"Ring Shout" by P. Djèlí Clark

A powerful and spooky novella that's a delight to read, Ring Shout is a darkly fantastic alt-history—a community fighting literal demons in the Klu Klux Klan. Narrator Maryse Boudreaux hunts these monsters with the help of a magic sword, ethereal advisors, and two other talented Black women, and soon discovers that the dark magic under the white hoods is evolving in dangerous ways. It's a fast but fairly intricate novella, doing a really good job of fleshing out its world and characters while propelling the story forward.

Chicago Nerds- Lovecraft Country

For the December meeting of the Chicago Nerd Social Club, we discussed Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff.

Set in the 1950s, Lovecraft Country follows a cast of connected characters from Chicago, all black, who become entangled in a number of supernatural adventures connected to a secret occult organization.

Generally quite liked, and we spent most of our conversation talking about how the novel sets actual Jim Crow evil up against a more pulp-SF, Lovecrafty kind. Notes and possible spoilers below!

Weird & Wonderful- We Have Always Lived in the Castle

For the October meeting of City Lit's Weird & Wonderful book club, we discussed We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

A superb horror/psychological thriller, the novel follows the survivors (and perpetrators) of a terrible crime years later. Brief notes and possible spoilers below.

Weird & Wonderful- Magic for Beginners

For the April meeting of City Lit Books' Weird & Wonderful book club, we discussed Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link.

The collection showcases Link's ability to draw on a host of genre techniques—most of these stories feel like they belong somewhere on a spectrum of horror-fantasy-surrealism—while also creating affecting human characters. "Kinda ghost-story-like" and "demented YA" were two terms we used.

As frequently and fruitfully happens at Weird & Wonderful, mixed opinions on this one! Brief notes below:

Chicago Nerds- Agents of Dreamland

For the April meeting of the Chicago Nerd Social Club, we discussed Agents of Dreamland (2017) by Caitlin R. Kiernan.

The agents in question are members of two different shadowy organizations who seem to be combating (or at least monitoring) incursions by some kind of Lovecraftian Elder-God-Type scenario; the novella alternates viewpoints between these two agents and Chloe, a young woman swept up in a sinister cult.

We gave this extremely favorable reviews! Brief notes and possible spoilers below:

Think Galactic- Diamond Dogs Outing

This past Saturday, I joined some other members of Think Galactic for a theatrical outing—The House Theatre of Chicago's performance of Diamond Dogs at the Chopin Theater.

Diamond Dogs is a stage adaptation of the Alastair Reynolds novella of the same name: a kind of horror-survival story set in the far future, transhuman space opera world of Reynolds' Revelation Space universe. Saturday's production also featured a pre-show discussion with Reynolds himself, as well as playwright Althos Low (pen name for Steve Pickering & others) and director Nathan Allen.

I've been meaning to see more of the SFF-allied theater in Chicago, and I am *so glad* I made it out to see this—really quite a spectacle, not shying away even slightly from the science-fictional elements, and with some pretty brilliant tech—props, costumes, puppetry, light & sound—it pulled them off surprisingly well.

More discussion, and possible spoilers, below:

Weird & Wonderful- The Island of Dr. Moreau

For the last meeting of the Weird & Wonderful club at City Lit Books, we discussed The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) by H.G. Wells. Spoiler: it's about a mad scientist who's turning animals into human-like creatures through surgical techniques.

By a considerable margin, this is the oldest work we've discussed, and it's intriguing how well it's held up. In addition to the strengths of the writing, we talked a lot about the novel in comparison to other stories of "going wild" and animal concerns, as well as The Island as a horror story. Brief notes below:

Think Galactic: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

November TG notes brought to you by Michael Tax.

This month, Think Galactic returns to familiar territory: horror. Although the reading list states clearly the Victor LaValle novella The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) as the TG November selection, LaValle’s Ballad is inextricably linked with it’s intellectual, if not ideological, progenitor: H. P. Lovecraft’s The Horror at Red Hook (1927). The works share kinship in setting and characters, but could not be more different in artistic intent. Black Tom is written by a person of color, and LaValle’s perspective can be assumed to be diametrically opposed to such as that espoused by Lovecraft. In the dedication of his novella, LaValle attributes this: “For H. P. Lovecraft, with all my conflicted feelings.”

