#candy-corpse

I suspect confused is the exactly correct way to feel about this. I am going on the assumption that the book will be hilarious crack. I’m hoping it won’t be as ridiculously AU fanfic -feeling as Blood Canticle or Blackwood Farm.

I thought it was fantastic. But how could I not, considering the last few minutes of the episode? When the secretary said his name, I squeaked with glee. And clapped my hands at the very ending.

I’ve only seen one season: Coven! Which I thought was fun, even if it became a steaming narrative mess toward the end of the season.

My favorite (of what I’ve read so far) is her first novel, The Cipher–I’m actually finishing a reread right now. A pair of unpleasant 20-somethings discover a hole in a storage room floor, as dark as a black hole and as inexplicable. I think I discovered Koja through Brite, but it may have been Kiernan; this novel particularly feels like a fusion of both: Kiernan’s take on New Weird with Brite’s eye for the grotesque. The Cipher has a character named Nakota who has a fetishist’s fascination with the bizarre, almost sexual, deeply amoral, and one of my favorite representations of the push-pull of the weird, how the things most unsettling about it are also the most attractive. The Cipher is a damn weird novel, it’s gross and has half to no plot, and I love it.

I really want to read Skin, but haven’t been able to find a copy.

I read Strange Angels, and didn’t love it. Koja’s early novels seem dependent on their core concepts: an inexplicable, bizarre, fascinating hole in the floor is weirdly compelling; Strange Angels is about a schizophrenic artist, which I find a little troublesome. It’s carefully on the safe side and doesn’t idealize mental illness, but that restraint also holds back the gritty excess that marks Koja’s work.

Under the Poppy is a fantasy of manners set in alternate Brussels; it’s ornate and decorative, and peopled by cruel characters with fascinating relationships. An entirely different sort of book! If you like fantasy of manners, it’s great; if you’re around for New Weird, you probably won’t be satisfied.

Juu, all you did was recount all the Koja books you’ve read! Okay, but hear me out:

Read whatever early Koja you can find–The Cipher, Bad Brains, Skin, Strange Angels; Kink looks like it lacks a fantastic element. (By all means, read Under the Poppy, too, if the genre appeals.) Koja has a distinctive, powerful, violent voice, sharp-edged abrupt sentences, crass and ruthless, peppered with creative and disturbing detail; her early work, both what I’ve read and what I’ve looked at but haven’t yet had the chance to read, shares an obsession with the Weird, with fringe experience, with fetishizing the disconcerting; id-writing embracing cosmic horror. But it’s also out of print. Take what you can get! I had mixed feelings about Strange Angels, but still found it satisfyingly Koja-esque and an accurate representation of what she does; I don’t think you can go outright wrong with her writing.

Hmmm. Gore and decadence are rarer to find together than some people may realize! Also, remember, my answers will be weighted toward vampires, just because.

Wormwood, by Poppy Z. Brite. A collection of short stories, and very atmospheric.

The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter. Look, just go read this if you haven’t, okay? Thank me later.

A Morbid Initiation, by Phillip Boule. (Yes, it’s a tie-in novel for White Wolf’s Victorian Age Vampire setting. You don’t need to know anything about the game to read the book, and it’s a lot of gory fun.)

In the Blood, by Miranda Luna. It’s unevenly written, but the parts that work are sumptuous and grotesque. (And so weighted with gothy nostalgia for the late 80s - early 90s that it almost makes me cry.)

Voice of the Blood, by Jemiah Jefferson. Vampires, both antique and punk rock. 

Gothique, by Kyle Marffin. More 90s goth nostalgia bait, but a wonderful look at what would happen if actual vampires decided to exploit the goth scene. I’m not going to fib: if Gothique were an actual night club, I would attend every weekend.