#nathan ballingrud

[usherdownthesky]

[explosionshark]

New Nathan Ballingrud novella out today :)

Years ago, in a cave beneath the dense forests and streams on the surface of the moon, a gargantuan spider once lived. Its silk granted its first worshippers immense faculties of power and awe.

It’s now 1923 and Veronica Brinkley is touching down on the moon for her intake at the Barrowfield Home for Treatment of the Melancholy. A renowned facility, Dr. Barrington Cull’s invasive and highly successful treatments have been lauded by many. And they’re so simple! All it takes is a little spider silk in the amygdala, maybe a strand or two in the prefrontal cortex, and perhaps an inch in the hippocampus for near evisceration of those troublesome thoughts and ideas.

But patients aren’t the only ones with trouble on their minds, and although the spider’s been dead for years, its denizens are not. Someone or something is up to no good, and Veronica just might be the cause.

Available from MacMillan

[jacquelinesbookclub]

The Strange – Nathan Ballingrud

Fear. It’s often what drives us, as human beings. Fear of pain, fear of being alone, fear of the unknown. When I first read this book about a year ago I was in recovery following a major surgery. Alone in a hotel room on the other side of the planet, doused with heavy painkillers that did a paltry job of actually killing pain, but a bang up one of killing clarity, fear was my most present companion.

Fear is a major theme in The Strange. Unlike many stories set on Mars, Ballingrud focuses less on Mars as Roman god of war, instead turning his attention on the moons, Deimos and Phobos: in mythology the sons of the Greek god of war Ares, and representing dread preceding battle and panic in its mist respectively. This is the driving force, the great motivator throughout the story, fear looming over the people of mars, shining down on every decision they make.

The townsfolk and the sheriff's fear of the Moths and the unknown outside of New Galveston feeds Anabelle’s fear the invaders will shirk their deserved justice. Joe’s fear of the gallows is bait for Anabelle to drag him out into the crater, and Sally’s fear for Joe gets her on the hook too. But the overwhelming fear blanketing the entirety of martian society is caused by the silence, the loss of contact with earth and inability to return, its the fear of abandonment, and the severed tether of safety. This is core to colonial stories, both from history and fiction. Left on your own without support from the homeland, food supply is scarce and tenuous, everything outside your compounds walls is a perceived threat, fear is bombarding from every angle. And the characters in this book act as we unfortunately do in real life: with violence. It’s fight or flight when there’s nowhere to flee. It always begins with outsiders; Anabelle’s father, Sam, kills a miner from Dig Town to protect his own from what he believes is an active threat, but then it becomes their own, their friends and neighbours and customers, that strip the diner clean immediately when Sam is arrested. Towards the conclusion, we see the end result, suicide: a man’s fear turning the violence back on himself.

In the acknowledgements section of the book, Ballingrud says “This book is also a love letter to westerns, a genre which has only become richer as it grapples with historical realities instead of indulging in mythology.” This, I think, perfectly describes the books tone. For something that is ostensibly a science fiction novel meets pulp serial, it reads like historical fiction. Alternative history, sure, but the premise never feels ridiculous, Ballingrud seems to fully understand the time and place, and constructs the characters accordingly. It all feels very real, very… Plausible. And it’s that colonial anxiety that roots this story in reality, a fear that colonists bring with them from home.

With the benefit of time removed I can see that I was never in any real danger in that hotel room post operation. I was safe, surrounded by friends, and under the care of one of the best surgery teams in the world. The fear was mine alone, the anxiety disorder I pack with me every day charged up with new circumstances. I think this is the origin of most of the fear we experience day-to-day, it’s the assumption of danger, writ large, the perceived potential for pain that makes us turn our backs on logic and dolly zoom on our imagination.

I’m not saying that all fear is baseless and fake, of course not. If I were actively being attacked by a tiger then I have every reason to fear for my life, in that moment, but if I head into the jungle every time expecting an attack, that’s fear I’ve bought in with me. There may not even be tigers in this jungle, who knows? I’ve never been attacked by a tiger, I’ve never even seen a tiger, the fear of being attacked has stemmed from my imagination, from countless “what ifs”. These passive fears we create are far more prevalent than the active fears we experience, and far more damaging.

