Reviews
JustineG Feels the Hebridean Love for BLACKSTONE Erotica
0Calum MacIver, a UK based blogger on all things underground, trashy, and hell, fun, has been digging into Martian Migraine Press author Justine G‘s weird-erotic opus BLACKSTONE Erotica series lately. Check out these excerpts from his reviews of Red Monolith Frenzy, Green Fever Dream, and the two (so far!) Summonings books…
“Th
e plot is intriguing, the writing is smooth and elegant and there are some really clever turns of phrase that help the forward momentum and at the same time deliver an intriguing off-kilter feel. The combination of bizarre perverted sex, weird supernatural elements and insane cosmic horror all work in perfect unison to make Red Monolith Frenzy a magnificently entertaining read and the perfect combination of Lovecraftian creepiness, freaky erotica and cosmic horror.” (Read more on Calum’s KVLT KVLTURE blog)
“The plotting is breakneck with little opportunity to catch a breath between one mad scene or insane situation, but the writing compliments the furious pace with ease; smooth, easy to follow and with just the right touch of mystery to keep the reader fully engaged and wanting more. Some of the passages and phraseology are excellent -redolent of Lovecraft but with their own unique spin: “I witnessed its kin as they performed unholy rituals of staggeringly alien beauty in dripping caverns of onyx and mother-of-pearl”. The psycho-sex is literally out-of-this-world, hot and freaky with the cosmic horror elements masterfully integrated into the overall story – the climax is pure Lovecraft but done in a whole new way … an excellent read and a worthy second instalment in the Blackstone series…” (Read more on Calum’s KVLT KVLTURE blog)
“The two Blackstone books provided hugely exciting slices of bizarre Lovecraftian sex and wild cosmic horror – the two Summonings books follow in the same vein and if anything amp up the madness to new levels. Summonings: Anicka and Kamil, in particular, delivers an eye-watering, brain-scrambling sex sequence between Anicka, Kamil and Daoloth. It’s not often that I’ve read something google-eyed in amazement, but the climactic sequence in this was like nothing I’ve read before – imaginative, crazy, bizarre, sick and absolutely brilliant! In comparison Summonings: Yvette’s Interview is positively calm and restrained, but that said it is still a surging, throbbing Lovecraftian quagmire of weirded-out transgressive cosmic sex and alien-black witchery. I cannot recommend this series highly enough.” (Read more on Calum’s KVLT KVLTURE blog)
Can YOU handle something this eye-watering and brain-scrambling? Yeah? Well, PROVE IT, ladies and genotypes. Get down and squelchy with Justine G’s BLACKSTONE Erotica series today! And head on over to KVLT KVLTURE for a truly exhaustive (and pleasantly exhausting!) round-up of all things awesome; Calum is doing the good work, we’re convinced.
Grok This NEWSCLUSTER! Reviews, Previews, Artwork!
012 years ago
Folks, it’s been a while since we dropped some mad Martian Migraine Press knowledge on you, so here goes: gird your loins for a NEWSCLUSTER!
We’re told by our author SRJones that his auto-ethnographical non-fiction book, When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality, is nearly complete. “It’s reading less like a work of Lovecraftian apologetics now, and more like a wigged-out crank religious text,” he says. “Which bothered me, initially, but I’ve since decided to just go with it. Y’know, git mah crank on.” CRANK AWAY, sir! We’re looking forward to getting our editing mitts on the thing, and we’re excited by some of the early illustrations coming in from Michael Lee MacDonald, an illustrator from Victoria BC, that Jones has tapped to provide cover and interior artwork! Check out this mock-up our DesignDroid5000 slapped together on a down-cycle!
Originally we had been looking at Lovecraft’s birthday for the release of When The Stars Are Right, but, since this is going to be our first actual physical book-type consumable product (as well as our usual electronic edition) and since we’d like to do this up right (or at least as right as possible — is anything ever truly perfect? Hmm) there is a possibility that the release date may be pushed towards Halloween. Appropriate, yes? Yes. And of course, Jones’ weird musings on all things squamous and spiritual will be available for pre-order. Follow Martian Migraine Press on the twitter @MartianMigraine for updates as they happen!
Martian Migraine Press authors have been getting some truly lovely reviews lately! Here’s just a sampling…
Jordan Stratford (author of Mechanicals) on JustineG’s ORGY IN THE VALLEY OF THE LUST LARVAE
Low-brow, squelching fun. You don’t grab a book like this on literary merit, you dive headfirst into unapologetic escapism. It is unrepentant camp without resorting to self-satire (which shows admirable restraint). There’s a lot informing this – Lovecraftian subtext and J-Pop tentacle hentai, even French New Wave surrealism a la Moebius and the Métal Hurlant crowd, Laloux’s La Planète sauvage – Like a Ray Bradbury Theater rerun gone horribly, horribly wrong. It is a fever-dream of adolescent-imprinting and sexual development during the era of underground VHS cult. Deviant, imaginative, grotesque and what-the-hell-else-were-you-expecting-exactly-with-this-title. The name promises, the text delivers. It’s a three dollar bid to see how the author can top this title with her next foray into pulp depravity. Seriously, there is simply no better answer to “What are you reading?” while sitting next to someone on a train.
