Happy Fantasy Friday everyone!
Just so you know, we finally chose a winner last week. It was tough because, damn, a lot of those comments were awesome. In the end, Alethea won out with her funny and creepy offering. Congrats! There were several others that amused or impressed us, including “American Gothic”, “Pollen Day/Yellow Day” (the sinuses voted for that one), and “God’s Holiday”.
On to this week! Every week, you are invited to write and post anything having to do with fantasy, science fiction, etc., right here in the comments: your picks for this year’s awards, a bit of a story you’re trying to write, secret tales from Norwescon, who you think is the weirdest person on the 85 Weirdest list, or anything else. At 5 p.m. PST today, if we’ve got at least ten participants, we’ll choose the day’s most entertaining writer and PayPal them $10 on the spot. Go start your weekend off with a cold one on us! (Minors, make that a couple of hot chocolates.) Bonus: if we have some second or third place winners, they’re eligible for books appearing on the Hugo and Locus Award ballots.
1 • Stacy said:
March 28th, 2008 at 8:41 am, permalink
Regarding the Weird Tales 85 Weirdest, I’d just like to comment on how awesome it is to see David Cronenberg and Jim Henson on the same list. I’ve been waiting for this.
Other pairs I’d like to see on a list together, whatever that list may be:
Oprah and ET
Papa Smurf and Liz Taylor
Mr. Belvedere and Mike Tyson
The Maytag Repair Man and the Swiss Federal Council
She-Ra, Princess of Power and Neil Armstrong
I think I’ll be waiting a while.
2 • Michael Gordon said:
March 28th, 2008 at 10:13 am, permalink
Kabalistic tradition states that at all times there are thirty-six righteous individuals endowed with the mystical burden of maintaining the world’s holiness. But how many then are there, walking unseen among us, who are imbued with the sacred responsibility of upholding the world’s weirdness? For what a dreary dreadful world would it be without them. And so I propose a toast to these Saints of Strange, Prophets of the Peculiar, Wizards of Weird. And a happy Friday to all!
3 • Deborah Mount said:
March 28th, 2008 at 10:25 am, permalink
Meaning of Abracadabra…uh hey, is this where I enter Friday thoughts?
I am an old woman. I once got idea that letters had meaning themselves. So I painstakingly studied each letter in A b r a c a d a b r a using origins of letters definitions in Websters and found out that Abracabra is a sentence.
Thus:” One smallest particle moves, one largest particle moves times 250.” Or in other words, ” What you do comes back to you times 250.”
4 • Misty Massey said:
March 28th, 2008 at 11:05 am, permalink
Tim Burton but no Johnny Depp? Just because he’s pretty doesn’t preclude his weirdness. In the special features on “Sleepy Hollow”, Tim Burton said Depp kept demanding to be made ugly or alien with makeup and prosthetics, even when the role didn’t really call for such a change.
Or maybe that’s ordinary behavior, and I’m the weird one. Now I’ve confused myself. Where’s the coffee?
5 • Lisa Mantchev said:
March 28th, 2008 at 12:10 pm, permalink
I think anyone not present for the 85 Weirdest party at NorwesCon will be saddened to hear that they missed Jon Waters and Harlin Ellison in (separate) bathrooms, and David Bowie and Neil Gaiman on the Presidential Suite bed.
I have decided to work on my weird, as it is my goal by the 100th anniversary to be included on the “Weirdest” list, and then I can smoosh myself between David and Neil on the bed.
6 • Clint Harris said:
March 28th, 2008 at 12:30 pm, permalink
I decided to post an excerpt of a story I’ve been working on. I hope it fits well with the Weird category.
A cluster of riders from both armies parleyed mid-river on a sandbar. Two hosts stood on the opposing banks of the River, neither of their standards did I recognize. Our ranks descended the hill and joined the army on our side of the river. I had to assume they were the men of the Royal Army. They laughed openly at us conscripts and our fire-hardened poles for spears and sharpened sickle blades for swords, as they stood in their armor, bearing their broadswords and poleaxes. Unlike the mercenaries, their armor was unmarred and polished. None of them carried the listlessness of Mingis’ mercenaries, and all of them formed their ranks with the precision of a miller’s wheelhouse.
I stood quietly with Jormat, Kelm, Arcas and a cluster of other Valemen, who spoke anxiously amongst ourselves, hushed, unsure whispers in contrast to the bravado of the soldier’s boasts. I cannot forget the fear that haunted their eyes, glazing them like melting ice. Arcas wielded a rusted saber he had traded from one of the mercenaries for a golden bangle. He said it would be a better to have than all the golden plunder in the Riverlands if it kept him alive this morning.
I clutched the smooth stone my wife had given me and wondered how she was. Had her morning sickness subsided? Had she gotten any bigger since I had kissed her goodbye? Even then, her belly touched mine before our lips met. I hoped the days were calm and the nights were cool for her now. I pictured her in my mind, stroking the hounds next to the fire, gently touching her belly as she hummed a song passed down from mother to mother. I squeezed that rock with all of my strength until it felt like another bone in my hand.
Across the river, a cheer went up throughout the ranks. A pair of figures approached. One, a priest in brown robes, and the other was a woman with a silver helmet flanked by a pair of white wings. She was easily seven feet tall, and her flesh shimmered with a strange, diffracted light. From her back grew two silver blades, blurring the light like a hummingbirds wings when they whirled. The tall grasses stirred at her calves from the force of her wings, as though she was about to take flight. She carried a massive serpentine sword which undulated and writhed as though it were alive. Even from far away, I could tell she watched the soldiers with curiosity, cocking her head and sometimes smiling and chuckling underneath her armor.