We create these fears as a defence mechanism, being afraid of the tiger ahead of time means I’ll be more alert in the jungle and ideally avoid being attacked, but where does it end? Somewhere along the line, fear for self defence becomes self harm, and harm of others. It’s one thing to be afraid to see a doctor for the flu on the unlikely off chance it’s cancer and you’re dying, and quite another to murder vast swathes of native peoples because you’re afraid they’ll do you first. It’s absolutely insidious, this passive fear, it’s infected every aspect of our culture and made us sanitise ourselves of any sign of the real “natural” world, just like we’ve always wanted. Build a wall, keep the tigers out. An excuse, surely, but in trying to solve for potential tigers, we unwittingly (or not) feed real human lives to the jungle, people who need shelter from the active tigers, and then we tell ourselves they’re all tigers, that there’s no humanity there at all and the walls are working as intended and keeping us all safe. We don’t have to think about tigers anymore, we’ve removed the threat, don’t worry about it, there’s no tigers in here with our reverse cycle air conditioning and our car traffic at 9 and 5 and our perfectly straight #ed9121 orange carrots and pre-washed refrigerated eggs. We’ve solved the passive fear, as ever, through violence; and ignorance. We all know this is the case, but we’re too afraid of facing our passive fears to really change anything. “But what if there are tigers?” remains the most convincing argument for the continuation of global suffering, we have become the tiger that we fear, and perhaps we always were.

So then, what’s the solution? I don’t know, I’m just a white woman in her thirties with anxiety who’s tired of seeing tigers around every corner, and frustrated that no one will admit they see them too. Perhaps that’s the way forward, to see the tigers and recognise them, filter out which ones are real and which are imaginary, and manage them accordingly, but first and foremost, admit that you’re afraid. We’re all afraid, you’re not alone. Go into the jungle and see that it is safe, I’ll come with you.

What really compels me about The Strange is this idea that we bring our fears with us. Take Phobos and Deimos for example. They’re moons, right? Moons don’t create light, they passively reflect the sun and are perceived to shine in the nights sky. Similarly, Phobos and Deimos do not create fear, they’re just big rocks in the sky, we gave them that role, we named them after our own mythological imaginations of fear and now they reflect that back on us. Silas talks about humanity as an infection on Mars, and I think he’s right. Mars itself is only able to communicate through humanity using the Strange, and so it’s forced to integrate with the ideals humanity brought from earth. Through the war engines and the cultists and miners of Dig Town, through the cylinders indoctrinated with human needs and voices, Mars never had a chance to speak for itself. Humans bought fear and pain and suffering along as building blocks for colony and forced it into every crevice available. And the result, in the final words Anabelle hears from her mother as spoken by Mars itself:

“...I’M AFRAID…” she said. “...I’m afraid...”

[jonathanjudge]

[bormgans]

TOO LATE TO AWAKEN: STRANGE SUNDAYS IN HELL - Ballingrud, Schrauwen, Vikernes, Žižek (2023, 2024)

It seems that after the epic The Deluge – the last book I read in 2023, I needed to cleanse my palate. Markley’s book was old school immersive & cinematic to a degree I hadn’t encountered in quite some time, and as a result it took me a while to get into a proper vibe reading other books. It is possible my enjoyment of The Strange fell victim to that – everything is context, always. Anyhow, I…

[jessaerys]

OH FUCK STOP THE PRESSES NEW NATHAN BALLINGRUD JUST DROPPED !!!!!

[horrorosier]

what’s the last book everyone read i’ll go first

[explosionshark]

Do you have a book that you really really love to recommend? It's been a while since I read anything and I wanna get into any story honestly

Depends on genre or what I know someone has liked before but if I'm just doing my favorite recs off the dome it'll be something like

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud for ppl who like horror or short stories. Ballingrud is hands down my favorite American horror writer atm, his work is always beautiful and strange and fucked up. (Tragically I think this book might currently be in print as Monsterland, titled after the Hulu series it inspired, but I think that's a way shittier name)

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado - could just as easily have recommended Machado's short story collection Her Body and Other Parties but I got self conscious about recommending too many collections. In the Dream House is haunting and beautiful and deeply disturbing - it's a memoir about living in an abusive queer relationship, but it's also about horror and archival silence and fatness and art. It does really interesting things with the format of the memoir also. It's VERY heavy and certainly something to avoid if the contents might trigger you, but I think it's incredible and worth reading if you can handle it

Savage Appetites by Rachel Monroe - I'm always recommending this. It's a book about true crime. It's also a true crime book. Those aren't really the same things. The book is broken down into 5 sections each revolving around a different real woman whose life has somehow impacted "true crime" as a genre. It's also very interested and examining and interrogating true crime fandom and the true crime industry. Idk I find the whole topic of true crime and the way it's been packaged and so heavily commodified in our current culture to be really thorny and really interesting, I like how this book manages to be critical about the current state of things without being smug or judgemental. Very interesting to me, everyone I've recommended it to has enjoyed it.

