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| Via garotasgeeks.com |
I've been going through a big retro pulp fiction phase at the moment. It started off with listening to the audio book of Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse 5' read by Ethan Hawke (who is wonderful as a narrator for this book). Ethan whispers you through the weird story of Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier who gets unstuck in time whilst fighting in the second world war. He also gets taken by aliens as an exhibit for a space zoo and is the sweetest most vague and gentle character.
I loved that audio book. One of the other main characters is a failed pulp fiction scifi writer called Killgore Trout who writes all these classic 50's off the wall stories about space etc. Killgore is the main character of 'Breakfast of Champions' which I listened to next and didn't really like - its too obscene and violent and the main character isnt likeable. (saying that, 'Slaughterhouse 5' was obscene and violent, but not to the same level)
Next I got really interested in H.P Lovecraft, you can find a lot of his audiobooks for free on Youtube by Librevox. I kept seeing on the internet people talking about 'Cthulu' and started googling him and came across 'The call of Cthulu' which is brilliant. I am not the kind of person who likes horror at all but Lovecraft's stories are pretty tame - which I absolutely love. The call of Cthulu reminded me a bit of Bram Stoker's Dracula where the narrator is writing letters, and I liked the themes of historians uncovering lost hyroglyphics and people having strange dreams and ancient aliens from outterspace.
If you do listen to any Lovecraft short stories feel free to play along with my 'Lovecraft Bingo' - If you hear the words eldritch, immemorial, forbidden, deserted, horror or spectral you get a point. You also get a point if there is any mention of archeology, cults, old books or symbols, diaries, aliens, antiquitarians or the Necrocomnicon.
Video wise I have recently found a great youtube channel by comicbookgirl19 and particuarly liked her documentary on Promethius, she has also done a great epic history of the X-men comics. Oliver Harper's youtube channel also has lots of high quality retro reviews with lots of information on cult classic movies you wouldent necessarily know.
Movie wise I watched 'ParaNorman' which was such high quality and hillarious and Tim Burton's 'Sleepy Hollow' which I had never seen. I also watched the original Tron which is really weird and tripy, but worth a watch.
With books I have been reading the short stories of Ray Bradbury recently- another old timer scifi/ weird tales writer.
