LaytonReads

Long gone but never forgotten, this man, one of my favorite writers, has had a huge effect on my reading and what I call a good story. He may have lived a pretty miserable life chasing the success he would only have in death, but his legacy can be seen all around us.

Happy Birthday H.P. Lovecraft and Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Authors and publishers don't always get it right the first time: 

Lately, I've been reading about a novella a day. I was about to go to bed tonight and realized I hadn't read anything. So I got out my Kindle and started reading this novella only intending to read the first chapter. 

I read the whole thing and now I'm staying up to write a review of it. 

This story is about some citizens of a small town who go to a bar called Eddie's on saturday nights so they can be forgiven for their sins. How? A mad Reverend (a fucking evil lunatic at that) who is working for a higher power makes a deal to where if one of them kills other sinners on that night they are redeemed. There is a lot more to it than just that but it is explained kind of vaguely.

I absolutely adored this story and the fact that Kealan Patrick Burke is able to flesh out and make 10 characters so complex in only 60 pages. And I just love how he described these characters in the first few pages of the story; his descriptions of the nudist character and one of the women were hilarious. 

I have to read Currency Of Souls. I'm going to track down someone to loan it to me, unless it is almost identical to this story.

Great, Superb Novella. 

5 Stars

Here's the creepy short film based off Kealan Patrick Burke's story Peekers. It's only 8 minutes. Enjoy!

Oh Suzanne!!!!

Here is a list of all the Hugo Winners that were just announced in the literary categories. I have added links where you can read the shorter stories:

BEST NOVEL

"Ancillary Justice" by Ann Leckie

BEST NOVELLA

"Equoid" by Charles Stross

BEST NOVELETTE

"The Lady Astronaut of Mars" by Mary Robinette Kowal

BEST SHORT STORY 

“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu

BEST RELATED WORK

“We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative” by Kameron Hurley

BEST GRAPHIC STORY

"Time" by Randall Munroe

You can find the winnners in the non-literary categories here.

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This was a great year for the Hugos, I'm just a little bummed out that Doctor Who didn't win again but oh well, at least Game of Thrones did!

I read The Turtle Boy in March (I think?) and didn't like it. At all. I was way too nice to that book in giving it 3 stars, and I didn't really think I'd read another Kealan Patrick Burke book, even though all my friends on Goodreads couldn't stop raving about him. 

Then about a week ago, I saw that a really great reviewer on Goodreads who I'm friends with did a review of his collection Milestone: The Collected Stories,Volume One.

His review had me intrigued, and I have always loved it when a writer writes stories revolving around a certain town and how it is cursed, so I figured I'd give Burke a second try. 

I'm extremely happy I did. 

The Witch is the first story in this collection and it was superb. And it isn't even really about a witch, just a crazed mental patient. After police Deputy Bryce Carrigan comes upon this woman who has just survived a terrible car accident on the border of the town, Milestone, she kills herself. Crazy events will follow her death that Bryce believes are connected to her death... 

Burke has redeemed himself and I recommend this story for any avid reader of good dark fiction.

pI put up a post kind of like this one the second day I was on Booklikes and really enjoyed writing it so I thought I'd do another one. 

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1.

Two of my all time favorite albums by one of my all time favorite bands. Rumours is my personal favorite, like everyone else, but the second eponymous album has two of my favorite songs, Landslide and Rhiannon.

2.

One of the most interesting things in music in my opinion is how so many artists in Great Britain who are extremely successful, never can make the jump across the pond and become successful in the U.S.

Emeli Sande is an excellent example of this.

In Europe this album was a smash hit when it came out in 2012, and was the United Kingdom's bestselling album that year. But only one of the songs even charted well in the U.S., and that song was "Next To Me" which is a wonderful and soulful foot-stomper.  

You can listen to it here.

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3.

I love this album and all the songs on it, especially the title track. I was obsessed with The White Stripes and his solo career thus far has been awesome. I can't wait for more. Oh and by the way, has anyone heard the album he produced for Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose? It's very...interesting.

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4.

I'm not a gigantic Bowie fan by any means, and this isn't my favorite album by him (my favorite being Low) but it is still a mesmerizing record by a forgotten musician. Ahh, just so good.

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5. 

Hands down one of the greatest albums ever. 

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6. 

My favorite album ever by my favorite artist ever. My favorite track is Night Of The Swallow which you can listen to here. This is a dense, inaccessible album, but once you get it, you get it. 

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So there you go guys, I'd love to hear about what you guys are listening to right now too. :)

I just love Sweeney Todd.

The second story in The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. 

This story is about a group of school teachers, who proclaim themselves the Redfield girls after the school they teach at, who go on vacation during the summer with each other. This years location is Lake Crescent in Washington, a lake with a notoriously bad history and with family connections to one of the girls. A unforeseen fate awaits them there...

This story, while not very scary, is still terrific and I loved every minute of it and is made even better by Lake Crescent being a real lake, with all the stories the characters tell about it being true to some extent. 

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5 Stars

I had planned on making What Really Grinds My Gears a daily post, but I've decided that in order for the posts not to get boring and for me to generate my hate with a passion, I'll be making it a post for every Friday or Saturday. 

I hate many people in this world. I'll be straight out about it. I'm not going to act like I like everyone or that I think everyone is "special" somehow. It just isn't fucking true. 

Recently I have been reminded of one such person in the wake of Robin Williams' untimely death.

Rush fucking-spews-trash-from-his-mouth-makes-Layton-want-to-vomit Limbaugh.

This man is disgusting, absolutely disgusting. 

After Robin Williams committed suicide, Limbaugh pretty much tried to say that being a liberal and having a liberal worldview was what killed him.

I know sounds stupid, right?

He was the same man in 2012 who said that The Dark Knight Rises was a politically charged film, and that Bane was named that because Mitt Romney once ran a company called Bain Capital.

I guess Limbaugh failed to realize that Bane was created in 1993 before Romney's presidential campaign.

This is the man who makes racist comments towards African Americans and talks consistently about their "reliance" on Welfare. A man who couldn't understand a black man who called into his radio show once, and told him to "take that bone out of your nose and call me back".

A man who criticized white americans for their drug abuse in 1995, and was investigated for his own in 2003. 

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A grade A+ dumb fuck and a wretched person.

Creepy at first, funny at the end.

For writer Diana Wynne Jones's eightieth birthday Google has made her a doodle.

Wynne Jones is most remembered for her novel Howl's Moving Castle, which was made into an amazing Studio Ghibli film (which is a favorite of mine).

Kudos to Google.