[cailjudy]

My Top Reads of 2024

Hey gang. We are freshly into 2025 and you might be thinking of ways to spend your time a little differently this year, perhaps venture down a path you haven't gone before. Maybe take a good book to join you. Any of these would be a ready companion.

10. A Swiftly Tilting Planet 

This is the third book in the Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle. Charles Wallace is 15 now, and he teams up with the unicorn Gaudior to undertake a journey through time to stop an atomic bomb from destroying the world.

This series is wonderfully strange and bizarre, and this book has a lot of historical fiction woven in. Very much worth reading, but only if you've taken down the first two. It rewards being read in big chunks so you can keep the difference voices straight. A lot of time jumping.

The Time Quintet has had a big influence on the novel I'm working on! The mix of religion, sci-fi and fantasy is special.

9. Crypt of the Moon Spider 

Nathan Ballingrud is one of our leading lights in strange fiction. His stories stand-out in any anthology they're placed in. Wounds in particular was a very impactful read when I read it back in 2019, and I've been a huge fan since I first picked up North American Lake Monsters and started to tweet at him about the body horror in “You Go Where It Takes You” and he sent me a thoughtful reply. Ballingrud just keeps moving the bar up with every book he writes.

This story is a tasty novella that slaps you across the face halfway through. Unexpected, truly gothic with all the weird moon-worship you could want. Recommended!

8. The Life and Death of Conan, Book One + Two

This was straight-up fun. Jason Aaron gets Conan in a big way, and he created a narrative structure that allows him to jump into different periods of Conan's life. We get King Conan, then see him on the high seas, later fighting the Picts and massive snakes, reaving his way through the desert and so much more. It's kind of an incredible run, and he leaves it all on the table. If you're looking for a well-written, engaging entry point for the world of Conan, look no further than Jason Aaron's run. I wasn't familiar with Aaron's work before this and I was very impressed.

7. The Bell Jar

How have I not read this until now? One of the best books we read in my book club this year by far. The first half feels a lot like Salinger and the voice continues into the dark abyss, but really Plath wields a sword that is entirely her own.

6. The Bright Sword

This put me into an Arthurian tailspin I'm not sure when I'll get out of. I loved reading The Sword and the Stone by T.H. White a few years back, and I'd been meaning to read more King Arthur. I mean, he's the KING, right? Well this book came out, heard Grossman interviewed on the NYT Books podcast, and goddman it blew me away. The prose is strong, crisp, clear, moves live a train and his command of story and language is incredible. I WILL be reading the Magician trilogy after this. This guy is incredible. A lot of "fucks" and and a helluva good time.

5. The Poet, The Lion, Talking Pictures, El Farolito, A Wedding in St. Roch, The Big Box Store, The Warp in the Mirror, Spring, Midnights, Fire & All

Long, winding poems that twisted around my brain like a brook. I only read three books of poetry this year, and I enjoyed dipping into this first thing in the morning at my desk to get my head into writing mode. Stunner of a book.

4. Don't Skip Out On Me // Lean On Pete

Both of these books consumed me. I read Lean on Pete in a couple nights, one of those books you nurse a beer and read into the wee hours for. I loved the cover for Don't Skip Out On Me and it was the first book of Willy's I was aware of. Both devastating, life-affirming, staggeringly well-written. Like a glass of clear water, I adore Willy Vlautin's writing.

3. Provinces of Night

This book....you gotta read it if you have any predilection for Southern gothic writing. It's like Gay is putting a spell on you. It's hard to put down, takes hold of you like a fever. Every couple pages Gay cracks you with a thunderbolt of a line like this:

“Life blindsides you so hard you can taste the bright copper blood in your mouth then it beguiles you with a gift of profound and appalling beauty.”

I'd read two short stories, which are what he's more known for, but by God he can write the hell out of a novel. I loved everything about this book. William Gay was one of the greats.

2. Lonesome Dove

When I finished this enormous book, I was at a coffee shop near my house. I turned the last page, over a thousand pages into this novel, and by God I could've read a thousand more pages.

