Announcement

Eerie Worlds is going to change. Big time. Things are going to be much different for me and you all.

Further information in the near future.

Review: EQMM - Mar/Apr 2014

This is a late and short review due to a few events.
First, I found a job! I am very happy about it as I hope it will bring me success in the future.
Second, baseball. I went went to a few college games and I started working on the 2014 season with the help of Baseball America's books and Who's who in Baseball.

March/April 2014 double issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine is average, and I don't mean in a dispregiative way. No story in this issue is outstanding as no story is dull. Simply put, is a more than decent reading, full of mysteries and interesting plots.
It is definitely an issue worthy of the cover price.

The cover reminded me of "Pan's Labyrinth"

Book hangover

On American folklore

I admit my ignorance on American folklore. Neil Gaiman's American Gods is an amazing attempt to answer to some mythological questions, but strictly speaking it doesn't really touch folklore. Since I have no serious knowledge on local lore, I checked out this book:

2014 - Reading List

- Stephen King, "The Shining", currently reading
- L. Sprague de Camp, "Dark Valley Destiny - The life of Robert E. Howard", currently reading
- Analog - April 2014, read, February 2014
- Asimov's - March 2014, read, February 2014
- Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - Mar/Apr 2014, read, February 2014
- Stephen King, "Carrie", read, February 2014
- Stephen King, 'salem's Lot, read, February 2014

- Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, April 2014, read, January 2014
- Asimov's - February 2014, read, January 2014

- Clarkesworld, Jan 2014, Issue 88, read, January 2014

- Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine - Jan/Feb 2014 - Volume 126 No. 1&2, read, January 2014
- H.P. Lovecraft, "A Means to Freedom - Letters to Robert E. Howard", read, January 2014
- H.P. Lovecraft, "Essential Solitude - Letters to August Derleth", read, January 2014

- H.P. Lovecraft, "Letters from New York", read, January 2014

KEY: Author/Magazine,[ "Title",] [Issue,] status, finish date.

Antisocial social.

Social interactions are fascinating. Thus, the idea that they are quickly disappearing disturbs me profoundly. 
A few days ago I was having lunch with my family at the bar section of a Mexican restaurant (On the Border, if you really want to know). Surrounded by people, fajitas and cervezas, I noticed the presence of five television sets. No one, was looking at them. However, the place was awfully quiet for a packed bar. A family of four next to me was completely absorbed by iPhones (not sure which model). The three kids and their mom were blankly staring at each own’s device. It took them at least a minute to acknowledge that the waitress brought them the free nachos. 


A group of four girlfriends walked in and started talking - one complaining to the manager about the location of my kids, facing the spirits - until two of them began chatting on their smartphone. The two girls without the phone kept looking at their friend's virtual chat, actually dividing the four-people group into a de facto two two-people groups. They kept being silent - chuckling once in a while - with the two furiously thumb-writing on their phones for at least fifteen minutes. A nice couple - two young loving birds? - kept glancing at each other’s eyes every minute or so while continuing playing a game on a smartphone. 
During that lunch, kids were sitting at the table with their mind elsewhere. Parents were simply paying the check. I wonder if they are not interested in what lives their kids are living. Friendship was substituted by the idea that being friends simply means sitting at the same table.
In the past couple of years I noticed that this anti-social trend is getting more intrusive. Less sociality in favor of virtuality. Reflecting on what I saw I believe that I am the sad witness of moments that are gone forever.

Reading EQMM...

Lurking at the library

While browsing the books at a local library I found a whole section on folklore, monster theory and horror... I could not help but check some of the titles.

George R.R. Martin vs. H.P. Lovecraft

Review: "Carrie" by Stephen King

On April, 5th 1974 a novel titled "Carrie" by an unknown author named Stephen King hit the shelves. Mr. King (whoever he is) wrote the novel on a portable typewriter while living in a trailer as he was struggling to make ends meet. The author himself (and many critics) believed that his book was garbage as a few months earlier he threw the manuscript in the trash, only to be rescued by his wife Tabitha.

On April, 5th 1974 the world met with Carrie White, a high school student bullied by her peers. She was one of the most disturbing (and disturbed) characters in literature. She was living in an obsessive world between the punishing school and her semi-crazy religious mother (knee, pray and repent). Carrie had no life to live, she had no hope. But, she had an amazing gift.

On April, 5th 1974 a person anonymous to the world was the first one to pick up a book, a Doubleday edition. On the cover, a half picture of a girl and a yellow stylized title on a strange hemochromatic (blood, blood) background. This person was the first paying customer of a brand new publishing empire and the first involuntary witness of Carrie White's struggles in high school.

Carrie, First Edition (1974)

Carrie is Stephen King's first novel. It spawned at least two movies, the most famous by Brian De Palma starring Sissi Spacek, in the theaters two years after the novel was released.
Carrie is most definitely a well written book, although some readers might find King's narrative frustrating as it jumps to several places in just the turn of a page. Carrie is not the chronological narration of Carrie White's ordeal during her high school years, but rather a collection of documentation and first hand accounts mixed with some omniscient narration.

King's novel impresses since the first pages, where White's first menstrual period happens at her school's showers in front of the other girls. Of course, they bully her and she panics. Unfortunately, during the novel she is tortured more and more and she fails to get any kind comfort from her religious extremist mother (a character vaguely similar to The Mist's Mrs. Carmody). Since she is an outsider, no one knows her true gift: telekinesis. This gift will lead to serious trouble to the New England town of Chamberlain.

 One interesting thing to notice is that Stephen King reveals the ending very early in the book. There is almost no denouement. As in a Columbo episode, the reader will know soon what happened in Chamberlain and will have only to find out the events leading to the ending. In all actuality, the main event - the prom - happens halfway through the book! Kudos to King for being able to keep the reader interested with a superb, although risky, narration.
Overall, a pretty good book which is worth reading.

Next is Stephen King's Salem's Lot.