Behind our host came a hunched figure under shreds of black robes. Instead of hands, two long mammoth tusks protruded from its sleeves. A pair of priests attended the creature, one of them leading a white lamb and the other carrying a long knife.
“Algerthath will put their godling in its place,” one soldier said.
“Yes, in Hell,” another quipped.
The lamb screamed as the priest sacrificed it to the godling. As soon as blood began to drop to the ground in quick red spurts, the godling shifted under its robes and squawked like a vulture. Beyond that hood, I saw no face and no flesh. The light seemed to slide off the creature’s countenance, leaving only a flat, vast darkness; yet somewhere in that pit, I knew there were eyes, quick and sharp, watching in all directions by the dozens.
“Negotiation has failed,” one of the mercenaries said as we watched the captains return to the shores from the sandbar. Another cheer rippled out from the armies of both sides. We held out breath.
“There are more of them than us,” I said.
“No,” replied a mercenary, “Our numbers are more even than you think.”
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We cross the river, try to break their ranks. Try not to die.”
“What about their godling?” Kelm asked the mercenary.
“Like I said. Try not to die,” he replied.
7 • Michael Gordon said:
March 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm, permalink
Random bit of flash I wrote a few weeks ago. I definitely think it’s weird, but that’s probably because it’s inspired by Yeats’ Second Coming and the webcomic Penny-Arcade.
What rough beast
Hungry and impatient vultures circled overhead, not realizing the two lone humans were not stranded in the desert and that their jeep could return them speedily to civilization. The two paleozoologists ignored the loud cawing above and focused on their work. Prof. Douglass wiped the sweat from his brow for the hundredth time that afternoon. The desert sun was setting now and they were in for a cold Jordan night, but it didn’t feel that way yet.
“The dentition is simply amazing,” he declared, and his partner, Prof. Greene nodded and gently brushed away more sand from the half-unearthed fossil. He blew forcefully, clearing away the dust and debris from the large skull. They had half the head uncovered, along with one powerful shoulder and foreleg, nearly as big as a man’s torso.
“The body certainly seems leonine,” Greene posited, “but the cranium… my God, it’s something else.”
“Yes, yes,” Douglass breathed giddily, “quite a brain it must have had—hominid in shape but massive in size.”
“Well, I think we know what we shall be calling our discovery,” Greene said smugly.
“Indeed, indeed.” Douglass rubbed the sweat from his hands onto his shirt.
“Panthera Sphinxus!” Greene announced ceremoniously.
“What?” Douglass spluttered, “Panthera Manticorus!”
“Manticorus? It’s a sphinx!”
“Manticore! We’re thousands of miles from either Egypt or Greece.”
“Well, we’re equally far from Persia, don’t you think?” Douglass nodded at that.
“Well, how do we decide?”
Greene pondered. “Well what’s the difference between a manticore and a sphinx?”
Douglass scratched his chin, three days of stubble ran rough on his hands. He snapped his fingers. “A beard! Manticores are always pictures with a beard, and sphinxes never are!”
Greene looked down at the fossil. “There’s no hair.”
Douglass grumbled. “Well let’s look closer.”
The two scientists crouched low in their shallow pit, pushing their eyes close to the petrified bones. The world grew dark around them as they worked, huffing and puffing as they tried to clear more dirt from the ancient face.
“My God, Greene, you’re going to pass out if you keep breathing that hard!”
“Me?” replied Greene, “I thought that was your breathing?” The two men turned toward the sound and found the massive shape blocking out the setting sun. Douglass had time for one final thought as the jaws closed around him. “Yes, quite amazing dentition.”
Greene’s last thought, as something sharp and hot pierced his side, was some muddled recollection about poisonous tails.
The birds overhead circled lower, cawing in delight. And as It shuffled toward the setting sun, for It headed West as certain as if guided by the hand of God, It cast a shadow as long as history, swallowing everything in Its wake in darkness.
8 • Chuck said:
March 28th, 2008 at 5:59 pm, permalink
As a recreational conspiracy theory whackadoodle, I was surprised and pleased to see Art Bell listed among the 85 weirdest storytellers.
But how long will it be before his name is mysteriously removed from the list?
You know how it’ll go. The editors at Weird Tales will deny they ever included Art Bell, despite all the testimony of people who SWEAR they saw him originally listed (or at least those who haven’t been intimidated into silence — “It’d be a shame if something happened to your manuscript”).
Then there’ll come the questions…
Why was Art Bell removed from the 85 Weirdest Storytellers list?
Did the Weird Tales editors receive a visit from the Men in Black?
Is H.P Lovecraft’s old intel network still active?
What links do the Vandermeers’ have with the Bilderbergers?
Why is it that a half-hearted search has revealed that Weird Tales Magazine has NEVER printed a story by Whitley Strieber?
Do the editors have reptilian DNA?
And why was Stephen H. Segal spotted at Bohemian Grove?
Anyway — I never really associated all the Coast to coast A.M. subject matter with weird fiction, but I probably should have. I’ve talked with a few writers (some at MileHiCon and a couple others online) who’ve been studying these subjects as either “Modern Mythology,” a sort of a loosely operating religion, or as some exercise in belief (I’ve sometimes wondered about the concept of “conspiracy theory as allegory”), so it looks like some people might be fiddling around with the subject in creative ways.
9 • Alethea said:
March 31st, 2008 at 11:24 am, permalink
Woohoo! Sweet!!
And the Kubrick entry on the “85 Weirdest” list far and away kicked the most ass.