Tessera

Zachary Gillan

@megapolisomancy.bsky.social

Nonfiction about weird fiction at Seize the Press, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Los Angeles Review of Books, Nightmare, and Ancillary Review of Books, where I am also an editor. Also jazz, metal, leftism. he/him https://doomsdayer.wordpress.com/writings/

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Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 1h ago

Your review
Nov 11, 2014
Aomame, a small-breasted woman, is an assassin who targets men who mistreat women. Tengo, a large man, teaches math, and is a writer. Tengo, the large man, and Aomame, the small-breasted woman, once held hands as children, and although they have not seen each other in the twenty years since, they are still soul mates. Tengo, the math teacher, becomes embroiled in a conspiracy to re-write the novella "Air Chrysalis," by Fuka-Eri, a large-breasted teenager, which is a good story written poorly.
Tengo, when he is not teaching math or writing, misses Aomame, the small-breasted woman with whom he once held hands. Aomame, when she is not killing misogynists or lamenting the size of her breasts, misses Tengo, the large man with whom she once held hands. Aomame has mysteriously been transported from her own world of 1984 to the mysterious new world of 1Q84, which has two moons and is controlled to some degree by the Little People, who say "ho ho." Aomame sees there are two moons. Tengo sees there are two moons. There are two moons. One is normal, the other is small and green. The normal moon is the moon from 1984, but the other moon, which is small and green, can be seen only in 1Q84, the mysterious other world which is controlled to some degree by the Little People. Tengo has a recurring memory from when he was an infant of seeing a man who was not his father suckle at Tengo's mother's breasts. Women have breasts. Some breasts are large (Fuka-Eri's), while others are small (Aomame's). Aomame laments this fact.
Aomame yearns for larger breasts. She also yearns for

Aomame yearns for larger breasts. She also yearns for Tengo, the writer whose hand she held twenty years before, when they were ten. They have not seen each other since, but they still love one another. Aomame does not allow this to distract her from her mission, which is assassinating men who have grievously mistreated women. Aomame was raised in the cult of the Society of Witnesses. Tengo was raised by his father after his mother died when he was young. His father collected NHK fees.
This was not the man Tengo recalls seeing suckle at his mother's breasts. Tengo was often forced to accompany his father on his work trips, collecting NHK fees. Aomame was often forced to accompany her parents spreading the evangel. The Little People say "ho ho." There are two moons. Tengo is a large man. Women also have pubic hair, unless they don't, in which case they are probably ghosts, or shadows, in which case no man can be held accountable for sexually assaulting them, no matter their age. The Little People are assumed to be evil, although mostly the Little People just say "ho ho." Women who are victims get what's coming to them. George Orwell wrote a book called 1984. The year is 1984. Aomame yearns for Tengo. Tengo yearns for Aomame. Ushikawa, an ugly man, is unpleasant to look at.
Read from: Sep 24, 2014 - Nov 10, 2014
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Shelved as: read, fantasy, weird-fiction, fiction
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Zachary Gillan@megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3h ago

I hated 1Q84 so much it immediately booted Murakami out of the great author bracket for me

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3h ago

I hated 1Q84 so much it immediately booted Murakami out of the great author bracket for me

Jeremy Dauber@jeremydauber.bsky.social · 5h ago

Here's a question for the literary-minded among you for a project I'm working on: what is the worst novel written by a great author? I'm thinking of examples of where everyone - particularly at the time - went, "ooh, swing and a miss there." Juvenilia not included; reputation has to be established.

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

Publishers, the bidding starts at “a very nice deal”

Matt Bell@mdbell79.bsky.social · yesterday

Give us How Weird Fiction Works already!

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 4h ago

Can’t tell you how many fantasy novels I’ve dropped for repetitiously explaining things to me

Matt Cahill@mattcahill.bsky.social · 6h ago

Re: fiction, as you describe, it feels like prose Alt Text; when used for images it makes perfect sense and should be encouraged. Otherwise it's like, I got it. I got it two paragraphs ago.

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Me reading fiction: why are you explaining anything to me? Leave this open to interpretation. Less is more. Productive ambiguity. Never hold my hand. Me reading nonfiction: where is your thesis? Structure this argument more. What is your evidence for this?! Make this connection explicit. Cite more.

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 9h ago

Omelas is not that interesting a story and the takes have got to stop

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

Publishers, the bidding starts at “a very nice deal”

Matt Bell@mdbell79.bsky.social · yesterday

Give us How Weird Fiction Works already!

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

I’m reading James Wood’s How Fiction Works and on basically every page I think “wait, what, that’s not how I read that at all”

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

Toni Morrison and Gene Wolfe were both born in 1931 and both died in 2019. Both Catholic converts, too. I haven't figured out what to make of that yet but I'm going to make something of it one of these days

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

aaron boothby @ellipticalnight.bsky.social · 2d ago

this is about gene wolfe and I am hijacking it to suggest sharing your own favourite texts that are so thick, so viscous

Undertow Publications 🇨🇦@undertow.bsky.social · yesterday

Completely stunned. @thomasha.bsky.social's Uncertain Sons is a World Fantasy Award finalist in Collection, and Long Fiction. Best Weird Fiction of the Year, Vol. 1 is a finalist in Anthology, and Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece's St. Dymphna’s School for Borderland Girls is a finalist! bit.ly/4fS9xoP

2026 World Fantasy Awards Finalists

The World Fantasy Awards ballot for works published in 2025 has been announced. The awards will be presented during the 2026 World Fantasy Convention, scheduled for October 22-25, 2026 in Oakland C…

bit.ly

Thomas Ha @thomasha.bsky.social · yesterday

Oh wow. Congrats to the finalists. Honored to be included with these authors. Thanks to World Fantasy Con, the judges, @clarkesworldmagazine.com, and @undertow.bsky.social. And thanks to readers who enjoyed and talked about these stories. Really means a lot.

