Zach

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Zach

@megapolisomancy.bsky.social

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Reviews of weird fiction at, among other places, Seize the Press, Strange Horizons, Interzone, and Ancillary Review of Books, where I am also an editor. Also jazz, metal, leftism.
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Pam Herd @pamherd.bsky.social · 3 days
This is how you do it.
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INTERZONE @interzone.press · 3 days
Right. Always. And that quote is a very pleasant sentence itself, with a very pleasing parenthetical: ‘so much builds up almost imperceptibly through very simple gestures of language and rhythm and repetition and arrangement and velocity’
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INTERZONE @interzone.press · 3 days
Source of that: raintaxi.com/fugue-states...
Fugue States: An Interview with Brian Evensonraintaxi.com by John MaderaBrian Evenson’s fiction is peopled by estranged ciphers, paranoiac wanderers, hyper self-aware talking heads, broken but not beaten
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INTERZONE @interzone.press · 3 days
It is such a good story, and a very good question (Why is it rhythmically appealing?). This sequence below (and the part you posted above) is amazing
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INTERZONE @interzone.press · 3 days
‘So much of good fiction is intuition, so much builds up almost imperceptibly through very simple gestures of language and rhythm and repetition and arrangement and velocity, that a really excellent story manages to accomplish something without you knowing what it’s doing to you as it does it.’ — BE
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 4 days
Anyone have any recommended reads, critical and/or analytical, on rhythm in prose?
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 5 days
Just write something up quickly on body horror, they said, don’t overdo it, I told myself…
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Jarrod Baker @jarrodbaker.bsky.social · 8 days
imagine how much great art could have been created if we took a fraction of the money spent on getting computers to make shitty art and gave it to actual artists
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Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 6 days
“If The Saint of Bright Doors is an experimental novel in (mostly) conventional storytelling clothing, Rakesfall bares it all, a full-frontal deconstruc­tion of narrative and genre … one of the genre’s most important, most vital voices.” Wonderfully generous review of RAKESFALL in Locus!
Avatar Locus Magazine @locusmag.bsky.social · 7 days
Ian Mond Reviews Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera locusmag.com/2024/07...
Ian Mond Reviews Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekeralocusmag.com Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom 978-1-25084-768-3, $27.99, 304pp, hc) June 2024. To quote Tom Clancy (or was it Jeff Bezos?), it takes ten years to become an overnight success. I suspect …
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 7 days
Horror is an affect, inward, incumbent in the body; weird is an ontology, outward, incumbent in the world
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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 7 days
NYC, thank you for being one of the few places where my preferred pedestrian pace is acceptable (a near-sprint)
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 7 days
Horror is an affect, inward, incumbent in the body; weird is an ontology, outward, incumbent in the world
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 9 days
I'm hereby calling for a national general strike until someone publishes new work from Kai Ashante Wilson. It can be a collection, a novel, or a new novella, I'm not picky.
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Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 9 days
imo there is no being late to this party, there is only keeping the door open to get more people in until we've taken over the block for a week
Avatar Alanna 🌿 @seatosky.bsky.social · 10 days
It's 6pm. I'm still in my pajamas and have done nothing but read The Saint of Bright Doors today. It's unputdownable in a way I haven't experienced before and I love everything about it. (I am late to the party, I know.)
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Roz Milner @rozmilner.bsky.social · 11 days
My latest: on Joe Koch’s new book Get it via @clashbooks.bsky.social ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2024/07/05/w...
Weird Bodies in Flux: Review of Joe Koch’s Invaginiesancillaryreviewofbooks.org Roz Milner Under Review:Invaginies. Joe Koch. Clash Books, June 2024. The thing about transition is that once you get past how elastic the human body can be, things become routine kind of quickly. Whi...
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2 mo
Eh? Eh?
Avatar Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2 mo
Up now at Strange Horizons, I have a review of Blair Austin’s incredible, suis generis DIORAMAS (Dzanc Books), where I get into Shklovsky’s ostranenie, Brecht’s epic theatre, and dioramas in Community strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/...
Dioramas by Blair Austinstrangehorizons.com It’s similarly difficult for SFnal work to function on both the formal level of estrangement and the more typical science fictional Suvinian sense, but Austin succeeds at marrying the two brilliant…
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INTERZONE @interzone.press · 10 days
Update: become IZ’s *69th patron (you get 6 issues of the mag right away, incl. fiction by @authorizedmusings.bsky.social, James Sallis, @carlosnorcia.bsky.social, Rachael Cupp, @aijiang.bsky.social; reviews by @delagar.bsky.social, @gautambhatia88.bsky.social, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social; & more)
Avatar INTERZONE @interzone.press · 19 days
If you’re able, become IZ’s 66th monthly patron today and help feed the foundries and power the engines of INTERZONE so it can continue to publish stories as sublime and as satisfying as ‘The Clockwork Heart of Heaven’ by Roby Davies, and not go the way of the dimetrodons interzone.press/patreon ✨
