Read and Appreciated in 2004
A Year’s Best List
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Reading
The Thomas Ligotti Reader, edited by Darrell Schweitzer
A bunch of essays about Ligotti, a man who hates life even more than I do. Including a couple of interviews. Makes me want to read his stuff all over again, which is good.
The Baroque Cycle, Neal Stephenson
For once something worthwhile won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. These books have pirates, cypher theory and loads of sly glimmery details about the origins of words. Blows it right at the end—it should have hoved onto one over-arching concentrated mind-blasting image, rather than just sort of tidying up some loose ends as it does, but still, bloody good.
Purgatory Theory, Colette Phair
(Unpublished)
Creating heaven and hell upon discovering they don’t exist yet, humanity outdoes itself for manipulation but, since those manipulations have always been part of human life, there’s no real escape from jaded reality. Good enough not to see the light of day, especially in this god-awful 1980s re-run we’re living in at the moment.
Uzumaki, Vol. 3, Junji Ito
The town finally succumbs totally to the spiral, with human snails a-plenty.
Hip Priest: The Story of Mark E. Smith and The Fall, Simon Ford
Probably not the best book on The Fall but at least there are some, at last.
Party of One, Anneli S. Rufus
About people’s fear (along with their fear of just about everything else) of loners, and why this particular fear and suspicion exists.
Murdered by Capitalism, John Ross
A larky account mainly of the Haymarket, with Joe Hill, etc. thrown in for good measure. A bit like Fahrenheit 9/11 in the sense of “does anyone genuinely not know about this stuff or are they just pretending so that they can then act shocked as a get-out clause” but good nonetheless.
Gurdjieff, John Shirley
Shirley almost made me want to go back and try again to slog through Gurdjieff’s mind-bending ordeal book Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. Almost.
Arthur Magazine
Read it!
