Editing News: T.E. Grau Named Managing Editor of Science Fiction Horror for Dark Regions Press, Which Launches First Dedicated Sci-Fi Horror Line in Independent Publishing

I am extremely proud to announce (via a headline written in the third person, something that makes T.E. Grau very uncomfortable) that I have been named Managing Editor of the new Science Fiction Horror line at Dark Regions Press, which - to my knowledge - is the very first dedicated Science Fiction Horror line to emerge in independent publishing.

I am a Horror fan, as a reader, writer, editor, and essayist.  As a thinker, and as a dreamer.  I like looking into the nighted places, and seeing what might be peering back.  And I've always been like this, as I think I'm just wired this way.  I don't believe that you can artificially engineer a Horror fan (although certain experiences or trauma can turn one's interest toward the shadows). Like handedness or an ear for music, you're either born with The Dark Curiosity, or you're not.

Being a Horror fan is simple enough to explain when discussing the topic with civilians, as they all picture a slasher film sequence throughout the whole conversation, or cheap Halloween props.  But when you hash out the subject with a fellow Horror acolyte, it gets a little more complicated, and a few initial parameters must be determined before the conversation can continue:  "Yes, you're a Horror fan, but WHAT KIND of Horror do you like?"

You see, Horror can be (and often is, for both better and worse) divided into numerous subgenres.  Starting with supernatural or non-supernatural, you break it down further into ghost stories, urban fantasy, Weird, zombie, cosmic, vampire, werewolf, psychological, subtle, folklore, splatterpunk, witchcraft, possession, etc... And then there are the slipstreamed mash-ups, that take us out toward infinity.  Each slot has its tropes and its fans, which means it has its loyalists.  And that's great, as loyalty to genre is what keeps alive the greater beast of Horror, propped up by a thousand pairs of tiny, disparate legs, all moving in a different direction, but all still keeping Horror upright and moving.

Horror isn't horror these days with its genres, and the genre I will be overseeing for Dark Regions Press is Science Fiction Horror.

You see, the more I learn about the Horror genre, the more I am understanding my place under this wide, wondrous tent.  I don't think I am a traditional (or conventional) Horror fan, as much as I am a fan of Weird fiction and Cosmic Horror, the latter of which is based in Science Fiction, of the kind practiced so well in the Pulp fictionists of the early 20th century.

As a devoted Cosmicist, I think about the sorts of short stories and novels I like to read, and the types of films I enjoy watching.  The Thing is my favorite horror film (followed by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is more a traditional horror/slasher/chainsawy film).  H.P. Lovecraft is my favorite Horror/supernatural fiction author.  Of my modern writer peers, I prefer those who include at least a smattering of cosmicism in their stories, no matter how subtle.  It's not essential, but it does immediately catch my eye, and my interest.

So, to not put too fine a point on it, and without taking into account acumen or shortcomings, I feel that I was tailor made for this job, as Science Fiction Horror is my favorite type of genre horror Horror, more so than, say, Urban Fantasy or Splatterpunk or ghost stories.

To explain why, I'll let pictures do the typing...

This is Science Fiction Horror:

As is this:

And this:

And these guys:

And that handsome fellow over there to the right:

And those things:

Even this:

And especially this:

In fact, that last one is where Sci-Fi Horror all started, inside the mind of a teenage girl.  Now it's time for us to continue this proud heritage, of producing Horror stories infused with technology, alien influence, interstellar (and inner earth) exploration, experimentation gone wrong, runaway science, genetic tampering, doomsday following Doomsday...  This is Science Fiction.  This is Horror.  This is the new Science Fiction Horror line at Dark Regions Press.

Please find below an excerpt from a recently conducted interview with noted reviewer Justin Steele of The Arkham Digest, who was kind enough to let me share it here on the old TC mothership:

AD: Dark Regions Press is one of the most successful small press publishers, putting out quality work for over two decades. What are you bringing to the team? 

TEG:  I hope that I’m bringing a keen eye for quality writing, first and foremost.  I approach my position as not only an editor, but also as a writer of genre fiction, and a huge fan, as well.  I will seek out authors and help develop projects that I view as the best available from the ever-expanding pool of talent working in speculative fiction, both new and established.

I want to discover and secure the best in contemporary Science Fiction Horror Fiction, and cover art, adding to an already proud roster of DRP authors and impressive catalog of books.

AD: What kind of science fiction horror works for you? What are some examples of novels/short story collections and authors that hit what you feel to be the mark when it comes to the science fiction horror genre? 

TEG:  Something imaginative and bold, and not derivative at its core.  I’m not a big fan of bandwagon horror, where every new story sounds like the last, to take advantage of some marketing flashpoint or cultural trend.  I’m not looking for sparkling vampire stories or florid romance between supernatural creatures… in space.  I want something ORIGINAL and compelling.  I want something terrifying, and profoundly unsettling.  I want a great story, constructed of great prose, be it baroque or Spartan.  I’m a style hound, but those styles can vary, as long as the story is interesting, and appeals to our readership.

As for what authors of Science Fiction Horror might fit my ideal, my answer will be a bit hazy, as Dark Regions is one of the few - and possibly only - publishers that now has a stand-alone, dedicated department devoted solely to Science Fiction Horror, and only Science Fiction Horror.  Chris Morey wants to break new ground in this area, and I want to help him do just that, building the brand and helping add additional accolades to a strong, fair-dealing publisher devoted to bringing the best of speculative fiction to readers and the wider Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction marketplace.

So, back to the question:  I don’t want to name any particular authors, collections, or novels as my favorites, as I’m bound to leave someone out of my specific praise, so I’ll wuss out and default to the sorts of Science Fiction Horror films and television series that appeal to me, starting with John Carpenter’s The Thing, which is my favorite horror film of all time.  Other examples of great - or at the very least, interesting – Science Fiction Horror on the big and small screen include Alien, Frankenstein, The Mist, Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, The Fly, War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Alien Nation, The Terminator, The Blob, old Japanese monster movies, 1950’s and 60’s American science fiction creature films, Dr. Who, Lost in Space, the original Land of the Lost and original V, The X-Files, and more recently, Cloverfield and Prometheus, although I had issues with both.  Zombie and post-apocalyptic films count, as well, as long as they have a definite futuristic/science fiction backbone.  Stories that echo some of these themes are all fair game, and will have my immediately interest.

