Weird Art the Greydogtales Way

August 26, 2017 greydogtales Leave a comment

Weird art. And more art. We’re celebrating the illustrated side of greydogtales, as part of our 2^nd anniversary, with just a few examples to give you the idea. And we have some more testimonial fun from our guests over the period, including artists John Coulthart and M Wayne Miller, artist/writer Bob Freeman, and writer Ted E Grau. Plus our competition continues. Scroll down and enjoy!

Most pics should be clickable for larger images. Where a feature or interview link is included, lots more work by that artist can be found via that link. ALL art copyright the creators.

John Coulthart

The UK-based artist John Coulthart has a true gift, with an incredible attention to detail and a style which speaks Coulthart with every line. We were fortunate to interview him a while back. Since then he’s busy with a load of projects, many of which are under wraps, but he mentioned recently that he’s been involved in recent covers for Angry Robot Books, and illustrating a range of horror classics for two different imprints.

He has a new piece of work in The Thing Artbook, a tribute to John Carpenter’s masterpiece which Printed In Blood are publishing this month.

Print weird art greydogtales — © john coulthart

He has this to say of greydogtales:

“ ‘Literature, lurchers and life’ they call it. ‘Lurchers’? A name for a cross-bred dog but too close to ‘lurkers’ for comfort; things hovering at the threshold, straining the integrity of the angled dimensions like Frank Belknap Long’s Tindalosian Hounds. Plenty of lurkers here, a fine company of weird-mongers have followed the tails of those cross-bred dogs to their natural home. Happy birthday!”

You can also see John’s work on the cover of Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders. Sixteen stories and two poems take you into the spaces between the ordinary—and the imaginations of some of today’s masters of dark and thrilling fiction. From Crystal Lake Publishing, edited by Doug Murano, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated co-editor of the smash hit Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories.

61WFamSXj0L._SY346_ http://amzn.eu/1o4Lgzf

Our interview with John is here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/john-coulthart-axioms-other-dark-beasts/

M Wayne Miller

M Wayne Miller is well-known to many lovers of weird art through his excellent book covers and interior illustrations, full of adventure and impact. He works as easily in crisp black and white as he does in glorious technicolour.

apocrypha, thunderstorm books (2014) — © m wayne miller

“I had the pleasure of working with greydogtales and ODQ on one of the quirkiest and most fun projects I have ever worked on. It featured a gorilla as a supernatural detective in what is the funniest noir story I have ever read. I expect readers will have enjoyed the tale as much as I. My hope is the artwork added to the fun! I wish GDT a very happy two year anniversary, and hope many more are in store! Perhaps even a bit of artwork now and then from yours truly will add to the fun. Cheers!”

We featured Wayne here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/m-wayne-miller-an-artist-speaks/

And you can visit mwaynemiller.com to view more of his work. Here’s the occult detective art which Wayne mentions above, from Occult Detective Quarterly 1.

gotmymojo_wayne_m_miller300 — © m wayne miller

The Great Weird Art Gallery

Time for a quick glimpse at some of the work we’ve been able to show off in our two years.

1) Los Grandes Ilustradores

Santiago Caruso, Sebastian Cabrol and Pablo Burman are only three of the terrific South American artists who are making waves, both on canvas and in books, comics and graphic novels.

a sample of sebastian cabrol's fabulous style — © sebastian cabrol

0619301d040b767b4b5200c57c78c9c9--tempera-the-father — © santiago caruso

2) Folklore and Folk Horror.

Folk horror is an abiding interest here, and lends itself to the strange and moody in art. We’ve interviewed a number of people in the FHR movement, especially the artists.

corpse birds, by the great andy paciorek — © andy paciorek

Copyright Paul Watson, 2014 — © paul watson

the secrets low res version — © cobweb mehers

You can see more in our special folk horror features, such as those on Andy Paciorek, Cobweb Mehers and Paul Watson:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/andy-paciorek-the-weirdfinder-general-pt-2/

http://greydogtales.com/blog/eoliths-and-nephilim-a-word-with-cobweb-mehers/

http://greydogtales.com/blog/the-dark-folk-arts-of-paul-watson/

3) The Art of Sword and Soul

We’re great enthusiasts of the work being done by black creators in speculative fiction, and love some of the related illustrations, especially the wild fantasy.

