#it was all pretty tame as far as gothic horror goes??

[aclockworkreader]

i finally watched nosferatu (2024) and i’ve come to the conclusion that many people either don’t like or just don’t understand gothic horror as a genre. everyone was acting like it’s the most disturbing, depraved movie they’ve ever seen and quite frankly, i think it could have been much weirder. it’s a near perfect vampire movie. appropriately dark, erotic, and horrific with classic elements of the gothic genre. and a masterful (and surprisingly feminist) exploration of trauma and the dichotomy of shame and desire. it’s a story about being repulsed by your own desire and feeling unlovable because of it, but feeling it nonetheless. and overall i think the film does a fantastic job at working through these themes.

[duckprintspress]

Meet Aether Beyond the Binary Contributor Zel Howland

We’re solidly through the first week of the crowdfunding campaign for our next anthology, Aether Beyond the Binary. We’re 55% funded (yay!) and inching toward our goal slowly but surely (I post daily funding goals and progress toward them on our Bluesky account, if you’re curious). The campaign ends on January 25th, 2024; between then and now, we need to raise $6,038 more to fund the publishing of this awesome collection of modern aetherpunk stories staring characters outside the gender binary!

Today, we introduce the fifth of our 17 authors: Zel Howland!

About Zel Howland: Zel (they/she) is a writer and artist currently living in Los Angeles with their partner. When not writing, they spend their time painting, embroidering, analyzing literature and tv shows, and playing Dungeons & Dragons. They are the author of many a fanfiction, as well as the novel The Shadow of Ophelia Walker.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr

This is Zel’s third publication with Duck Prints Press. Her short story Chrysopoeia (dark fantasy, f/f) is available at duckprintspress.com and her story The Lightkeeper and the Sea (dark modern fantasy, f/nb) is a Patreon exclusive. Both stories are in the Contributor Short Story Bundle campaign add-on! Learn more about Zel’s publishing career.

An Interview with Zel Howland

When and why did you begin creating?

I was always a voracious reader as a kid, and that sort of naturally lead to me trying to write my own stories. When I was about ten or eleven, I came up with a story that borrowed heavily from the Chronicles of Narnia, and I even managed to eke out 75 pages of bad, bad writing before getting discouraged. I still came back to writing though, and the intervening years of practice and failure taught me a lot about my craft and myself.

Are you a pantser, a planner, or a planster? What’s your process look like?

Planner, definitely! I spend as much time worldbuilding and outlining as I do actually writing. I usually have 3-4 outlines for each story (sometimes more for novels!), starting with a brainstorm outline, then getting gradually more detailed until the final outline functions almost as a first draft. They said make your first drafts shitty, and I really took that advice and ran with it.

What’s your favorite part of the creation process?

For writing, I love the first draft–or for me, also known as my final outline. I really love putting the story down on the page in all its messy glory, without the pressure of having to come up with the perfect turn of phrase or spending hours buried in a thesaurus. For art, rendering light and shadows will always be my favorite part. I love taking something flat and turning it into a three-dimensional object with just a little bit of time and care.

What are your favorite tropes?

I really love stories about the Other, whether they’re full horror or exploring other aspects of it. In school I took a class on Gothic Literature that stuck with me so much that I look for character mirroring and fear of the Other in everything I read or watch–there’s more than you might think, even in the most tame narratives! As far as fic goes, mutual pining is what I live and breathe–the kind where both characters are convinced the other doesn’t even like them. I love pretty much every trope that follows from that, from fake relationships to two person love triangles.

What are your favorite character archetypes?

I’ve always loved the manipulative types, especially hyper-competent ones. Characters that aren’t necessarily physically skilled or popular, but who have managed by way of a powerful intellect to pull all the strings so that everyone else is dancing to their tune. I especially love it when these characters aren’t unrepentantly evil, or even villains (although a good villain in this vein is pretty damn fun).

What are your favorite resources and tools for your craft?

I will always, always tout Scrivener as the best writing software available, period. It has so many different functionalities that I couldn’t possibly list them all, and probably don’t even know them all! My favorite functions are the corkboard for brainstorming, the split screen and reference pop-out for easy access to previous drafts or outlines, and the folders where I can organize my many, many outlines and resources without worrying about finding them again. For digital art, I’ve recently begun playing around with Rebelle, and I really love it. I’ve always been more comfortable with physical mediums, and Rebelle replicates both the feel and the look of mediums like oil or watercolor while maintaining the functionality of digital art (undo button and layers, my beloved). I’m still learning, but so far it’s been perfect for me.

