Readers at the Fantastic Fiction at KGB Reading Series on Wednesday 19 February 2009 were James Morrow and Laird Barron. The free series, hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel, is held on the third Wednesday of each month at the KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street in Manhattan’s East Village. Well-regarded as a literary venue and welcoming, offering reasonably-priced drinks, the venue is dark (I’ve taken to carrying a flashlight) and crowded—drawbacks or virtues, depending on one’s taste in bars, I guess—and, while a story or so above street level, does tend to pick up traffic noise. (Morrow was interrupted at least twice by sirens.) That said, once readings began, the audience of about 50 was attentive and appreciative.
The evening got underway as Ellen, after a brief plug for the fundraiser raffle—or, of course, Lottery—to benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards (tickets are $1; details at shirleyjacksonawards.org/lottery), introduced the nobly-named Laird Barron. The author of a dark fantasy collection, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories, and an “expatriate Alaskan”—though not of the “You betcha!” variety—Barron was making his first visit to New York. (An audience member helpfully volunteered to mug him.) He read from a work-in-progress, “In the Hatch”, which blended forensics and (eventually) horror: A corporate CSI team based in a module habitat in the Southwestern desert is tasked with the mystery of an untold number of bodies in the sun-baked canyons.
After a break, Matt presented James Morrow, who treated us to selections from his two newest publications, The Philosopher’s Apprentice and Shambling Towards Hiroshima. He described the former as “Lolita meets Pygmalion on the Island of Dr. Moreau”, or perhaps “Dr. Frankenstein on the Island of Dr. Moreau.” The scene that he read, a philosophy student defending his doctoral dissertation, was, contrary to how that sounds, laugh-out-loud funny. The second work, equally humorous, is an alternate-historical novella set in the summer of 1945. Narrated by a B-movie actor reminiscent of Lon Chaney, Jr., it’s about the US Navy’s efforts (“the Knickerbocker Project”) to compel an unconditional Japanese surrender by threatening to attack that nation with—specifically by (as was proposed by some with respect to the A-Bomb) demonstrating to its leaders the destructive power of an assault by—an arsenal of giant mutant, fire-breathing iguanas… a strange anticipation of Godzilla. (The audience shared in the relief that Hitler never got the Lizard.)
As usual, at the rear of the room, Mobile Libris sold books. Following the reading, the guests and about a quarter of the audience adjourned to a nearby Szechuan restaurant for dinner and conversation.
[Editor’s note: Datlow has posted her photos of the evening in this Flickr set.]