4) The Art Fantastic

We’re interested in the strangest of things, works which flirt with surrealism and decadence. Perhaps the most popular artist featured in the last two years has been Michael Hutter.

carcosa XXXIV, hutter — carcosa XXXIV, © michael hutter

We had a rare interview with him here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/michael-hutter-interviewed-carcosa-and-beyond/

beautiful gardener, hutter — beautiful gardener, © michael hutter

Raphael Ordonez provided us with some striking imagery, whilst discussing both his paintings and his fantastical speculative fiction, such as the King of Nightspore’s Crown:

king of nightspore's crown, art by ordonez — © raphael ordonez

More about Raphael here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/raphael-ordonez-fractals-fantasies/

Another popular guest was Alan M Clark, an award-winning artist and also a writer of dark historical novels.

keys of the king, copyright alan m clark — © alan m clark

You can see Alan’s work in our long feature:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/dark-arts-dark-lives-the-world-of-alan-m-clark/

There are so many more that we can only pick a few, sadly. There’s the intricate, sometimes psychedelic work of Paul Boswell, who works as Mutartis Boswell (and is the illustrator for JLG’s ‘A Persistence of Geraniums):

c. mutartis boswell — © mutartis boswell

Or the beautifully stylish work of M S Corley, known to many for his book covers and his illustrated interpretation of Carnacki the Ghost Finder:

You can find out more about his work in our interview with him http://greydogtales.com/blog/mr-hyde-mr-poe-and-mr-carnacki-an-interview-with-m-s-corley/

We’re always aware that because we’re not organised, and we feature artists as they turn up through other projects, we’ve covered more male illustrators than female ones. This is something we need to rectify. Here’s the work of Barbara Sobczynska, which we mentioned when we covered 18thWall Production’s anthology , After Avalon, edited by Nicole Petit:

c. barbara sobczynska weird art — ©barbara sobczynska

Or how about the wonderful cover by Sarah Anne Langton, for Fight Like a Girl, edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall?

Fight-Like-A-Girl1 — © sarah anne langton

There’s incredible work being done by many more female artists, such as Reiko Murakami.

And Caitlin Hackett, who produced the cover for Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, from Crystal Lake, which links us to another artist we interviewed.

Gutted-Cover1-600x441 — © caitlin hackett

Luke Spooner and Carrion House produce illustration for a wide range of publications, including the Crystal Lake book above. Here’s one for the forthcoming Fearful Fathoms double anthology, coming from Scarlet Galleon Publications.

21055186_1750368511658269_4202210075827766514_o — © luke spooner

We talked to Luke about illustrating Gutted here http://greydogtales.com/blog/how-to-illustrate-clive-barker-a-gutted-special/

Bob Freeman

Bob is a writer and an artist/designer, as well as being a real-life occult detective. Greydogtales talked to him last Autumn, and he now has a supernatural collection out, as well as Tarot cards, games and all sorts under his broad wing.

“Happy Anniversary, John! greydogtales has weathered the storm, two years running and growing stronger with every post. It is one of my favorite watering holes, where the weird is well at home. Your tastes mirror my own and thus I am well and duly thrilled to set out wandering amongst the reviews and missives that populate your site. I trust your little corner of the web will continue to prosper and lurch about. Skál!”

— Bob Freeman, author of First Born: Tales of the Liber Monstrorum

This is our interview http://greydogtales.com/blog/games-portents-paranormal-worlds-bob-freeman/ and you can get Bob’s new collection here:

35670006 http://amzn.eu/8YaZrvS

Ted E Grau

Late last year we also showed off Candace Tripp’s beautiful cover for Ted E Grau’s novella They Don’t Come Home Anymore. In this, the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author delivers a tale of obsession, alienation, and a teenage girl in search of something beyond the reach of death. We were dead impressed with his debut collection The Nameless Dark, and the novella takes his writing in strange and poignant directions.

“What do dark fiction and cross-bred dogs have in common? Very little, which is what makes greydogtales such an eclectic, unique electronic repository of all sorts of interesting things.

“John Linwood Grant has taken a personal hobbyist page and elevated it into a well-regarded digital publication and publisher, devoted to weird fiction and art, occulted noir, historical and cultural scholarship, and lurchers. And it all works seamlessly.

