Lawks a-mercy, it is a time of great scurryingness and the doing of doings. So we’ll have to lift up our skirts and roll out some quick snippets to appease our listenerdom. The longdogs are busy playing in heaps of autumn leaves, which they love, so here’s a nod to some new horror releases. Next time we’re on bookshelf madness, we should be rustling up some proper in-depth features and reviews. Take today as a hastily erected signpost…
Creeping Unstable Entities
The first one’s Matthew M. Bartlett’s The Stay-Awake Men and Other Unstable Entities. It’s a short collection in a limited print run from Dunhams Manor Press, just out. We are great fans of Matthew’s almost unique style and approach to weird fiction, and have high hopes that this will further his reputation as a weird fiction front-runner. The collection contains:
- Introduction by Scott Nicolay
- Carnomancer
- Spettrini
- Following You Home
- No Abiding Place on Earth
- Kuklalar
- The Stay-Awake Men
- The Beginning of the World
It also features art by Dave Felton and Steve Santiago. Only available from the publisher in this edition:
http://dynatox.storenvy.com/products/21401402-the-stay-awake-men-and-other-unstable-entities-by-matthew-m-bartlett-dunhWriting for Dwimmerfolk
One which, although it could be for anyone, will probably appeal to the writers especially. On November 17th, Crystal Lake Publishing will be releasing Where Nightmares Come From: The art of storytelling in the horror genre. This book, packed with articles and interviews, discusses taking an idea from conception to reality—whether you prefer short stories, novels, films, or comics.
The line-up of horror authors contributing to the tome includes Joe R. Lansdale, Richard Chizmar, Stephen King, Charlaine Harris and Tim Waggoner, amongst lots of other familiar names.
greydogtales will be interviewing TimWaggoner about his work and his contribution to Where Nightmares Come From later this November.
A Horror for All Seasons
Adam Nevill, whose book The Ritual has recently been made into a very well received film, has released another collection of his dark short stories, Hasty for the Dark (31st October).
“These selected terrors range from the speculative to supernatural horror, encompass the infernal and the occult, and include stories inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell.Hasty for the Dark is the second short story collection from the award-winning and widely appreciated British writer of horror fiction, Adam L. G. Nevill. The author’s best horror stories from 2009 to 2015 are collected here for the first time.”
We were there for the launch party at Fantasycon 2017 (in exotic Peterborough), and were impressed as usual by both Adam’s modesty when talking about his work, and his dedication to the genre. We’ll try and give this a proper review as soon as we have a moment.
Amazon UK http://amzn.eu/fEzOUSd
Amazon US http://a.co/9zEGS0d
We also discussed Adam’s Under a Watchful Eye earlier this year. http://greydogtales.com/blog/adam-nevill-watchful-eye-venus/
The Horror in Crystal Lake
As we’re in the area, also from Crystal Lake and available immediately comes Tales from the Lake 4. “Twenty-four heart-rending tales with elements of terror, mystery, and a nightmarish darkness that knows no end.” Which is a bit worrying, but that’s the territory.
“In the spirit of popular Dark Fiction and Horror anthologies such as Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories and Behold: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, and the best of Stephen King’s short fiction”, Crystal Lake Publishing’s series of anthologies Tales from The Lake aim to showcase a whole range of horrors. We’re particularly pleased to see that there’s a new Ted E Grau story in there.
• Jennifer Loring – When the Dead Come Home • Joe R. Lansdale – The Folding Man • Kealan Patrick Burke – Go Warily After Dark • T. E. Grau – To the Hills • Damien Angelica Walters – Everything Hurts, Until it Doesn’t • Sheldon Higdon – Drowning in Sorrow • Max Booth III – Whenever You Exhale, I Inhale • Bruce Golden – The Withering • JG Faherty – Grave Secrets • Hunter Liguore – End of the Hall • David Dunwoody – Snowmen • Timothy G. Arsenault – Pieces of Me • Maria Alexander – Neighborhood Watchers • Timothy Johnson – The Story of Jessie and Me • Michael Bailey – I will be the Reflection Until the End • E.E. King – The Honeymoon’s Over • Darren Speegle – Song in a Sundress • Cynthia Ward – Weighing In • Michael Haynes – Reliving the Past • Leigh M. Lane – The Long Haul • Mark Cassell – Dust Devils • Del Howison – Liminality • Gene O’Neill – The Gardener • Jeff Cercone – Condo by the Lake
With an introduction by editor Ben Eads. Cover art by Ben Baldwin.
Amazon US http://a.co/648RpCJ
Amazon UK http://amzn.eu/aTNgreX
Free Horror Short Stories
From now until the end of December, you can obtain a whole viper’s nest of short stories from a range of dark/horror writers – and it won’t cost you a brass doubloon. Seventeen writers are on Instafreebie, including Willie Meikle, K H Koehler, Brian Knight and John Linwood Grant.
Kindle-formatted, completely free stories. Go have a browse…
https://www.instafreebie.com/gg/CLQSMmUKVSsMkWuylYO3
A Song, A Kiss and a Scare
Now, we don’t do much creepy romantic stuff, but we do get asked to mention it some times. So this is a bit of news that we were sent about Jessica Bayliss’s new book, Broken Chords. Never say that we won’t have at least one shot at something (and we know how to load our own bullets, so watch yourselves).
“Here’s how last year’s Gypsy Cob Music Festival should have gone. Lenora “Lenny” Ragno was supposed to rock her duet with her long-time crush, Jeb, during the open-mic competition. Then, swept up in the glow of success, he’d finally kiss her. Instead, Lenny choked on stage and spent the whole year dodging him online. And avoiding playing her fiddle in public. She thought her worst nightmare was behind her, but she was way wrong.
“Now, she’s back at Gypsy Cob where avoiding a public performance is about as impossible as hiding from Jeb. She thinks facing him will be the scariest part of the festival, but when one of their friends talks everyone into trying astral projection, Lenny catches the eye of a demonic entity that marks her as its own.
“Whenever it wants, the demon can pluck Lenny from her reality and transport her to a hellish between-world, haunted by its countless, gruesome victims. If she doesn’t want to become one of them, she must discover the nature of the demon’s hold on her and remove it. But how can she defeat a literal demon when she can’t even get over her personal ones?”
And here’s a quick taste:
“The frozen playground equipment came alive as ghost children capered and played. The words to ‘Wind and Rain’ came out of each of their mouths, but with a singular voice, high and breathy and laced with that slimy, rotten smell.
“They spun on the carousel, catching me each time around with the ragged, torn pits that used to hold their eyes. They soared skyward on the teeter-totter—up and down and up and down and up and down—grinning gleeful smiles full of charred coal. Their skin…no, that stuff wasn’t skin. Not anymore. Dead. Colorless. Dried out like scaly tree bark. Grown over by mold and time. Every twitch of cheek or wave of hand tore a little more away from their bones. If they had bones.
“All singing. All laughing. All pointing.
“At me.”
Amazon UK http://amzn.eu/dWf6b8q
Amazon US http://a.co/aohzJfo
We should have an ‘Also Received’ section, as we have many other books to mention, but we need to do some serious reading, as we prefer running features to these quick slots. Coming up soon, three female dark poets talk about poetry, horror and their own work, and all sorts of other stuff that makes our head spin. Remember to subscribe (top left, also totally free) if you want to be warned…