What’s your favorite medium to work in? Why?

I love oil painting! It’s a very forgiving medium to work with–plus it has such a good texture, and there’s so much about mixing paint and doing glazes that are meditative and peaceful.

Which of your own creations is your favorite? Why?

I really love the story I produced for Aether Beyond the Binary. I came into writing it after three years of chronic illness that kept me from writing at all, and I think the silver lining was that I was able to come at the concept and the story from a different direction than I normally would have. Plus, it was my first time writing from the perspective of a character with the same gender identity as me, which felt like a boulder being lifted from my shoulders!

If you could give one piece of advice to a new creator who came to you for help, what would that advice be?

Learn the rules, and then break them! Understanding why certain conventions are popular and always recommended will ultimately help you figure out the best way to ignore the recommendations altogether, and find your own way of doing things.

Zel’s Contribution to Aether Beyond The Binary 

Title: Flower and Rot

Art – Zel did art to accompany this story (will not be included in the published anthology, but still, look at it, it’s so cool and shiny!!!).

Tags: bipoc, body horror (graphic descriptions), break-up (past), california, character injury (serious), death of a parent (past), found family, jewish, los angeles, magic use, modern with magic, mystery, natural disaster, non-binary, past tense, pov first person, private investigator, second chances, self-esteem issues, suicide (mentions of), systemic inequality, telepathic bond, trans man, undeath, united states of america

Excerpt:

Four dozen minds linked by Aether watched me through thousands of leaves and roots and flowers as I hurried away. Their attention bored into my back right up to the moment I switched off the Aethercoil and the flow of Aether abruptly stopped. The grove became just an unusually lush garden. I was alone once more.

The thing growing inside my eye stopped too, but I couldn’t afford to hope that it had shriveled away without Aether to feed it. My vision was still cloudy in that eye, and the whole area was delicate and tender.

Spitting rain formed halos around the streetlights as I reached the drugstore parking lot. I clumsily fished for my keys with my left hand, keeping the right firmly covering my eye. My shitty sedan was the only car in the lot, but I checked every line of sight around me before stepping into the driver’s seat. I was pretty sure I was alone.

I couldn’t take the chance that I was wrong.

I already knew what I would see, but I had to know how fucked I was. I pulled down the visor and flipped open the mirror.

Rot.

Intrigued? You’ll have to buy the anthology to read more! Come check out our Kickstarter campaign!!

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 10 of 26

Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) 

Author: Oscar Wilde 

Genre/Tags: Fiction, Gothic Horror, Third-Person, LGBT Protagonist (I... guess) 

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 4/13/2021

Date Finished: 4/20/2021 

When artist Basil Hallward paints a picture of the beautiful and innocent Dorian Gray, he believes he’s created his masterpiece. Seeing himself on the canvas, Dorian wishes to remain forever young and beautiful while the portrait ages in his stead. The bargain comes true. While Dorian grows older and descends a path of hedonism and moral corruption, his portrait changes to reflect his true nature while his physical body remains eternally youthful. As his debauchery grows worse, and the portrait warps to reflect his corruption, Dorian’s past begins to catch up to him. 

Perhaps one never seems so much at one’s ease as when one has to play a part. Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could have believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any tragedy of our age. Those finely-shaped fingers could never have clutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God and goodness. He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his demeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life. 

Full review, some spoilers, and content warnings under the cut. 

Content warnings for the book: Misogyny (mostly satirical). Racism and antisemitism (not so much). Emotional manipulation, blackmail, suicide, graphic murder, and death. Recreational drug use.

Reviewing a classic novel through a modern lens is always going to be a challenge for me. The world seems to change a lot every decade, let alone every century—whether some canonized classic holds up today is pretty hit or miss (sorry, English degree). And considering the sheer amount of academic focus on classic texts, it’s not like I’m going to have a “fresh take” on one for a casual review. I read and reviewed The Count of Monte Cristo last year, and thought it aged remarkably well over 170+ years.

