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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest,

@megapolisomancy.bsky.social

2.8K followers 1.8K following 4.4K posts

Nonfiction about weird fiction at Seize the Press, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Los Angeles Review of Books, Nightmare, and Ancillary Review of Books, where I am also an editor. Also jazz, metal, leftism. he/him https://doomsdayer.wordpress.com/writings/

doomsdayer.wordpress.com

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · Jun 13

I've been threatening for a while to start a column on collections of weird fiction, and so: Profane Illuminations, a quarterly series where I'll look at a few in tandem and see what threads I can draw out about their stories and the genre at large. Quick intro here, first full entry next week.

Profane Illuminations: An Initiation

Zachary Gillan Everyone knows that the short story is the ideal form for weird fiction. But why? What is it about the form and the genre that makes them so symbiotic? What might we learn by explori…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

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Thomas Ha @thomasha.bsky.social · 8h

short stories

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 20h

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 11h

Die a standard nomenclature user, or live long enough to recreate one of Howie Mandel's running gags from "Bobby's World" (1990-1998)

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · Feb 6

I’ve realized since writing this (and many other essays, bah) that the word “genric” actually captures the meaning I’m reaching for much more than the word “generic”. Of course in practice everyone is just going to think “genric” is a typo

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 11h

A deep cut!

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JBR @jetblackraider.itch.io · 14h

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 1d

Guy who has read a lot of books, GILES GOAT-BOY among them, reading MORDEW: getting a lot of GILES GOAT-BOY vibes from this…

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 9d

Ok finally carved out some time in between reviews, it’s Mordew o’clock

Alex Pheby’s Mordew, with a hatch marked black and white line drawing of a kid looking up at a bird on a wall with some grotesqueries in the distance

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · Jan 30

Seems to me that a fantasy author with decent politics might get some mileage right now out of dragons as ontologically evil beings whose greed deforms the very world around them but what do I know, I’m just a dumbass critic

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · Jan 30

Punish the guilty, and eat the rich (dragons)

Abandon Ambition 🔜 Fluufff @abandonambition.com · Jan 30

This is one of my lesser-appreciated drawings (which is fine!) but it's still one of my favorites and I'm so pleased with myself for how the hands and that thrown-back head came out.

#art #fantasyart #fantasy #dnd

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Daniel Carpenter @dancarpenter.bsky.social · 1d

A reminder that E. Nesbit wrote the greatest opening to a ghost story ever.

THIS is not an artistically rounded off ghost story and nothing is explained in it; and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened. But that is no reason why it should not be told. You must have noticed that all the real ghost stories you ever come close to are like this in these respects: no explanation, no logical coherence. Here is the story.

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

An ongoing thread of short story collections coming in 2026, of work weird/surreal/dark/uncanny/unsettling/ghostly/ghastly, across genres, so that they're all in one place that I can refer back to when I inevitably forget what books I was meaning to request review copies of:

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 1d

Teng Kuan Kiat - RUINED STORIES; STORIED RUINS (Ecco)

Alex DiFrancesco - THE GRIEF SHOP AND OTHER STORIES FROM A BROKEN WORLD (Seven Stories)

William Lohier - BLACK STAR LINE (Simon and Schuster)

Carol Mitchell - A GOOD HAUNTING (Akashic)

Kevin Ramirez - LOVE LIKE WATER (Cornerstone)

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2d

Excellent!

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2d

Not hijacking at all; music to my ears, even. Been looking forward to this since DS announced it. Sam has my address, or I’m happy to send it to you, depending on where the ARCs are coming from

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2d

I didn’t really like Rabbit Island but maybe, we’ll see

BLOOD IS DRIPPING ON THE PATIO
By Elvira Navarro and Christina MacSweeney
Fiction: Literary
September 15, 2025
National Book Award-longlisted author of RABBIT ISLAND and THE VOICES OF ADRIANA Elvira Navarro and translator Christina MacSweeney's
BLOOD IS DRIPPING ON THE PATIO, a story collection in which isolation distorts the world of the characters
until the mundane becomes fantastic and bizarre, to CJ Evans at Two Lines Press, in a nice deal, for publication in fall 2026, by Maria Juncosa at Casanovas & Lynch Agency (world English).

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2d

Ken Vaughan - This is the Table Where We Wash Our Dead (also @lethepress.bsky.social , which seems set to have a banner year in 2026)

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Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · Aug 30

It's never a bad time to bring up that we

a b s o l u t e l y

have the resources and ability to provide housing, food, clothing, healthcare, and education to everyone at no direct cost to the individual; and we just choose not to do it.

Tyler, from the Internet @tylerfromtheinternet.com · Aug 30

People should just get paid six thousand dollars a month to exist. You may have counterpoints and things to consider about this idea but let me just get ahead of them: shut up

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

The physicality of the bass sound at a Bell Witch show is essentially a religious experience

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

On a real Stygian Bough listening loop since they announced the new album is finally on the way. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPU4...

STYGIAN BOUGH - Live Tacoma, WA @ Real Art Tacoma FULL SET (07.30.2022)

YouTube video by Profound Lore Records

www.youtube.com

After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

Yeah, he’s been the standout in a lot of anthologies I’ve read over the years. I don’t have a link, he mentioned it on here (as did Lethe, I could have sworn…) but no pages or announcements anywhere else yet

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

I’ve been meaning to do a deep dive on his collections for a while; this might be just the nudge I need (to do that and stop rereading the Well-Built City repeatedly)

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Cursed Morsels @cursedmorsels.bsky.social · 3d

If you're an active horror/Weird fiction reviewer, we'd love to send you ARCs of our upcoming books! Some folks on our reviewer list no longer review books, so we're wanting to connect with more folks. Sign up here for future Cursed Morsels ARCs!
forms.gle/bMbKCWCWPkYe...

Cursed Morsels Press ARC sign-up

forms.gle

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

R. J. Joseph - My Monsters Ain't Like Yours (Quill and Crow)
Dan Coxon - Come Sing for the Harrowing (Clash)

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

Senaa Ahmad's The Age of Calamities I already have us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

The Age of Calamities

Written by an inimitable new voice, The Age of Calamities is a genre-defying, mind-bending collection of absurdist, funny, and speculative short stories. In ...

us.macmillan.com

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

Samir Sirk Morato - Gore Poetics (Cursed Morsels)
Jeffrey Ford - The Pandemonium Waltz (Lethe)
Rory Say - ??? (Lethe)
Stephanie Feldman - The Night Parade (Fairwood)
Jill Rosenberg - Now I’m Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself (Black Lawrence)
Katherine Conner - The Hanged Man(Black Lawrence)

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

Also they hate fascists!

Timothy™️ @posttim.bsky.social · 3d

Y’all, if you like modern black metal, you gotta check this out from Hæresis, released today through Vendetta. Absolutely epic mood on here (disso-atmo-melodic variety, with some post-metal bits).

Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum, by Hæresis

4 track album

haeresis.bandcamp.com

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So Mayer @suchmayer.bsky.social · 3d

I'm a committed small press author & editor. Small presses are the seed-heads of the books world & they are scorched. Pls read and share this excellent letter on the situation & what's needed in @thebookseller.com, signatories inc Peninsula Press, @cipherpress.bsky.social @silver-press.bsky.social

Open letter on the future of small press publishing in the UK

The industry must work together to ensure the longevity of the UK’s independent presses.

www.thebookseller.com

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After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d

On a real Stygian Bough listening loop since they announced the new album is finally on the way. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPU4...

STYGIAN BOUGH - Live Tacoma, WA @ Real Art Tacoma FULL SET (07.30.2022)

YouTube video by Profound Lore Records