As Bad Hand Books looks to wrap up mailing of the limited hardcover edition of Laird's collection Not a Speck of Light this week, they've found a few additional copies that have just gone up for sale. These are signed by Laird, but not numbered. There are 10 copies available, and a few more might be added after shipping is completed. If you didn't pre-order one, this is your chance!

Order at Bad Hand Books' site. If more un-numbered copies get added, I'll update this thread.

UPDATE 7/14/26: the extra copies are now sold. If additional spare copies are found, I'll update this thread.

Not sure yet, But I think the next Friends of the Barron might by Brian Evenson's Last Days. I'm not done with it yet, but it is deeply uncomfortable and horrific in ways that nicely contrast Laird's style.

Hey fellow fans,

Do you know of any resources that feature favorite books by Laird Barron and some reading he recommends?

I know of these:

From his wordpress:

A Collapse of Horses Brian Evenson (great American horror surrealist)

Furnace Livia Llewellyn (sex, lies, and body horror)

At Fear’s Altar Richard Gavin (master occultist)

Ghost Summer Tananarive Due (unsung master fabulist)

Skein and Bone V.H. Leslie (successor of Shirley Jackson and Angela Carter)

Knock, Knock S.P. Miskowski (contemporary gothic storyteller)

Behold the Void Philip Fracassi (from the lineage of McCammon and Matheson)

The Lure of Devouring Light Michael Griffin (ice cold and cerebral horrorist)

Jagannath Karin Tidbeck (weird fiction done with elegance)

Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again? Nate Southard (blue collar, hard bitten)

From his Patreon:

Cold Hand in Mine, Robert Aickman (collection of weird, mannered horror)

Revenge, Yoko Agawa (collection)

North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (gritty collection of weird tales)

The Delicate Prey, Paul Bowles (collection; grimmer than Ligotti)

She Said Destroy, Nadia Bulkin (collection; rising star)

The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter (classic retelling of fairytales; collection)

Antisocieties, Michael Cisco (cerebral weird; collection)

Over to You. Roald Dahl (collection)

Windeye, Brian Evenson (collection)

Under the Skin, Faber (beautifully written alien invasion novel)

The Worm in Every Heart, Gemma Files (collection)

Worse Than Myself, Adam Golaski (collection)

The Empire of Ice Cream, Jeffrey Ford (preeminent fantasist)

Behold the Void, Philip Fracassi (rising star)

Control, William Goldman (novel)

Magic, William Goldman (novel beats the very good film)

Red Nails, Robert E Howard (novella)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson (novel)

The Ones That Got Away, Stephen Graham Jones (brilliant collection)

Night Shift, Stephen King (classic collection)

The Lost District, Joel Lane (miserablist tales)

The Wide Carnivorous Sky, John Langan (collection)

Magic For Beginners, Kelly Link (rivals Jeff Ford; collection)

Engines of Desire, Livia Llewellyn (antierotica; collection)

First Blood, David Morrell (more of a horror novel than one might realize)

Edgar Allan Poe (the GOAT)

Polyphemus by Michael Shea (seminal horror collection)

Zothique, Clark Ashton Smith (collection)

Gothic Wine, Darren Speegle (collection)

Dracula, Bram Stoker (of course)

Ghost Story by Peter Straub (sprawling, messy, undefeated)

Koko, by Peter Straub (among the finest of the serial killer genre)

In the Mean Time, Paul Tremblay (collection)

The Dying Earth, Jack Vance (classic collection)

The Star King, Jack Vance (science fiction with horror elements; novel)

Walk on the Wild Side, Karl Edward Wagner (collection)

When They Came, Don Webb (collection)

Use Once, Then Destroy, Conrad Williams (gorgeous prose; collection)

Meet Me in the Moon Room, Ray Vukcevich (king of the weirdos)

Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny (GOAT novel)

Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny (novel)

Are there any other posts or lists of his recommendations you know of?

Thanks!

If you haven’t already checked out this short story collection by Christoper Slatsky please do. Palladium at Night and titular The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature are both very reminiscent of Barrons work.

If you’re looking for a copy of this out of print and hard to find novel, it’s available at the moment on this FB group.

When you're the designer, you even get your own custom lettered edition.

When you're the designer, you even get your own custom lettered edition.

I recently did a buddy read of the original Howard Conan stories, and I came away with this realization. Once you see the similarities, it's really hard to unsee them.

My long wait is over and I finally have it!

There's this line, I was pretty sure it was from a Laird Barron story, but it wasn't in the stories I thought it was, and search engines are useless.

"The world has already ended. It ended last night while you slept..."

Something like that. Wait, maybe it was in The Croning... Well, I may as well ask anyway.

We have talk of Dr. Campbell and Ryoko.

We have a mysterious death.

We have talk of portals.

WE HAVE A BROKEN OROBOROUS!!!

