Warmed and Bound A Velvet Anthology Pela Via Steve Erickson 9781613641620 Books
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Through seemingly opposed conventions, beautiful prose makes a hard impression on the short story form. From a scary love story to a nostalgic thriller, a hardboiled pursuit of salvation to the black humor that is existentialism, WARMED AND BOUND is rogue humility and lovesick noir, where humanity is a dirty puzzle.
It's Velvet Noir. Welcome.
With stories by Matt Bell, Tim Beverstock, Blake Butler, Vincent Louis Carrella, Craig Clevenger, Craig Davidson, Chris Deal, DeLeon DeMicoli, Christopher J Dwyer, Brian Evenson, Sean P Ferguson, Amanda Gowin, JR Harlan, Gordon Highland, Anthony David Jacques, Mark Jaskowski, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Stephen Graham Jones, Nik Korpon, Gary Paul Libero, Kyle Minor, Doc O'Donnell, J David Osborne, Rob Parker, Bob Pastorella, Gavin Pate, Cameron Pierce, Edward J Rathke, Caleb J Ross, Bradley Sands, Axel Taiari, Richard Thomas, Brandon Tietz, Gayle Towell, Paul Tremblay, Pela Via, Craig Wallwork, and Nic Young.
"The writers of the Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas . . . The result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy."--Steve Erickson author of ZEROVILLE and THE SEA CAME IN AT MIDNIGHT
Warmed and Bound A Velvet Anthology Pela Via Steve Erickson 9781613641620 Books
I bought Warmed and bound when it first came out and was pretty excited to read it. When I got it in the mail I was still excited just by looking at it. The Velvet did a really great job with this book. I started into it, there's a very nice forward by Steve Erickson followed by an intro by Logan Rapp, the thread sky marshal over at The Velvet. And then the stories. Upon completing them all I was left in awe at the fact that there was not a bad one in the bunch. Usually when you read an Anthology, especially one of this size, there will be the few stories that just didn't do it for you. As unbelievable as it may seem, that is not the case here. Every story in this book is good, really good. One should not skip over a single one, you would be missing out on something very worthwhile.Of course you have the heavy hitters, the guys you already know will have some quality stories, like Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones, and Richard Thomas. Chances are if your checking this book out you may know Cameron Pierce and Bradley Sands, two leading Bizarro authors. The biggest treat for me though were the stories by authors I had never read anything from before. I won't go through every single one of these stories but I will touch on a couple of my personal favorites.
Right off the bat the book starts with Axel Taiari's Death Juggler, which doesn't just raise the bar for the rest of the stories, it launches that bar into orbit. It didn't matter though when the following stories are by such talent as Caleb J Ross, the before mentioned Cameron Pierce, Paul G Tremebly, and Nik Korpon to name a few. Edward J Rathke's The tree of Life was only the beginning in a series of emotional head trips that kept me page turning.
But soon after this I set the book down, and for one reason or another I didn't pick it back up until about a week ago. Realizing I never finished all the stories I jumped back in at Jeremy Robert Johnson's Laws of Virulence, a story that will make you know JRJ deserves all the praise he receives about his books. From here I went on to read some of the best short stories I have ever read. One that really came out of nowhere and took me off guard as far as quality and enjoyment was Bruised Flesh by Craig Wallwork. This story began a trifecta of absolute perfection that was completed by Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Men By Craig Davidson and Three Theories on the Murder of John Wily by J David Osbourne. That's three names that are now at the top of my radar.
To try and wrap up this lengthy review I want to mention Richard Thomas's Say Yes to Pleasure. I have read quite a few of his short stories and his debut novel Transubstinate, but this story has become my favorite by him so far. This piece will tear at your heart, it has a sadness that can only be matched by Pela Via's story Touch. Finishing out this massive collection is Chris Deal's In Exile, to use a word that may be thrown around quite a bit describing this anthology, heartbreaking. A fitting end to a collection of dark and fierce literature.
I've said all this just to say this is an extremely great collection of stories. I have yet to find an anthology that contains so much excellent work by so many authors I had not read before. I can't recommend this book enough.
