84 – Dark Stars Roundtable, with John F.D. Taff, Livia Llewellyn & Josh Malerman

This week is an orgy of horror. There are four of us. That makes it an orgy right? (I’ve never been to one – never got the invitation).

Ahem … sorry.  I'll start again.

This week I am joined by not one, but THREE guests. 

John F. D. Taff, Livia Llewellyn, and of course, Josh Malerman. We could call them stars from the firmament of horror. Dark Stars perhaps.

That would be fitting, considering that’s what they are here to discuss (amongst many, many things). Dark Stars is a benchmark spook fest. An anthology of fiction that attempts to set the tone for where we are in our collective horror moment. 

John is the editor, Josh and Livia are contributors – amongst nine other names from the very forefront of the genre. Each story is different, with few tropes, little tradition and zero constricting theme. It’s just a collection of darkness, depravity and delight.

John, Livia and Josh are old friends, old battle-companions from the horror vanguard. As such I’m essentially redundant this week. I just turned the show over to them and got out of the way. 

I make an attempt at order and structure – we talk about making horror weird as hell, about drawing fiction from life, about how we use and abuse tropes in this new horror landscape, but mostly it’s about community, friendship and weird, perverse joy in being creepy together.

Oh, and Josh and I talk bad drug experiences, whilst Livia joins my fight to put sex back in horror!

Enjoy!

Dark Stars: New Tales of Darkest Horror is published on May 10th by Tor Nightfire in the US and Titan in the UK.

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

• Dark Forces: New Stories of Suspense and Supernatural Horror (1980), ed. Kirby McCauley
• The House Next Door (1978), by Anne Rivers Siddons
• Rooster (2021), by John C. Foster
• Dark Factory (2022), by Kathe Koje
• Every Dead Thing (1999), by John Connolly
• Ghoul ‘n’ the Cape (2021), by Josh Malerman

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