ITEM! The philosophical journal has made its fourth volume downloadable as one of those fancy PDFs. If you can take a little jargon, go hither and read the words of people with names like Mieville, Ligotti and Houellebecq talk about horror. Swanky!
ITEM! In the world of the independent video game, Annie Carlson & Brian Mitsoda (both formerly of Obsidian) are doing their own thing now in the form of a zombie apocalypse survival RPG! Which certainly is a mouth full, and also quite exactly something I very much want to play right now. Exciting!
ITEM! Keeping with the video games, SPAG editor Jimmy Maher has graced us with a piece of IF (that's the fancy word for text adventure) based on a rather excellent Call of Cthulhu scenario. The King of Shreds and Patches features certain Elisabethan playwrights, Doctor John Dee, the plague and the King in Yellow, and while some of the puzzles are a little long-winded, the whole experience is quite wonderful (and free). It's also full of the thematic and narrative kinks most dear to my heart. Kinky!
ITEM! The great Caitlin R. Kiernan has a new book out, called The Red Tree. It is (that word again) excellent and takes everything I always loved about weird fiction and drags it into the 21st century. She has also stuffed her website full of enticing pieces of evidence regarding the titular tree. Machenesque!
ITEM! Another site full of free legal music downloads has reared its head in the form of gimmesound.com. Musicians get paid out of the site's ad revenue (some money also goes to charity), so it's recommended you keep your adblockers off for once, and enjoy stumbling upon new music. Musical!
My plan was to put up some review-shaped text containing a deep analysis of the theological content of Alucarda (directed by Juan Lopez Moctezuma 1978 AD), but said content makes no frigging sense at all. The film is ideologically so self-contradictory that it negates any attempt at interpretation like the anti-matter of sense.
Now that I think of it, the whole movie perfectly embodies the Platonic Ideal of making no sense at all - I dare say it makes even less sense than Black Magic Rites, if you can believe that is possible. Anyway, if you want a deeper exploration of this very special piece of nunsploitation cinema from Mexico (or Outer Space) let me just point you to 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting, whose owner also can't make heads nor tails of it.
It is indeed a great experience for every lover of things unfathomable, of screaming women, and of giant crosses made from a dead nun.
Catherynne M. Valente of The Orphan's Tales and Palimpsest fame has been hit hard by the economic crisis and bad luck.
If you have a little money to spare, take a look here and see how you can help to keep one of our great living fantasy writers with a roof over her head. And/or post about it!
Is that people can play them somewhat against the grain. Look at what this gentleman is doing with The Sims 3! The rather sad adventures of a homeless girl and her mad father, at once funny and really more than a little poignant.
Well, everyone who hasn't already done so (I am late to this very special piece of writing) should probably take a gander here.
Shadow Unit, the most excellent fake TV show as a series of stories by some even more excellent SF/F writers goes into its second season.
One of my favorite small presses specialized in fantastic fiction, Small Beer Press, is putting its catalogue on Scribd. If you go here, you will find a bunch of excellent books - so excellent in fact, that I can't single out one or two of them for recommendation.
Of course, if you like them, buy them afterwards.
After some problems with their old host Vimeo (basically, Vimeo does not care if you actually do own the rights to something when someone complains to them - so if someone wants to troll big media houses there, it's easier than one might think) beloved by millions DVD label Mondo Macabro has set up its own streaming site.
You can, will and should find it here.
is a small, obviously independently produced horror short that manages to be pretty damn disturbing (if you're me at least).
Since it's streaming right here, there's no good reason not to watch it.
After the extensive, philosophical groundwork that has already been laid concerning that unachievably rich piece of cinema we know as Shaitani Dracula, this humble blogger has no further insights pertaining its nature to offer. But, as anyone confronted with a moment as historically important as the arrival of Shaitani Dracula in this part of the Internet will understand, seeing it brings with it the responsibility to bear witness.
So: I saw Shaitani Dracula, I was touched by it, I was changed by it and I will never be the same thanks to it. Praise be, brothers and sisters! Praise be Shaitani Dracula! You should see it too, and I promise you, you shall never forget it and you will not want to live without it anymore.
in a very classical sense.
Indiecater Records is a small, but very fine label that sells their music DRM-free, in 256kb mp3s and for the kind of low prices which would probably lead to a lot more sales for digital music if more labels adopted this type of price point. Also, everything is fully sampleable, so you know what you're buying - mostly good stuff.
Now how could one improve the awesome work of art/terrible bore that is Pride & Prejudice?
If you are saying to yourself now: "Why, I'd add zombies, of course!", you are a person after my own heart. And fortunately, we are not alone.
A certain Seth Grahame-Smith did the good work of improving Pride & Prejudice to Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, an endeavor so glorious one can't help but link to the shop page (and wait impatiently until the book's release in April).
Via Cinema Suicide, where you'll also find a short but oh-so-sweet-as-in-"Braaaiiinss" excerpt.
BUT this fine little blog post is one of the more interesting things about Fallout 3 I've read and makes me quite sad that it won't be in my budget until March.
What I am hoping for from Bethesda's next game (Elder Scrolls 5: The Scrollening?) is actually that they'll leave out the main quest completely. It has always been the worst written and worst designed part of their games, so - why not just cut it out completely and put the zots into designated writers for the rest of the game?
Of course, the exploration aspect sounds oh so very enticing to someone who put 130+ hours into Oblivion without ever doing more than the first three steps of the main quest that one does think about finding someone to mug.
Also, the linked post contains the awesome sentence "Essentially, it's Dubliners with guns.".
I will resume my usual blogging duties tomorrow, but it would be remiss not to link to news of a continuing scan(s)lation of Junji Ito's newish epic Hellstar Remina.
Everything else of import can be found here.
I was thinking about writing about this fine piece of Thai cinema here, but I have nothing to add to Todd's fine piece about the film at Teleport City but agreement.
Apex Publishing, one of the really good small publishers of fantastic fiction has been hit hard by the economic troubles. So, if you still have some of that Christmas money (=are not me), read this and buy here.
MMO design god/guru/whatever/don't ask me I don't really play MMOs Raph Koster is known to take a very systemic approach to design.
This is what he has to say about torture.
How could one not link to a post explaining how and why torture is bad game design?
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