Update: This site is STILL under renovation. For the time being, I made Horrorseek.com's free hosting the new home for the site. If by any chance you see any pop-ups, my apologies. Until I can afford to pay for my own webspace, I'm afraid such things will be unavoidable. (Although I shouldn't complain much... after all, it IS a free service, and much better than my previous host IMO.) Not everything will work, as I have to update extremely OLD links, but most sections do work without hiccups. I managed to update my Blogger account, so Fragments of Mind finally works.

—Edwin Astacio, November 13, 2002.

But the popular imagination will have its other worlds: Gothic monsters emerging from our archaic past and futuristic robots menacing out not-too-distant future. And why should it not? These [Ursula K.] Le Guin insists, “may be precise and profound metaphors of the human condition. The fantasist . . . may be talking as seriously as any sociologist—and a good deal more directly—about human life as it is lived, and as it might be lived, and as it ought to be lived.”

—English Journal, "Other Worlds: Fantasy and Science Fiction" (vol. 79 no.3, p.25).

imen, Latin for border, margin, thresholds, crossroad. Mythically speaking, limina or limens are places that are neither here nor there; where light and dark intersect; where the known, unknown, and unknowable exchange pieces of garment and dietary habits; a place of possibilities and impossibilities. Anthropologist Victor Turner said liminality is “frequently likened to death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality, to the wilderness, and to an eclipse of the sun or moon” (The Ritual Process, chapter 3: “Liminality and Communitas,” page 94). They are places of transition, decision, and transformation—for good or ill.

Insert here Rod Serling's Twilight-Zone theme if you will.

Myth wouldn't be full of limina if life itself didn't have liminality as well: adolescence (a limen between the child and the adult), initiation rites, graduations, marriage, job-hunting, the first kiss, the first disappointment. Even death, for those people who believe in the existence of Souls, is but a liminal stage between life and afterlife. Literature deals frequently with liminality, but it is the genre of Speculative Fiction (umbrella term for the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and the Macabre) that addresses it most effectively and with the greatest depth. The material contained within these pages focus on the Macabre side of Speculative Fiction.

My site, “The Limen,” has only a few sections. The “Literary Shivers ” pages contain samples of poetry and stories of the weird, including literary works not usually considered Macabre. I will always try to include a short biographical information about the authors and the sources used to gather the information.

The “Night-Sea Crossing” pages are based on my MA of English Education thesis. Its full title was Night Sea Crossing: Teaching the Macabre in the ESL Classroom. The thesis has some critical comment about Speculative Fiction, although it obviously leans heavily to the genre of the Macabre and how to teach it. I am including here only the work's abstract and an excerpt about the definition of Terror and Horror. Since the chapter is out of context, you may find some areas of the text unclear, so I apologize for that beforehand. I may add more sections later. All in all, the complete thesis is available through the UMI website (not for free, I'm afraid... I once though it was).

The “Chiliad” section deals a futuristic horror RPG campaign I designed for Mayfair's Chill© Horror Role-Playing Game, which now lies in torpor. Although it has some brief description of what Chill is about, if you wish a more in-depth info on Chill itself I recommend Derek Croucher's site.

The “Xroads” (“Crossroads”) section deals with diverse Speculative Fiction, Fantasy Art, Fantasy Clip Art, and Role-playing links I find very useful.

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat. My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.
— The Book of Job, 30:29-31. The Holy Bible, KJV.

Finally, since just about anyone with online access will be able to view this page, I believe I should add the following NOTE (even if I feel a bit ridiculous doing it): in spite of the graphic and textual material you may find in “The Limen” this site is NOT 1) Satanic; 2) Pagan; 3) about witchcraft, sorcery, magic, mysticism, or 4) written by a “fanboy” (I am a fan, period). Again, I feel really stupid having to clarify this but it has happened before and it will continue to happen, so I'm trying to cover all the bases. The “it” being that if a personal website doesn't have flowers, teddy bears, or pokémons, and has a “dark” atmosphere that makes some visitors uncomfortable, thoughts ranging from number 1 to number 4 cross through the minds of some people. This type of people don't even read the content as a norm: they just see and stamp a label. The only “demons” visitors will find here are those they bring with themselves, and I know they are Legion.

However, I know there are quite a few sick and genuinely gruesome sites out there, which is why I cannot entirely blame the squeamish ones. Rest assured, though, this is not one of those sites. Conversely, if you are one of those who gets his/her kicks from that debasing crap, then look for it elsewhere, scram, beat it, get lost, whatever. I have little patience with both the pedantically sanctimonious and the pedantically irreverent. If you like looking at other people's straw in their eyes instead of the beam in yours, well, eat your heart out, and go away.

Once, when I assigned a couple of Macabre tales in class, a student of mine asked me if I believed in God. (I guess he also wanted to ask me if I performed hemal libations to Belial in the local cemetery, but he was polite enough not to.) The student blinked when I told him “Yes” and that I was raised (and still am) Roman Catholic, that my only remaining sacraments were those of matrimony and the ego te absolvo of my death bed. I could have been more specific and said I was a neoplatonic-existential-Catholic with mystagogical airs and a taste for the eschatological, but I do not think he was ready for that. I may not be on the best terms with the numinous Increate sometimes, but His rod and staff are always between me and harm in all the dark places where I must walk.

For those readers shivering, disappointed, or contemptuous at my profession of belief, well, what can I say. I can't keep everyone happy, nor should I. The time comes when one must place a Shiva-smile in one's face, draw a line with political correctness and say “No more,” while at the same time dancing over the demon of ignorance.