2026 World Fantasy Awards Finalists

locusmag.com

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

As we all know, influence flows backwards

“No, I am my own great work. And I am my only great work!”

Dr. Talos whispered, “Look about you - don’t you recognize this? It is just as he says!”

“What do you mean?” I whispered in return.

“The castle? The monster? The man of learning? I only just thought of it. Surely you know that just as the momentous events of the past cast their shadows down the ages, so now, when the sun is drawing toward the dark, our own shadows race into the past to trouble mankind’s dreams.”

“You’re mad,” I said. “Or joking.”

Vajra Chandrasekera@vajra.me · 2d ago

finally actually reading BOOK OF THE NEW SUN and recognizing all the places where people thought I'd been referencing it

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

Welcome to the Ha-pocalypse

Will Aickman@aickmanwill.bsky.social · yesterday

(For real though, thrilled to see Thomas Ha become a three-time World Fantasy Award nominee in a single year!)

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

aaron boothby @ellipticalnight.bsky.social · 2d ago

this is about gene wolfe and I am hijacking it to suggest sharing your own favourite texts that are so thick, so viscous

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · yesterday

As we all know, influence flows backwards

Vajra Chandrasekera@vajra.me · 2d ago

finally actually reading BOOK OF THE NEW SUN and recognizing all the places where people thought I'd been referencing it

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · last mo.

The Simpsons market research guy looking perplexed and saying SO, YOU WANT A WELL-WRITTEN, AVANT-GARDE NOVEL...
THAT'S COMPLETELY OFF THE WALL AND SWARMING WITH MAGIC ROBOTS.

Zachary Gillan@megapolisomancy.bsky.social · last mo.

“Avant garde novel blatantly channeling the aesthetics of Thundarr the Barbarian” is basically all I’m ever looking for

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2d ago

House Taken Over - Julio Cortázar - The Short Story Project

We liked the house because, apart from its being old and spacious (in a day when old houses go down for a profitable auction of their construction materials), it kept the memories of great grandparent...

shortstoryproject.com

TheGrand547@thegrand547.bsky.social · 2d ago

More weird fiction aficionados need to read Julio Cortazar

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 2d ago

That’s right, folks, we’re celebrating the classic track by Neil Perry today

Neil Perry - There Will Come Soft Rains

YouTube video by jennifer mosely

youtu.be

Jake Casella Brookins@casella.bsky.social · 2d ago

happy There Will Come Soft Rains day to all who celebrate

Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 2d ago

Calls for Reviews & Essays: November 2026

ARB publishes reviews and essays on a wide range of speculative topics, including science fiction & fantasy, weird fiction, and their relation to utopian impulses. ARB is also always interested…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d ago

Declaring bankruptcy, but for unread books

River @theriverinthewood.bsky.social · 3d ago

okay, time for some thoughts about The Works of Vermin, in no especial order

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 3d ago

Declaring bankruptcy, but for unread books

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 5d ago

Break me out of my reading rut: what’s your favorite weird fiction published this year? Especially short stories but like, you know, whatever

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 4d ago

interpretations of the world. Seeing the cracks in this ideology-its unnatural character—is a radical awakening into the unsettling realization that the world, the mindset and society that's been presented to us as natural and immutable, is Wrong. The narrative movement of weird fiction is a perfect metaphor for the awful recognition of the lies and falsehoods justifying the immiseration of our world.
This is presented most stereotypically as the big, shattering reveal of Lovecraftian horror, but an inchoate, creeping sense of unease, as in Shirley Jackson's "The Summer People", is just as apt in awakening the protagonists (and reader) to an understanding that the world has gone Wrong, even if they're unable to pinpoint when, or why, or how:
"It doesn't sound like Jerry," Mrs. Allison said in a small voice.
"He never wrote anything like..." she stopped.
"Like what?" Mr. Allison demanded.
"Never wrote anything like what?"
Mrs. Allison turned the letter over, frowning. It was impossible to find any sentence, any word, even, that did not sound like Jerry's regular letters.
Perhaps it was only that the letter was so late, or the unusual number of dirty fingerprints on the envelope.
"I don't know," she said impatiently.

beth death & the dumb-belles@dumb-belles.bsky.social · 4d ago

"In themselves, the Allisons were ordinary people." Shirley Jackson, 'The Summer People' Oh my goodness. What a strange little story. A masterclass in unsettling the ordinary. #ShortStorySaturday #WeirdFiction

Kirkdale Bookshop @kirkdalebooks.bsky.social · 4d ago

👇🍟🥷

Zachary Gillan@megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 4d ago

“Bessette unleashes a polyphonic investigation, multiplying perspectives, contradictions, questions and doubts” it’s like it was written just for me

Crossroads: Folk Horror in the United States @crossroadsfolk.bsky.social · 4d ago

Happy Saturday! Are you interested in submitting to Crossroads? We are now accepting proposals for our third issue, "This Haunted Landscape." Think sacred places, hauntings, and regional cryptids. We close submissions on September 1st.

Crossroads - Issue 3 - Proposal

The issue theme is "This Haunted Landscape" and will focus on the folk horror of place in the USA. Think haunted places, sacred spaces, and regional cryptids. All contributors will receive a $50 paym...

forms.gle

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 4d ago

beth death & the dumb-belles@dumb-belles.bsky.social · 4d ago

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 5d ago

Break me out of my reading rut: what’s your favorite weird fiction published this year? Especially short stories but like, you know, whatever

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 5d ago

The new Altarage record is good and crushing

Cogwheel, by ALTARAGE

7 track album

sentientruin.bandcamp.com