Steampunk Gypsy

November - particularly this November - is the perfect month to delve into horror. As a genre, horror is supposed to dredge up fear, dread, and the particular type of suspense that makes you want to avoid what you know is coming even while you rush straight into it. It may seem odd to purposefully chase those emotions, but horror can be very cathartic. Horror is a very diverse field, and the evil we face might be supernatural, preternatural, or entirely human and banal. While the plot lines focus most often on death, destruction, or the demonic, the stories often explore more pressing societal fears and turmoil. A book about zombies, then, might be an author's commentary on globalization and the stifling of individuality or censorship and forced conformity - or it might be just a great story about brain-eating undead folk.  November's Main Read is brought to you by the master of horror himself, the King of Hell (although he's sort of throneless at the moment), Crowley. C...

For October, we're looking at Post-Apocalyptic stories! While the basic premise of the genre is pretty clear - civilization has ended; now what? - there are a few defining features that may have slipped your notice. Typically, the end of the world (or, at least, mankind's dominance of it) has occurred realistically: disease, war, famine, global natural disaster, and the like. More often than not, we did it to ourselves, and possibly the rest of Earth's inhabitants, too. There's nothing left to do but pick up the pieces. But the genre does insist that we look at a few questions along the way. What could we have done to prevent this?  A very important question, as we're in a great position now to actually prevent whatever disaster the author portrays, and one that usually more particularly concerns itself with the ethics of modern technology. How can we fix this? Most often, what's left after the apocalypse is a failing and oppressive system - even if that syste...