And, as a proud reader, writer, and supporter of Lovecraftian fiction, I’m a sucker for Cosmic Horror, as long as its not Mythos-heavy pastiche.

AD: So as the managing editor of science fiction horror, what kind of work are you looking for?   

TEG:  I’m looking for anything that pushes the boundaries and has a unique voice.  Familiar tropes are okay, as it becomes increasingly difficult to create something 100% original as more and more stories are penned each day, but if the setting is prosaic, make what happens and by whom original and unique in some way.

It can be epic and galactic, or it can be small and intimate.  It can experimental, it can be slipstream, it can even be conventional, as far as setting and other tertiary elements.  It just has to sing.  Overall, I’m tough, but not a snob.  I enjoy a good breezy read as much as a deep, thought provoking piece, as long as it’s well written.  Now, describing what good fiction looks, sounds, and tastes like compared to bad is nearly impossible, but you certainly know both the former and the latter when you come across it.  I want to read – and DRP wants to publish - the good stuff, and won’t settle for anything less.

So, if you have a novel or novella that you think fits the bill, have someone put a bird in my ear.  We aren’t accepting general submissions, and will be operating by invite and referral only, so if I don’t know about an amazing work of Science Fiction Horror that needs to see the light of a dying sun, find a way to bring it to my attention, and I’ll take it from there.

AD: Do you have a "manifesto" or any goals that you've formulated going into this new position? 

TEG:  My main goal is to continue the tradition of excellence and success that Dark Regions Press has established and maintained for just shy of three decades.  That’s incredibly impressive.  As other indie presses have risen and fallen (sometimes in quite surprising and/or painful fashion), DRP has remained, and I take that decorated longevity very seriously in my mission to keep the brand vibrant and strong.

Following that, the ambitious editor in me would like to elevate – if possible – the quality of book that DRP puts out, from the inside out.  Even the best can always improve, and I think with the recent staff additions to the company (including R.J. Cavender of Cutting Block Press fame joining as Managing Editor of Horror), Dark Regions is looking to grow and advance, becoming a bedrock for the very best in Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction – and all the delicious amalgamations of the same – in the field today.  My manifesto is to make that happen, and I’ll be dogged in this pursuit.

Thanks again to Justin for inviting me to interview at The Arkham Digest, and allowing me to share a portion of our Q&A here.

NOTE TO AUTHORS:  I will be reaching out to various authors, to gauge their interest in producing something for the line, and/or to see if they have anything already written, currently in progress, or on the docket that would be appropriate.  And while I know many fantastic writers, I don't know them all, and there are so many talented scribes doing work that I have never read.

As such, I am accepting a limited number of queries for completed SFH novellas/novelettes/novels (no collections or anthologies at this time, please), sent to thecosmicomicon@yahoo.com.  If the brief synopsis looks like something we are looking for and/or sparks my interest, I will ask for an extended synopsis and a sample of the first three chapters.  At that point, I should know what I'm dealing with, and with whom.  As these query numbers are limited, I reserve the right to close them at any time, once I have enough/too many potential projects to work through.  They may or may not open back up again, depending on the quality and volume of queries I have received during this initial query period.  Dark Regions Press operates on an invite-only basis, but to get the SFH line started, I feel that I need to cast a wide net, at least initially, to see what's squirming around out there.

Let's be honest - publishers want to sell books, and books written by recognizable names will move better than unknowns.  BUT, what we want first and foremost are EXCEPTIONAL STORIES around which to wrap our label.  Properly prepared dung only burns hot for a brief second, like a cheap candle that lights up the room and gutters out, leaving a disagreeable odor behind.  Dark Regions Press has been and will remain in this industry for the long haul, and in this spirit, we want to put out the best books on the market, in all of our genres, which includes Science Fiction Horror.  Books that will endure, and help define (and possible re-define) contemporary Horror fiction.

A publisher is only as good as their authors (and artists).  DRP has published books from some amazing talents already, and now its time to continue this trend of quality going forward, which is where you just might come in.  Impress me.  Dazzle me.  Leave me terrified, or wonderstruck, or both.  Most of all, leave me wanting more.

I'm so very humbled and excited to be working for Dark Regions Press (joining the esteemed R.J. Cavender, DRP's new Managing Editor of Horror, in the dugout), and eager to get started.  Write hard, spread the word, and hit me up with the best that you've got.  The possibilities in Science Fiction and in Horror are endless, and endlessly fascinating.  Break me off something special, and let's tear down the sky.

TC Book Review & Interview: Laird Barron Weaponizes the Weird in Debut Novel ‘The Croning' from Night Shade Books

Laird Barron made me gain five pounds.

No, he didn’t hold me down and shovel deep fried butter wedges into my gaping yapper (although, dare to dream). What he did was write a colossal piece of fiction that was nearly impossible to put down, even at the gym, where I do much of my reading every morning. As I hazily recall, just before cracking open Barron’s debut novel The Croning some weeks back, I marched my happy ass off to the local garishly lit LA Fitness, eager to absorb a few pages in between moving weighted objects from one place to another. Forty-five minutes later I found myself on the floor, sprawled in some lazy stretching pose, peering at the pages in front of me with wide, slightly twitching eyes while sadly oblivious meatheads preened in front of mirrors around me. I was hooked, boated, and clubbed, and stayed that way until I closed the last page some blurry span of time later. As I became doughier, I also became more willing, suppliant. I was fattened and ready for the provender plate of dear Old Leech. Just like They wanted it.