This is a book that lives up to all the hype. It takes it's time to get going, provides an unbelievable amount of characters to get to know, and it takes hold of you (a term I keep coming back to in these reviews). If you're looking to get into a western, this is the greatest of all time, and well deserved. I read the sequel as well, Streets of Laredo, which was also great, but very dark, and it didn't quite have the magic. Still a great book, and it was a pleasure to spend time with those characters again. McMurty was a real one.

1. Watership Down

Watership Down has been on my bookshelf my entire life, waiting for me. Literally THIS copy. When I finally started it at the end of 2023, it was like reading C.S. Lewis for the first time. The rabbits and their society is so well-articulated and believable. I was in this world from the start and it was a pure joy. I loved it so much I designed a long-sleeve for my buddy Tim’s bookshop!

[lipglossanon]

i love your taste in games and movies so much! i was wondering if you had any book recommendations too? - 🍀

Howdy 🍀 anon! 👋

I had this typed out before tumblr closed out so I hope I remember it all 😭

anywho, thank you 🙈 I def don’t read as much as I used to so my recs are probably old 🫣 (and I love that people read for symbolism and literary themes but I just read to turn my brain off and not think lmao so apologies that I’m a basic bitch 🫣 lol)

I also tend to lean towards horror and fantasy so just a heads up! Now moving on to the books:

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (and Uprooted is good too!)

The Alice Chronicles by Christina Henry

The Diving Pools: Three Novellas by Yoko Ogawa

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

The Deep by Nick Cutter

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (a recent read and I liked how weird it is! 😆)

The Girl in the Well & The Suffering by Rin Chupeco (if you like fatal frame, you’ll really dig these!)

Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles (the Queen 🙇‍♀️)

And here’s a short list of books I have read over and over and love to death but might not be for everyone lmao:

Witches, Wit, and a Werewolf retold by Jeanne B. Hardendorff (OOP and hard to find lol)

Alice In Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

13 Ghosts and Jeffrey series by Kathryn Tucker Windham (very very southern USA specific lmao)

[jacquelinesbookclub]

Currently Reading: The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

1931, New Galveston , Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt’s gang who have stolen her mother’s voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance.

[paperbacksandpetticoats]

Reading List - 2024

Let's Do It, Already!, Vol. 1 - Aki Kusaka

House of Hunger - Alexis Henderson

A Fragile Enchantment - Allison Saft

Honey So Sweet, Vol. 1-5 - Amu Meguro

In the Roses of Pieria - Anna Burke

The Toymaker's Son - Ariana Nash

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

Hardboiled & Hard Luck - Banana Yoshimoto

Your Utopia - Bora Chung

Don't Beat Your Children or They'll Turn Out Like Me - Brad "BLUE" Bathgate

Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery - Brom

St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid - C.L. Polk

Clockwork Prince - Cassandra Clare

One Saved to the Sea - Catt Kingsgrave

She Came From the Swamp - Darva Green

Vertigo Peaks - Dion Anja

O Caledonia - Elspeth Barker

Cair - Eryn Hawk

Teighan - Eryn Hawk

All That's Left to You - Ghassan Kanafani

The Hanging Game - Helen Marshall

Vampire Hunter D, Vol. 1 [Dramatized Adaption] - Hideyuki Kikuchi

The Queen of Nothing - Holly Black

The Stolen Heir - Holly Black

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop - Hwang Bo-Reum

Honeybloods - I.S. Belle

Love Bullet, Vol. 1 - Inee

Vampires of El Norte - Isabel Canas

A Cup of Salt Tears - Isabel Yap

Paradise Rot - Jenny Hval

Kamisama Kiss, Vol. 4-7 - Julietta Suzuki

The Case Study of Vanitas, Vol. 1 - Jun Mochizuki

Be Very Afraid of Kanako Inuki! - Kamako Inuki

God Save the Queen - Kate Locke

The Queen is Dead - Kate Locke

Long Live the Queen - Kate Locke

The Demon's Bargain - Katee Robert

The Gargoyle's Captive - Katee Robert

The Sucubus' Bride - Katee Robert

Her Frankenstein - Kawashima Norikazu

A Bone in His Teeth - Kellen Graves

Prince of the Sorrows - Kellen Graves

Lord of Silver Ashes - Kellen Graves

Herald of the Witch's Mark - Kellen Graves

The Fox and the Dryad - Kellen Graves

A Human Stain - Kelly Robson

Triquetra - Kirstyn McDermott

Soul Eater - Lily Mayne

Edin - Lily Mayne

The Rycke - Lily Mayne

Gloam - Lily Mayne

Wyn - Lily Mayne

Moth - Lily Mayne

Seraph - Lily Mayne

Lor - Lily Mayne

A Collection of Monstrous Stories - Lily Mayne

A Monstrous Christmas in the Camp - Lily Mayne

Mortal Skin - Lily Mayne

Forgotten Vows - Lily Mayne

King of Death - Lily Mayne

Born of Blood and Magic - M.C. Hutson

All Systems Red - Martha Wells

Artificial Condition - Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol - Martha Wells

