We’re very pleased to see that At Fear’s Altar, the numinous horror collection by our own Richard Gavin, has received an excellent review from Publishers Weekly. A couple of months ago we passed along some strong praise from other reviewers. Now PW has this to say about the book: Literate horror fans who have yet…
In Praise of Horror that Horrifies
The Horror genre can evoke a panorama of emotions in its audience. Dread, lust, anxiety, giddiness, and even joy often arise, sometimes in paradoxical combinations. Peculiarly enough, it seems that the one emotion the genre evokes most rarely is the one from which its name is derived. In plain speaking, the genre is rarely frightening….
Mass imprisonment in America: A social and spiritual tragedy
The past several years have seen an explosion of public awareness, abetted by a spate of excellent journalism, about the epoch-defining crisis of mass incarceration in America. To take just one notable example, Adam Gopnik, writing in The New Yorker, summarizes the situation in unequivocally stark and apocalyptic language: Mass incarceration on a scale almost…
The Plot Running Like a Silver Cord: Channeling and Mediumship on the Margins of Literature
(Given all of the conversations that have arisen here recently on the connections between theological speculation and fantastic fiction, it seems an appropriate time to revisit, and revise, and expand, a piece that I originally wrote for The Eyeless Owl.) Let no man read here who lives only in the world about him. To these…
Win a copy of Stuart Young’s ‘The Mask Behind the Face’
The Mask Behind the Face, the collection of metaphysical horror fiction by Teeming Brain contributor Stuart Young (see his column Sparking Neurones), was short-listed for the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection in 2006, and the title story — about brain disease, psychedelics, and the far outer and deep inner reaches of consciousness — ended…
George Clayton Johnson describes the reality of the ‘Twilight Zone’
Fans of both The Twilight Zone and the realm of philosophical, spiritual, religious, and psychological inquiry represented by the likes of books such as Daimonic Reality and Exploring the Edge Realms of Consciousness — the latter featuring contributions from Teeming Brain teem members David Metcalfe and Ryan Hurd — will find much of interest in…
Is the “brain as computer” metaphor dying?
Yesterday, Edge.org published a long and depth-filled conversation with Daniel C. Dennett — he of Consciousness Explained and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea fame — and it shows the renowned philosopher of mind and consciousness saying some things about the now-ubiquitous model and metaphor of the brain as a kind of computing machine that casts a whole…
Eldritch Optimism: A Kinder, Gentler Rereading of H. P. Lovecraft
A Search for the Heroic in Lovecraftian Fiction, Part One Novelist Jonathan Ryan recently wrote an essay, “Meaning to the Madness,” that was largely devoted to exploring the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft. Teeming Brain head honcho Matt Cardin wrote a response. There was then a Teeming Brain podcast (the first ever) about the whole…
Orwellian America and spiritual sickness
A decade into the “War on Terror,” things have started to get truly Orwellian here in the U.S. And you don’t have to be one of the wanton fear-mongers yammering on both ends the political continuum to recognize it. Consider: last week a U.S. federal judge in Manhattan ruled that President Obama is not required…
Stephen King: We forget that life is fundamentally mysterious
I ask you to consider the fact that we live in a web of mystery, and have simply gotten so used to the fact that we have crossed out the word and replaced it with one we like better, that one being reality. Where do we come from? Where were we before we were here?…