Somehow I never read Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray for school. I tried reading it independently in my late teens/early twenties, and honestly think I was just too stupid for it. Needing a shorter read before the next Murderbot book releases at the end of the month, I grabbed Dorian Gray off the shelf and decided to give it another shot. By the end, I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked the book.

I’m actually going to discuss my pain points before I get into what worked for me. The first half of the book is very slow-paced. The Picture of Dorian Gray is famous for… well… the picture. But it isn’t relevant until the halfway point of the novel, when Dorian does something truly reprehensible and finds his image in the picture has changed. There’s a lot of setup before this discovery. The first half of the book has a lot of fluff, with characters talking about stuff that happened off screen, discussing various philosophies, and so on without progressing the story. Some of this is fine, as it establishes Dorian’s initial character so the contrast later is all the more striking. I just think it could have been shorter. I realize this comes down to personal taste.

I’m also torn on the Wilde’s writing style. He’s very clever, and there are many philosophical ideas in his writing that did genuinely made me stop and think. The prose is also beautiful and descriptive; this is especially useful when it contrasts the horror elements of the story. However, there’s a lot of unnatural, long monologue in the story. Not sure if it’s the time period, Wilde’s background as a playwright, or just his writing style in general (maybe all three), but the characters ramble a LOT. My favorite game was trying to imagine how other characters were reacting to a literal wall of text. 

I also feel the need to mention this book has some bigoted content, as implied in my content warnings. The misogyny in the story is satirical; it’s spouted by the biggest tool in the book, Lord Henry, whose whole shtick is being paradoxical. You just need basic critical thought to figure that out. However, some things don’t have that excuse. A minor character in the first half is an obvious anti-Semitic caricature. There’s also some pretty racist content, particularly when Wilde describes Gray’s musical instrument collection. While these are small parts of the book, it’d be disingenuous not to acknowledge them.

All that being said, there were many aspects of the book I enjoyed, particularly in the second half. Wilde does a great job characterizing terrible people who fully believe what they say. Lord Henry is an obvious example, and Dorian follows his lead as the story progresses. One of my favorite bits was after Sibyl’s suicide (which Dorian instigated by being a piece of shit). Dorian is initially shocked, but as he and Lord Henry discuss it, they come to the conclusion that her suicide was a good thing because it had thematic merit. It’s just such a brazen, horrible way to alleviate one’s guilt. 

Dorian also goes to significant lengths to justify his actions. At one point, he murders Basil to keep the portrait a secret. While he briefly feels guilty about this, Dorian grows angry at the inconvenience of having killed this man, supposedly an old friend. He even separates himself from the situation, expressing that Basil died in such a horrible way. Bro, you killed him! It was you! The cognitive dissonance is just stunning. 

It’s also viscerally satisfying to read about Dorian’s downfall as his awful choices catch up to him. Dorian becoming tormented by the portrait is just... *chef’s kiss*. Is it surprising? No, it’s pretty standard Gothic horror fare. But there’s something to be said about seeing a genuinely horrible man finally pay for what he’s done after getting away with it for so long. I wish real life worked that way. 

There’s the picture itself, too. I know it’s The Thing most people know about this novel -- but I just think it’s a cool concept. I like the idea of someone’s likeness reflecting their true self, and the psychological effect it has on the subject. Most of the novel is fiction with realistic horror elements, but I like that there’s a touch of the supernatural thanks to Dorian’s picture. It’s an element I wouldn’t mind seeing in more works. 

It's sad to read Dorian Gray with the context of what happened to Wilde. The homoeroticism in the novel is obvious, but tame compared to works today. Wilde and this book are a depressing case study in how queer people are simultaneously erased and reviled in recent history. Wilde was tortured for his homosexuality (and died from resulting health complications) over 100 years ago, yet the 1994 edition of Dorian Gray I read refers to his real homosexual relationship as a "close friendship". It's an infuriating and tragic paradox. Things have improved by inches, but we still have so far to go.  

As I grow older I find I appreciate classic works more than when I was forced to read them for school. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a gripping Gothic horror story. Some aspects didn't age particularly well, but that's true for almost anything over time. If you're in the market for this kind of book, I do recommend it.  

