Weirdmonger Book

WEIRDMONGER: THE NEMONICON: SYNCHRONISED SHARDS OF RANDOM TRUTH AND FICTION

by DF Lewis

DFL's Real-Time Review of this book started May 2009: HERE.

"...this book is a modern dark fantasy classic, and a must-read."

How this book prevented murder:

LINK (click on text): When I got home I paced up and down trembling for a while. Then there was a rattle and a thump from the letterbox. A parcel from D F Lewis, the Weirdmonger himself, and the book was... Weirdmonger. The book that I think he's described as the most definitive or representative of his writing. It’s a hefty volume. And at that time and in that mood, I didn’t think I’d be up to glancing over more than a few pages. Surprisingly enough, I read a number of its short stories straight away, and as I read, it was a bit like relaxing in a warm bath and the frustrations of the day seemed to melt away.

JANUARY 2009 (STOP PRESS): Four views on the book here: http://www.knibbworld.com/campbell-cgi/discus/show.cgi?tpc=1&post=21041#POST21041

"Every book has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens."
'The Shadow Of The Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The amazing Weirdmonger Wheel HERE

Never Heard of DFL? That's the point!



Trade Paperback details:

Fantastic Fiction 

Amazon.co.uk 

Amazon.com

Special Hardback edition following demand:
Cold Tonnage

Two Printed Reviews so far:

"... a legend among readers of fantasy and horror fiction ... when you wake up, you won't be sure if what's running through your head are the remains of your dreams or fragmented memories of the story you read before drifting off to sleep."
from TIME OUT

"...each image a dazzling gem to beguile and enchant, disturb or alarm ... the arch weirdness of 'Eraserhead' sliced up and fricasseed by Lord Dunsany."
from THE 3RD ALTERNATIVE (www.ttapress.com)


On-line reviews so far:

THEAKER :  since these sixty-seven "Synchronised Shards of Random Truth & Fiction" barely scratch the surface of this remarkable writer’s literary output, and so, when I do gain the courage to read his work, I will never have to stop.

Amazon.com: "...this book is a modern dark fantasy classic, and a must-read."
Anon: "...a wonderful, if rather over-fattened collection."

Amazon.co.uk: "One thing I can guarantee is that you will never have read any writer quite like DFL before."

THE ZONE
"In his field he's close to being unique: although his antecedents and his influence on other writers can be discerned, there's ultimately no-one quite like him writing in the horror genre today."

NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL
"...here is a book to enjoy and live with for several months, maybe even years."

INFINITY PLUS
"...his ability to create that dreamlike quality in his fiction is flawless; he makes it seem so effortless, which only adds to the effect."

QUICKSILVER EQUATIONS
"Could it get any better than this?"

FRAGMENT MAGAZINE - link now defunct:
"...prose shimmers; he has a gift for turning what in many writers' hands could be the most awkward of phrasings into delightful lyrical achievements ... I recommend this book wholeheartedly."

DEAD ANGEL
"... definitely has a unique vision ... should be required reading for all fans of dark, atmospheric fiction. "



"If the scene is more often of rotting than of blooming flowers, it accords well with the grotesque beauty of this withered wreath. DFL's imagination and use of language are unique." -- Tamar Yellin ("The Nemonicon' as a favourite read of 2004) HERE

"This collection is dense, labyrinthine, eerie, and utterly unique." -- Neddal Ayad ('The Nemonicon' as a favourite read of 2004) HERE

See if you can descry any code in the book.

a woven fire-wall of words 

<< ORDER OF STORIES SHOULD NOT BE ALPHABETICAL:

Some people have contacted me over the months saying that they find the book too difficult to dissect for reading and they either are about to spend (possibly pleasurable) years reading it or have given up trying!

Some say there is a hidden built-in novel.

Others say that the stories are not separate nor a whole, a fact that is seen by some as off-putting.

***
My advice, for what is worth, is to try the most accessible stories first and work outwards, and these are:
Bloodbone, Bobtail, Dear Mum, Digory Smalls, Find Mine, Gongoozler, The Jack-in-the-Box, Queuing Behind Crazy People, Scaredy and Whitemouth, The Scar Museum, Season of Lost Will, Sponge and China Tea, The Swing, The Tallest King, The Terror of the Tomb, Uncle Absolutely, Welsh Pepper.

***
The next set to tackle: are those not listed above or below (i.e. the bulk of the book).

***
The best stories of all, but not to be read until the above have been read:
Back Doubles, Benoko, Big Ship Little Ship & Brown, A Brief Visit To Bonnyville, The Chaise Longue, The Dead, Egnis, The II King, The Merest Tilt, Small Fry (the best of them all), Small Talk.

***
Those not to be attempted at all (seriously off-the-wall or dubious):
Salustrade, Shades of Emptiness (the worst of all), The Stories of Murkales, Tentacles Across The Atlantic, Todger's Town, Tom Rose, The Weird-monger.
Hope that's helpful. >>

"Highly sophisticated and wonderfully nightmarish imagination, an expertly controlled and sardonic vision that reminds me as much of avant-gardists like William Burroughs as it does the best traditions of horror literature" -- Thomas Ligotti about DFL in Dagon #26 (DFL Special) 1989

*******
GENERAL DISCUSSION FORUM
Eclectic discussion for nine years so far:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/weirdmonger/

Prime Books (USA) published this book, where its overall visual design (by Garry Nurrish) and production quality are unquestionably second to none. Its contents (by DFL) push fiction towards previously unconsidered areas of genre, acquired taste, vexed texture of text, humour, horror, fantasy, SF, eschatology, scatology, poetry and philosophy -- and back again! Including some humorously grotesque poetic fables in a Swiftian mode.

