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sean guynes

@guynes.bsky.social

2.1K followers 660 following 1.4K posts

critic and cultural historian of fantasy, horror, sf + senior acquiring editor, @leverpress.bsky.social + associate editor of sf, @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social + read more: seanguynes.com

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 20d

I conclude my reading of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast/Titus trilogy with TITUS AWAKES (1959), in which I think I offer a pretty generous reading of what I think is going on in this novel, why it's so different, and what's actually quite interesting about it: seanguynes.com/2025/09/18/b...

Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Reading “Titus Alone” by Mervyn Peake (Gormenghast 3)

The seventh essay in my Ballantine Adult Fantasy reading series, which looks at Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone (1959), the much maligned third and final novel in the Gormenghast series.

seanguynes.com

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 1h

The wild thing about this is: it doesn’t even require a spine! you can ask him where in Portland you’d like to point the cameras. That’s how fake it all is!

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Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 1h

bewildering and downright irresponsible to not have news outlets just…pointing cameras at Portland rn

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niki grayson @nikigrayson.com · 5h

the city of los angeles burned in january in part because of a man who couldn’t stop generating images of burning cities on ChatGPT, and then after he lit the fire he asked if the fire he started was his fault

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 2h

Surprising absolutely no one, Richard J. Evans's narrative history of the Weimar Republic's creation and desctruction -- The Coming of the Third Reich -- is highly relevant and interesting reading. The audiobook is also great, if you can do non-fiction audiobooks.

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 8h

Not me, a professional literary critic, googling "free indirect discourse" (but also "three-act structure")

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 8h

Two of Riddell's (short) haunted house novels are collected in this edition by The British Library in their long-running Tales of the Weird series:

Cover of the British Library volume "Haunted Houses: Two Novels" by Charlotte Riddell, featuring an etching of a red spiral staircase viewed from the top down.

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 21h

A book about science fiction films and adaptation, in videographic (i.e. video essay) form!

Lever Press @leverpress.bsky.social · 1d

ADAPTIVE FORMS by Gregory Brophy & Shawn Malley is now available to read online! This new edition to our Videographic series examines media adaptation in contemporary science fiction film through 14 video essays. Start reading and watching here: buff.ly/1K6d7Z0

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 2d

It is! More info soon!

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 2d

It's really something when an author writes a 125-page novel that sucks for 100 pages, has you doubting your admiration for the author, but ends with 25 pages of the most achingly beautiful prose about love, loss, longing, and fate.

But that's Swann's THE WEIRWOODS (1967). Essay later this week.

1967 cover of Swann's The Weirwoods, art by Gray Morrow

1977 cover of Swann's The Weirwoods, art by Stephen Hickman

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 2d

Book cover reveal teaser: One of the books I've got in production at Lever Press is about digital Otherkin communities and discourses of humanness. The cover is shaping up to be really awesome, drawing on the metaphor of the jellyfish/medusa, and remixing Ernst Haeckel's illustration:

cut out of Haeckel's colorful illustration of a medusa jellyfish

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 3d

If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.

CFP: A Time of Monsters

The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...

contingentmagazine.org

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 4d

I've finished my essay on Kostova's THE HISTORIAN, complete with discussion of dark academia, her conservative, apolitical view of history and violence, and, of course, vampires.

The 11k-word essay will be released in November to coincide with my @mealofthorns.bsky.social episode on the novel.

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 9d

Alright , finished my (6th) reread of Kostova's The Historian and ended with over 7k words of notes. Now to write the essay on why I think this is a pretty bad novel, a worse vampire novel, and an even worse novel about history -- basically, it's bad at what it wants to be (about).

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 14d

Not even halfway through my reread of The Historian and I've already got nearly 4k words of notes. This reread is really challenging me -- I genuinely no longer know what I think about this novel and I vacillate wildly between "man, this sucks" and "ok, I'm enjoying this again."

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 4d

That's good to hear. I was both curious but put off by Momoa, who I generally don't like as an actor, but this is encouraging. I want more historical dramas about non-Western history!

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 5d

Perfect,thanks. Just as in English. Odd usage indeed.

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 5d

Right, so if someone was saying "scénario" in French criticism instead of "film," a Francophone reader would also be like, "is that actually the word you mean?"

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 5d

Hell yeah! I think that's a brilliant move, honestly.

