Zach Marin > Recent Status Updates

First exposure to Langan. "Kids" was a tightly composed, meat-and-potatoes amuse bouche of an opener. "How the Day Runs Down" was a bit of a snooze, but well-paced for its length. "Technicolor" has been the highlight so far, and I suspect will be the highlight of the collection. Absolutely superb.

Shame to have to stop here for now.

I've never had a book ask me to wait 2 weeks before returning to it before, but I guess this one is shelved for the moment.

Weird ride so far. Little bit word-salad, but enjoyable nonetheless

Second set of stories down. Rachel Harrison's "Faire" was dizzying, disorienting and overall a fun, short ride. Eric LaRocca's "We Take Off Our Skin In The Dark," on the other hand, is textured and vile, and is a prime showcase of the author's knack for intimate violence. On a roll here. Doing the Day/Night cycle is keeping things fresh and engaging.

Alternating stories, Day/Night. Priya Sharma's The Bright Day had great texture, tone & pacing, and Clay Mcleod Chapman's Trash Night was an increasingly manic spiral that made me feel unclean. All in all, good openers.

The Street of the Four Winds-- I'm all for befriending and talking to cats, but I'm pretty sure it's uncouth to go around kissing dead women you don't know. Just a thought.

The Prophet's Paradise-- I'm going to revist this at the end of this collection because I struggle to find the connection to this mythos. Beautiful prose, each entry being short enough to sustain the efficacy of the deployed repetition. The only link I've found thus far was the clown's white mask of paint alluding to the aforementioned mask scene from the in-universe play

Demoiselles d'Ys-- yet another love story. I would assume, by now, that the vulnerability one requires to love is the gateway by which a person is corrupted under the King's influence. Yet no corruption, nor any connection to the play, is found here, other than a mention of Hastur. I presume Chamber's took inspiration for Hastur from the Bible's Abaddon, given the ambiguity of whether it's person or place.

The Yellow Sign is tight and succint and surely heightens the mystery, but I'm tiring of the limited scope of perspective displayed by the same sect of artist-types. That said, their self-aggrandizing sensibilities make their individual defeats at the hands of hubris all the more satisfying. Also, more connective tissue-- was the narrator here Jack Scott? In what sense did he know Mr. Castaigne? Still invested

The Mask surprised me with, of all things, a happy ending. The protagonist seems to have had little time with the play itself, though it begs the question of why he seemed to be the least afflicted by it, having been the only one stated to have read it. Less so than Jack, even, who seems to have gone full-tilt by the end. I also appreciate 'The Fates' serving as connective tissues between both stories.

The Repairer of Reputation serves a fantastic introduction to The King in Yellow, as both a play and a concept. Also, the title serves well as a double-meaning, with the armorer being a repairer of the legacy of armor and battle, as well as prophetic irony for the inclusion of a character inspired by Oscar Wilde, whose Salomé inspired Chamber's concept, and whose reputation were slain that same year.

Considering this last story was directly inspired by Robert W. Chamber's The King in Yellow, I figured it would be a good time to put this collection down for now and give Chamber's a try. Maybe one too many irons to put on the fire, but I'll choose to look at this as an act of providence.

I can't. I tried. I genuinely tried. I can't even bring myself to finish this novella for the sake of my reading challenge. The dialogue and vernacular are both ridiculous and aggressively modern for a story set in 1906. The cheeky nods to modern pop culture (the author choosing to lift the most popular catchphrase from the series Letterkenny, for example) have completely taken away my investment in the plot. DNF.

Sudden departure from the overarching narrative in the last two stories. Curious to see if they come back around later.

This collection is really shaping up. Genuinely appreciate the pacing and structure of it. The world around these stories is developing tremendous texture in a way I had not expected. Getting "Gateways to Abomination" vibes in a sense.

Starting something of a tandem read with this and John Langan's "The Fisherman," in an effort to clear my bookshelf and with consideration to the odd reading intervals I have available this week.

Got a few stories into this collection last year but wound up stepping away from it for a while. Looking forward to picking it up again from the top.

...oh

Quite the silver lining to come out of that whole ordeal. Round of applause for implicit queer inclusion

What in the spectacularly bizarre fuck is going on? That was a loaded 50+ pages, kicking off on *literally* the page after where I put it down last. Such a tremendous subversion of expectation.

Nearly a third of the way through in a single sitting. Absolutely enthralling. Kloss's heavy reliance on hyphenation as a means of delineating the recollection of scattered memory is a superb choice. The formatting of the novel, coupled with the author's pacing, is making for a brisk read. Also, Matt Kish's illustrations are spectacular, and they do a remarkable job of lending texture to the story.

25/50 stories down, and I'm conflicted. I've heard it said that Darcy Coates is famous for her brand of "cozy horror," and I find that to be pretty evident in this collection. That said, for every successful stomach-dropping endings she's managed so far, there's equally as many that fall flat. Coupled with my desire for more clear resolution, I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed. That said, what a variety of concepts.

Ten stories in, and I'm noticing a trend of each chapter ending pretty abruptly. All in all, though, it's a solid set of stories so far.

Work schedule has me in a reading slump. Figured this would be a quick read to snap me out of it. Starting tonight. I'm excited to dive deeper into the Apocalypse Party catalog

Honestly, this collection has been a mixed bag. The highlight for me so far, by far, was "Transmission" by T.E. Grau. On the other hand, "Bad Lieutenant" by Tony Burgess was somewhat structurally unreadable - a fact that was made up for by (what I assume is) an excerpt of Beneath the Salton Sea, "How the Light Gets In" by Michael Paul Gonzalez. We'll see how things shake out.