[aetherscribe-blog]

Writers that Changed Me

The authors of my life who inspired me to follow their footsteps.

   I hate to have to decide my absolute favourites and so, for the safety of both my mind and those in my immediate vicinity, this list is not in order of favouritism.

1. Derek Landy (The Skulduggery Pleasant Series)

   “Detective, magician, warrior... oh yes, and dead.”

   Derek Landy is a mad genius. Not only does he encapsulate best way of “getting to the point” in a story without so much unnecessarily fluffy words but he manages to deliver this in a way that leaves me tearful in either comedy or tragedy. His characters speak and interact with each other in such witty sarcasm in even such dire situations sends me a clear message - that the readers may love and be flabbergasted by the incredible worlds that Landy creates, but his characters have no such compulsion to enjoy the dangers they are constantly thrown into.

2. JRR Tolkien (The Middle-Earth Series)

   “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

   He started it all off - the hero that the fantasy genre got and deserves. I won’t lie, I do not admire Tolkien for his writing as much as I admire him for his ideas and his pioneering of the genre. He’s the reason why so many writers can spend so long on perfecting the setting of their stories, trying to imitate the rich culture and history of Middle-Earth. Without him, I bet we wouldn’t have such things as Dungeons and Dragons or many of the other fantasy role-playing games and of course, far less of the fantasy novels we know today. It goes without saying that JRR Tolkien truly changed the imaginative world.

3. Michelle Paver (The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness)

   “Suddenly death was upon them. A frenzy of claws. A welter of sound to make the ears bleed. In a heartbeat, the creature had smashed their shelter to splinters.”

   These books. These goddamn books. The first instalment of this series, Wolf Brother, was where it all began for me and ten years from now, I can proudly say that it was this book’s rich atmosphere that would set me on the path to being a writer. You can tell that she did her research here because for the entirety of this young adult’s book you truly feel like a stone age hunter from every animal Torak tracks to the release of air from his lungs as he looses arrows from his bow. The beautiful thing is that this book based on the ancient world is steeped in supernatural beasts and creatures, setting up my foundation love for finding wonder in a believable world.

4. Darren Shan (The Demonata and the Saga of Darren Shan)

   “It is good to be taught humility when we are young. If we do not experience pain as children, we will cause pain as adults.“

   Darren Shan brings out the little kid in me and subjects my inner child to untold horrors. Usually, saying such things would only result in a court hearing but here, Mr Shan does it with all that horror that involves lots of gooey blood and slime. If one were to pick up one of his books, they might toss it aside thinking it to be immature or childish and to be fair on the man, that’s the audience he was going for in the first place. And yet, when one reads on, they feel themselves becoming like the kids they once were with mischievous shenanigans and cheeky comments. Then Mr Shan proceeds to take that child and gleefully show them images of their family being murdered brutally by demons, vampires or any other horror monster he can imagine. It’s simple, straightforward and helps to bridge the gap between child’s horror and adult horror in a satisfying transition.

5. Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Coraline, American Gods and Neverwhere)

   “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

   Nobody has ever been able to whisk me away to a whimsical and creative world as easily and in such a state of willingness like Neil Gaiman. Describing him simply as a fantasy writer would seem incorrect yet accurate at the same time, as he bases many of his stories in the real world with strange and bizarre things happening within them that the main character can’t help but tumble into. He makes many references to things such as folklore, mythology and ancient pantheons so that although these worlds are amazing and astounding, we feel an odd familiarity with them. Many writers do a good job of presenting a world and dropping the reader into it but Neil Gaiman doesn’t have to try this hard; if he shows us a world, we want to dive headlong into it.

6. Brian Jacques (Tales of Redwall)

   “Even the strongest and bravest must sometimes weep. It shows they have a great heart, one that can feel compassion for others.”

   The Tales of Redwall series once dominated my childhood and sat here as an adult, it took me a long time to work out just why that was. For anybody not fully aware of the Redwall books, it consists of a fantasy world which is home to anthropomorphic animals who remain locked in conflict with each other in one way or another. It would sound very tame and childish if not for unexpectedly brutal and vivid fights and scenes. Then it struck me that these animals actually personified different characters. Matthias, the mouse monk who seemed frail in stature but fierce for the defence of his friends, or Lord Brocktree, the badger warrior whose might was equalled only by his sense of justice, and Cluny the Scourge, the rat warlord who was equal parts traitorous as he was cunning and evil. These tales took a medieval world and made them appeal to the imaginative senses of children, and for that I am forever grateful of Brian Jacques.

