#caitlín r. kiernan

[derangedrhythms]

[…] its prickling throne of woven branches and birds’ nests, the hulking antlered thing with blazing eyes, that wolf-jawed hart, the man and the stag […]

Caitlín R. Kiernan, The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan; from ‘La Peau Verte’

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. AGENTS OF DREAMLAND by Caitlín R Kiernan.

I don't always match my books to my yarn, but when I do it's because they're both VERY Aesthetic™. (The yarn is Madelinetosh Twist Light in Cardigan, for those who are interested!)

[bormgans]

BLACK HELICOPTERS IN A PERFECT VACUUM - Kiernan (2013) & Lem (1971) + JMH Berckmans (2021)

A post collecting three short reviews: two about books I didn’t finish, and one in Dutch on a short posthumous work by J.M.H. Berckmans. A PERFECT VACUUM – Stanisłav Lem (1971) So far, my experience with Polish author Lem has been a 50% succesrate. I liked Solaris, and absolutely loved The Cyberiad – I even included it in my list of favorites. But both this and Fiasco were let downs. I will…

[thornandbriar]

theories of the borders | houses under the sea, caitlín r. kiernan.

to a conglomerate, every body looks alone.

[arctic-hands]

I hate mass market paperback books so fucking much this book is barely twenty years old and it's so fucking brittle and the pages are so brown it's hard to make out the black ink without getting serious eyestrain

[lady-inkyrius]

can you recommend any book that is as dark as the Pattern Scars and explores similar character dynamics? I just started reading it and realized I love the themes so much I will look for another like this one once I'm finished.

How specific are you looking with the character dynamics and themes? I'll admit I'm not very good at knowing how similar the audiences of two books will be, I haven't thought of anything after sitting on this ask for a day but maybe I'll come back to this.

[eldrbenway]

"Eroticism is not about nudity, but about mystery." 

– Caitlín R. Kiernan, "The Drowning Girl" (2012) 📚🔥

Tomoda Ayaka captivates with her mesmerizing beauty and sensual allure in this shot – pure enchantment! 💫💖 

[treeroutes]

what's up ! non-exhaustive list of stories featuring weird plants :

The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham

The Night of the Triffids, Simon Clark

In the Tall Grass, Stephen King and Joe Hill

The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', William Hope Hodgson

The Man Whom the Trees Loved, Algernon Blackwood

The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer

The Willows, Algernon Blackwood

The Nature of Balance, Tim Lebbon

'Bloom', John Langan

The Ruins, Scott Smith

The Wise Friend, Ramsey Campbell

'The Green Man of Freetown', The Envious Nothing : A Collection of Literary Ruins, Curtis M. Lawson

The Beauty, Aliya Whiteley

The Ash-Tree, M.R. James

Canavan's Backyard, J.P. Brennan

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jack Finney

The Hollow Places, T. Kingfisher

'Reaching for Ruins', Crow Shine, Alan Baxter

'Vortex of Horror', Gaylord Sabatini

Hothouse, Brian W. Aldiss

Vaster than Empires and More Slow, Ursula K. Le Guin

Odd Attachment, Ian M. Banks

Deathworld #1, Harry Harrison

The Bridge, John Skipp and Craig Spector

'The Garden of Paris', Eric Williams

Apartment Building E, Malachi King

The Seed from the Sepulchre, Clark Ashton Smith

Rappaccini's Daughter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Nursery, Lewis Mallory

The Other Side of the Mountain, Michel Bernanos

The Vegetarian, Han Kang

Sisyphean, Dempow Torishima

The Root Witch, Debra Castaneda

Semiosis, Sue Burke

The Wolf in Winter, Charlie Parker #12, John Connolly

Perennials, Bryce Gibson

Relic, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Gwen, in Green, Hugh Zachary

The Voice in the Night, William Hope Hodgson

Ordinary Horror, David Searcy

The Family Tree, Sheri S. Tepper

The Book of Koli, Rampart Trilogy #1, M.R. Carey

Seeders, A.J. Colucci

Concrete Jungle, Brett McBean

The Plant, Stephen King

Anthologies/collections :

