Acid in the World ⭐⭐⭐
Cameron Pierce - Crazy Love ⭐⭐
Paul G. Tremblay - Chance the Dick ⭐⭐⭐
Bradley Sands - Soccer Moms and Pro Wrestler Dads ⭐
Mark Jaskowski - Take Arms Against a Sea ⭐⭐
Nik Korpon - This Will All End Well ⭐
Christopher J. Dwyer - Midnight Souls ⭐⭐
Edward J. Rathke - The Tree of Life ⭐⭐
Brian Evenson - The Killer ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gordon Highland - Headshot ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sean P. Ferguson - Inside Out ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Jeremy Robert Johnson - Laws of Virulence ⭐⭐⭐
Craig Wallwork - Bruised Flesh ⭐⭐
Craig Davidson - Bad, Bad, Bad Bad Men ⭐⭐
J. David Osborne - Three Theories on the Murder of John Wily ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stephen Graham Jones - The Road Lester Took ⭐⭐
Nic Young - My German Daughter ⭐
Blake Butler - What Was There Inside the Child ⭐
Gayle Towell - Seed ⭐
Kyle Minor - They Take You ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Vincent Louis Carrella - The Redemption of Garvey Flint ⭐⭐
Deleon Demicoli - Blood Atonement ⭐⭐⭐
Anthony David Jacques - The Liberation of Edward Kellor ⭐
Craig Clevenger - Act of Contrition ⭐
Richard Thomas - Say Yes to Pleasure ⭐⭐
Tim Beverstock - The Weight of Consciousness ⭐
Doc O'Donnell - If You Love Me ⭐
Pela Via - Touch ⭐⭐
JR Harlan - Love ⭐⭐
Bob Pastorella - Practice ⭐⭐⭐
Brandon Tietz - Fading Glory ⭐
Gary Paul Libero - Little Deaths ⭐⭐
Rob Parker - We Sing the Bawdy Electric ⭐
Chris Deal - In Exile ⭐⭐⭐
Axel Taiari - Death Juggler ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Caleb J. Ross - Click-Clack ⭐
Amanda Gowin - The World Was Clocks ⭐⭐
Matt Bell - Mantodea ⭐⭐
Gavin Pate - All the Acid in the World ⭐⭐⭐
Cameron Pierce - Crazy Love ⭐⭐
Paul G. Tremblay - Chance the Dick ⭐⭐⭐
Bradley Sands - Soccer Moms and Pro Wrestler Dads ⭐
Mark Jaskowski - Take Arms Against a Sea ⭐⭐
Nik Korpon - This Will All End Well ⭐
Christopher J. Dwyer - Midnight Souls ⭐⭐
Edward J. Rathke - The Tree of Life ⭐⭐
Brian Evenson - The Killer ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Gordon Highland - Headshot ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sean P. Ferguson - Inside Out ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Jeremy Robert Johnson - Laws of Virulence ⭐⭐⭐
Craig Wallwork - Bruised Flesh ⭐⭐
Craig Davidson - Bad, Bad, Bad Bad Men ⭐⭐
J. David Osborne - Three Theories on the Murder of John Wily ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stephen Graham Jones - The Road Lester Took ⭐⭐
Nic Young - My German Daughter ⭐
Blake Butler - What Was There Inside the Child ⭐
Gayle Towell - Seed ⭐
Kyle Minor - They Take You ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Vincent Louis Carrella - The Redemption of Garvey Flint ⭐⭐
Deleon Demicoli - Blood Atonement ⭐⭐⭐
Anthony David Jacques - The Liberation of Edward Kellor ⭐
Craig Clevenger - Act of Contrition ⭐
Richard Thomas - Say Yes to Pleasure ⭐⭐
Tim Beverstock - The Weight of Consciousness ⭐
Doc O'Donnell - If You Love Me ⭐
Pela Via - Touch ⭐⭐
JR Harlan - Love ⭐⭐
Bob Pastorella - Practice ⭐⭐⭐
Brandon Tietz - Fading Glory ⭐
Gary Paul Libero - Little Deaths ⭐⭐
Rob Parker - We Sing the Bawdy Electric ⭐
Chris Deal - In Exile ⭐⭐⭐
September 5, 2019
My favorites: Touch, the afterword, Death Juggler, They Take You and Little Deaths
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