And please do for weird fiction what Freedman did for sf/critical theory.

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 5d

Super niche question: do Francophone writers refer to a film as a "screenplay" in French? Because I've got a proposal that uses screenplay instead of film, despite talking about the film as a whole thing, and not the screenplay specifically. But I'm wondering if it's a translation thing?

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 5d

It's, uh, really "interesting" to be reading Richard Evans's three-volume history of the Third Reich at this moment in history.

snarkops.bsky.social @snarkops.bsky.social · 7d

Protesters pleaded "be gentle, she's disabled."
One agent sneered: "She'll be disabled now."
State violence, cruelty, and silencing dissent.

Siebe, who uses a wheelchair, was filming in a bike lane when an agent body-checked her face-first into the pavement.

#portland #ice #dhs #news #resist

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 7d

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance.

Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn.

We have been sent here to fight for people.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 7d

AOC: I think there's two things that are happening at once: One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of governance

However, they are weaker than they look…

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 5d

Tilly Norwood is the fantasy return of a pre-MeToo era for these guys, an imagined utopia where consent is not even a question, where everyone with an internet connection gets to be a producer and every producer gets to be a Weinstein.

Laura Jedeed @laurajedeed.bsky.social · 6d

I'm sorry: "if I wish to see a virgin on-screen"?

My Favorite Actress Is Not Human
Tilly Norwood doesn’t need a hairstylist, has no regrettable posts, and if you wish to see a virgin on-screen, this is one of your better chances. That’s because she’s AI.

A picture of some AI girl standing on an AI landscape with an AI monster behind her. I'm gonna be so real: she looks about 14

By Tyler Cowen

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Bethany Wasik @bethanywasik.bsky.social · 5d

ICYMI: A *fantastic* interview with Robert F. Williams on his superb book, "The Airborne Mafia", just landed on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. Listen here: newbooksnetwork.com/the-airborne... and learn more about the @cornellupress.bsky.social book here: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

A book cover with a light blue background with an image of paratroopers and a plane at top, with the title of the book. The Airborne Mafia, in white in the middle and the author name, Robert F. Williams, in black at the bottom.

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 5d

Holy shit, I need to see more Whelan horror cover art, because this is magnificent.

Michael Whelan @michaelwhelan.bsky.social · 5d

NIGHTMARE IN RED (1981)
Acrylic Over Pastels - 25 ½” x 20”

Tales from the Nightside is a collection of macabre stories by Charles L. Grant. I accepted a commission to do the cover art in the gloomy winter of 1980-81. 1/4

Angled view down on a horror montage set upon a red tinted, textured skull topped by a trio of rose blooms. Low in the immediate foreground one orbital reflects the glint of light on an eyeball. Nested low on the forehead a bat opens its maw wide in a scream. Set to the side is a tile with the number 3 and a creeping spider. Opposite rests a small stack of coins, the topmost decorated with a triangle. Smoke wafts out of a crack at the top back of the skull while tendrils of roots grow off the opposite side.

sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 6d

Damn, that camera turn when it reveals the ENTIRE lecture hall is in pursuit...

Dorian Lord Zedd @zeddrick.bio · 6d

University of Washington - Piece of shit disrupts Psych 210 (The Diversity of Human Sexuality) throwing up nazi salutes, yelling Heil Hitler, and calling everyone “retarded degenerates” and “fags"

The professor, Dr. Nicole McNichols, and her class
👏DO
👏NOT
👏PLAY
👏THAT
👏GAME

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Association of University Presses @aupresses.bsky.social · 6d

Worth repeating, and appreciating every day: "More than 100 of North America’s top universities clearly believe that an energetic, outward-facing publishing program is a tremendous asset to, indeed a responsibility of, any university."

Why institutions should continue to support their university presses (opinion)

Institutions can be unfamiliar with what their university presses do or with their own integral role in supporting scholarly publishing, argue Kathryn Conrad and Jennifer Crewe, which can lead to hasty or inaccurate judgments.

bit.ly

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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 6d

One of the authors, Markus Rediker, also wrote an longer history of Benjamin Lay for adults: www.beacon.org/The-Fearless...

Beacon Press: The Fearless Benjamin Lay

The virtually unknown story of an 18th century Quaker dwarf who was one of the earliest activists to demand immediate abolition