The Mark Samuels tribute anthology

[Murony_Pyre]

Heavy Meta! [sic]

JOHN MF-ing MUNDY! Good to see you in there bro, you deserve it!

Quote Originally Posted by Revenant

I am glad to learn of Mr. Samuels as I have never heard of him before. As my antidepressants are beginning to lose effect it's nice to find a reason to live another few weeks. It's getting more difficult to find intriguing voices anymore. Too many are rehashing old ideas I've experienced before and most don't do it very well.

I'm in the same boat. I just ordered a copy of The Man Who Collected Machen, which I believe is his most acclaimed book. Apart from Ramsey Campbell once mentioning Mark in an interview I wasn't really familiar with him until I joined TLO, where I have enjoyed his posts despite sitting on essentially the opposite of the political and spiritual spectrum. I told him a long time ago I'd check out his fiction, but to my shame this kept getting pushed back so I could revisit old authors, which has left me with a feeling of never really moving forward with my weird reading.

The worst case scenario is at least I'll have somebody new to complain about if I don't enjoy it rather than going over the same ground. I don't really know what to expect so am looking forward to the book's arrival. I would have ordered The White Hands too, but I'll probably need to eat at some point in the next week.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Druidic]

Hey, Murony! Thanks for the vote of confidence, friend. How did you discover my middle name?

[Evans]

Ligottiwise readers should be interested in The White Hands as TL himself took an active part in critiquing and making suggestions with the stories as Mark was putting the book together. From what I recall one of the reasons Mark didn't feel up to doing a full Ligotti tribute story was because he considered many of the stories in there to be Ligotti tributes.

I shall purchase it next week as I blew my expendable cash on Dark Shadows audio dramas. I'm eager to read his work as none of the comments on here about his stories have been less than glowing.

[ramonoski]

If it's not spoiling too much (and I'll take yes/no for an answer), any word on whether any of the stories use the "language as a virus" theme from some of Mark's work? That's what I would've gone with if I'd written a tribute story.

[Murony_Pyre]

Ramo,

Just the conceit of this book would point to the whole thing being of "virus origin".

[Murony_Pyre]

I'd like to know if any of the stories reference "More Dark", or if Lard Barn appears as a character name.

[Evans]

@Ramonoski,

I'm saying nothing...

@Murony_Pyre

Heh!

Justin is best placed to answer this since he is officially Keeper of the Manuscripts, but I don't think Laid Barron or the events of 'More Dark' are referenced in any significant way. When the project was still in embryo we joked about someone needing to write a novella about a wilderness tough-guy character who goes around eating wendigos and foiling Jesuitical plots - it would have taken up too much room though, and unless we'd got permission from Laird to include 'More Dark' itself might have appeared too much like score-settling rather than the joke it was intended as.

[Frater_Tsalal]

Quote Originally Posted by Murony_Pyre

I'd like to know if any of the stories reference "More Dark", or if Lard Barn appears as a character name.

I will admit that my own contribution was partly a meta-response to "More Dark" (among other things), but I won't say anymore for now, ha ha.