RECOMMENDED AUTHORS Mike Carey writes good urban fantasy Robert s Rules of Writing Cabal by clive barker David

Gemmell "Stiff" by Mary Roach The Whale Road by Robert Low Arthur Machen's "The White People" My favorite collection of Campbell's is still Cold Print. "The Tugging", "Blacke d Out" and the title story "Cold Print" alone are worth seeing if you can find a copy. List Magical Realism authors: Gabriel Garcia Marquez Ben Okri Isabel Allende Syl Cheney-Coker Kojo Laing Allejo Carpentier Toni Morrison Kwsme Anthony Appiah Mario Vargas Llosa AS WELL AS * Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (Indian-British) * Illywhacker by Peter Carey (Australia) - this is one of my personal top te n novels of all time (and I've read thousands), and is Australia's epic novel. T he twists at the end are absolutely astounding - this book is worth the investme nt of time. * One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garca Mrquez, (Colombia). This is p robably the most famous example of magical realism ever. * Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (Czech) this book was written before the term "Magical Realism," but Kafka's works fit, especially depending on interpretatio n * Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter * Immortality by Milan Kundera * La Casa de los Espiritus (The House of Spirits) by Isabel Allende * Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez * The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen * Electric Jesus Corpse by Carlton Mellick III * Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel by Haruki Murakam i

Every horror fan should check out the ghost stories of MR James RE: Any suggestions on Bierce? 0 Only story I read by him was Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, which I loved.

Offhand? Beyond the Wall The Damned Thing The Spook House An Inhabitant of Carcosa (Robert W. Chambers later famously riffed on this one) The Difficulty of Crossing a Field (probably his most famous horror story, but o

nly because it's been erroneously reported on as a real event by countless "para normal" authors) In summer I picked up the Nightmare Factory and fell in love with Ligotti's blea k funhouse of cosmic terror, and shortly afterwards sought out his mass-market c ollection Teatro Grottescoro and his collaborative albums with Current 93 (and M y Work Is Not Yet Done, his book of corporate-themed horror, is in the process o f being ordered by my local library). I'm currently looking for material in a si milar vein. Any suggestions, Books forum? Here's a few I've read/are on the read ing list: Ramsay Campbell - Alone with the Horrors Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. - Blood Will Have Its Season Jonathan Thomas - Midnight Call And Other Stories Joe R. Lansdale - By Bizarre Hands, Bestsellers Guaranteed Laird Barron - The Imago Sequence and Other Stories Robert Aickman - The Wine-Dark Sea Thomas M. Disch - The M.D. Nick Harkaway - The early days of the Reification from The Gone-Away World A good companion is In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex sliggy 09/09/09, 13:18 0 It's a nonfiction account of the Essex, which was the inspiration for Moby-Dick. The ship was actually stowed and sunk by a sperm whale. The book focuses on wha t happened to the crew after that, because that's where things went really crazy . Jerome Stern-Making Shapely Fiction Suzy McKee Charnas The Vampire Tapestry James M. Cain - Postman always rings twice Hemingway "clean Well Lighted Place" Elmore Leonard Horror: Karl Edward Wagner = "heroic " fantasy = Kane/ also horror Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Dracula by Stoker The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson Collected Ghost Stories of MR James Burn Witch Burn by A. Merritt To Walk the Night by William Sloane Fear by L. Ron Hubbard Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson Conjure Wife and Smoke Ghost by Fritz Leiber I Am Legend by Richard Matheson Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin The collected Short Stories of Richard Matheson Hell House by Richard Matheson The October Country by Ray Bradbury Something Wicked This Way Comes '' The Exorcist by William Peter Blaty Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg Salem's Lot by King The Stand '' Watchers by Dean Koontz

David Chalmers The Conscious Mind Susan R. Matthews Robin Hobb Nalo Hopkinson

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart TIBOR FISCHER Glen Cook FRITZ LIEBER Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace Red Harvest, by Dashell Hammett The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino The Long Valley, by John Steinbeck Burning Chrome, by William Gibson The Road, by Cormac McCarthy One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez World War Z, by Max Brooks You Can't Win, by Jack Black* KJ Parker's Fencer trilogy. Paul Kearney: The Monarchies of God jOE aBERCROMBIE - FIRST LAW TRILOGY R. Scott Bakker. Prince of Nothing Trilogy Brandon Sanderson - ELANTRIS GENE WOLFE - LATRO IN THE MIST Scott Lynch Gentleman Gentlemen Bastard Jeffrey Ford (EMPEROR OF ICE CREAM, ETC) David Mitchell Last Call, Expiration Date, Earthquake Weather by Tim Powers jACK VANCE DUNSANY Robert Chambers - REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS zELAZNY Across the Nightingale Floor, by Lian Hearn Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clark Hart's Hope, by Orson Scott Card Steven Erikson's Malazan books Poul Anderson - tHREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS Sapkowski: The Witcher vI also very much like everything Lynch has done so far with the Gentlemen Basta rds, and Richard K. Morgans "The Steel Remains" has a lot of promise for the tri logy it starts. Scott Lynch-Gentleman bastard series 1) Ilf and Petrov, "The Twelve Chairs" and "Golden Calf." Written in the 20s, af ter the Civil War but before Stalinism, during the New Economic Policy era, when it sort of looked like Russia might turn out okay after all. Fail on that, but the books have become gold standards of comedy. Any Russian you will meet can qu ote to you at least 5 or 6 phrases out of this book that have become proverbial. 2) Viktor Pelevin. Best Russian writer to emerge from the post-Soviet era. Ruled the scene until 1999. Well, actually he still rules the scene, but he changed p ublishers in 1999, and quality of oeuvres for some reason went down the drain. M aybe they're demanding too much of him. I don't know. Read "Life of the Insects" , "Yellow Arrow," short stories and "Buddha's Little Finger." And "Generation 'P '." 3) The brothers Arkadij and Boris Strugatskie. Unchallenged kings of Soviet scie nce fiction, despite the fact that neither you nor anyone else outside of the ru ssophone zone has ever heard of them. Wrote the most realistic and engaging scifi ever. I was so spoiled by their books in my youth that when I tried reading t he regular classics of the genre - Asimov, Lem, Heinlein etc. - I couldn't. The bar of realism and cleverness had been set too high. Unfortunately, they have no good translator. What they have is Andrew Bromfield,

