Today we have a quick celebration of new works by two fine gentlemen, Ted E Grau and Sam Gafford. ‘Quick’ because the longdogs need to go out and bark pointlessly at squirrels for an hour or so; ‘new’ because it is so, and ‘fine’ because, well, both of these authors were with us a year ago, and have not disappointed.
Squirrel season is always a fraught one, especially because Chilli, our alpha female, is lean, wiry and fast – and can almost climb trees. We have horrendous visions of her making it, and being thirty foot up in the branches, in hot and hazardous pursuit of one of those fluffy tree-rats. We mentioned this last year…
Sadly, Lieutenant Twiglet is no longer with us, but the other two have lost none of their enthusiasm for pursing the uncatchable. Our most recent encounter was with a squirrel which was being chased at the same time by a cat. This nearly blew Chilli’s multiple-targeting system, and resulted in much tangling of leads and wrenched joints.
Anyway, at greydogtales we keep our friends close (we keep our enemies in a lead-lined box marked ‘Do Not Open until the Last Chicken Carcass has Gone’ as emergency rations for Django and Chilli). We interviewed both Sam and Ted last Autumn (or Fall, in their case, what with them being colonials), which was both enjoyable and enlightening. So it only seemed fair that we checked in on what they’re putting out at the moment.
The Grau Particle
In 2015 Ted E Grau delighted us with his excellent debut collection, The Nameless Dark, which showed off the dark and worrying range of his talent. In our interview with him, he mentioned a novella due out in 2016. Lo and behold, it is come. Or is coming to pre-order this week, we understand. They Don’t Come Home Anymore will be published This Is Horror, and as soon as we have the order link, we’ll shove it up on the site. This Is Horror ‘s general website should flag it up as well.
LATE NEWS ADD – Pre-order is now up on Amazon : they don’t come home anymore
“Find a safe place to die. And make sure it is away from the people and away from the sky.”
Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author T.E. Grau delivers a tale of obsession, alienation, and a teenage girl in search of something beyond the reach of death. But sometimes, when they journey too far, They Don’t Come Home Anymore.
In the interview, Ted described the budding idea at that time as “my take on obsession, hero worship, legend vs. fact, and vampire culture.” How far the idea has mutated in the intervening period will soon become apparent. A sneakily early goodreads review says of the novella
“THEY DON’T COME HOME ANYMORE draws way outside the line of conventional weird and horror. It’s a fragmented puzzle and a heartbreaking allegory for the ruthlessness of adulthood.”
So we’re quite keen to get this one. You can find last year’s greydogtales interview with Ted here:
a voice from the nameless dark
In addition, Ted’s deeply disquieting, novelette ‘Monochrome’ will be one of the highlights of Occult Detective Quarterly Issue One, which is being prepared for the printers as we write.And you can still buy The Nameless Dark if you haven’t already done so.
Which leads us nicely into today’s other creative, a certain Mr Gafford…
And The Gafford Quantum
Sam Gafford has been visibly editorial a lot this year, even though he’s been writing away in the background and completing his magnum opus on Jack the Ripper and Arthur Machen. Despite our interest in the idea of Arthur Machen high on cocaine in a steam-powered Victorian exoskeleton, grappling with the Ripper above the London rooftops, while Inspector Abberline loads his patented radium rifle, we suspect that this will be a chilling piece of serious horror. And researched to higher standards than our general tittle-tattle.
Editorially, Sam has been preparing Occult Detective Quarterly along with old greydog, and edited the anthology Carnacki: The Lost Cases, which came out in July. He has just announced a forthcoming anthology based on H P Lovecraft’s story Pickman’s Model, and also returned to his field of scholarship with a third marvellous collection of work on William Hope Hodgson himself, the Grandfather of the Weird – Sargasso 3.
Each issue of Sargasso has been a labour of love, reflecting on Hope Hodgson’s striking work at the turn of last century and exploring those who have followed in his footsteps (as we do here, though somewhat less rigorously than Sam). This third issue of Sargasso includes essays, poetry and new fiction to delight. We say issue, but each has been a book in its own right, really, and Sargasso 3 brings 150 pages of fascinating stuff:
Fiction
- “Corpse-Light” by Josh Reynolds
- “A Hideous Communion” by James Gracey
Essays
- “A Particular Phase of Constructive Thought: Hodgson’s Trilogy of Novels” by Joseph Hinton
- “Utter Quiet in All the Land: A Recurring Motif” by Ryan Jefferson
- “The House on the Borderland: The Ultimate Horror Novel” by Liam Garriock
- “Ye Hogge”: Liminality and the Motif of the Monstrous Pig in Hodgson’s “The Hog” and “The House on the Borderland” by Leigh Blackmore
- “The House on the Burren: The Physical and Psychological Foundations of The House on the Borderland” by Joseph Hinton
- “Terminal Eden: The Last Redoubt and the Closure of History” by Brett Davidson
Poetry
- “The Beautiful Mirdath” by Charles Danny Lovecraft
- “From a Mariner on the Glen Carrig” by Charles Danny Lovecraft
- “Night Land—And What I Saw” by Charles Danny Lovecraft
The front and back cover art is by the talented Robert Knox.
Amazon UK: sargasso 3
US Link: sargasso 3
All three Sargassoes are available on Amazon. Sam believes that this will be the last issue, at least for now, partly because of the difficulty of getting new material directly relevant to WHH. Unlike Lovecraft, very few of Hope Hodgson’s letters survive, and there is a general scarcity of background material through which to dig. All the more interesting, then, that we are in somewhat of a Hodgsonian revival, as we call it, when it comes to new fiction. A testament to the man’s imagination and impact on weird literature.
Holmes Away From Home
Last time we mentioned the Kickstarter campaign for the strange and wonderful book The Arte Mephitic, so we’d better add that the campaign for a most promising two volume anthology of Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes Away from Home, finishes in five days (as of today). Yes, John Linwood Grant is in this one, and so yes, we have a vested interest. But we want to read it as well, being period detective fans. These are no ordinary tales, but imaginative forays into what exactly Holmes did after his supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls. Any support you can give would no doubt be appreciated by all and sundry. It’s very good value.
holmes away from home kickstarter
We bow and ease our way, dear listener, back to the many writing chores of the old greydog. See you soon.