It is in this very same spirit that virtually all participants at Think Galactic’s November group meeting have taken on both works, and we realized the tremendous opportunity presented of a side-by-side comparison. Our progressive feminist sensibilities of necessity bristle at the outright objectification of person that informs the plot of Lovecraft’s classic novella. But I was fixated on how its horror is not coexistent with, but seems to be dependent on the author’s xenophobic point-of-view, and wouldn't stop until everyone in the group either agreed or told me to cool it. Ultimately, we think the horror of The Horror at Red Hook actually originates precisely with this perspective of an incomprehension of other cultures. This view must be truly horrifying for one such as H. P. Lovecraft, given his novella’s multicultural melting-pot setting of contemporary 1924 Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Think Galactic- My Soul to Keep

For the October meeting of Think Galactic, we discussed "My Soul to Keep" (1997) by Tananarive Due.

The novel is pitched as a vampire story (though we had some debate about that), and reads as kind of a thriller/relationship drama. Discussion points and possible spoilers below!

Chicago Nerds- The Atrocity Archives

For the September meeting of the Chicago Nerds book club, we read "The Atrocity Archives" (2004) by Charles Stross, the first novel in his ongoing "Laundry Files" series.

The novel (and most of the series), follows Bob Howard, an IT worker for the Laundry, a a covert UK agency that deals with supernatural threats. In this universe, Stross predicates a kind of information-based magic, with the result that certain kinds of math and computing can bring about reality-altering affects. However, the backdrop to this universe is a version of the Lovecraftian Cthulhu mythos—insane cosmic horrors beyond human ken wait to flood our dimension etc. etc. Oh, and the series also mixes or alternates comedy with the cosmic horror. Good stuff.

We had a very critical but ultimately positive appraisal of the book. Notes and possible spoilers below!

Weird & Wonderful- House of Leaves

I can't believe it, one of my book clubs finally, successfully tackled Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves" (2000), monstrous, meta-textual, experimental doorstopper of a book that it is. What fun!
Okay, so it's too much to call it a premise, but it works kind of like this: the book you're holding was edited by unknown editors, who make a few clarifying comments. The main text was edited together by Johnny Truant, who added footnotes that run to many pages long, detailing his personal life. The text he edited is an academic text by one Zumpano, a scholarly examination of "The Navidson Record", a film that Zumpano, being blind, couldn't have seen. So there's 3 or 4 levels of fictionality here. Additionally, there's a lot of crazy stuff on the page—different colors for certain words, whole sections crossed out, recursive footnotes, text arranged in very nonstandard ways. Plus, it's like 700 pages.

Oh, and the Navidson Record is a horror story of sorts. All the narrative threads in here are horror stories, of sorts.

So! Reading & discussing this present...interesting challenges. Challenges that City Lit's Weird & Wonderful club rose to! Possible spoilers below:

Think Galactic- Get In Trouble

Way back in May, before Wiscon, Think Galactic discussed Kelly Link's short story collection "Get In Trouble" (2015). Which is just darn tootin' good, you should read it.

As is our custom with collections, we pre-selected a few for focused discussion, although in this case we did wind up talking about most all of the stories. "Summer People", "Secret Identity", "Two Houses", and "Light" were our focal stories.

Lots of questions of reality & identity, lots of interweaving of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and even superhero elements throughout this collection. All delivered in this style that's kind of Lethem crossed with O'Connor crossed with...someone who writes sexy stuff. Brief discussion sketches and possible spoilers below:

Bloody Reads- At The Mountains of Madness

"Bloody Reads" is the horror-focused book club of Bucket O'Blood. I was able to attend their most recent meeting, where we discussed H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness", first published in 1936.

The novella is the firsthand account of an Antarctic scientific expedition that goes awry when the members find remains of an ancient, non-human civilization.

It seems like Lovecraft's influence on modern speculative fiction is something that's being increasingly discussed and scrutinized, so it was particularly rewarding to talk about this story with a large and pretty diverse group of readers. Probably no significant spoilers below, but hey, one never knows.

Chicago Nerds- Welcome to Night Vale

For the last meeting of the Chicago Nerd book club, we discussed "Welcome to Night Vale" (2015) by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor.

