Of *course* you've heard of the great Nickolaus Pacione.
Well, I hadn't. Thanks to mindset, I now know Nickolaus Pacione (a.k.a. "Nicky the Goth") is internet famous. Why? For his "rational disagreements" with Poppy Z. Brite and others, his well-reasoned arguments for conservatism, his plans to sue LiveJournal for discrimination, his anthologies, and so on. His intelligent and witty blog entries are also high on the list.

This treasure, however, was brought to us by wank_report.

Given his history, it shouldn't be a shock that Nicky arrived on Amazon.com to lambast his critics. Collectives In a Forsaken Landscape is his masterwork. (And you will totally never guess it was self-published.)

The review war was going on before Nicky made his appearance.

Authors love this book, and they're happy to tell you so.

From Tabitha Creech, who gives the book five stars:

... I can easily compare this book to a mixture of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, although I can see other influences in this collection such as Blackwood and Benchley. Poe typically used madness as a theme in his stories. I can see this aspect ring through clear in this book. Twisted, dark, and macabre can easily describe the stories in these pages. Not only do you get stories in this book, you also get dark epic poetry. "Shadow of Dys" is one of the darkest modern epics I have read. Then there is another epic, "The seasons of Black September" which was obviously infuluenced by 9/11. Since I write dark epic poetry, I can honestly say this is one of the best modern dark epics I've read. ...

Because writing dark epic poetry clearly qualifies you as a judge.

Edward Saint-Ivan agrees (four stars):

I have only read a few pages but I am still convinced that Pacione has real talent. As for his critics comments about grammar, bad grammar can be an art form. The famous Da-Da movement was based totally on out of context words and images.
After reading the sample pages I cant wait to buy a copy!

Ah, bad grammar as an art form. Judging by Saint-Ivan's review, omission of apostrophes is art, too.

Indeed there are unenlightened souls who fail to appreciate these artistic statements:

Says Stefan (one star):

How does something like this get published? It's as if the writer has no training or talent whatsoever, let alone even a simple grasp of the English language. The book reads as if written by someone who spoke English backwards, ran it through Babel Fish in Malaysian, Celtic, Kenyan, French and then back into English. Example: It takes the author 12 pages to say, "I have insane nightmares about Africanized killer bees who apparently write papers."

And Michael Rohm (one star):

This is the first book Nickolaus has had published and I sure hope it isn't the last! He has truly created a classic in the annals of Gothic and Horror literature. Following in the footsteps of great horror writers like Blackwood, Poe, Lovecraft, King, Poe, London, Irving and of course Edgar Allan Poe, this collection of short stories features the same things that made these writers so great - Africanized bees. Any book with Africanized bees is bound to be a classic. He perfectly captures Lovecraft's style, if Lovecraft were a untalented Cuban immigrant with a very tenuous grip on the English language. In short, ignore the naysayers whose opinions are influecned by Nickolaus' lack of talent and inept prose and BUY THIS BOOK!!!

The rest of the reviews contain the requisite accusations that only the author's best friends could possibly recommend it.

Apparently Amazon now allows customers to tag books. They're not shy.

This wouldn't be fun without the author showing up, now would it?

Fortunately, he does.


As you may have guessed, the Amazon readers are interrogating the text from the wrong perspective. Pacione has suffered as Anne Rice has suffered, and he's learned from her (scroll down to the product wiki section). Apparently he hasn't learned that "ass" is on the list of banned words, but, hey. As a bonus, he gets in a swipe at PZB. Bolding mine:

First off about Collectives, some are giving this book a bunch of mixed reviews. This is the author of the collection. Some of the stories are not available online in the complete form since the journal isn't active anymore. I will be making the book available for sale in the hardcover format eventually or the larger size format. Some of you gave this book a lot of flack for being self-published. Some going as far as to pirate the book, the ones who gave this book five star reviews and four star reviews really appreciate this book.

If you think a good book requires a lot of sex for a story to be told that is wrong. Then you've been spoiled by the whole movie generation of the 1980s and 1990s. The whole horror trend these days tends to fall into the erotic side of things, when I tend to go against that. That was the reason I wrote Collectives, and some of the stories will read like they are pages of a journal. That was exactly what I had in mind with this one. Giving the reader an exact glimpse to what I was thinking, taking them right into my nightmares.

What am I saying to you who are giving this book bad reviews, shut up and stop ruining it for would be customers because what you're doing is the cowardly approach on here. This is what Anne Rice went through with her recent entry of the Vampire Chronicles. I am not reviewing my own book here, just giving insight of why I wrote it -- coming from the eyes of the author himself. I am beginning to think that Michael Rohm hates traditional horror, because it seems like he rather reads about vampires that take it up the . As what I noticed with the people who gave this book some bad reviews -- I am curious to what kind of books are in their collection. Books by authors whose readers pirated my other works or punished publishers for running mhy stories.

Collectives In A Forsaken Landscape in the later editions is fully illustrated by me and reformatted. I redesigned the book from the ground up, and busted my balls doing it. I knew what I wanted with Collectives and that was why I started my own publishing company with it. If you own this edition of the book, good luck trying to find it because it is now rare. I commend the guy who is selling it for $49.14 because he deserves to sell it for that. All I am saying to the people who gave this book bad reviews let the people who want to get the book -- allow them to give the book a chance. This book might not be for everyone, but those who are giving the book bad reviews you're being by saying the book isn't for anyone. Now let people enjoy the book, if you don't you can go f--k yourselves. This project is a labor of love on my part and I was more than willing to sign these books in my blood.

Books signed in blood? How appropriately Goth.


At this point, I was dying of curiosity. Fortunately, the "Search Inside this Book" feature is alive and well. Here are the first three sentences of Collectives In a Forsaken Landscape:

From this that eludes me which I pen this-- as what I say what eludes me is sleep, and from the sleep becomes the etchings where the dreams begin. In them as they are typed, from the tired fingers I would draw from them in the eyes which sagged on with the thoughts that keep me awake. The waking thoughts as they would be there are what caused me to awaken violently a few days ago-- that it would be still in the waning darkness which it would be described.

It's like Poe and Lovecraft walk among us once more, bundled up in one person!

I think it needs more chickens-that-are-not-chickens. How about you?

(For future reference, it appears that August 26 is officially Pacione day. Aren't you sad you missed it?)