Weird fiction

[kid cue]

An epic post on The Fall in the k-punk blog led me to this (http://books.guardian.co.uk/top10s/top10/0,6109,716474,00.html) shortlist of excellent "weird fiction" -- some classics there, and some I'd never heard of in my life. Viriconium? Are the more esoteric works here familiar to anyone? I'm intrigued....

[mmm skyscraper]

I've read Gormenghast (well the first two books, the third one isn't that great). The Cure wrote some songs about this book.

[adam]

Screw that. I love all three Gormenghast books. They are in my top five all time works of fiction. They're freaking brilliant. His health was in decline by the end of the third one, and I suppose it shows, but I still think it's a bloody good book. I'd get into more detail, but, you know....spoilers.

They are a difficult read. Very dense descriptions. But if you can manage (my brother, for example, couldn't), they are very much worth the effort.

You can get all three books in one massive volume these days. His illustrations are great, too. Mervyn Peake illustrated a version of the Alice books I used to have that was great, too.

They centre about the castle that's utterly massive and nearly entirely autonomous. Every aspect of the castle life is governed by ritual. The series starts with the 77th Earl's birth, and progresses through his....well, I'll just leave it there. Most memorable characters ever. Fantastic book, very melancholy. No magic or anything like that.

[theviirus]

mark leyner - my cousin, my gastroenterologist.

i wont bother explaining because it has no explination. but it was fun to perform sections of it. great imagery (keep a dictionary handy) but there is no real plot; more a collection of "accounts" in leyner's life which have been twisted into a pseudo-autobio which could pass for an autobio of a schizophrenic. its a good read just for the sake of reading such odd material. thats all.

[Strangelet]

Its funny that the article is written by China Mievelle. His perdido street station has got to be the WEIRDEST sci fi fantasy book ever ever ever.

i can vouch for kelly link, she's a lot of fun. she won a trip around the world in a literary contest. the idea was to submit a paragraph saying why you wanted to go around the world. her response: "because you can't go through it"