Barron’s storytelling has that rare power of grip, weaving a particular strain of beautiful, sinewy prose that somehow possesses enough tiny microfibers to pick up the grit and sharp things swept into the corners of forgotten history. Both beautiful and monstrous, his evocative imagery lures you into the forest with the cadence of lost eons, leaves you in expectant silence, and then rips back the shading canopy, exposing you to the terrible realities that lie waiting under the thin veneers of bullshit “civilization”.

Not surprisingly, the writing is a reflection of the writer and his unique experience set. Barron grew up in the wilds of Alaska and spent several years fishing the murderous Bering Sea and racing the Iditarod on arctic tundra like some goddamn throwback to a time of brawnier, more road-tested scribes, who could lay down some poetic verse before laying you out in a pool of your own teeth for spilling his drink. Papa Hemingway. Jack London. Dashiell Hammett in a parka. All sitting in the corner booth of the Bar on the Borderland, waiting for their Weirdling pals from the Pulps to show up and swap stories of the violent and strange.

Indeed, his meaty, imaginative style is an amalgam of all of these rough and smooth elements, taking shape as a barrel-chested ballerina, a professional wrestler moonlighting as an ice skater. A pagan ninja hopped up on blood saki, beautifully weaponizing the sublime and stuffing horror into documented and geological mysteries long buried for a reason. Barron respectfully nods his heads to his forebearers, but is truly his own man, blazing his trail through the wild, untamed places to find the haunted ruins. The cryptic mounds.  The dolmens... This is Weird fiction boiled hard.

Unfairly or not, Barron is often compared to (elder)godfather of cosmic horror  H.P. Lovecraft, but in many ways, Barron’s work is far more bleak than the Gentleman from Providence. In Lovecraft’s Mythos, profoundly alien Great Old Ones and Outer Gods were mostly oblivious or apathetic to our meaningless existence. The horror often came from the realization of unimaginable truth.  Much like Barron, HPL’s protagonists reflected the man, and as such, were bookish and aloof, ghosts in the coal powered machine, sneering strangers in the hated crowd. In Laird’s “Barronic Mythos” (an increasingly legitimate construct that I may or may not have just given a name), the unearthly entities not only know where we are and what we’re doing, they pop in from time for a bite, and/or to continually fuck with us just because they can. His characters ARE the crowd, reflecting all strata of life, from the aristocratic elite to the shithouse dogs. Barron understand them all, and spares none. All are claymation figurines caught up in a Game Unutterable organized before the beginning of time. All of them are doomed, and Barron allows us a front row seat to the slow, excruciating execution.

The Croning, Barron’s first full-length novel after making his bones and racking up accolades as a conjurer of short fiction, is a perfect reflection of what he does as a writer, while serving as a stage one culmination of much of his storytelling from the past decade. Characters, artifacts, and even families that were introduced in such short stories as “Mysterium Tremendum” and “The Men From Porlock” reappear in The Croning ready to cast off their potential and reveal their dreadful destiny. After a prologue of sorts, which serves as more than just a pitch-black origin story of Rumpelstiltskin, we are lead through three life stages of the affable geologist Don Miller, and together, we follow Don as he follows his brilliant and headstrong wife Michelle, forever living in her secretive shadow as she chases arcane anthropological discoveries around the world, when not locked away in her study researching her family tree, obsessing over the hard-to-find root system buried impossibly deep in the antediluvian loam. As Michelle pursues her own path that occasionally intersects with her husband, Don is left to reflect on his own life barely lived, and in doing so, starts to unspool – with the help of off-the-grid intelligence agencies, old money eccentrics, and even his own son – the mind shattering reality of what has been slithering around his ankles and through his home for decades, and his role in ongoing Outer Machinations older than the cosmos and twice as dangerous. Cults and conspiracies. Secret societies and powerful bloodlines with grand designs forged through unwholesome alliances dating back to the Stone Age. Mind snuffing dread born beyond the reach of time and space. This is the world of The Croning, and this is the writing of Laird Barron, who effectively synthesizes science fiction with science fact, creating a New Kind of Truth that can be as mortifying as it is wondrous. And it all works. Perfectly, it works.

Much like Bloch, Carter, Lumley, Campbell, Klein, and even Ligotti before him, and with the curiously scarred crone looming protectively behind him, Laird Barron has emerged as the new poster boy of cosmic horror, thankfully without a shred of pastiche anywhere in the shot. The Croning shows an already masterful writer fully in the throws of his own, unique style somehow getting better, and that bodes well for us, his readership, which grows by the hour.  We are the Children of Old Leech, and we love you.

In the end, and after all of this convoluted blather, I supposed the highest compliment I can pay The Croning is that it’s the sort of novel I wish I had written had I not first read it. It’s a gift of cosmic naturalist horror that will force you to re-examine everything and everyone around you, if only slightly. The X-Files in print, only infinitely scarier and hitting far closer to home.  It will make you fear the trees.  It will make you check for zippers.

I reckon that’s not too shabby for a first novel.

(The Croning can be purchased directly from Night Shade Books [recommended by The Cosmicomicon, because it's the right goddamn thing to do], and from Amazon for you corporate-felching cheapskates who hate Santa Claus a little and Ross E. Lockhart even more)

___________________________________________________________________________

As you process the jibber jabber above, please enjoy the second installment of the The Cosmicomicon Book Review & Interview (the first of which was christened upon the diamond cut abs of Simon Strantzas).  I'd like to thank Laird for making time to sit down with me across the table o' ether, as I know his hours were limited in the days leading up to the hugely anticipated release of The Croning.  As such, I kept my questions as brief as possible, attempting not to repeat inquiries covered in other interviews.  The resulting answers show a very candid, free-form/riffy side of Laird that I don't think I've read before.  Fantastic stuff, that I'm honored to share with you all below.