Exit Strategy - Martha Wells

Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells

Network Effect - Martha Wells

System Collapse - Martha Wells

This is How You Lose the Time War - Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohar

The Dragon's Betrothed, Vol. 1-2 - Meguru Hinohara

The Girl That Can't Get A Girlfriend - Mieri Hiranishi

My Special One, Vol. 1 - Momoko Koda

Crypt of the Moon Spider - Nathan Ballingrud

Lights Out - Navessa Allen

Binti - Nnedi Okorafor

Softening - Olivia Braley

The Angel of Khan el-Khalili - P. Djeli Clark

Glamour - Penelope Fletcher

Coil of Boughs - Penny Moss

House of Glass - Rojana Krait

Kappa - Ryunosuko Akutagawa

Carmilla and Laura - S.D. Simper

Burning Roses - S.L. Huang

Old Fashioned Cupcake - Sagan Sagan

Old Fashioned Cupcake with Cappuccino - Sagan Sagan

A Court of Thorns and Roses (2 of 2) [Dramatized Adaption] - Sarah J Mass

A Court of Silver Flames (1 of 2) [Dramatized Adaption] - Sarah J Mass

A Court of Silver Flames (2 of 2) [Dramatized Adaption] - Sarah J Mass

Pink Heart Jam, Vol. 1-2 - Shikke

Certain Dark Things - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Rot - Siri Pettersen

An Education in Malice - S.T. Gibson

The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't A Guy At All, Vol. 1-2 - Rumiko Arai

Stuffed - Sylvia Morrow

Thornhedge - T. Kingfisher

A Wolf Steps in Blood - Tamara Jeree

Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir (x2)

The Necromancer's Light - Tavia Lark

The Paladin's Shadow

The Sword-Witch's Heart

Wolfsong - T.J. Klune

Heartsong - T.J. Klune

Midnight Secretary, Vol. 1 - Tomu Ohmi

Unhinged - Vera Valentine

The Healing Season of Pottery - Yeon Somin

Mr. Villain's Day Off, Vol. 1-3 - You Morikawa

Alice 19th, Vol. 3 - Yuu Watase

[jonathanjudge]

[horreurscopes]

oh my god i was browsing libby like "if i don't listen to a fucked up audiobook stat i'm going to DIE" which is never not a dissappointing endeavor but not only did i find out in my search that NATHAN BALLINGRUD of WOUNDS fame released a full novel but the AUDIOBOOK IS AVAILABLE WITHOUT WAIT !!!!! it's like christmas all up in HERE

[lauralot89]

Books I've Read So Far This Year - 5/1/24

Melting Stones - Tamora Pierce

The Vegetarian - Han Kang

Battle Magic - Tamora Pierce

Under the Skin - Michael Faber

Trickster's Choice - Tamora Pierce

A Nest of Nightmares - Lisa Tuttle

Trickster's Queen - Tamora Pierce

Ladies' Night - Jack Ketchum

First Test - Tamora Pierce

Ring - Koji Suzuki

Page - Tamora Pierce

Spiral - Koji Suzuki

Squire - Tamora Pierce

Loop - Koji Suzuki

Lady Knight - Tamora Pierce

Birthday - Koji Suzuki

Wild Magic - Tamora Pierce

S - Koji Suzuki

Wolf-Speaker - Tamora Pierce

Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell - Nathan Ballingrud

Emperor Mage - Tamora Pierce

The Bunker Diary - Kevin Brooks

The Realm of the Gods - Tamora Pierce

Come Closer - Sara Gran

Terrier - Tamora Pierce

The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Paranormal - David Borgenicht

Bloodhound - Tamora Pierce

You've Lost a Lot of Blood - Eric LaRocca

Mastiff - Tamora Pierce

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix

Tempests and Slaughter - Tamora Pierce