Scott Dwyer prefers Don’t Go in
the House (1979) to The Shining (1980). Why? Because he’s deeply perverse. Perverse as the
narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”:
And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.
I don’t mean to slander Mr.
Dwyer by calling to your attention his perverse nature. No, rather, I intend to
present his perverseness as the foundation for my argument that if you attend this
year’s Necronomicon in Providence and count yourself as a true aficionado of horror, you’ll want to attend the reading he’s hosting at 6pm on Sat.,
Aug. 24. That’s the Pluto in Furs book release reading.
When you receive your
Necronomicon schedule, you’ll see several other events scheduled for that time.
If your passion is for alchemy & magic, I can’t possibly persuade you to
skip the Dust, Ash, & Iron panel—nor would I try: that’s mere phantasy, I
don’t need to know you. If you want to explore “M. R. James as weird fiction,”
skip the Under the Ash-Tree panel, attend the Pluto in Furs reading, and I’ll
deliver a witty and concise overview of James the weird. Or just read the essay
I wrote on James’ collected for The Smart Set.
Lastly, at the same time as Mr.
Dwyer’s Pluto in Furs book release reading is the Tor Books Nightfire release
party. This may seem like a difficult choice, but it’s only a difficult choice
if your taste is mainstream. Go, if you want, get a drink at the bar.
Eat the confections on offer. Hear the authors you’re already familiar with
read from their latest. If, however, your taste gravitates toward the genuinely
strange, the new, the perverse—then come hear stories from the Pluto in Furs
anthology.
