Night Time Logic with Kathe Koja

Night Time Logic with Daniel Braum

“Velocity. The Nature of Ghosts. Life. Existence and Extremities.”

portrait of Kathe Koja by Rick Lieder
Kathe Koja
(Portrait by Rick Lieder)

Night Time Logic is the part of a story that is felt but not consciously processed. 

This column explores Night Time Logic and other aspects of horror and dark fiction through conversation with authors ranging from favorites and award winners to underexposed talents and new comers. 

I delight in exploring the strange, weird and uncanny in fiction particularly the kind of story one might call “Aickman-esqe.” My short story collection is titled The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales in homage to Robert Aickman’s strange tales. The new Cemetery Dance Publications trade paperback edition of the book can be found here. Included are all-new story notes discussing strange tales and an essay exploring one of Aickman’s own.

In my previous column I spoke with Matthew Cheney about strange tales, Robert Aickman, and more. In today’s column Kathe Koja and I speak about ghosts. Life. Existence. Her short story collection Velocities, and more. We begin with a road trip.Continue Reading

Review: Velocities by Kathe Koja

cover of Velocities by Kathe KojaVelocities by Kathe Koja
Meerkat Press (April 2020)
200 pages; $13.69 paperback; $7.49 e-book
Reviewed by Dave Simms

Kathe Koja has long been regarded as one of the true artists in dark fiction, weaving horror into stories and novels that blur the lines of genres and realities. From her Stoker winning The Cipher back in 1991, she has upended what’s to be expected from the genre. Of course, she’s also diverted on occasion into historical fiction, young adult, suspense, and simply plain weird fiction over the years. In Velocities, some of her best has been collected, ranging from “Pas De Deux” from 1995 to “Urb Civ” from 2019 — a stunning array of styles and stories that, while accessible, reach into surreal corners of our reality and others, almost as if creeping down into the hole in The Cipher itself.Continue Reading

Review: The Cipher by Kathe Koja

cover of The Cipher by Kathe KojaThe Cipher by Kathe Koja
Meerkat Press (September 15th, 2020)
236 pages; $17.48 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Sadie “Mother Horror” Hartmann

There’s kind of this unofficial debate among readers concerning those who enjoy unlikable characters and those who need protagonists to be tolerable in order to invest in their story.

I like despicable, flawed people. I think protagonists should be as varied as the people we encounter in real life. I don’t need to like people in order to emotionally invest in their stories — sometimes, hating them is just as fun as loving them.Continue Reading

The Women I Have Known

The Women I Have Known
by Mary SanGiovanni

As a horror writer coming up in the first decade of the new millennium, I’ve had the opportunity to see the dual perspectives of women’s place in the horror genre, the former reflecting where we used to be, and the latter reflecting how much progress we’ve made. Continue Reading