TC:   Your writing is often compared to that of classic cosmic Weirdists H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, etc. (including by yours truly above), but there seems to be far more at play under the surface of your prose.  More contemporary, brawnier, bare-knuckled stuff.  Just as much Lawrence Block as T.E.D. Klein.  Who are your influences, both conscious and subconscious?

LB:  My earliest influences were pulps and adventure novels. H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, that was my crowd as a kid. Big men with axes, naked alien princesses, exotic landscapes, fantastical beasts. Rivers of blood. Hell of an escape from my family’s sub-Arctic shack.

My interests have shifted over the years. I enjoy Martin Cruz Smith and Kelly Link in equal measure. I riff on Lovecraft and McCarthy if the firing solution calls for it. But my love of the pulps is always there and ever inflecting what I write.

TC:  Charlie Parker had a great quote that always stuck with me:  “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.”  Based on your diverse, wide-ranging jobs, pursuits, and travels – many of them often taking place in some pretty gritty, unforgiving locales - you’re a writer who has certainly “lived it” out under the sun and rain, in contrast to a more reclusive individual like Lovecraft or Thomas Ligotti.  How important do you think it is for a writer to get out into the world in order to write about it and the homo sapiens taking up so much space, or can the same time be spent researching to achieve a similar result?

LB:  A good artist had better be able to fake it until he makes it. There’s a reason I do what I do, however. I look at the more desolate portions of my youth as a sacrifice to the muses.

My professional writing career has spanned a decade. What was I doing before that? Digging my way out of the hole provenance dropped me headfirst into as a baby. I know what it feels like. To be punched, kicked in the balls, frozen, dragged, bitten, betrayed and heartbroken. I’ve fired guns and swung clubs when my life depended upon them. I’ve set aside years to train in combatives, and I’ve used them too. I’ve gone completely off the deep end from too many months alone in the wild and come all the way back again like a drunk who drinks himself sober. If a man’s going to write about damaged human machinery it doesn’t hurt to have spent time on fishing boats among ex cons and addicts. Doesn’t hurt to have bunked with bikers and trappers and professional ne’er do wells. I don’t have to invent much when I write. I just reach into my pocket and pull out some bloody receipts.

TC:  I’m sensing that you wouldn’t trade one second of it - the many hardships, tough upbringing, and dangerous scrapes you’ve been through.

LB:  There are moments here and there I’d do anything to change. Just like everybody alive. In the end, it’s all grist for the mill.

TC:  The natural world features heavily into your brand of cosmic horror (I call it “cosmic naturalism”).  Do the wild places on earth – places where you’ve spent quite a bit of time – truly terrify you, or are you instead mining what you know and enjoy, and then twisting it to the dark side?

LB:  I lived in Alaska for about twenty-five years. My family was nomadic. We chased the snow in order to train huskies for the racing circuit, and most especially the Iditarod. Of course the more fabulous elements of my stories are fabricated. But there’s no dismissing the sinister grandeur of primeval wilderness. There’s got to be some natural force in Alaska that fucks with human circuitry. I think Lovecraft’s head would’ve popped like a balloon if he’d found himself trapped in some of the places I’ve been.

TC:  Your memoirs could be a piece of Weird Noir.  Have you ever thought about publishing something entirely autobiographical?  Or hell, maybe you already have.

LB:  Oh, perhaps someday. In the meantime I’m working on a sequence of stories that deal in more explicit terms with Alaska and what I saw there during my youth.

TC:  When writing previous tales like “The Men From Porlock” and “Mysterium Tremendum”, did you know that the characters, locations, situations, and/or Mythology would someday evolve into a novel?  Into this novel?

LB:  With a tiny handful of exceptions, my entire body of work exists within a continuous universe. A few stories, such as those you highlighted, indeed feed directly into one another. I seldom write something that doesn’t inflect or reference every other piece I’ve done prior. I don’t write for an anthology or magazine, regardless of theme, without plotting how it’ll fit in to the mosaic.

TC:  Building on the previous question, are you intentionally constructing a Mythos, or perhaps adding onto that which was initially crystallized by Lovecraft?

LB:  I owe debts to every piece of fiction I’ve read, every man I’ve fought, every woman I’ve loved, every musician or artist who’s taken my heart out then handed it back, changed. The classical masters of dark fantasy and cosmic horror perfected a tradition of the weird story that generally features aloofness and restraint. For better or worse, I am not that guy.

The old tradition’s hallmarks include those of repressed sexuality, violence hinted at or understated, vagueness, iciness. Lovecraft is a giant in the field and I don’t believe the canon needs a contemporary update from me. I don’t repress jack shit. There’s going to be fucking, fighting, blood and thunder in a Barron tale. When I write in this tradition, I’m interested in weaponizing it.

TC:  You’ve emerged as a standard bearer, of sorts, for whatever we’re calling the brutal amalgam of Weird fiction/dark fantasy/cosmic horror these days.  I’ve personally described “Barronic verse,” and I’ve seen “Barronian” used as an adjective.  Did you ever foresee this sort of impact on speculative fiction from the back of a dogsled heading up into the frozen white all those years ago?

LB:   No. My dreams were humble. I was usually too worried about starving or whether freezing my dick to the side of my leg would have long term consequences.

TC:  In a perfect world, what would you be writing in twenty years?

LB:  In a perfect world I’ll be alive twenty years.

TC:  What’s next on the docket for you?  Longer term, what’s a personal or professional goal still unachieved?

LB:  There should be a new horror collection out next year. Deal just needs to be inked. I’ve several stories set to appear soon. Longer term, I’m working on a crime novel. Right now, my main goal is just to keep moving forward as a writer. Keep pushing myself to the breaking point.

TC:  Who would look better poured into a tight pair of spanking new Jordache jeans?  Robert E. Howard or Ramsey Campbell?

LB:  Considering how much weight Mr. Howard has lost these past decades, I’d say Mr. Campbell wins it in a landslide.

