WICKED WEIRD available now!

 

 

WICKED WEIRD is here!

(Well, kind of. The Kindle edition is available for pre-order. It appears the print edition can be ordered now.)

WICKED WEIRD

Though contracts have not gone out, the official t.o.c. was announced for WICKED WEIRD.

WICKED WEIRD is the next anthology produced by the New England Horror Writers group, following on WICKED SEASONS, WICKED TALES, WICKED WITCHES, and WICKED HAUNTED.

The original plan was to launch the book this August at Necronomicon Providence 2019. I don't know if that is still the plan, or if it will slip to their traditional October launch.

As you might guess from the title and launch plan, the theme this time around is 'weird' and 'cosmic' horror. My story, "The Painted Girl," is among the nineteen. Some intriguing titles and good writers here. I'm happy to be included.

WICKED WEIRD

Editors - Amber Fallon, Scott Goudsward and David Price

(In Random order - Not book order:)

Jeffrey Thomas - Your Emergency Response Guide
Lauran L. Soares - The Sweetness and the Psychic
Ken Vaughan - A Long Walk to the Ocean
John Goodrich - The Promised Death of Zebediah Dewey
Matthew M. Bartlett - Strange Haze
Barry Lee Dejasu - The Night and all its Visitors
Morgan Sylvia - Salt Cave
Errick Nunnally - A Song of War and Death
Jason Parent - Starry Night
William Carl - Reclaimed
Frank Raymond Michaels - Please Stay Dead, Aunt Marnie
Paul McNamee - The Painted Girl
Peter Dudar - Perfect Parent
Victoria Dalpe - Those beneath, devour
Steve Van Samson - A Feast of Flies
Rob Smales - Pet Shop of the Gods
John Buja - Lost Mine of St. Eloi
Trisha Wooldridge - The Mass of the Greatest Sin
Steven LaCroix - Better Late than Never

There you have it 19 original stories - 93K (pre-edits etc)

Weirdbook 40 now available (print edition)

After some delay, issue 40 of Weirdbook is listed on Amazon now. (print edition)

Includes my story, "Pouring Whiskey In My Soul," featuring my occult adventuring American Revolutionary War veteran, Doran Coyle.

I hadn't written Doran Coyle in many years. It felt good to bring him back and felt even better when the tale was accepted.

Weirdbook 40

 

PICKMAN'S GALLERY available now (print edition)

Today is the anniversary of the birth of H. P. Lovecraft.

I re-read "The Dunwich Horror" yesterday.

Also in celebration, Ulthar Press have released PICKMAN'S GALLERY in print. Ebook to follow. (EDIT: Kindle version is now available)

One of the most popular and enduring characters created by H. P. Lovecraft is the mad artist, Richard Upton Pickman. Introduced in the short story, “Pickman’s Model”, Pickman made another appearance in Lovecraft’s fantasy novel, THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH but was that the end of Pickman’s story? What untold horrors awaited? In this brand new collection of seventeen stories, some of weird fiction’s best authors present their versions of Pickman’s life and after-life. Join Peter Rawlik, Paul McNamee, Joshua Reynolds, Robert Price and more in this excursion into the dark side of art. Once you visit Pickman’s Gallery, you will never see the world the same way again!

Currently, the listing lacks a "Look Inside" preview. But thanks to having a proof copy, I can let you in on the table-of-contents.

• Introduction by Matthew Carpenter (editor)
• "One Night South of the Border" by Paul R. McNamee
• "The Studies of Dr. Reid" by Peter Rawlik
• "The Ghulistan Affair" by Sam Inabinet
• "Pigman" by Dave Haendler
• "A Creak in the Floor" by Victoria Dalpe
• "Pickman's Model" by Maurice Lane
• "For Susannah" by Tom Lynch
• "The Ghoul's Portrait" by Joshua Reynolds
• "A Pickman Original" by Logan Noble
• "Pickman's Muse" by Kenneth Heard
• "Eigenspace X" by Mike Chinn
• "The Medium and the Message" by LC Von Hessen
• "Beyond the Veil of Pretty Pink Lies" by Rebecca Allred
• "Pickman's Model Kit" by Cliff Biggers
• "The Pickman Revival" by Steven Vance
• "The Cleaner's Tale" by Tom Johnstone
• "A Photograph from Life" by Robert M. Price

recent read; Weirdbook #38

Weirdbook #38

I've been acquiring magazines (electronic and print) in addition to books and I should start reading more of them. And by magazines, of course, I mean anthology fiction magazines.

I should also review the newer titles to support the 'zines out there now that are delivering the kind of stuff I enjoy reading. Weirdbook is certainly one of those titles.

#38 is a good mix and like every anthology, some stories appealed more than others. I should think any pulp fan would enjoy it for the most part. The content is truly a "Weird" mix with fantasy, sword-&-sorcery, and horror (including Lovecraftian horror.) There are poems in the mix, too.

All of the current run of Weirdbook helmed by Douglas Draa are available - even cheaply for Kindle if you want. (this issue is currently the least expensive in eformat.)

Because I want to support them, I feel a little conflict of interest reviewing this magazine for the following reason; I must now publicly disclaim that I am scheduled to appear in Weirdbook #40.

This is also why I am giving a high-level simple review. I don't want to review each story or pick out favorites.

So, all the more selfish reason for me to ask you to keep these 'zines going!

recent read; Two tales of Elak

Yesterday I made mention of the old anthology, THE MIGHTY BARBARIANS. In that book, Henry Kuttner's story "Dragon Moon" appears. The story is the last of his tales concerning his sword-&-sorcery hero, Elak of Atlantis. The tale originally appeared in WEIRD TALES in 1941.