END.


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AGRA ASKA
a novella by DFL written in 1983 and published in 1998

Reviewed by Peter Tennant in 1998 (Unreal Dreams)

Nature reputedly abhors a vacuum, and DFL seems to hold a blank sheet of paper in a similar regard, a quirk of character that has seen him transform the art of writing fiction into a veritable cottage industry. Over the past ten years his body of published work has expanded geometrically, like a many headed hydra sprouting two new stories for every one that gets into print. His current tally is over a thousand published stories, but that figure no doubt will be hopelessly out of date by the time you read this review.

DFL's work is very much an acquired taste, one that will not easily find favour with those who seek nothing more from fiction than the quick fix of escapism, or who demand the straitjacket of beginning, middle and end. Opinions as to his merits as a writer are sharply divided. Hailed in some quarters as a genius of the avant-garde, he has been dismissed by others as without talent (an assessment that must surely be suspect - nobody becomes so widely published without quite considerable talent). The truth, as so often, falls somewhere between these two stools. DFL's best stories are slivers of unreality that stick in the reader's mind and prickle, constructions of arch weirdness crammed with disturbing imagery, subtle turns of phrase and syntactic contortions that delight by their sheer audacity. But at the other extreme there are stories that make the most tolerant of readers throw up their hands in bafflement and despair (and sometimes not only their hands), tortuous narratives were if whole passages were printed out of order it's doubtful that anyone other than the author himself would realise or care. And in between these two poles there are stories that are good, bad and indifferent by turn, with each reader making up his or her own mind as to what fits in a particular cubbyhole.

Agra Aska, a novella of nearly thirty thousand words, is a new departure for DFL, and I have to admit approaching the work with some degree of trepidation. DFL is adept at smash and grab raids on the human psyche, but I was doubtful of his ability to mount an assault of a more prolonged nature. In the event it turned out that my forebodings were groundless. Agra Aska reads like 'The Book of the New Sun' as written by a composite author made up of two parts Thomas Pynchon to one part St John the Evangelist. It is not only DFL at his best, it may well be DFL at his best yet.

In the past the author has oflen been accused of unintelligibility, and I wonder if in an attempt to pre-empt such criticism he put these words into the mouth of one of his characters, "It's as if a novel has gone wrong. with no beginning nor end... very rarely making sense." Agra Aska has both beginning and end, with a recognisable chain of events stretching between these two antipodes, and it makes perfect sense on its own terms.

Briefly then. John Bello and his friend David Binns break the rules at the private school wher they are pupils. The two boys are sent to the city to undergo a ritual of purification, but in the wake of this ceremony tie city is destroyed by an enemy aerial attack. Binns is killed, while Bello crawls out from under the rubble and makes his way to the coast in the company of a girl called Joan Turner. These two are fated to be lovers. The realisation of the depth of emotion between them and its consummation unleashes the transforming power that purges and restores their reality. That is the story as told from the viewpoint of John Bello and filtered through the sensibilities of one reader, but there are other versions of events and other interpretations may apply; nobody can say with certainty which, it any, is finally to be regarded as the truth.

DFL is a master of disturbing shifts of perception and in Agra Aska he is operating at the very limits of his talent, using it to create new and even more dramatic effects. The story opens with thc portrayal of a world that could so easily be our own but with each page the resemblance fades, grows dim, until the reality with which we are familiar becomes just a memory, a dream, one which on occasion is allowed to surface into the world of the story, but in context seems far more unreal and deranged than the author's imaginings. The plot is nothing more than the plastic tube of a child's kaleidoscope. It makes everything possible, but is not an end in itself. The eye is drawn to what dwells in thc depths of the tube, the constantly shifting patterns of light and colour that bemuse and disturb and entice.

Agra Aska is not a book in the conventional sense, so much as a svmphony in words, a work with quiet passages and orchestral flights of fancy, with soaring crescendos and moments of crashing dissonance, and DFL is the the man on the podium with a magic baton in his hand, the conductor in supreme control of the forces at his disposal.

I could go on to tell you about the references from literature, mythology and religion that are planted in the text like precious gemstones embedded in a rock face, land mines primed to explode at the tread of sensitive feet. I could rave about the sparkling dialogue, the elegant and witty prose, the sheer passion that's to be found in some of the pronouncements. I could talk about resonances and patterns that weave back on themselves like a demented Mobius strip. I could do all of that and more, but if ypu haven't got the message that this book is a little bit special by now then I guess you never will.

At the end of Camp Concentration Thomas Disch wrote, "Much that is terrible we do not know. Much that is beautiful we shall still discover. Let's sail till we come to the edge." In Agra Aska DFL has forged a fabulous ship of dreams to navigate the uncharted waters of his own imagination. Unreal Publications is offering passage to all and sundry for the meagre sum of £3.99*. It's an invitation I urge everyone who enjoys fiction that challenges our expectations of the medium to accept, even those who in the past may have had misgivings about this particular author.

*Unreal Publications changed its name to Scorpion Press and the book is now out of print.

SIDESHOW: Silly Idea - The Baser Pulps - Nemonymous - The Weirdmonger Wheel - Themed Quotations from DFL - Weirdmonger (Prime Book 2003) - DFL's review of 'Teatro Grottesco' - The Pit and the Pessimum