the factotum of Russian lit. Check out the recently released "Monday Starts on Saturday" - it's the 'Soviet Harry Potter', about a magical university. The firs t (and dreadful) English translation of this book appeared some time in the 70s, and when you read it, you may notice some aspects that potentially hint at a so urce of inspiration for what's-her-name, with all the undeserved money. Lord Dunsany (IMO, the best fantasy writer ever) Arthur Machen (weird fiction--Chaosium has reprinted some of his work) Algernon Blackwood (weird fiction--IMO did two of the best horror stories ever) Philip Wylie (did the classic "When Worlds Collide" disaster novel, as well as " Gladiator", which was the inspiration for Superman) Clark Ashton Smith (weird fiction) H. P. Lovecraft (weird fiction) Richard Paul Russo (SF) Tim Powers (gonzo historical fantasy) James P. Blaylock (several varieties of fantasy) Alfred Bester (two classic SF novels, ignore his other stuff) Francis Stevens (horror/adventure stories) William Morris (fantasy; keep a good dictionary handy) Cordwainer Smith (one of the all-time best SF writers) E. Hoffman Price (weird fiction) Murray Leinster (SF) Fredric Brown (cynical SF; also known for mysteries) Eric Frank Russell (SF) C. M. Kornbluth (SF) Henry Kuttner (SF) David H. Keller (weird fiction) L. Ron Hubbard (no, really! I actually like the "Ole Doc Methusela" stories, "Sl aves of Sleep", and "Typewriter in the Sky". Awful writer, but a good storytelle r) Many Wade Wellman (weird fiction) Arthur Conan Doyle (weird fiction) Robert E. Howard (the Conan stories are better than you think they'll be; plus o ther good weird fiction; plus "A Gent from Bear Creek" is a total hoot) William Hope Hodgson (weird fiction) Henry S. Whitehead (weird fiction) M. P. Shiel (weird fiction) Karl Edward Wagner (dark fantasy) Fritz Leiber (coined the term "swords and sorcery"; the first several Fafhrd & G rey Mouser books are classic; also did good weird fiction) Ted Sturgeon (SF) Ernest Bramah (the "Kai Lung" books are delightful) James Branch Cabell (literary fantasy) Jack Vance (the "Dying Earth" fantasy stories) Michael Shea (the Nifft fantasy stories) Stanley G. Weinbaum (SF) H. Rider Haggard (lost-world fantasy) A. Merritt (lost-world fantasy) Edgar Rice Burroughs Edwin Lester Arnold (inspired Burroughs) Leslie Barringer (fantasy) Lafcadio Hearn (weird fiction) John Collier (weird fiction) Neal Stephenson (I've only read "Snow Crash") William Gibson (the guy who everybody thinks invented cyberpunk) K. W. Jeter (the guy who actually invented cyberpunk--see the book "Dr. Adder") P. K. Dick (gonzo SF) Ambrose Bierce (weird fiction) Jeffrey Ford (fantasy) Charles G. Finney (fantasy)

Italo Calvino (fantasy) Jorge Luis Borges (fantasy) I suppose I might as well add Gabriel Garcia Marquez, even though I don't like h is stuff very much (magic realism) Robert W. Chambers (weird fiction) Guy de Maupassant (weird fiction) The team of L. Sprauge de Camp & Fletcher Pratt (fantasy) Hope Mirrlees (fantasy) Peter S. Beagle (fantasy) C. L. Moore (weird fiction & pulp SF) Charles L. Harness (SF) Gene Wolfe (SF & fantasy) David Drake (military SF) Francis Marion Crawford (weird fiction) Dan Simmons (SF) Mervyn Peake (fantasy) Leigh Brackett (weird fiction & pulp SF) Harry Harrison (SF) George MacDonald (religious fantasy) C. S. Lewis (religious fantasy & SF) Tolkien (duh) James H. Schmitz (SF) John Steakley (SF) Thorne Smith (fantasy) Larry Niven (SF) James White (SF) The team of Niven & Pournelle (SF) Fred Pohl (SF) Evangeline Walton (fantasy)