I recently learned (stumbled upon the fact) that Adrian Cole had written an Elak pastiche for STRANGE TALES in 2007, when the magazine was briefly revived by Robert M. Price.

I wanted to read Cole's story and today was a good day for it. I read Kuttner's tale first, too.

"Dragon Moon" tells the story of Elak giving up his adventurous ways to accept his destiny as king of Cyrena, one of the Atlantean kingdoms. Of course, his destiny is not so easily embraced or achieved. He must battle villains and monsters and armies along the way.

It's a fun episodic tale. Elak somewhat parallels Conan as far as a man who would prefer adventure over kingship.

Rather than a "between the tales" story, Cole's "Blood of the Moon God" takes place a year after the events of "Dragon Moon" (which worked out for me!) Elak is given to forest expeditions to relieve his royal boredom. Though he is a legitimate king by blood, enemies still abound, including unscrupulous cousins. Trapped by an ambush, Elak and his companions find themselves underground, fighting for their lives against worse foes.

I won't give too much away. I will say that we all know another s-&-s hero from Atlantis, and there are nearly as many Robert E. Howard elements to Cole's story as there are nods to Kuttner.

I was pleased with the story and believe it worthy of Elak and Kuttner.

If you are interested in Cole's story, copies of STRANGE TALES #10 are still available through Wildside Press. (disclaimer; I haven't read the rest of the issue yet.)

recent read; STRANGE TALES, Jan. 1932

Time for a retro review!

I've picked up a few Girasol pulp replicas in the past year. This Strange Tales Jan 1932 issue jumped out at me both for its cover and for the authors listed in the contents. It's October, so I decided to read the entire content rather than cherry pick this one.

"Dead Legs" by Edmond Hamilton
Thugs meet mad surgeon story. In this case, a crippled mob boss forces a brilliant doctor to graft new legs onto his body. The legs are those of the mob boss's murdered rival. The cursed legs try to get the mob boss killed. Entertaining but a bit of a stretch and certainly not classic.

"Wolves of Darkness" by Jack Williamson
Classic horror novella that turns the werewolf story on its ear. What starts out in the usual fashion - a lone man called to a remote destination where strange thing are afoot - soon changes tracks. For, not only do the wolves and people of this story seem preternatural, it is eventually revealed that strange alien life forces - not lyncathropy - are at work.

"The Moon-Dial" by Henry S. Whitehead
This one falls under light fantasy as a young man falls under the spell of the moon. He recalls past lives - all with a connection of scrying scenes under the light of the moon. Robert E. Howard fans might enjoy the passage from a Roman soldier's point-of-view, as they abandon Hadrian's Wall to the amassing Picts.

"The Black Laugh" by William J. Makin
Good horror story set in Boer Africa. A young man woos a woman who teases him into scaling a plateau. But the hapless lover cannot find his way back down. Madness ensues. I swear I've read this one before. I'll need to check some of my anthologies.

"The Shadow on the Sky" by August Derleth
A haunted house and a curse. A non-Lovecraftian story. Nothing wrong but nothing memorable, either.

"The Door To Saturn" by Clark Ashton Smith
A sword-&-sorcery entry involving a blasphemous sorcerer who flees through a portal to Saturn, and his arch rival who gets trapped there with him. Entertaining story and Smith has a great way of imparting cyclopean landscapes. It is a story on the light side, though. No clashing barbarians here.

"The Smell" by Francis Flagg
A ghost story where instead of the ghost being only seen or only heard by one person, a certain odor accompanies the spirit's presence. Again, serviceable albeit not overly memorable.

"The Door of Doom" by Hugh B. Cave
A ruined mansion, a strange Oriental servant, and four daring survivors of World War I who thrill themselves with occult challenges. This one went places I wasn't expecting. I assumed a weird/yellow menace story but it is, in fact, a tale of the supernatural. It reads like a series, yet some main characters die. So, it does a real good job of feinting the reader. This reader, anyway.

All in all,  a strong issue with justifiable classics. I'm glad I grabbed it.

(and who doesn't love all the old advertisements?)

Weird Tales originals

At one of my area comic shops this weekend, I noticed they had a cache of original Weird Tales by the register. I hadn't seen them there before, and as soon as the shop owner noticed I was buying Boom Studios' graphic novel of Hawks of Outremer, he pointed them out to me. (Of course, I had already thumbed through them!)

They had some with Robert E. Howard content and some with H. P. Lovecraft though I don't remember exactly what.

So tempting. But at $90~100 per issue I couldn't personally justify a purchase.

Two of the issues they had;

"The Sea-Witch" by Nictzin Dyalhis wound up in Echoes of Valor III thanks to Karl Edward Wagner.

Northwest of Earth by C. L. Moore

Northwest of Earth is a collection of the tales concerning the space-ways faring rogue, Northwest Smith. Descriptively, one's first impression is that Smith is the prototype for Han Solo. Ray-gun at the hip, leather outfit and scarred face, Smith is an outlaw of the solar system. These stories, written during the Weird Tales heyday of the 1930s, feature the typical solar system of a dry Mars and jungle Venus, but both quite habitable and populated by various races.

While Smith is pure space opera character, though, these stories are not. These stories read far more like Clark Ashton Smith's weird stories. The planets are full of ancient mysteries, lost races, strange civilizations. Smith constantly encounters cosmic horror style antagonists, not aliens. The only time the ray-guns blaze are when dispatching an ancient monster. No shoot-outs here, nor any spaceship dogfights. The stories have far more atmosphere than action.

So, as a different, scifi take on atmospheric weird tales, the Northwest Smith stories are worth a read.

But, as a pure adventure space opera read, Northwest of Earth are not the stories you are looking for.

On a side note; this collection comes from Paizo's Planet Stories line. They have put many old tales into print with more to come. Check them out if you haven't!