"Laird Barron" by JD Busch

Publishing News: Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities Released Today by H. Harksen Productions, Featuring 'The Screamer' and a Cover by Paul Carrick

Cover art (c) by Paul Carrick

As of Tuesday, April 10th, you are now literally days away (depending on shipping time to whatever far flung location you call home) from consuming Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities, edited by Henrik Sanbeck Harksen and published through his stellar imprint H. Harksen Productions, in the cozy comfort and relative safety of the six walls that surround you.

I've been anxiously awaiting this release for months, as I'm quite excited to share my story "The Screamer" with a wider audience.  It's the longest piece I've ever written, and was the most grueling to construct and refine.  Special thanks to my beloved Ives for the incredibly thorough editing she did on the tale, and for unlocking the ending that had been plaguing me for so long.  I wouldn't have found "The Screamer" without her.

Check back through these past two blogs (here and here) to get further information and other pretty pictures, or better yet, click your happy ass over to Lulu.com (link to Amazon coming soon) to order Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities while the first printing is still available to the gibbering masses.  The Aklonomicon recently sold out of its first run, and I can foresee the same happening for this anticipated monster.

Just as a refresher, I'll provide the table of contents below:

CONTENTS: 

“Dancer of the Dying” by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
“The Neighbors Upstairs” by John Goodrich
“Carcosapunk” by Glynn Owen Barrass
“Architect Eyes” by Thomas Strømsholt
“Slou” by Robert Tangiers
“Ozeelah’s Lake” by Morten Carlsen
“The Statement of Frank Elwood” by Pete Rawlik
“In the Shadow of Bh’Yhlun” by Ian Davey
“The Screamer” by T. E. Grau
“Night Life” by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen
“the guilt of each … at the end…” by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

And here is the back cover blurb, for those who aren't keen to squint at the wraparound cover art above (the next size up for the cover image nearly ate the top of my top):

What lurks in the damp recesses of urban existence? 

These new tales of weird fiction are a blend of urban horror, pulp noir and dark fantasy. Lovecraftian horrors and Cthulhu Mythos monsters have never been this gritty. 
From haunted Kingsport across the globe to shadowy Berlin and the otherworldly music of Bangalore. From kind, sexy neighbors to cyberpunk paranoia an The King in Yellow. A journalist's search with unexpected results. What really happened to Walter Gilman, and what is the origin of the witch Keziah Mason? And witness humanity fail against the forces from beyond  

From weird sounds to screams of madness. 
Entropy. Chaos. Disorder. Death.  

Beneath cities, on the outskirts of ruined, aeon-old cities and INSIDE cities. The stench, the decay, the hopelesness... it is everywhere.  

Welcome to URBAN CTHULHU: NIGHTMARE CITIES.

As mentioned in the header, the cover is by one of my personal fave Mythos artists Paul Carrick, who shows us how nightmares are made in stop motion below:



If you are a fan of Lovecraftian fiction, cosmic horror, dark urban fantasy, or just twisted shit that happens on the land paved over by human (and sometimes inhuman) hands, order Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities right friggin' now.

It's better to bring it home, than to have it find you.

Publishing News: Full Table of Contents and Cover Image Finally Revealed for 'Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities', Edited by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen for H. Harksen Productions

Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities cover by Paul Carrick

March should be a damn good month for devoted readers - and writers - of the Weird, the Cosmic, and the Lovecraftian.

Not only will it see the release of the Aklonomicon, compiled and edited by madcap talented Aklo Press founder Ivan McCann and the legendary Joseph S. Pulver, but it will also go down in barnacled annals of history as the month that saw the release of another monumental tome, titled Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities, edited by Danish Lovecraftian/horror fiction writer, editor, publisher, and Cyclopean pillar Henrik Sandbeck Harksen, released via his extremely active H. Harken Productions, which has several fantastic books coming out this year, including The Eltdown Shards by Franklyn Searight and the Lovecraftian anthology Whisperers in Darkness, among others, listed here.

My personal tie between the Aklonomicon and Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities also extends to the artistic realm, as Paul Carrick - the conjurer who unleashed the cover above - also provided original artwork for and based on my two stories in the Aklonomicon.  As mentioned previously in The Cosmicomicon, I almost can't believe that my writing is now adorned, in even a small way, by Paul's art, which has been a favorite of mine since I first stumbled across the name "Cthulhu" in some tattered tome so many gibbous moons ago.  Paul is a true Lovecraftian legend, and a proud ambassador and trailblazer in the visual interpretation of things often left partially/vaguely described.  He's the terrifying Cliff's Notes of Cosmic Horror and Dark Fantasy, allowing the reader a mind-bending cheat sheet in the endeavor to visualize the unnameable, helping our feeble human minds to correlate a dangerous amount of its contents.  What would we do without magicians like him?

Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities has been flying under the radar for quite some time, as Henrik isn't one to flash his impressive literary plumage.  So, being the often overly enthusiastic fanboy of all of my esteemed colleagues, I'll do the shouting for him, by releasing the Table of Contents below, from Henrik's recent blog on the subject:

CONTENTS: 

“Dancer of the Dying” by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
“The Neighbors Upstairs” by John Goodrich
“Carcosapunk” by Glynn Owen Barrass
“Architect Eyes” by Thomas Strømsholt
“Slou” by Robert Tangiers
“Ozeelah’s Lake” by Morten Carlsen
“The Statement of Frank Elwood” by Pete Rawlik
“In the Shadow of Bh’Yhlun” by Ian Davey
“The Screamer” by T. E. Grau
“Night Life” by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen
“the guilt of each … at the end…” by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

As you can see, the ToC of this anthology is noticeably sparse, reflecting a devotion to showcasing larger works in the anthology format (penned by an exciting line-up of well known names, and some that are new to my eye).  This focus includes my story, "The Screamer," which is my longest piece to date, and perhaps the most personal, as it deals with the strangeness (and worse) that can fester amid the white collar, office drone high rises of west Los Angeles.  "Urban" doesn't necessarily just apply to gritty streets, blighted neighborhoods, and gangland gun battles, as a deeper horror can sometimes be found in the most unexpected places.

