Horror Aficionados discussion

This is the thread for our February 2019 Group Read with Guest Author, Brian Hodge. Brian is no stranger to the world of horror. In fact, I would challenge you to try and find any decent anthology from the 1980s to today that didn't have a contribution from Hodge. And there's a good reason for that. The man can flat out write and this month he'll be joining us for one of his very best stories, THE IMMACULATE VOID. Please help me welcome, Brian Hodge!

Welcome, Brian!

Welcome :)

Welcome and thank you Brian!

Welcome Brian, I can't wait to join in this read!!!

wow! the reviews for this book are great. i'm in!

Read this previously and it is excellent. February 19th can't get here fast enough, as it brings Skidding Into Oblivion.

Aloha and Welcome Brian!🇺🇸🐾

Welcome Brian. I'm familiar with your short fiction and now looking forward to getting the pants scared off me in a longer version! :)

Welcome, Brian! I'm a longtime fan of your work and your novella I'll Bring You the Birds from Out of the Sky made my top ten list last year.

I'm looking forward to reading this with everyone.

Char wrote: "Welcome, Brian! I'm a longtime fan of your work and your novella I'll Bring You the Birds from Out of the Sky made my top ten list last year.

I'm looking forward to reading this w..."

I LOVED that novella!!

Thanks all around for the warm welcome and kind words. Just got the heads-up that this page had gotten underway the other day. I’m looking forward to whatever the month brings here, and charge you with the responsibility that it will be a welcome diversion from the latest headaches of being an estate executor. And if not, February is still Stout Month at one of my favorite brewpubs. ;-)

Welcome Brian. i'm going to read it for sure. I have to admit that is my first time reading this author

I just got my copy yesterday! Can't wait! :D

It's the night before the month that is Hodge-uary and I'm starting this now! See you on the other side Aficionados. :)

Whoohoo, Melanie! I like the term Hodge-uary. :)

I downloaded my copy and I'll be ready in about a week to get going. I have a few ARCs I need to finish first and then I'm going to be ALL OVER this one.

I was looking at this list of 2018 Locus Recommended Reading and noticed The Immaculate Void listed.
Of the horror books listed, I've read 8 of the 14 and this will be my 9th.

Char beat me to it. I learned of this earlier in the week, but it was only publicly announced this morning: THE IMMACULATE VOID has landed on LOCUS magazine’s annual Recommended Reading List, for 2018. So the group's timing on this one is impeccable. ;-)

http://locusmag.com/2019/02/2018-locu...

Congratulations! (And way to stay on top of things, Char!!)

I’m in!

Brian, who would you say were your influences growing up?

I never feel that I have a remotely satisfying answer to this. There are the obvious foundational answers, like Stephen King and Peter Straub, and later Lovecraft. I’ve always given credit to John Irving, for finding him at the right time, and the French decadents Rimbaud and Baudelaire. John Steinbeck. Robert B. Parker and Elmore Leonard, for teaching me the potent economy that can come with crime fiction. Robert R. McCammon, who I found personally as well as creatively influential. I loved the energy that Skipp & Spector and David Schow injected. Clive Barker’s arrival was like seeing the bar get raised across the board. Once I started making headway, I drew a lot of valuable lessons in language from Poppy Z. Brite and Caitlin R. Kiernan and Kathe Koja, plus Kathe was the one who first turned me on to Cormac McCarthy.

Sometimes, though, it’s not a writer’s entire output that leaves a mark, but a single book. Like, I have no idea how many times I read Glendon Swarthout’s BLESS THE BEASTS & CHILDREN as a kid, which has to be part of my DNA.

The same goes for the work of particular editors. Charles Grant’s SHADOWS series, and other anthologies, was like a post-graduate course unto itself. I first got introduced to Ellen Datlow through OMNI magazine, years before I got serious about pursuing a career in writing. I was eventually lucky enough to work with both of them. And, with his magazine THE HORROR SHOW, David B. Silva guided and shaped me in ways beyond reckoning.

But so many other things factor in just as strongly, too. Like music and movies and visual art and comics, along with nonfiction sources that taught me how to work differently, or more effectively. It all goes into the stewpot.

You have listed such a wide variety of influences, it's crazy!
Those are authors and editors that I enjoy as well, (other than the French ones.)
Ellen Datlow is legendary as far as I'm concerned-it seems like her anthologies have always been a part of my life.

The love affair started early. We had a Carnegie library where I grew up, and my mom got me my first card when I was really young. They had a good children's department on the top floor. I looooved going up there to see those ladies every couple of weeks.

I just finished this today. It was absolutely AMAZING! Brian, I will definitely be reading more of your work!

