This short story collection demonstrates that Laird Barron is clearly a master of his art. What art he’s a master of, I’m not sure.

Some stories are like “Shiva, Open Your Eye” – short, compact blasts of ice-tipped imagery and efficient prose. Other stories, like “Procession of the Black Sloth” are longer and more languorous, and tend to develop more like vines, growing in indecisive directions and sometimes looping back on themselves. Only at the end does it become clear…sometimes.

You could name-check all day if you’re looking for comparisons. Lead-off story “Old Virginia” seems to have some King/Koontz DNA: a black-hat government spook and a research team are out in the wilds during the height of the Cold War, in possession of what they hope is a powerful psychic weapon in the body of an old woman, when an unknown person begins sabotaging the program. I liked this one, the way it spins together several ideas – the CIA’s MKULTRA program, the legendary disappearance of the Roanoke colonists, even some subtle Weird Tales pastiches – without the story collapsing into a mess.

“Procession of the Black Sloth” reminded me a lot of Dan Simmons’ “The Song of Kali”. Especially the way the specific horrific events of the story sort of merge with the nonspecific horror of being in a far off, unfamiliar place. In this case, the scares come 50% from the setting itself. Right on the heels of that is “Bulldozer”, which seems a bit like a Beat generation horror story – specifically the southern-influenced kind of Beat of Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs.

The volume’s powerful grace note is “The Imago Sequence”, a kind of multiply-layered tale (like House of Leaves, but less obvious in what it’s trying to do) involving a series of disturbing photographs. A great main character in this one, as well as a strong and compelling atmosphere. The story’s paradoxically languid but paranoid – like a drugged man groping in the dark, before the thing in the dark finds him first.

Not everything here is pulled off perfectly – “Old Virginia” is queered at the end by some goofy Bond-villain-esque monologues, while “Shiva, Open Your Eye” probably could have benefited from some more subtlety. But overall, the Imago Sequence is an impressive, diverse, and memorable set of stories. There’s lots of stuff here for you, no matter who you are.

My digital copy of this somehow has an error that credits it to “Laird Barron” and also “Laird Barron”. Maybe that works, in a way. Maybe he’s multiple people. But no matter which Laird Barron is behind the word processor, The Imago Sequence carries a high recommendation.

We’ve all seen it before. It’s like an Internet Walk of Shame. Someone posts a link to an outrageous, offensive article written by some group or organisation they hate, which they comprehensively refute/rebut/demolish in a self-satisfied, 3,000 word orgy of masturbation (excuse the oxymoron). At the end, they take a bow, clearly expecting to bask in customary Internet Applause (tap your fingers lightly on the keyboard).

Unfortunately, someone replies “isn’t that a satire site?” Further examination reveals that yes, it is a satire site. The original poster’s embarrassment becomes palpable. After some squirming, they invariably reply “well, it just goes to show how messed up [evil group] is! It’s impossible to tell satire from their real opinions!” Then the onlookers perform an awkward Internet Foot Shifting (you flip closed two of your keyboard’s legs along a diagonal axis, so that it flops awkwardly from one side to another), until someone gets up the courage to say “it’s not that, mate. You’re just terrible at detecting satire.”

People will cite Poe’s Law, which commonly means: “it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won’t mistake for the real thing”. I prefer to think of it as meaning “I got tricked into thinking Landover Baptist was real, and I want to blame some group delusion instead of the fact that my mum raised a gullible little pissmaggot.”

With that said…is there an easy way to tell real opinions from satire, if you’re not sure? Is there a forensics kit you can apply to an ambiguous piece of writing?

I think so, but it’s hard. The key issue is that a lot of people want to be fooled by satire, they want to believe the worst about the group they hate. But here’s what I do:

1. Look for lots of adjectives, adverbs, and repetition. Satirists are venally afraid that you won’t understand the joke, or that you’ll fail to appreciate their wit. They won’t say “Obama’s policies…” they’ll say “Obama’s socialist marxist hitlerist policies…” They can never resist overegging the pudding.