The novel is set in the world of the podcast of the same name, which a fair number of us are completely enamored of. It's a twice-monthly show, a bit like "The X-Files Home Companion": a small community radio broadcast from a town where the strange and supernatural are commonplace. It's a very weird mix of the surreal, horrific, and mundane, that somehow adds up to astonishingly comedic. For some! Not everybody at group is into it.

We found the adaption of that show to a novel format fairly problematic--particularly given the importance of narrator Cecil Baldwin and the music of Disparition to the show's tone. Nonetheless, we had a fruitful discussion, with much attention paid to listening vs. reading. Spoilers below!

Weird & Wonderful: Rosemary's Baby

For City Lit's Weird & Wonderful Halloween selection, we read Ira Levin's “Rosemary's Baby” (1967), noted for its 1968 Polanski film adaptation (and apparently an upcoming miniseries, as well). Considered a modern horror classic and a turning point in the genre, creating or at least popularizing a certain vein of religiously-colored horror, it reads now as a bit dated in some repsects, suprisingly fresh in others.

Our conversation circled around a few major points:

• Witches Are Silly (no offense, Actual Witches)
• “Workmanlike Prose”
• Spookiness & Lack of Spookiness

A good discussion, as always, and pleased to welcome some new folks to the club as well. Total spoilers below.

Think Galactic: Vampire Junction & Annihilation

For October's meeting of Think Galactic, we had a Monster Mash: a double-header book-club featuring S.P. Somtow's "Vampire Junction" (1984) and Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation" (2014). Spooky stuff.

While we had a fairly low completion rate for "Vampire Junction", we had a pretty interesting discussion, especially qua horror novel.

"Annihilation" generated a ton of discussion--it's a really engaging novel from a literary angle, and doing a lot of interesting things with genre as well. We got pretty far out on some possibly shaky but definitely fruitful theoretical branches for this one.

Probable spoilers, Monster Mash MIDIs below:

Weird & Wonderful: Bird Box

For the August's meeting of City Lit's "Weird and Wonderful" book club, we read Josh Malerman's "Bird Box" (2014), a pretty unusual apocalypse/horror novel.

We quite liked the book, stylistically--it's lean, without a lot of world or character building. For those of us tired of the word-bloat that frequently infects modern genre lit, this was a definite positive. We also praised the creepy effectiveness (effective creepiness?) of a few different passages.

While "Bird Box" doesn't feel derivative, we wound up comparing it to a lot of other horror/insanity/neurohacking/apocalyptic what-have-you (whew!) so expect lots of referenced works, and probably SPOILERS BELOW:

Chicago Nerds: Hyperion

After many nominations and near-selections, Dan Simmons' Hugo-winning "Hyperion" (1989) finally made it to the top of the Chicago Nerds' book-club list.

Structurally, "Hyperion" draws on "The Canterbury Tales" (1390ish), being composed of a frame story of a group of pilgrims travelling together, with the bulk of the novel made up of the individual stories that six of the pilgrims relate; each individual's story is told in a different style, and has a different thematic focus.

I found Hyperion a delight to re-read, as did many others at group; I think we were about evenly split between first-time readers and re-readers. It's one of those books that is a real pleasure to share and talk about. Possible spoilers below!

Think Galactic: Feed

Last time at Think Galactic, we discussed Mira Grant's "Feed" (2010), a novel that has in it: zombies. Also journalism? It was a fun if somewhat aggravating read, and we had a good discussion.

"Feed" takes place a few decades in the future, and a bit after a zombie infection has taken a big chunk out of the world population, and remains an ongoing threat. Our protagonists are a team of bloggers--independent journalists/entertainers, really--who follow a contender for the presidential nomination as he begins the election trail. Along the way: zombies.

I took a ton of notes at this one--our criticism leans towards the madcap at a times. Which, befitting the ravenous unlife being resisted, I shall record with LOTS OF BULLETS. IN QUOTES are CLEVER THINGS that PEOPLE SAID. Almost certainly, there are spoilers below:

Think Galactic: Mothership

The full version of this John Jennings cover is worth sharing.
Via collection contributor Rochita Loenen-Ruiz.

For the last meeting of Think Galactic, we discussed some selections from "Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond", edited by Bill Campbell and Edward Austin Hall, and published by Rosarium. It's a really diverse collection, and Sara picked us a good handful of stories to focus on: