Sure to Satisfy Your Weird Cravings
This anthology of 100 years of Weird Tales is both a walk through a century of history as well as a peek into the future of the truly weird. With a large cast of narrators, there are some misses. Mostly those narrators who read some of the fiction pieces but whose voices sound straight nonfiction. But overall, the narration is marvelous and lends to the eeriness of the content. I loved the blackout poem “Arched Bridges” by Jessican McHugh but had the advantage of seeing it in print. A blackout poem, for those who don’t know, is when a poet takes pre-existing text and “blacks out,” or in McHugh’s case blocks around the words they wish to use to make up their poem. Fitting for the history of Weird Tales she uses two pages of “Pickman’s Model” by H.P. Lovecraft and also includes a colored handdrawing. That poem in conjunction with the many graphic elements of the anthology make it worth buying the print version. At least for any who have a long love affair with Weird Tales and its creepy art. Although I prefer the modern entries more, the older entries are a real treat to hear brought to life. Perhaps my favorite piece of fiction is Victor LaValle's “Up from Slavery.” I’m definitely going to have to read some of his novels after listening to this particularly unexpected tale. In the poetry category, I enjoyed Linda D. Addison's poem "How to make the animal perfect?" the most. I’m not typically into tech alarmism, as this poem seems to be, but to me it reads also as a macabre love note to the future and potential of AI and the ever-approaching Singularity.