7. Terry Pratchett (The Discworld Series)

   “Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate.”

   The late Sir Terry Pratchett was the greatest author the modern world has ever seen. Yep, i said it and I mean it, anybody who disagrees with me knows where to find me. You can’t really argue with the works he left behind, such as Discworld which speaks for itself as a series of 41 books. None of them were lazily done either, for those who believe it’s either about quality or quantity will realise that Terry Pratchett had both under his belt and hat. Every book was a parody so ridiculous in it’s nature that it took on a value of it’s own, every book of his leaving me in stitches more than once. This humour wasn’t even meaningless either, as every book for all it’s silliness never failed to be coupled with some inside meaning; a theme that encompassed the morale of the tale. Terry Pratchett made the art of writing seem so easy and real that all of those writers who were crazy enough couldn’t help but try it themselves. Rest in peace, Mr Pratchett. *Salutes*

8. Philip Reeve (The Mortal Engines Series)

   “ “You aren't a hero and I'm not beautiful and we probably won't live happily ever after" she said, "But we're alive and together and we're going to be all right.” “

   Oh boy, where to start with this one. Philip Reeve certainly had his imagination cap on for this series, as it’s hard to imagine a post-apocalyptic future where Earth cities are now upon the backs of motorised platforms, their only way of surviving and thriving is to chase down other cities and pull them apart. Anybody who is still with me at this point gets to hear the real beauty of these tales though  - the characters. They have a way of tearing you away from what you imagine as a conventional hero and instead of perfect protagonists, we are given characters who could easily be seen as villains should they have made one single different choice. It takes the story and brings it down to earth, as the people who are often perfect in these stories usually end up being villains, traitors or far too nice to last five seconds in this brutal world. In other worlds, we get to cheer on far-from-perfect heroes and watch either love or hate blossom between some of the least likely people imaginable.

9. Eoin Colfer (The Artemis Fowl Series)

   “If I win, I’m a prodigy. If I lose then I’m mad. That’s the way history is written.”

   I remember the controversy back in the day when Artemis Fowl was released alongside the Harry Potter series and through the natural course of people favouring the latter, Eoin Colfer’s first release was often slandered as being a rip-off. Because of this unfortunate rumour that spread like wildfire, I didn’t read Artemis Fowl until recently whilst I was away on holiday. I was happy to discover that it was more like a blend of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Terry Pratchett and Ocean’s Eleven. The character of Artemis himself gives us a very long list of reasons to hate him. He’s rich, thinks himself superior to everybody else and he’s pretty much the one causing all the trouble in the story by trying to con a fairy community of their gold, as well as getting his butler to dirty his hands in his place. This should all make him the villain and yet despite all this, you can’t help but love Artemis because throughout about 99% of the story, he is the one who is in control and he is the one moving the plot forward. He is the perfect example of a proactive character who is loved, even if what he does cannot truly be seen as the right choice.

10. HP Lovecraft (Dagon, The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror)

   “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown.”

   My love for Lovecraft’s works is possibly my most recent of all the authors on this list as his is possibly the most adult of them all. When one thinks of conventional horror, they like to imagine gothic horror with supernatural beings such as demons and vampires and ghosts, beings that were created with the intention of scaring people who at one point had been steeped in religious teachings. Lovecraft created cosmic horror with the intended goal of scaring those who did not believe in anything other than science. He relied on stories of people being subjected to horrors that could not be explained by science and yet were so real to defy conventional methods of possibility. This logic-shattering experience made characters question the laws of nature themselves, often leading to the inevitable Lovecraftian fate of insanity, madness or even outright despair because the brain simply could not handle the fact that existence was being questioned as an outright lie. Lovecraft left a terrifying legacy that neyond the visible safety of the campfire, truly anything that our minds could or could not conceive could be looking upon humanity with disdain... and we would be little more than insects to them.

   This was a big one, I must admit. If you were engaged enough to read all your way to the very end then thank you so much for staying with me the whole way! Happy writing everyone!

-CR