Salon recommends

Tales of cosmic horror and more of our favorite new books.

Published October 28, 2002 2:15PM (EST)

What we're reading, what we're liking

The Colour Out of Space: Tales of Cosmic Horror By D. Thin
The patently pseudonymous editor of this excellent story collection defines literary "cosmic horror" (aka "the weird tale") as a kind of fiction that has "kept something, however mutant, of the mythological." I'm not sure if every story here does that, but even the flimsiest among them (maybe Ambrose Bierce vanished out of embarrassment?) makes fine bedside reading at this time of year. The emphasis is on writers with a 19th-century-tinged style, even if they, as H.P. Lovecraft did, lived in the 20th. Lovecraft's is the title story, a signature tale of rural degeneracy and interstellar contamination. Other old favorites include Poe's "MS. Found in a Bottle" and Henry James' "The Jolly Corner," one of the greatest depictions of existential uncanniness and identity meltdown ever written. I've also discovered the indescribably peculiar R.W. Chambers and some other new, creepy friends between its covers.

-- Laura Miller

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