56% in. Brian you're breaking my heart.

Sorry, Melanie. It's an occupational hazard.

And thanks for the superlatives, Amy!

I'm around 30% and I just want work and everything else to go away so that I may finish this undisturbed.

Char wrote: "I'm around 30% and I just want work and everything else to go away so that I may finish this undisturbed."

You 'n' me both Char. :/

90% through and I don't want to it finish :( because...

a. It's not going to end well
......and....
b. The writing, and more particularly the external and internal dialogue is so good

And I'm loving all the little references dropped in, particularly the Uluru-Ayers Rock - "Colonist swine" comment.

I googled St Malo's and Estes park, it looks beautiful, now I want to go there too.

Melanie wrote: "I googled St Malo's and Estes park, it looks beautiful, now I want to go there too."

Right?

Thanks to an early release from work yesterday afternoon, I was able to finish this last night. I was blown away!

Between this and John Langan's THE FISHERMAN, I've read some of the best cosmic horror EVER, this year so far!

Mr. Hodge, all I can say is WELL DONE, sir!

Char wrote: "Thanks to an early release from work yesterday afternoon, I was able to finish this last night. I was blown away!

Between this and John Langan's THE FISHERMAN, I've read some of the best cosmic ho..."

Must finish my current reads so that I can start this one ASAP!!!!

Kimberly wrote: "Char wrote: "Thanks to an early release from work yesterday afternoon, I was able to finish this last night. I was blown away!

Between this and John Langan's THE FISHERMAN, I've read some of the b..."

You must, my friend. :)

Char wrote: "Kimberly wrote: "Char wrote: "Thanks to an early release from work yesterday afternoon, I was able to finish this last night. I was blown away!

Between this and John Langan's THE FISHERMAN, I've r..."

You haven't steered me wrong yet.... (neither has anything written by Brian Hodge, for that matter. ;) ) Next book to begin!

I am going to have to read this and then double back for the discussion. So sorry that I missed being on time for this book.

We'd be glad to have you, Chris, whether or not the month is over. :)

Kimberly wrote: "Must finish my current reads so that I can start this one ASAP!!!!..."

Same here!

Just finished, i absolutely loved it, contemplating my review...

Getting a late start but am about 20% in and enjoying it so far.

Phase two
(view spoiler)[Really liked the discovery of the recorded phone calls on one of the cell phones......I like where this is going. (hide spoiler)]

I am n the middle of Phase Three and I am finding it hard to put down.

Ctgt wrote: "Getting a late start but am about 20% in and enjoying it so far.

Phase two
[spoilers removed]"

Glad to hear it, Ctgt!

I finished it last night and really enjoyed it.

I'll finally be starting this week!!! :D

Nancy wrote: "I finished it last night and really enjoyed it."

I'm glad you did, Nancy. :)

Finished this morning and really enjoyed it, right up there with Whom the Gods Would Destroy. Mr. Hodge is right there with the best at recent cosmic horror. I noticed in the "about the author" section that he put together a soundtrack for WtGWD, hoping Brian is still hanging around the thread to point me in the right direction for that playlist. I'm a big fan of ambient/space music.

Thanks for all the great comments — it's very gratifying to see this going over well.

For those of yez who now want to go to Estes Park, be sure to schedule your visit in the autumn, so you can share the town with the meandering tribes of elk who pretty much have just one thing on their minds.

@Ctgt: Send me a private message, and we can arrange for me to send you the newer version of the soundtrack. Last summer I remixed and remastered it. One of my plans for 2018 was self-reissuing some stuff I got the rights back to, including WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, and I was going to make a soundtrack refresh a part of that. But my parents died last April, and I was appointed executor of their estate. It's been such a black hole of time, energy, etc., that pretty much all of my plans for 2018 got pushed back a year.

Thank you so much Mr Hodge, I absolutely loved everything about this book. My review...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Brian wrote: "@Ctgt: Send me a private message, and we can arrange for me to send you the newer version of the soundtrack. Last summer I remixed and remastered it. One of my plans for 2018 was self-reissuing some stuff I got the rights back to, including WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY, and I was going to make a soundtrack refresh a part of that. But my parents died last April, and I was appointed executor of their estate. It's been such a black hole of time, energy, etc., that pretty much all of my plans for 2018 got pushed back a year"

Thanks so much Brian, I'll contact you shortly.
I was wondering what had happened with Whom the Gods Would Destroy, I mentioned it my review( I loved it by the way ) and then couldn't find it on Amazon.
Sorry about your parents, my mother in law died over the holidays...still working through the grieving process...here's to brighter days ahead.