Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

A book which kills

Shadows From the Walls of Death is a terrific book title.  It suggests a cross between Lovecraftian horror and black metal music.

It's also a very real and extremely scarce book, one which can sicken or kill readers.  Because that was the intent.  The author wanted to warn people about the dangers of arsenic in wallpapers, so created a book which consists almost entirely of samples thereof.

As part of his campaign to raise awareness about poison papers, Kedzie produced 100 copies of Shadows and sent them out to public libraries across Michigan. Each one is a slim volume, containing few words—just a title page, a short preface, and a note from the Board of Health explaining the purpose of the book and advising librarians not to let children handle it. The macabre title page reproduces a quote from the Biblical book of Leviticus: “And behold if the plague be in the walls of the house, with hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, then the priest…shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place.” The remaining pages, 86 in full, consist of wallpaper samples taken from common merchants.

Before you imagine a book-driven wave of 19th century deaths, know that librarians have your back, as always:

Of the original 100 copies, only four remain. Most libraries, concerned about poisoning their patrons, destroyed their volumes. Two of the surviving books remain in Michigan—one at MSU and the other at the University of Michigan. MSU’s copy rests on an unassuming shelf in the library’s Special Collections division, housed in an appropriately green box. Each page is individually encapsulated in plastic so that researchers and the curious can handle it without fear.

Like so:

Here's the title page, from an NIH scan.  Enjoy the tint:

One edition is available via Amazon, with this description:

This version of ‘Shadows from the Walls of Death’ is a tribute to Robert Clark Kedzie, who produced the originals of which there are now only two left in existence. They are located at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. The originals are approximately 22 x 30 inches containing a title page and an 8 page preface followed by 86 samples cut from rolls of arsenic impregnated wallpaper. The book is sealed in a protective container and each individual page is encapsulated. This particular edition does not actually contain any arsenic. Further to that the content of this volume including both text and images are for entertainment purposes.

PS: interesting Google result, under "People also search for...":

(thanks to Jamie Townsend)

What are the best horror novels of the 21st century? Our investigation continues

What are the best horror novels of the 21st century?

We asked this question in 2015, and ended up with a rich list.  Your humble blogger has been gnawing through the list, tome by shuddering tome.

So for Halloween 2016 we can reproduce the list, linking to reviews as I have generated them.  We can add to the list, as people suggest more.  The constraints: books must be published after 1999, be novels (rather than collections), and available in English.  Asterisks indicate the title appearing in two or more sources.

Behold:

Jeffrey E. Barlough, The Cobbler Of Ridingham
Laird Barron, The Croning
Lauren Beukes, Broken Monsters
Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War (read)
Ramsey Campbell, The Grin Of The Dark
Justin Cronin, The Passage (read)
Mark Z. Danielewski, House Of Leaves (read and taught)
Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park
Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
Neil Gaiman, American Gods (read)
Ray Garton, The Folks
Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box **
____, Horns
____, Twentieth-Century Ghosts
Charlee Jacob, Dread in the Beast (review)
Brian Keene, The Conqueror Worms
____, Ghoul
____, The Rising
Jack Ketchum, The Lost
Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl
Stephen King, Doctor Sleep
____, Duma Key **
____, Lisey’s Story **
____, Under The Dome
Sarah Langan, Audrey's Door
____, The Missing **
Richard Laymon, The Traveling Vampire Show
John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let The Right One In
Bentley Little, The Walking
Jonathan Maberry, Ghost Road Blues
Josh Malerman, Bird Box (review)
Michael Marshall, We Are Here
Joe McKinney, Flesh Eaters
David Morrell, Creepers
Adam Nevill, Last Days
Weston Ochse, Scarecrow Gods
Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted
____, Lullaby
Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest **
Tom Piccirilli, A Choir Of Ill Children (read)
____, The Night Class
Dan Simmons, Drood
____, The Terror (read)
Bryan Smith, The Freakshow
____, Soultaker
Scott Smith, The Ruins (read)
Peter Straub , A Dark Matter **
____, In the Night Room
____, lost boy lost girl
Steve Rasnic Tem, Blood Kin
Jeffrey Thomas, Boneland (review)
____, Punktown
Paul Tremblay, Head Full of Ghosts
Jeff Vandermeer, the Southern Reach sequence (review of first book)
David Wong, John Dies At The End
Rio Youers, Westlake Soul

After a certain point your humble blogger may be equipped to publish his pick of the litter.

What do you make of these?

And what else would you add?