Calum MacIver (UK blogger at Kult Kulture) recently picked up Justine’s BLACKSTONE Erotica series and here’s some of what he had to say about that…
Red Monolith Frenzy is a superb read; fast moving, cleverly constructed and delivering both a knowledgeable Lovecraftian pastiche (honourable mentions of The Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt, Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Hidden Plateau of Leng) alongside the slippery, slimy cosmic sex that Lovecraft sublimated in most of his best work. The plot is intriguing, the writing is smooth and elegant and there are some really clever turns of phrase that help the forward momentum and at the same time deliver an intriguing off-kilter feel. The combination of bizarre perverted sex, weird supernatural elements and insane cosmic horror all work in perfect unison to make Red Monolith Frenzy a magnificently entertaining read and the perfect combination of Lovecraftian creepiness, freaky erotica and cosmic horror. All the other books in the Blackstone Erotica series are queued on my Kindle.
You can read the full review over on the Kult Kulture site here. Calum also has some nice things to say about us! Clearly, we’re happy to have him as a reader.
Finally, a discerning reader makes favourable comparisons between Nick Mamatas’ Cthulhu Senryu and our own skawt chonzz’s R’LYEH SUTRA. We’re not surprised, per se, but we have had our hair blown back a bit. Having chonzz in the bullpen here at MMP HQ has never been… easy. But reviews like this make it worth the drain on our psyches and various glands…
Exploring new ground in Mythos poetry, skawt chonzz’ avant garde verse recalls some of the more experimental and daring works from THE STARRY WISDOM: A Tribute to H P Lovecraft and Songs of the Black Wurm Gism: The Starry Wisdom Part 2 (Creation Oneiros). Like Nick Matamas’ Cthulhu Senryu, R’lyeh Sutra can be enjoyed both from a straight reading and at a higher level, reflecting on how skawt chonzz uses and refers to the Mythos – often in ways that might surprise some of the more hidebound Mythos fans!
Yes, if you’re a “hidebound Mythos fan”, Martian Migraine titles may not be for you… but if you can grok a little originality with your Old Ones, then we might hit that sweet spot in your soul.
Humbert Humbert in the Heart of the Pornocracy: SRJones reviews NIRA/SUSSA
012 years ago
by Scott R Jones
in Reviews
I’m primarily concerned with horror in my work, and as such I’m all too aware of how the genre can bog down in its own awfulness and become comfortable with the feelings it delivers. Which is why I appreciate it when writing that is not horror brings that emotion to the forefront. Even better if the horror is that of Self, of the shadow within. Enter NIRA/SUSSA…
With NIRA/SUSSA, author Julian Darius has created a Lolita for the 21st Century: brutal in its honesty and honest about its brutality. And make no mistake, this is a brutal piece of fiction, on a par with the work of Brett Easton Ellis or Nick Tosches at his noir-ish best. NIRA/SUSSA explores the DMZs and No Man’s Lands between writing and living, man and woman, sex and love, fiction and reality with skill, eloquence, and, at the end of the day, a helluva lotta nerve. There are only a few writers these days who dare to go to the places this book goes.
As with Ellis, there were moments where I had to stop reading Darius’ book: moments of fear, of shame, of clear-eyed appraisal of my own history. He goes places (within the narrative itself, and within the soul of man: within your own soul, if you are honest, and NIRA/SUSSA ensures that you will be by the time you reach the hinge of it) that make you recoil in disgust at the same time you are attracted. This is a book you lean into, horrified, like a spectacular car wreck that you crane to see more of, even though the seeing will scar you. This is Humbert-Humbert’s journey of exploitation and transcendence, transposed from mid-20th Century middle-America into the bleeding-edge realities of our current moral minefield, into the heart of the international pornocracy. This is lovely, dangerous Lolita with a black AmEx and a free pass to the Castle of Silling. This is the author, as narrator and as educator, asking the reader: well? What would you do, if there was no one to stop you?
Perhaps there are readers out there who would respond with “well, I wouldn’t do that!” but NIRA/SUSSA claims, and rightly so, I think, that they protest too much. The real horror of the book lies in the moment when it forces you to map your own proclivities, kinks, and hidden desires onto a larger stage. Does a club such as the one detailed here exist? Do such things happen? Do such things have the potential to happen, given enough money and power and prestige? Just how far do people go?
What would you do, how would you change yourself, and others, if there was no one to stop you?
It’s a really awful (in the original sense) question to ask, and it takes a lot to ask it, and not botch the asking (or the novel) in the attempt. Darius has succeeded here, to my mind, and I’d love to see NIRA/SUSSA get more exposure, though it’s the kind of book that will likely give the majority of readers digestive trouble.
NIRA/SUSSA deconstructs many things (social fabrics, moral boundaries, the writer/reader relationship, itself) and though it tidies up after itself a little towards the end, there are some messy parts to it that refuse easy resolution, some negligible holes in the plot, the odd off-note in characterization (would the narrator really find a hotel room with a pool to be as amazing as he does, all things considered?) and, in a narrative that is utterly believable most of the time, the occasional moment of “seriously?” (the narrator parading Nonette around town in restaurants despite an earlier concern about his employers finding out about their unconventional relationship)… but these moments are few and far between and do nothing to lessen the impact of this very daring novel.
NIRA/SUSSA is going to stick with me for a while, as much perhaps as Ellis’ American Psycho, Tosches’ In the Hand of Dante (which has similar things to say about writing and living truly), and of course Nabokov’s Lolita, to which this is a loving tribute and excellent companion piece. Recommended.
NIRA/SUSSA paperback / ebook from Martian Lit
