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From a friend: 'Dan Simmons wrote some excellent books and his writing also inspired a wonderful bon mot from Hal Duncan: "Ah, Song of Kali. The book that did for India what the Gor books did for women."'

Read Vellum and Ink by Hal Duncan. They're works full of mutliverses, magic, queerness, fairies, books of everything, and so much more. And also the Matthew Shepard murders are in there too.

#bon mot #dan simmons #sci fi #hal duncan #I need to reread ink

#ballad of the book #aereogramme #hal duncan #if you love you'd destroy me #Spotify

Thomas Messenger

Title: Vellum

Category: Book

Author: Hal Duncan

Status: Main Character

Orientation: Gay

Check the read-more to see if Thomas survives, and for other trigger warnings.

#Thomas Messenger #Vellum #The Book of All Hours #Book #Hal Duncan #Main Character #gay #mlm

For askbox thing, what book/story do you think has influenced you the most?

Honestly, @halduncan 's Vellum and Ink. Found the Spanish translation of those books randomly in a department store discount books self as a teenager, and read them so many times in high-school (often during class lmao). They were the first books I remember reading with a story that had queerness as an explicit, important part of it, and that was so fucking meaningful to me at a time when I understood nothing about my own identity yet.

Then I got better at English and have read the original English language version many many times since. It's the only series of books I keep both physical editions and (heavily annotated and highlighted) Kindle editions.

Every few months I get the urge to re-read at least some of it. It just means so much to me.

#the book of all hours #hal duncan #books #replies #thank you!!!

“That crazy fragmented structure is ultimately about reducing the distance we have from such a “story”, in a book or even on the news. It’s not “all OK really” cause the murder is just an ancient myth. It’s not “all OK really” cause the murder is just a fantasy story set in Faerie. It’s not “all OK really” cause the murder is just a grim tale of the sort things that happened in WW1 but, well, the past is another country. It’s not “all OK really” cause the murder happened and it was really terrible but, well, it took place in Laramie, Wyoming, so we can blame it on a less tolerant culture there and feel all safe and cosy in a here where that sort of thing doesn’t happen. That’s just us using that frame of reference as a fence. The point of taking the story out of that frame of reference is to tear down that fence. It’s not “all OK really”. It’s never “all OK really”. People die. And that fucking matters. And if you’re still thinking linearly, if you’re thinking, yeah, but Puck “comes back”, he always “comes back”, popping up somewhen else in the Vellum, so why should I care? If you think that means it’s “all OK really”, then you’re kind of missing the point that he’s only going to die all over again. It’s kind of like looking on the bright side of a jackboot stomping on a face forever. Hey, the jackboot’s got to be lifted off that face, right? So that’s, like, all this time when that face isn’t being stomped on! Whoopee fuckin doo, that makes it so much better! Although there is, of course, that cryptic assurance from Thomas at the very end of the volume, just before we see him being dragged away to his death, that somehow, somewhen, it is going to be OK. Which is not, of course, to say that he’s right.”

-- Hal Duncan, “Method In The Madness” (x)

#hal duncan #method in the madness #the book of all hours

Vellum is rapidly becoming the best book I’ve read this past year. Its amazing syncretic internal mythology that manages to crib so much from the Sumerian while retaining its own unique form. The clever use of repetition to evoke the mythological context. The multiple, mirrored forms of the characters. This is my jam.

Some weak comparisons can be made to American Gods and Snowcrash and (possibly) to House of Leaves. I recommend picking it up if you have the time.

#with rescind the recommendation if #still only a third of the way through #Hal Duncan

"Death of Orpheus" by Albrecht Durer The Stripping of the Flesh In "The Descent of Inanna," one of the oldest myths we have of death and rebirth — one with such staying power that modern fantasists such as myself or...

“The Stripping of the Flesh” from “The Tomb and the Womb: Death and Rebirth in World Myth and Mythic Fiction” by Hal Duncan

In "The Descent of Inanna," one of the oldest myths we have of death and rebirth — one with such staying power that modern fantasists such as myself or Catherynne M. Vallente are still drawn to retell it — the Sumerian goddess Inanna, Queen of Heaven, hears the call of the "Great Below" from her throne–room in the "Great Above." A feisty, ambitious girl with a string of abandoned lovers behind her and her gaze set on the destiny in front of her, she gathers her objects of power and, on "the road of no return," descends into the Kur, where Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead, rules a city of dust and ash.

Published in 2006, this is a survey of death and rebirth stories across the world. In the section linked above, the author brings up Buffy as a modern Inanna, descending into the underworld.

Its in the Journal of Mythic Arts from Endicott Studios, which won the World Fantasy Award of 2008 and closed that year. The website itself went down by 2014, and most of the material was reuploaded onto the old news blog, including the above article. As the fiction archive never made it up there, links are provided below:

The article from the first page

The current page

The current nonfiction archive

The old Endicott Studios page

The old Journal of Mythic Arts page (articles, poetry, fiction, art, drama, mixed media, reading lists)

The old fiction archive

The old news blog

Jack Carter