(photos by Quinn Dombrowski and Daniel Lee)

A Dr. Seuss Call of Cthulhu

Your mashup for the day is a classic H.P. Lovecraft story retold as if by Dr. Seuss.  Behold The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers.

We first noted the creator's project way back in 2011.

(via MetaFilter)

New Ligotti interview

A new Penguin edition of Thomas Ligotti's fiction has appeared, and this elicited a rare thing: a new interview with Ligotti.

(thanks to Steven Kaye)

What are the best horror novels of the 21st century?

What are the best horror novels of the 21st century?  Which books will loom largest upon the Gothic landscape to come?  Do we have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the years after 2000?

We are almost sixteen years into this new century, giving us a substantial body of work to reflect upon.

Caveats: let's draw some boundaries around this quest.  We're talking novels, not short story collections, not novellas, nor movies.  Let's assume English-language work, including recent translations.  And published after 1999.

How to determine these grand books?  We can start with the Bram Stoker Award winners, which are the horror field's leading awards.  Let's pick the best novel award winners.

Several observers have created lists, like those from Dead in the South, Matt Barone, and Rich Kleffel. (more anthologies than novels in that list).  We can use those.

EDITED TO ADD: we've also taken this question to writers and critics participating in the 2015 Necronomicon conference.

What to rule out?  Goodreads has a list, but it is unfortunately far too long, with hundreds of titles.  

Now we have a dataset of sorts, from which we can build a bibliography.

What follows is in alphabetical order by author, and by title when multiple responses occur for a single author.  Two asterisks (**) appear beside any title that appears in two or more sources. 

Jeffrey E. Barlough, The Cobbler Of Ridingham
Laird Barron, The Croning
Lauren Beukes, Broken Monsters
Laird Barron, The Croning
Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War
Ramsey Campbell, The Grin Of The Dark
Justin Cronin, The Passage
Mark Z. Danielewski, House Of Leaves
Bret Easton Ellis , Lunar Park
Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects
Neil Gaiman, American Gods< br> Ray Garton, The Folks
Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box **
" " , Horns
" " Twentieth-Century Ghosts
Charlee Jacob, Dread in the Beast
Brian Keene, The Conqueror Worms
" ", Ghoul
" ", The Rising
Jack Ketchum, The Lost
Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl
Stephen King, Doctor Sleep
" " Duma Key **
" ", Lisey’s Story **
" ", Under The Dome
Sarah Langan, Audrey's Door
" ", The Missing **
Richard Laymon, The Traveling Vampire Show
John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let The Right One In
Bentley Little, The Walking
Jonathan Maberry, Ghost Road Blues
Josh Malerman, Bird Box
Michael Marshall, We Are Here
Joe McKinney, Flesh Eaters
David Morrell, Creepers
Adam Nevill, Last Days
Weston Ochse, Scarecrow Gods
Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted
" " , Lullaby
Norman Partridge, Dark Harvest **
Tom Piccirilli, A Choir Of Ill Children
" ", The Night Class
Dan Simmons, Drood
" " , The Terror
Bryan Smith, The Freakshow
" ", Soultaker
Scott Smith, The Ruins
Peter Straub , A Dark Matter **
" ", In the Night Room
" ", lost boy lost girl
Steve Rasnic Tem, Blood Kin<
Jeffrey Thomas, Boneland
" ", Punktown
Paul Tremblay, Head Full of Ghosts
Jeff Vandermeer, the Southern Reach sequence
David Wong, John Dies At The End
Rio Youers, Westlake Soul

Which of these do you recommend, dear Infocult reader?  Are there other titles we should add?

Happy reading!

(Stoker award photo from this World Horror Con page)

Revisiting Propaganda, a classic Gothic staple

Remember Propaganda (maga)zine?  Dangerous Minds takes us back to the early Goth days by interviewing Propaganda's founder and editor, Fred Berger.

From its infancy as a punk fanzine, it grew in scope, covering the esoteric obsessions of its “Propaganda Minister”—post-punk, death rock, fetish fashion, body modification, BDSM, vampirism, horror literature, androgyny, and paganism were all tossed into its smoking cauldron. Over time, these disparate influences became codified into what we know today as “goth” culture. Never billing itself as a “goth” zine per-se, Propaganda had as much to do with developing the aesthetic of goth as any black-clad scare-band you’d possibly care to name.

(thanks to Randy McCall and saramin)

Christopher Lee reading Dracula

Celebrate Sir Christopher Lee's passing by listening to him read Dracula:

(thanks to William Thompson, commenting on the Draculablog)

Gothic on Capitol Hill

A horror writer moonlights as a Congressman's speechwriter.  Brett Talley creates texts for Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio), when he's not writing about the Necronomico.