I'll go into a bit more detail about the story once the tome is finally released, and I once again send out a barrage of electronic smoke signals to possibly annoy and hopefully delight.  But for now, I wanted to get this glimpse of what's coming for you out into the ether, and plant a spore in your brain as we creep toward the anticipated birth of Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities.

Watch this space for the release announcement, and in the meantime, hazard an occasional look out those cold, office building windows.  You never know what could be taking place on the other side of the glass while we all face our computerized headmasters, counting down the minutes...

Coming Soon: Laird Barron's Debut Full-Length Novel 'The Croning' from Night Shade Books, Now Available for Pre-Order

I love me some Laird Barron.  Yes, I know.  How very original.  It's like saying, "Lovecraft did some good work," or "Kubrick really knew his way around a camera."  Barron has garnered awards, accolades, and acclaim by the bushel basket, and all of it has been well deserved.  Hype doesn't get you very far when the proof is right there stained in black and white.  He has the rep because he's earned it.

Laird Barron was one of the first living writers of speculative fiction that I read after making the leap from Lovecraft (aka "The Foundation"), and ever since then, I voraciously read and carefully collect his works like I do the old Weirdling Masters of  the Pulp Golden Age - or more recently, Grau Haus faves Thomas Ligotti and T.E.D Klein.  He's one of those "instant classic" sort of writers, who only come along a few times a generation.  Luckily for us, he came of literary age during our time, so we can all lean back in our nano-powered rocking chairs some decades hence, whistle through our noses, and let fly a nostalgic "I remember when..."

Barron just makes it look easy.  His effortless blend of the coldly cosmic with the uncomfortable heat and grit of the natural world make the everyday happenstance or forgotten patch of flyover wilderness a brush with the brutally unsettling.  Danger can lurk within any shadowed vale where the old psalms are still sung.  Incalculable danger waits at the end of every weed-choked country driveway.  Mankind has been driven quietly mad, and is seeking to bring down Everything by unlocking the doors that were never meant to be opened.  Dread drenches the Barronic air, which is what makes his fiction so engrossing, and so terrifying.  I sometimes heave a sigh of relief at the end of one of his stories - not because I'm glad it's over, but that I'm glad that the poor, unlucky sap I've just been reading about for thirty pages isn't me.  It's like finally waking up after a seemingly real nightmare and kissing the bedroom carpet because none of it was real.

That's what Laird Barron does.  He writes nightmares that we can walk away from.  And thank the mute gods, we can walk back to them, as well.

We covered the release of Barron's last book, the novella The Light is the Darkness (with a titular nod to my current musical obsession Lustmord) - masterfully crafted, bound, and published by Infernal House and Miskatonic Books - through a review by Cosmicomicon regular Alex Lugo published here back in November.  Today, I'm here to bring you news of The Croning, which is his first full-length novel, published by the good peeps at Night Shade Books (who most recently brought us the fantastic The Book of Cthulhu, edited by Ross E. Lockhart, which contains the epic Laird Barron tale "The Men From Porlock", which will surely go down in the annals as one of the most celebrated stories in the modern era of the genre).

From the Night Shade Books presser:

Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us... Coming May 2012  

Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly eighty years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret...  

... of The Croning.  

From Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation, comes The Croning, a debut novel of cosmic horror. 

The Croning can be pre-ordered now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other larger electronic outlets.

Laird Barron by JD Busch

Just a word of caution to procrastinators:  Barron's books sell out rather quickly, so don't sleep on The Croning.  You need to jump on this now, before you're combing eBay for out-of-print copies, cursing your lack of foresight while bemoaning your separation from the dark, strange places that only a few left on earth can show you.

'Tis The Season To Be Culty: Red Wasp Design Unveils Two Digital Cthulhuvian Releases Just in Time for the Holidays

Ah, kids these days... Just nutty about the smart phone apps and the video games.  And the hippity hop.  But mostly the smart phone apps and video games... set to a soundtrack of the hippity hop.

Understanding this, and endeavoring to give "the kids" - meaning, well, EVERYONE with a mobile phone and a jones for electronic gaming - exactly what they want, Red Wasp Design, the critically acclaimed, proudly indie games development studio based in Bristol, England (home of the semi-mythical yet somehow still fully vicious Chicken of Bristol), has just released a brand new holiday-themed calendar app, and will be launching an anticipated video game in the coming months.  What both share, aside from a digital womb nestled deep inside Red Wasp Design studios, is a celebration of the God(s)father of Cosmic Horror, one Howard Philips Lovecraft, and his beloved Golden (Greenish Gray?) Boy, Cthulhu.

Tapping into the whole "cute Cthulhu" craze that is morphing tiny, bright eyed children into unwitting fans of HPL's eternally grumpy and chronically sociopathic Great Old Ones, Red Wasp has conjured up a fun advent calendar app titled "Cthulhu Christmas Calendar" that is rooted in enough sanity-sucking horror to appeal to both hardcore Lovecraftians who eagerly snap up anything remotely Outer Goddish, and also those uninitiated few who appreciate cuddly monsters bent on cosmic destruction set in the cheery key of pastel and holly.

"Cthulhu Christmas Calendar" is now available for your iPhone, iPad, and Android phone (the latter of which is also easily purloined through this link to Amazon.com).

The "secret ingredient" to a successful fruitcake is finally revealed

Please note the official Red Wasp Design press release below, generously provided for The Cosmicomicon by Red Wasp's own Debbie Connor:

Press Release

Cthulhu's Crazy Nightmare Before Christmas (for immediate release)

Fans of the meme-monster Cthulhu and other creations of cult horror novelist H.P. Lovecraft can get a little extra help in counting down to Christmas, thanks to a new mobile advent calendar app. Titled 'Cthulhu Christmas Calendar', it features 25 original pieces of artwork - one for each day in December until Christmas Day. Each image presents a fun mashup of festive icons like Santa into the Cyclopean world of the great Cthulhu, the malevolent Mi-Go and the dark god Nyarlathotep.