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Tags : Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology [Pela Via, Steve Erickson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. From the heart of The Velvet<span>--</span>a writing community built around the fervent love of neo-noir fiction<span>--</span>comes an original anthology. Stacked with brilliant emerging writers alongside some of the strongest established voices in contemporary literature,Pela Via, Steve Erickson,Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology,Velvet Press,1613641621,Anthologies (non-poetry),General,LITERARY COLLECTIONS General,Literature - Classics Criticism
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Warmed and Bound A Velvet Anthology Pela Via Steve Erickson 9781613641620 Books Reviews
Three stars is collective here. There are some five-star stories in Warmed and Bound, several fours, a lot of threes. And, yeah, a few each of two and one-star stories.
Standouts here include the usual suspects. Craig Clevenger, Gordon Highland, Stephen Graham Jones, Nik Korpon, Caleb J. Ross, and Richard Thomas are the first that I recall with good sharp, punchy stories. But then, they are among my favorite contemporary writers and I've come to expect outstanding work from them, so no surprises there.
WARMED AND BOUND is the first book published by The Velvet Press, and what a debut it is. The Velvet Press takes its name from a Web site (The Velvet) originally set up in 2004 (with help from the folks behind Chuck Palahniuk's (FIGHT CLUB; CHOKE) Web site, The Cult) as a forum for neo-noir* authors Will Christopher Baer (KISS ME, JUDAS; HELL'S HALF ACRE), Craig Clevenger (THE CONTORTIONIST'S HANDBOOK; DERMAPHORIA) and later, the prolific Stephen Graham Jones (DEMON THEORY; IT CAME FROM DEL RIO). (*There is no apt description for this kind of writing, but neo-noir comes closest.)
The site quickly blossomed into something much more than a fan site, as many talented young authors, themselves fans of the authors mentioned above, began flocking to The Velvet to share and discuss their own stories. Flash forward seven years to the present and the list of people frequenting the site has grown to include established authors, fresh writers eager to express themselves, and more fans of independent artists in the book and film industries.
WARMED AND BOUND is a collection of 38 short stories from this community of misfits, miscreants and misanthropes. The stories have been described as "Velvet Noir," a variation of neo-noir which means nothing to those not familiar with the Web site and its family of writers. Yet the term fits, and like "Cyberpunk" (coined by Bruce Bethke and made popular by William Gibson and others), "Velvet Noir" may someday become a sub-genre unto itself. How does one describe Velvet Noir? I'll leave that to those with a better flair for words. To me it means dark, post-modern, non-traditional, experimental, creative, and most importantly, quality prose.
As for the 38 stories in WARMED AND BOUND, they share nothing in common, yet combined form one of the most talked-about and "must read" anthologies to come out in a long time. From the foreword by Steve Erickson -- one of, if not the, most original voices in contemporary literature
"The writers of the Velvet are contemporary fiction's most effective and least self-conscious aesthetic guerrillas . . . The result is fiction at once conceived from high artistic intent and executed with depraved populist energy."
It's hard for me to pick favorites. None of the stories are fillers, as seems to be the case in many anthologies. The styles of writing are varied but always gorgeous. I found myself touched on some unconscious level by Amanda Gowin's entry, "The World Was Clocks," in which a twin sister struggles with the sudden departure of her sibling and the death of their parents and her own daughter, only to be reunited with her sister in an ending that forced me to reconsider the entire story and the reliability of the protagonist's narrative. Gowin's prose is haunting and elusive, and fits perfectly in this eclectic collection.
The heartbreaking tale "Touch" by Pela Via also deserves mention. There is more emotion packed into seven pages than in most novels. Like all short stories, it's difficult to write a synopsis without giving away something that should be experienced alone and void of preconceptions or expectations. Sometimes a sentence or two is all that is needed to convey everything while revealing nothing. From "Touch"
"You killed me that day. Have you ever had to hold your mouth with both hands?"