Get more from INTERZONE on Patreoninterzone.press a European magazine publishing fiction & non-fiction
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Seán Padraic Birnie @seanbirnie.bsky.social · 13 days
Zach Gillan's reviews are always essential reading. This sounds incredible.
Avatar Seize The Press Magazine @seizethepress.bsky.social · 13 days
"The weight of history bearing down on the reader is remarkably tangible and all-encompassing, a sense of darkness cloaking the distant neon lights of twenty-first century cyberpunk." @megapolisomancy.bsky.social's latest review, YOU GLOW IN THE DARK by Liliana Colanzi.
Beyond Dualistic Cyberpunk: a review of You Glow in the Dark by Liliana Colanzi from Zachary Gillan - Seize The Presswww.seizethepress.com Cyberpunk is usually inextricably dualistic in its approach, most obviously in the dichotomy between cyberspace and meatspace, but also usually in its physical setting of the imperial core of the capi...
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Seize The Press Magazine @seizethepress.bsky.social · 13 days
"The weight of history bearing down on the reader is remarkably tangible and all-encompassing, a sense of darkness cloaking the distant neon lights of twenty-first century cyberpunk." @megapolisomancy.bsky.social's latest review, YOU GLOW IN THE DARK by Liliana Colanzi.
Beyond Dualistic Cyberpunk: a review of You Glow in the Dark by Liliana Colanzi from Zachary Gillan - Seize The Presswww.seizethepress.com Cyberpunk is usually inextricably dualistic in its approach, most obviously in the dichotomy between cyberspace and meatspace, but also usually in its physical setting of the imperial core of the capi...
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Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreview.bsky.social · 13 days
ARB's Patreon is live! We would love to have your support as we move towards site sustainability and paying our writers. Shares appreciated, even if you can't chip in right now! ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2024/07/03/s...
Support the Ancillary Review of Books: Join ARB’s Patreon!ancillaryreviewofbooks.org The Ancillary Review of Books is officially launching a Patreon! ARB turns 4 this fall. It's been a labor of love, and will remain so—but we really want to pay our writers and improve our sustainabili...
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Bill Barnett @burlveneer.bsky.social · 14 days
Ooh, this is a must-read for me!
Avatar Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 10 mo
Over at Strange Horizons, Miles Davis, Robert Aickman, and Brian Evenson walk into a bar… Or, I went long on the fantastic anthology MOONCALVES (ed @basicchunnel.bsky.social) and laid out my thinking on the beauties of weird fiction, open space, and unsettlement.
Mooncalves edited by John W. M. Thompsonstrangehorizons.com Miles Davis, the Prince of Darkness, made his name in the frenetic world of bebop by playing his trumpet as little as possible, emphasizing not a constant stream of notes, but the gaps between them…
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 10 mo
Over at Strange Horizons, Miles Davis, Robert Aickman, and Brian Evenson walk into a bar… Or, I went long on the fantastic anthology MOONCALVES (ed @basicchunnel.bsky.social) and laid out my thinking on the beauties of weird fiction, open space, and unsettlement.
Mooncalves edited by John W. M. Thompsonstrangehorizons.com Miles Davis, the Prince of Darkness, made his name in the frenetic world of bebop by playing his trumpet as little as possible, emphasizing not a constant stream of notes, but the gaps between them…
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 15 days
Attn @brokenantlermag.bsky.social
Avatar Kelly Turnbull @coelasquid.bsky.social · 15 days
I HAVE NEVER WANTED ANYTHING MORE THAN I WANT THIS DEER HEAD SOMEONE POSTED IN THE BAD TAXIDERMY FB ACCOUNT
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 15 days
And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the corruption of hearts and minds
Avatar Thomas Ha @thomasha.bsky.social · 15 days
hope you get a nod if that's the case, and hey if not, glad you're out there corrupting hearts and minds
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a.a. de levine @aadelevine.bsky.social · 15 days
when i say i'm "rockin' out," i mean in the sisyphean sense.
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 15 days
Not sure how to feel about the fact that there are not one but two panels at Necronomicon this year that seem awfully similar to essays I wrote last year
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Thomas Ha @thomasha.bsky.social · 15 days
he just leaves these posts out like honey for weird fic fly people to hover around
Avatar Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 16 days
What if some brave person were to argue that what we call "weird fiction" today is a result of horror incorporating SF's New Wave into itself (or... vice versa?) and has little to do with HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, or tentacles
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A Meal of Thorns @mealofthorns.bsky.social · 16 days
EPISODE 1 is live! @casella.bsky.social & @danhartland.bsky.social talk about THE SCAR: bold, partially-substantiated claims about the New Weird! Deep dives into narrative & aesthetics! Unexpected comparisons! Listen now: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2024/07/01/a...
A Meal of Thorns 01 – THE SCAR with Dan Hartlandancillaryreviewofbooks.org Host Jake Casella Brookins talks to Dan Hartland, critic and reviewer, about China Miéville's novel THE SCAR, the genre of the New Weird, and many related works and ideas.
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Zach @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 16 days
What if some brave person were to argue that what we call "weird fiction" today is a result of horror incorporating SF's New Wave into itself (or... vice versa?) and has little to do with HP Lovecraft, Cthulhu, or tentacles
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Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein @deepcuts.bsky.social · 16 days
Head's in a negative space today, so let's switch it up and go positive. Top ten cosmic horror/Lovecraftian stories since 2020 you should read, a thread. I'll give mine, chime in with yours.