Indie developer Red Wasp Design today released the Cthulhu Christmas Calendar for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android. As well as featuring a new and original creation of art for each day, it also features quiz questions related to the images. Fans will find out their 'Mythos rating' on the 25th when their scores are revealed along with the final festive- horror image.

The app is available now from the App Store for iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone. It is also available for Android from the Android Market. It is priced at:

• iPhone & iPod Touch ($0.99/£0.69/€0.79) • iPad 1 & 2 ($1.99/£1.49;/€1.59) • Android Store ($0.99/£0.69/€0.79) • Amazon App Store (coming soon!)

There is more information on the Cthulhu Christmas Calendar page and you can chat about it with fellow cultists on its own Facebook page.

The Great Priest - The only Being sorta' alive who is impervious to the unbridled joy of party hats

_________________________________________________________________________

And now the electric lights dim and the candle smoke billows, as we turn our heads from the glittering holiday trappings and gaiety, and delve back a bit deeper, looking into our past for a glimpse into our future.

A dystopian land, wrecked by cosmic forces beyond human comprehension, but somehow distantly remembered.  Monsters roaming the blasted hilltops.  A handful of .30 caliber shells in your calloused palm.  The sunlight dims... Figures dance behind the cover of smoking corpses.  The battle begins anew.  You are the last hope for us all....

This is "Call of Cthulhu: Wasted Land."  This is what you've been waiting for, Lovecraftians.  Check these badass sneak peek screen shots below:

Press Release First 'Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land' Screenshots Released (for immediate release)

Indie developer Red Wasp Design today released the first screenshots from their anticipated upcoming game, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land'. These screenshots are taken from the Standard Definition (SD) iPhone version of the game and are, the developer says, a work in progress. A High Definition (HD) version will follow. They show characters from the game under attack by the undead, and the Dark Young. As the characters fight these legions of horror they will have their sanity eroded away as the game's designer Tomas Rawlings noted, “Lovecraft and his peers created really iconic monsters that tap into our deepest fears. As huge fans of his stories, we've worked really hard to transfer the essence of these alien horrors into a game form. We're blending the core ideas of the classic role-playing game along with our experience of gameplay design all wrapped in our new 3D engine to craft what we hope is a gaming experience of malignant evil!”

Announced in May this year and set to launch initially on iPhone and iPod (both SD and HD versions), Red Wasp Design plan to infect other platforms such as iPad, Android, PC and consoles with their World War One themed turn-based strategy horror. The game has been developed in co-operation with Chaosium, the purveyors of the cult horror role playing game based on Lovecraft's work, Call of Cthulhu. The much loved RPG marks it's 30th year of publication this year, which Chaosium has been celebrating with the launch of a limited edition release of Call of Cthulhu. Dustin Wright from Chaosium said, "We're very excited to be working with Red Wasp Design to bring the Call of Cthulhu world to gaming devices. It's a great time to be a fan of H.P. Lovecraft gaming."

A final release date, pricing and other information has yet to be announced by Red Wasp Design, but you can be kept in the loop via Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/redwaspdesign), Twitter (@redwaspdesign) and on their site (http://www.redwaspdesign.com)

_________________________________________________________________________

Happy Holidays, fellow Lovecraftians, Weirdlings, video gamers, hippity hopists, and smartphonists.  Red Wasp Design has everything you need... possibly sans the hippity hop, but give those folks time...

William Hope Hodgson - The Forgotten Grandfather of Cosmic Horror?

Reading within a long standing and proud genre like weird/speculative fiction is much like exploring rootsy musical genres like old country Blues, as one often works their way backwards and outwards like a spiderweb once they regain their feet after being leveled by that first, unexpected collision.

And so it has been with me and the Weird, moving out in the familiar pattern that so many fellow insects have traveled before me.  Bullseye Lovecraft in the center, then work out to the next layer of web, populated by Pulp masters Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, then move wider through the auxiliary spiral, dancing past the members of the Arkham House Crew (as I'll greet them on the way back), and out into the anchoring strands built by the likes of Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Walter de la Mare, M.R. James, Robert W. Chambers, Lord Dunsany, Ambrose Bierce, and William Hope Hodgson. 

Much ink has been spilled, both on those flickering pages and reams of others, about the majesty and sweep of Smith's fertile imagination, as well as the brawny, sinew-popping grit of Howard.  These two sit at either hand of HPL for a reason, and I learned - and am still learning - much from their seemingly endless tales of weirdness and wonder, fantasy and horror.  As I rapidly became familiar with those resting on the top rungs, I also wanted to see those who climbed the ladder first, offering a hand and shoulder and private whisper about the best way to reach the top.  To find the better view of the Infinite.  I wanted to discover for myself the somewhat buried Foundation for all vistas now laid bare.

And so, giving a respectful bow to the Dark Triumvirate, I packed light and journeyed out further into the web on hinterland strands of sticky, viscous silk, marveling at the new sights around me that all echoed back a familiar melody, still shiny and limber after all these years.  I waded into Machen's murky moors with "The Great God Pan," and was amazed by the prose, and the simplicity of the powerful horror.  Robert W. Chambers' "The King in Yellow" threatened to be one of the greatest works of weird fiction I'd ever read for the first third of the work, until it devolved, in my cretinous opinion, into boring, late 19th century Parisian art scene Romanticism.

And then I alighted on the thin, somewhat dusty strand populated by William Hope Hodgson, the little discussed English writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, who - through his often clumsy and ponderous prose - created one of the earliest, true cosmic horror stories I've run across in all of my reading in his novel "The House on the Borderlands."

