The Experimental Fiction Depository

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by Nirvana In Karma

Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light Quote Originally Posted by James Quote Originally Posted by In A Dark Light I might as well start us off. Here's a piece from the aforementioned Joseph S Pulver, 'The Unmistakeable Shape of Night's River'. The Unmistakable Shape of Nights River, by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. | Lovecraft eZine This is a good example of the type of experimental fiction that leaves me cold, and I am partial to stream of consciousness fiction when handled in a certain way. I wish the author well as at least they're trying, but I found that irritating to finish reading, and all I got from it was the impression the writer really wanted to impress people and let them know how hip and with it they are, but it came across as sort of.. hollow and embarrassing to me? Perhaps I'm more conservative than I realised, but I like it when Justin Isis attempts similar material. I've come across Justin Isis work before, though I've never actually read any. The titles of his work suggest something within the realms of 'Bizarro', which is a genre I can't get along with, even though I enjoy the experimental. Is his work actually in this line, or should I give him a shot? Justin Isis

I mostly write Realism, sometimes science fiction. Although the book I'm putting out this year is Pleasant, along with the one Brendan Connell is putting out.

I'd never write weird fiction, horror, etc. - these genres seem founded on the assumption that the universe is unknown and indifferent/frighteningly mysterious, whereas Pleasant writers see the universe as a tiny friend who helps them out, much like a juvenile Santa Claus or a miniature, anatomically perfect cheerleader.

I wouldn't write bizarro fiction as I consider it to be vulgar and written by people with poor fashion sense and general taste.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Don't know if I'd call him experimental but Steve Aylett is an absurdist science fiction author who sometimes gets called bizarro but it has a very different sensibility from most of that stuff. I think his book The Inflatable Volunteer (one of the greatest book titles ever) is experimental.
Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair and Moorcock are supporters.

I don't agree with Justin Isis' conclusions about the universe, but he is an important artist of sartorial prose poetry.

I think my fiction is experimental and transgressive.

[Liam Barden]

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

'. I wouldn't write bizarro fiction as I consider it to be vulgar and written by people with poor fashion sense and general taste.

Hahahaha <3




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[Nemonymous]

I was in one or two very early Bizarro outlets. But we never really hit it off.

I'm more interested in transgressive fiction than experimental fiction. A lot of the traditional ideas of prose rhythm, modulation, structure and impact strike me as sound the more I analyse them, and if all an artist has to show is how unwilling they are to understand language then I can be turned off pretty quickly. Obviously this doesn't apply to all the excellent writers of experimental fiction out there, but I think it is true for many of the Lovecraftians.

I would like to find more horror fiction that is serious, dark, bleak and horrifying, but also camp. For me many of the classic practitioners of the English ghost story (Robert Aickman, Walter de la Mare, M. R. James, Oliver Onions, L. P. Hartley) fit the bill in how they highlighted the sardonic grotesqueness of society by ramping it up, and today Reggie Oliver sometimes does, but I don't see much of it around. He might not enjoy the term, but I also recall thinking Quentin S. Crisp wrote some stories like this. Musically I think Morrissey is generally reliable also.

I would describe my own godawful scribblings as high camp horror fiction, which is not to be confused with comedy horror fiction. I don't generally enjoy that much. I think high camp is a slight twist away from horror so long as the inherent darkness of events is not muted, as happens with commercial camp. Good examples of what I consider high camp horror or ghostly fiction would be Aickman's stories Wood, No Stronger than a Flower, Your Tiny Hand is Frozen and more famously his story The Hospice – also L. P. Hartley's The Travelling Grave, Walter de la Mare's Seaton's Aunt, , Oliver Onions' The Rosewood Door and M. R. James' The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance. I feel 'experimental' Lovecraftian fiction is now far more marketable than this supposedly more traditional style, which doesn't fit nearly as snugly within the corporate thinking of our age. I want to produce technicolour horror in a world in which American comic book approximation of noir has drowned out everything I like about weird fiction.

[Speaking Mute]

I've always thought of Shirley Jackson as the American parallel to Aickman - her short stories typically rely on subverting comedy of errors tropes with the same sort of grotesque personalities and ambiguous social interactions. The Lottery is a great short story, but it's not representative of her work - I suspect it's over-anthologized because her other short stories are too odd for mainstream horror publishing.

Michael Lincoln (Upright Beasts) and Brian Evanson are two contemporary writers in the same vein. I personally was not taken by either writer, but I'd still recommend them to anyone looking for current "Aickman-esque" writers.

I also think there's considerable thematic overlap between Aickman and Southern Gothic...

[Speaking Mute]

Beth Steidle's The Static Herd may interest TLO readers - the story's told in short passages, document excerpts, and the author's own illustrations:

http://www.calamaripress.com/Static_Herd.htm

A more detailed review:

https://heavyfeatherreview.com/2014/...-beth-steidle/