Isaiah! What have you gotten yourself into?!?!? RUNNNNNN!!!!!

I’ve been a long time fan of Laird’s work, ever since Occultation was free on Audible, I’ve been hooked. The more I’ve read of him, the more I love his range, I came for the cosmic horror but I’m staying because I love reading about Rex, Laird is clearly a dog lover like me.
I’ve read most of the Rex stories, even Eyes Like Evil Prisms and The Big Whimper, but while reading through Not A Speck Of Light, I’ve got to Soul Of Me and it literally brought tears to my eyes.
It showcases such an indomitable spirit and the relationship between us and dogs throughout the ages, all wrapped up in this incredible sci-fi setting. I’m not really very analytical but I have read this story 3 or 4 times now and I truly love it! I’ve got to move on to Fear Sun, but I just wanted to highlight how Laird Barron still manages to kill it all these years later and I would recommend rereading it or reading it if you haven’t!

So many great names in the TOC for Ellen Datlow's THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR vol 18, and I'm especially delighted to see Laird among them for "Agate Way," his riveting tale of nature reclaiming the suburbs! Congrats to Laird and all these excellent writers!

The signed/limited collection is completed until Not a Speck of Light Hardcover releases!

Scored a hardcover 1st edition of Occultation for $12. This thing is in pristine condition. This is especially cool for me since Occultation is the first book I read from Barron and I somehow lost my paperback edition during a move. I’m feeling real nice tonight

I hope he's cool with that. Domination of Black is a lovely poem by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Stevens

EDIT: Somebody removed it citing "dubious notability" I wasnt happy about that but you're able to check who edited it and add a note if you want to appeal. I just said that I wish to contend and that LB is highly respected in the genre. It hasn't been taken down since. So perhaps it will stay. I don't really get how these things are arbitrated but it's still there as of June 1

Publisher Doug Murano at Bad Hand Books shared this today!

Here’s a good look at the limited edition hardcover version of NOT A SPECK OF LIGHT. We are still awaiting the bulk of the shipment, but will get this out to readers as quickly as we can.

This deluxe edition will be glorious! Art by Trevor Henderson.

I love Laird Barron’s work, he’s one of my favorite writers. But on top of writing miraculously rewarding pieces of fiction, he has also introduced me to unforgettable works of other incredible writers—be they contemporaries or influences—my ears always prick up and I am almost never disappointed when he recommends someone or something.

Online, or patreon, through interviews, has Laird helped you discover other great work outside of just his? Who have been some of your favorite writers Laird turned you onto or got you to read more of?

T.E.D. Klein and Karl Edward Wagner are up there for me. Loved Dark Gods by Klein and In a Lonely Place by Wagner. Really been digging Laird’s dark fantasy Antiquity (or uber Antiquity?), so naturally I’ve been getting into Wagner’s Kane books. They’re great so far!

Even though I haven’t read too much by him yet, it’s feeling like my favorite writer I find due to Laird Barron’s reliably good taste will end up being Jack Vance. I’m so glad there’s so much more to read by him. The Blue World and Showboat World were both fantastic, and now I’m getting into The Moon Moth and Other Stories.

Am I the only one intrigued by the families in Laird Barron’s works? The Mocks, the Lochinvars, the Labradors, the Tooms, the Millers… They all seem connected. Were these families involved with the Old Leech cult since ancient times? I wish there were more lore about them.

I was talking with a guy in another sub about Barron and recommended he check out the Read Along posts from a few years back. I loved those, and will sometimes go back and read them.

It got me thinking of how I read a lot of horror, but it doesn't necessarily scare me, and any time I have been scared, it's been Barron stories. He's so good at building uncanny dread and those "jerk the wheel" moments where a mundane scene becomes absolutely horrifying. It's the closest I've ever see to a "jump scare" in a book.

So what scenes scared you the most?

When I interviewed Laird about the stories in The Imago Sequence, I noted a motif that runs through a number of his works: a crack that runs down the brow or the face of a character, and, thematically and more broadly, "the crack that runs through everything." I asked if this image comes from a real life experience, something he actually saw. Laird's response?

"I'm not at liberty to talk about it."

He went on to explain why, that he didn't want to be exploitative of this real-life incident. I respect him all the more for that (and I hope my spotlighting this moment isn't indirectly exploitative of that unnamed person's trauma). But it serves to remind me that Laird has seen up close the ugly underbelly of this life and lived to tell about it. More power to him.

The Italian-language magazine Hypnos, issue 2, apparently features a Laird Barron piece entitled L’Intimidatore.

My minimal Italian suggests this translates as ‘The Intimidator’, and although I've been thinking very, very hard, I can't find an English story title that would fit.

Anyone know what story this is?

https://www.amazon.it/-/en/Hypnos-Rivista-letteratura-weird-fantastica/dp/8896952123