Hodgson was born in Blackmore End, Essex, in 1877, and died in World War I at the tragically young age of 40.  But, before he waltzed off this wet, silly rock, he left behind a collection of poetry and short stories deeply influenced by his interest in science fiction, horror, and his time spent at sea.  Being of short stature, he was devoted bodybuilder (to defend himself from bullies, who soon found out that he was, pound for pound, one of the toughest men in Britain), and began his career writing articles about fitness in 1903.  These didn't pan out, so - being influenced by his love of the writings of Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle - Hodgson shifted his writing focus to fantastical fiction, writing and publishing his first short story, titled "The Goddess of Death", in 1904.  He found his place, and was hooked. Dozens of short stories and poems followed, and he gained notoriety more for the former than the latter (although his poetry was later published by his widow).  In 1907, he published his first novel The Boats of "Glen-Carrig", which was received with no small amount of critical renown.  Also that same year, he published "The Voice in the Night", which I have also read, and is a tasty bit of dark, nihilistic fiction featuring two of WHH's favorite tropes - aggressive fungi and  the sea. 
 
But, it was until two years later, in 1909, that - for my money, which is a bit light on silver - William Hope Hodgson truly broke down boundaries and ground a boot print into the virginal beach of cosmic horror, when he released his ambitious and slightly uneven second novel, The House on the Borderlands.

Though his prose is often clumsy and ponderous, and his plotting sometimes mystifying, Hodgson still proves to be a master dreamer in The House of the Borderland, creating situations and horrific threats that are truly chilling, especially for the time. The strange house perched perilously over the yawning pit, the detestable Swing Things, the besieged house - all good, solid horror.  Even his river to nowhere to begin the story (which I thought was a original idea several months ago, as I was plotting out a short story of my own) is interesting and creepy.

But it's not until he takes a sudden, unexplained jag into stark, raving cosmicism later in the work that Hodgson suddenly rises above his fleshly height and cast an enormous literary shadow on all writers of cosmic horror who have come after him, including one H.P. Lovecraft, who - it is claimed - did not read Hodgson until 1934 - three years before his death, and hence, long after he had invented his vast cosmic rules and mythos - as WHH's books were out of print.  Unless "out of print" means "every last copy was burned," I think it's still quite feasible, and wholly probable, that Lovecraft could have run across Hodgson's work, including The House on the Borderland.

Hodgson's seems to become bored with the terrestrial conventions of his own story about 3/4 of the way through, and then takes to the stars, and beyond, writing about abstract places, concepts, and creatures I don't think had ever been conceived in print before:  "The Plain of Silence," surrounded by mountains with representations of mythological beast-gods, demons and other "bestial horror"; the Sea of Sleep; interstellar, phosphorescent fungus; malevolent string of globes with shifting faces; the Green Sun, devouring our dying universe...  I don't want to give away too much for those who haven't read The House on the Borderlands, but what the Recluse experiences both in and outside of his corporeal shell is straight up, hard core cosmic horror, written at the first blush of the 20th century.

Lovecraft is always cited as the Father of Cosmic Horror.  So, would that make William Hope Hodgson the Grandfather of the same?

Am I looking for an influence that isn't, and couldn't, exist?  I'm not so sure about that...

The House on the Borderlands was released in 1908, when Lovecraft was a spry 17 years old.  The same year HPL penned "The Alchemist," which is more a classical fantasy piece, leaning more on castles and sorcery than cosmic horror.  As noted above, I've read accounts and been personally told that Hodgson's books were out of print by the time Lovecraft matured into the voracious reader and writer that we all know and love.  But, when a book is out of print, it doesn't mean that it disappears into the ether forever.  WHH's books remained, in private collections, and possibly in libraries.  I've also read that HPL doesn't mentions WHH until a written in 1934.  I've also read the HPL counts WHH as one of his influences.

So, doesn't it stand to reason that Hodgson could have had a profound influence on the mind bending cosmicism not necessarily first birthed by Lovecraft, but inherited, expanded and honed in equal measure into the so-called Lovecraft Mythos that we all consume by the truckload today?

If this was a "handsome-off"...

.... the debate would be over quickly.

I'm not positing some grand theory, and those far more deeply read and researched than I am will probably easily poke a hole in this contention, but I can't help but see and hear the echoes of Hodgson's The House on the Borderland in the later stories of H.P. Lovecraft, even before he supposedly first stumbled across Hogdson's work. 

SPOILERS BELOW!!

Just to give a few examples, the amphitheater in the Plain of Silence reminds me very much of the Plateau of Leng in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, and the gods who gathered and perched amongst the mountains above the amphitheater recall the Elder Gods who carved their images into the rock of Ngranek:

"All lesser thoughts were lost in the wish to see that carven face which might set him on the track of the gods atop unknown Kadath"

Even the ending of the story has a curious Lovecraftian ring, as The House on the Borderland ends with the Recluse hearing something approach as he writes, documenting his end on the page:

"Hush! I hear something, down--down in the cellars. It is a creaking sound. My God, it is the opening of the great, oak trap. What can be doing that? The scratching of my pen deafens me....... I must listen....... There are steps on the stairs; strange padding steps, that come up and nearer.... Jesus, be merciful to me, an old man. There is something fumbling at the door-handle. O God, help me now! Jesus--The door is opening--slowly. Somethi----"

This is a device used by Lovecraft as well, such as in Dagon (July, 1917), in which HPL writes:

"The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!"

I don't profess to be a Lovecraft or Weird Fiction scholar, but I was instantly struck by the seeds of cosmic horror in The House on the Borderland, which were made so famously flush a decade or two later by Lovecraft throughout his exceptional writing career.

So, bottom line, while it could be argued that the roots of cosmic horror go deeper than William Hope Hodgson, and were made thick and strong under the expert tending by H.P. Lovecraft, WHH certainly needs to be included in the discussion more often, and perhaps a bit more seriously.

Perhaps the weighty title "Grandfather of Cosmic Horror" is too generous, but certainly Grand Uncle isn't too far off the mark. This inspired and talented innovator deserves a prominent spot, and his share of the cake, at the grown ups' table.