The Roots of Evil: Weird Stories of Supernatural Plants, edited by Michel Parry

Chlorophobia: An Eco-Horror Anthology, edited by A.R. Ward

Roots of Evil: Beyond the Secret Life of Plants, edited by Carlos Cassaba

The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Sylvan Dread: Tales of Pastoral Darkness, Richard Gavin

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic, edited by Daisy Butcher

Weird Woods: Tales From the Haunted Forests of Britain, edited by John Miller

'But fungi aren't plants' :

The Fungus, Harry Adam Knight

Growing Things and Other Stories, Paul Tremblay

The Girl with All the Gifts, M.R. Carey

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Fruiting Bodies, and Other Fungi, Brian Lumley

'The Black Mould', The Age of Decayed Futurity, Mark Samuels

What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher

The House Without a Summer, DeAnna Knippling

Mungwort, James Noll

Fungi, edited by Orrin Grey and Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Trouble with Lichen, John Wyndham

Notes :

all links lead to the goodreads page of the book, mostly because i like to look at book cover art ;

list features authors/books that i love (T. Kingfisher, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Ursula K. Le Guin, the collections from the British Library Tales of the Weird, etc.), but also a few that i don't like and some that i have not yet read ;

if upon seeing that list the first novel you check out is by Stephen King's you have not understood the assignment ;

not all of those are strictly horror stories, some are 100% science fiction (Brian W. Aldiss' Hothouse for instance).

[nostalgebraist]

Rereading The Drowning Girl. It's so, so good. Forgot just how good it was

I haven't read anything else by Caitlín R. Kiernan. I should, though.

But she's written a lot, and most of it is billed as "horror" or "gothic" fiction in a way that would normally make me think "I doubt I would like this," if it were a different author. So it's hard to know in advance which of her other work would appeal to me, either in the same way The Drowning Girl does or in some other way. Advice on this would be welcome

[witchyfashion]

Thirty-five uncanny and erotic tales of vampires written by supernatural fiction’s greatest mistresses of the macabre. "Fashions change, and the urbane vampire created by Byron and cemented in place by Stoker has had to move on . . . Are you, like me, ready for the new dusk?" —Ingrid Pitt, from her Introduction Prepare to arm yourself with garlic, silver bullets, and a stake. Featuring the only vampire short story written by Anne Rice, the undisputed queen of vampire literature, and boasting an autobiographical introduction and original tale by Ingrid Pitt, the star of Hammer Films' The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula, this is one anthology that every vampire fan—vampiric feminist or not—will want to drink deep from. From the classic stories of Edith Wharton, Edith Nesbit, Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon to modern incarnations by such acclaimed writers as Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy Kilpatrick, Tanith Lee, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and Angela Slatter, these blood-drinkers and soul-stealers range from the sexual to the sanguinary, from the tormented Good to the unspeakably Evil. Among those memorable Children of the Night you will encounter are Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Byronic vampire Saint-Germain, Nancy A. Collins' undead heroine Sonja Blue, Tanya Huff's vampiric detective Vicki Nelson, and Freda Warrington’s age-old lovers Karl and Charlotte. Nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the International Horror Guild Award, and now revised and updated, The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women fulfils the bloodlust of the somnambulist horror fan, delivering the ultimate bite.

https://amzn.to/4eP3UWn

[jaxfromthatcircus]

✮ Get to know Coffee and tag 9 people you want to get to know better ✮

𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑(𝐒): Red, black, neon green

𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑(𝐒): MINT CHOCOLATE!!!

𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂: I Mostly rock and rock subcultures. My current favourite is Dani California by Red Hot Chili Peppers, but Muse, Queen, Korn, Linkin Park, Gorillaz and Against Me! are ALWAYS up there!

𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄(𝐒): Probably the Matrix!

𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒: Sonic Prime, Sonic Boom and Community

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆: The Drug In Me Is You by Falling in Reverse

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒: Doctor who marathon!