“He’s been great,” Lehman says. “He’s very creative. He’s also dogged about expanding the senator’s vocabulary.”

Case in point: Talley says he keeps trying to get the word “hobgoblin” into a speech.

The speechwriter is also into the ghost detective scene.

Talley began going out with the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group while clerking for a judge after law school. The group would explore old plantation homes or abandoned insane asylums armed with thermal cameras, electromagnetic field meters and digital voice recorders to search for signs of the supernatural...

On a foggy evening in early December, Talley takes me to the Holy Rood Cemetery in Northwest Washington to show me how to hunt for ghosts. He has come from the Hill, and his black trench coat and suit combination makes him look like he was a lobbyist for the undead.

Infocult has not yet perused Talley's work.

Infocult: describing the world as it falls into the Gothic, one shadow at a time.

A nuclear missile ghost

The recent book about atomic weapons Command and Control has some terrific Gothic passages, as one might expect.

Here are two.  First, a spooky silo:

One [Titan II missile] launch complex, however, stood apart them the rest: 373-4 was known as the "ghost site".  It was the first complex where [Al] Childers was stationed, and odd things seemed to happen there.  Pumps that could be operated only by hand suddenly went on by themselves.  Lights turned on and off for no reason.  Childers didn't believe in the supernatural, and most offiers laughed at the idea that the complex might be haunted.  But some crew members thought that every now and then it felt petty odd down there.

There's one story about that ghost site:

Rodney Holder was once working in the silo at night with another crew member.  The silo had a majually operated elevator that traveled from levels 2 to 8, and then men had left its door open  The bell in the elevator started to ring.  It rang whenever the door was open and someone on another level needed the elevator.  Holder couldn't think of anyone who might need a ride.  He called the control center and learned that nobody else was in the silo.  The bell kept ringing.  Holder and his partner were spooked, quickly finished thir work, and returned to the control center. (22)

Next, horror by shadows: 

After the fire killed fifty-three workers [in Launch Complex 373-4 in Searcy, Arkansas)... Thick black soot covered almost everything.  But handprints could still be seen on the rungs of ladders, and the bodies of fallen workers had left clear outlines on the floor.  Scallorn could make out the shapes of their arms and legs, the positions of their bodies as they died, surrounded by black soot.  All that remained of them were these pale, ghost silhouettes. (227)

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Thoughts on Cronenberg's novel _Consumed_

"Let me unbox you..." -Aristide Arosteguy

This is a novel best suited to two audiences: those looking for innovative horror, and people interested in visionary possibilities of new media. It would also be good for fans of first-time novelist David Cronenberg's work in film, but I suspect they'd fall into the first two categories.

(I fall into all three, being a lifelong Cronenberg fan since I first saw the mad genius of Videodrome.)

Consumed is, as one might expect from the author, a challenging and strange book. I can describe the plot like this: two journalists investigate a Parisian crime, wherein a husband killed and ate part of his wife. The (former) couple were influential philosophers, Célestine and Aristide Arosteguy, and a cute parody of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. They made waves with a theory of consumer society (hence one meaning of the title). Naomi and Nathan are lovers and colleagues, fellow gadget hounds, but they usually live apart, and follow their joint inquiry along separate, parallel lines.

What follows is a picaresque or road trip, as the two N's travel the world: Paris, Japan, Canada, Hungary, Cannes, Holland. Cronenberg teasingly refuses to give us much local color, offering instead the thin, usually tech-mediated views of our protagonists, or sketches of the people they meet.

So much for the plot's initial action. But I'd also need to tell you more about the book's style. Consumed adores its surfaces and fetishes. It lovingly describes clothing, technologies, record covers (oh yes), body parts, and interior decorating exactly as far as major characters obsess over them. Technology looms large; this is very much a novel about modern digital devices and how we intimately use them.

Consumed is also about pushing against discussing awkward or awful topics, mostly in a horrific way. Without spoilering too much, I can mention offhandedly cannibalism, murder, autocannibalism, apotemnophilia, acrotomophilia, deformed body parts, sexually transmitted diseases, cancerous body parts, and medical fetishism. Which brings us back to Cronenberg's tone. He doesn't revel in these topics, but comes to them thoughtfully, from a character's mind, almost (and sometimes literally) clinically.

Back to the plot, and now I must hide some words after the cut: