Steampunk Gypsy

Before we get to New Weird, we should take a look at Old Weird! The best - or, at least, best known - examples of Weird literature were written by H.P. Lovecraft, who gave us the darkly disturbing yet strangely beautiful world of Cthulhu, the Old Ones, and the Necronomicon. Lovecraft used his macabre world to explore themes of forbidden knowledge, supernatural influences on humankind, fate, religion, and the dangers of unrestrained science. New Weird tends to explore similar themes in worlds two steps removed from our own. Alongside mankind dwells entities entirely unlike us, who may mean us harm - or may cause us harm incidentally as they pursue their own agendas. Unlike most horror, the Other is entirely inimical to us - the Monster confronting us is not a reflection of our own darkness but something incomprehensible that drives us to madness. Our Main Read for the month was chosen just for you by Cthulhu himself! (I tried to tell him that it wasn't one book but a trilogy; h...

The blog is two years old, now! I know I've taken a pretty long break, but now I'm back, and doing things a bit differently. First things first - how'd I do with my 2015 resolutions? Read books. Yep! I met my goal of 100 books (and a couple more, just for fun). I also read quite a few mysteries, but I didn't quite finish all of P.D. James's Adam Dalgliesh series.  Spend time with my family . Yep! Totally did that. I even got to spend time with my parents and my in-laws! Play some D&D. Yeah, some - and then our group broke up a bit. Those of us left in the area still get together to play games, talk, watch movies, etc.  Crochet some stuff. Yeah, I got some of that done, too. I did scarves for the kiddos, and a scarf and hat for myself, as well as a stuffed octopus toy for the cat. That sort of ended it for me.  Once again, I met all my goals! I think I'll continue the tradition of setting easily accomplished goals for myself. Here we go: Rea...