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄: NIMONA. PLEASE WATCH NIMONA.

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆: The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆: This video over some wine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIvKrC5HZ7s

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐍: MORE blogs LMAO

tagged by the most wonderful @keykeepingbastardtm, thanks!! ;)

tagging || @pomni-xddcc @dh-pomni @ringmaster-pomni @ask-abstracted-kaufmo @askthequeen @gangle-ribbon shh its not 9 i know please

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[saintofdaggers]

anyway here’s a list of weird, messed up and unsettling books I’ve read (and yes I’m aware some of these are problematic or have questionable content. engage with each at your own discretion because some of them are WAY out there and also potentially triggering; I’ve included StoryGraph links so you can check the content warnings for each if you need them)

asterisks to the ones I especially enjoyed

Kathe Koja: Extremities*

Poppy Z. Brite: Wormwood*

Chuck Palahniuk: Invisible Monsters

Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho

Kobo Abe: The Woman in the Dunes

Kobo Abe: The Box Man*

Daisy Johnson: Sisters*

Nick Cave: The Death of Bunny Munro*

Ryu Murakami: Piercing

Borderlands (edited by Thomas F. Monteleone)

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch: Venus in Furs*

Caitlín R. Kiernan: The Red Tree

J. G. Ballard: High Rise

Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange

Han Kang: The Vegetarian*

John Fowles: The Collector

Lisa Tuttle: A Nest of Nightmares*

Oscar Wilde: Salome*

Stephen King: Misery

Killer Verse: Poems of Murder and Mayhem

Gillian Flynn: Sharp Objects

Sadegh Hedayat: The Blind Owl*

[spacecravat]

Hi margot do you have a list you'd share of the Hugo and nebula women? This is so in my vein and I've been feeling the itch to read more sf again also I hope you enjoy the female man I thought it was a fun whirlwind

Here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JgcIyXqcOJbAqMjXKEsGgTRCRBGm6ksCInb6nqFdeao/edit#gid=0

I'm expanding this to women and nonbinary authors, which was less of a concern when I was just doing pre-1980 books, but a few more these days.

Authors with an asterisk next to their name means they won the award for that year.

For the 50s-80s I actually checked every author, since a few (like Andre Norton) used pseudonyms. For the 90s on, I got lazy and mostly just assumed gender based on first name (I know, I know) and only checked ambiguous ones. May or may not be entirely accurate, and there might be a few I have or have not deleted that should be. But it's probably most of them.

Nonbinary authors I am aware of: Caitlín R. Kiernan, Annalee Newitz, Shelley Parker-Chan, and C.L. Polk. And there may be more! I admittedly was not being super thorough.

I removed Yoon Ha Lee, who is the only trans man I know of who's been nominated, but I do love his books so I want to give a shoutout here to the Machineries of Empire series anyway.

Charlie Jane Anders, Rachel Pollack, and Ryka Aoki are the trans woman I'm aware of on the list, though again, there may be more.

The second tab has all winners/nominees, including for a few other awards. (I did delete one entry for association with the Sad Puppies nonsense.)

Also if you have trouble finding any of the books, let me know and I can probably help! I've managed to track most of the older ones down. (I've had good luck with archive.org and libgen for the long out of print.)

[lady-inkyrius]

I keep on being indecisive about this, so I'll just let Tumblr choose for me. I have had some of these books sitting on my shelf for a while but just never got round to reading (Schild's Ladder and Rocannon's World especially) while some are very recent acquisitions (like Time War).

The oldest book here is Steppenwolf (1927), while the newest is Serious Weakness (2022). The shortest I'm pretty sure is Invisible Cities, and the longest is probably either Lanark or Serious Weakness.

I considered putting Worm in here, but god I do not have the energy for that at the moment, and also the rest of them are all physical books that I own.

¹ When I say Rocannon's World, I'll probably end up reading the entirety of the Worlds of Exile and Illusion volume that it's in (It would be the shortest book by a lot otherwise).