(Pela Via also served as the anthology's editor -- a demanding role overlooked by most readers, particularly people (like me) whose written output is limited to e-mails, text messages and Facebook updates. While reading WARMED AND BOUND, I was impressed with Via's sequencing of 38 non-connected stories, and by her ability to impart to these sundry tales an undertow of familiarity in a sea of disparateness. The overall effect created by Via was that these stories belong together, and each is stronger by virtue of being in the company of the others.)
The heavy hitters in WARMED AND BOUND -- Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones and Brian Evenson, to name a few -- contribute pieces that alone make this an anthology worth checking out. But the truly amazing thing about this particular collection is that the stories from the authors whose names are not as well known (yet) are just as good. Writers like Richard Thomas, Caleb J Ross, Gavin Pate, Bob Pastorella, Gary Paul Libero, Nik Korpon, Anthony David Jacques, Gordon Highland, JR Harlan, Sean P Ferguson, Chris Deal and all the other authors assembled in WARMED AND BOUND are authors to watch. I know I will seek out their other works and look forward to their future projects. It's exciting to see such a gifted group of writers finally getting the exposure they deserve.
If you are tired of the same, recycled novels and stories, best-sellers and formulaic plot lines, read WARMED AND BOUND. If you are looking for offbeat, dark, uncategorizable, unique and, above all, exciting reading material, check out WARMED AND BOUND.
"Anthology of the Year" anyone? I'm casting my vote now. Welcome to The Velvet. It warms and binds. Highly recommended.
I bought Warmed and bound when it first came out and was pretty excited to read it. When I got it in the mail I was still excited just by looking at it. The Velvet did a really great job with this book. I started into it, there's a very nice forward by Steve Erickson followed by an intro by Logan Rapp, the thread sky marshal over at The Velvet. And then the stories. Upon completing them all I was left in awe at the fact that there was not a bad one in the bunch. Usually when you read an Anthology, especially one of this size, there will be the few stories that just didn't do it for you. As unbelievable as it may seem, that is not the case here. Every story in this book is good, really good. One should not skip over a single one, you would be missing out on something very worthwhile.
Of course you have the heavy hitters, the guys you already know will have some quality stories, like Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones, and Richard Thomas. Chances are if your checking this book out you may know Cameron Pierce and Bradley Sands, two leading Bizarro authors. The biggest treat for me though were the stories by authors I had never read anything from before. I won't go through every single one of these stories but I will touch on a couple of my personal favorites.
Right off the bat the book starts with Axel Taiari's Death Juggler, which doesn't just raise the bar for the rest of the stories, it launches that bar into orbit. It didn't matter though when the following stories are by such talent as Caleb J Ross, the before mentioned Cameron Pierce, Paul G Tremebly, and Nik Korpon to name a few. Edward J Rathke's The tree of Life was only the beginning in a series of emotional head trips that kept me page turning.
But soon after this I set the book down, and for one reason or another I didn't pick it back up until about a week ago. Realizing I never finished all the stories I jumped back in at Jeremy Robert Johnson's Laws of Virulence, a story that will make you know JRJ deserves all the praise he receives about his books. From here I went on to read some of the best short stories I have ever read. One that really came out of nowhere and took me off guard as far as quality and enjoyment was Bruised Flesh by Craig Wallwork. This story began a trifecta of absolute perfection that was completed by Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Men By Craig Davidson and Three Theories on the Murder of John Wily by J David Osbourne. That's three names that are now at the top of my radar.
To try and wrap up this lengthy review I want to mention Richard Thomas's Say Yes to Pleasure. I have read quite a few of his short stories and his debut novel Transubstinate, but this story has become my favorite by him so far. This piece will tear at your heart, it has a sadness that can only be matched by Pela Via's story Touch. Finishing out this massive collection is Chris Deal's In Exile, to use a word that may be thrown around quite a bit describing this anthology, heartbreaking. A fitting end to a collection of dark and fierce literature.
I've said all this just to say this is an extremely great collection of stories. I have yet to find an anthology that contains so much excellent work by so many authors I had not read before. I can't recommend this book enough.
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