2. Real opinions are self-consistent. Satire will contradict itself for a laugh. This is very important. It doesn’t matter if you think [evil group] are hypocrites, there has to be a kind of internal reality to what they believe. Satire reminds me of defense attorney Richard Hayne’s approach to building a case. “Say you sue me because you say my dog bit you. Well, now this is my defense: a) my dog doesn’t bite. b) my dog was tied up that night. c) I don’t have a dog.”

3. What’s the teleological point behind the writing? Dig deep, and use your reading comprehension. Ask “what’s reading this meant to make me feel?” Maybe the superficial point is that immigrants should be made to keep one limb within a detention center at all times. But what’s the real point? Are you supposed to laugh? Are you supposed to write to your elected politician? If you don’t understand, ask yourself this: why is Wile E Coyote never successful in catching the Road Runner? The superficial reason is that his inventions break and send him flying off a cliff. The deep reason is that he’s in the hands of writers who think it’s comical that he fails. Similarly, try to read between the lines.

Hopefully this was helpful enough for you to perform a customary Internet Head Nod (grab your monitor and sagely raise and lower it a few times.)

He might have a name that’s one letter + punctuation away from “Alexis Petri-dish”, but when it comes to hitting the nail on the head, the Guardian’s chief rock and pop critic is a veritable Mike Tyson (hey, I never said the nail was going to get nailed in)

“Lest one carp, Hilton has been quick to point out that singing is a vocation for which she is eminently skilled. “I know music,” she reassured the Sunday Times children’s section. “I hear it every single day.” While this obviously gives Hilton a massive advantage over those who have never heard any music and thus believe it to be a variety of cheese, there remains the nagging suspicion that this might not represent sufficient qualification for a career as a singer, in much the same way as knowing what a child is does not fully equip you for a career as a consultant paediatrician.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/aug/11/popandrock.shopping8

“”Bounce,” he pants, “like your ass got the hiccups,” a phrase that somehow seems more redolent of flatulence than wild sexual abandon. (“I got the remedy,” he adds later, emerging from the bathroom brandishing the Wind-Eze.)”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/mar/30/urban.popandrock

“Alas, all attempts to normalise Jackson are derailed by the arrival of Breaking News, a mind-boggling bit of self-justification with a peculiar muffled vocal. “Am I crazy because I just eloped?” he demands imperiously, rather demanding the answer: no, mate, eloping had nothing to do with it – people started looking at you funny because you dangled your newborn baby over a balcony, had so much plastic surgery that your own mother said your nose “resembled a toothpick”, had your hairline tattooed on your face, and all the other frankly strange stuff.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/dec/09/michael-jackson-michael-cd-review

“On the one hand, there are the lyrics to Give It 2 U – “I’ve got a big dick for you,” he sings while patting his crotch, as if to clarify that said big dick isn’t sprouting out of his elbow…”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/25/robin-thicke-itunes-festival-review

“He can’t even insult people properly. For all the controversy, Piggy Bank’s slurs are witless. He calls Fat Joe fat, which, given that he already calls himself fat, seems unlikely to sting the very core of his being.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/mar/11/popandrock.shopping6

“He is also big on lyrics that convey something other than what he means. “I feel a cold flush going through my hair,” he sings on Let the Sun Shine, which makes it sound like persons unknown have stuck his head down a lavatory and pulled the chain. “Hey you know what, I don’t care,” he adds, defiant in the face of
a bogwashing.”

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/mar/29/labrinth-electronic-earth-review

Wilson has sounded croaky since the mid-1970s, but here he also sounds slurred and halting, as if his efforts are being hampered by an ill-fitting set of dentures and a faulty autocue. More disturbing is his emotional tone. Anyone who has noted that Wilson’s face now seems to arrange itself naturally into an expression of horrified bewilderment – suggesting he isn’t entirely sure what is going on, but is pretty certain he doesn’t like it – might be troubled to learn that on Gettin’ In Over My Head, he sings the way he looks.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/jun/11/popandrock.shopping6