“I’m glad greydogtales is around, as it adds to the beautiful, intelligent strangeness of contemporary genre fiction.”

— T.E. Grau, author of They Don’t Come Home Anymore

32994792 http://a.co/bhtGXak

You can read lots more about Ted here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/ted-e-grau-a-voice-from-the-nameless-dark/

And there we run out of steam and space. More celebratory stuff next time. Don’t forget our offer for the anniversary. We have 3 advance pdf copies of John Linwood Grant’s A Persistence of Geraniums available for free. The book will be coming out soon, in print format only initially, from Electric Pentacle Press, written and designed by JLG and illustrated by Paul Boswell.

To win one, simply email the NAME of JLG’s novella, which entangles a famous fictional detective with his series Tales of the Last Edwardian, to carfanel@greydogtales.com by 1^st September 2017. The winners will be picked out of a dog bowl by Django.

Be kind,be weird, and if you want to know what we’re up to, you can subscribe for free in the top-left hand corner…

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Ghosts & Geraniums: A Weird Celebration

August 22, 2017 greydogtales Leave a comment

Harrumble! Some great authors speak out on our behalf, we list the Top Ten Books sought out via the site, AND we have a giveaway. Yes, dear listener, greydogtales is two years old this month, a surprising achievement for one of the unlikeliest websites. We are celebrating with a series of posts, starting with our love of weird fiction, horror and that sort of thing. Lurchers will follow later. And at the bottom of each post, you’ll find a little competition.

carcosa XXV - the stunning work of artist michael hutter — carcosa XXV – the stunning work of artist michael hutter. you’ll find out why next time…

For our first celebratory post, we start with fiction, and those who craft it. We are unashamed readers of anything that’s a bit odd, a touch strange – anything that teases the edges of the brain and slides in and out of the many supposed genres. And greydogtales exists to provide signposts. You might not like everything, but we’re sure you’ll find something that suits you.

During our anniversary we’ll have appearances by some of our many talented guests over the run so far. We’ll break the ice with two favourites – a Young American and a Stalwart Scot….

Kiste by the Weird

The gifted North American author Gwendoyln Kiste joined us earlier this year to discuss her collection And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe. This debut collection is a tour-de-force of what makes modern Weird Fiction tick – beautiful writing, original and challenging ideas, and fascinating characters.

“Greydogtales.com is one fabulously fun and eccentric blog for fans of the offbeat. The site’s unique lineup of interviews, reviews, and, of course, the eponymous dogs is as intriguing as it is informative. If you’re looking for new books to add to your weird fiction reading list, then greydogtales.com absolutely has you covered with titles and authors that are always must-reads. And don’t stop at the featured books; you also need to check out the section on purveyor John Linwood Grant’s writing; his own stories blend all the best elements of the weird, the speculative, and the utterly fantastic.

“Happy two years of existence, greydogtales.com! Here’s to many, many more wonderful and weird years to come!”

— Gwendolyn Kiste, author of And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe

https://www.amazon.com/Her-Smile-Will-Untether-Universe-ebook/dp/B06XJ9Q48R/

You should read this book – a talent to watch. And our full interview with Gwendolyn is here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/fables-disappearances-untethered-tales-gwendolyn-kiste/

Many a Meikle…

For contrast, an expatriate Scot who is no stranger to beards and who now lives in Canada. With a massive back-catalogue of horror, SF, adventure, weird and detective stories, we bump into Willie Meikle fairly often. He’s a true storyteller.

“Whimsy. It’s normally a word that has me running, screaming, in the other direction, but over the last two years greydogtales has caught me in its tangled web.

“Where else can you read learned discourse on the great and good of weird fiction but at the same time get gradings on the varieties and consistency of dog poop? Where else can we find the tattered scraps of rural living that tell the stories of life on the blasted heaths of Yorkshire? I came for the weird fiction but stayed for the lurchers.

“And it seems to be working marvelously for John himself, with ever larger numbers of stories, editorships and new and varied projects spawning like tadpoles from his feverish imagination. Long may it continue.”

— Willie Meikle, author of Sherlock Holmes: The Dreaming Man

51Ni21ZtcCL http://amzn.eu/gTtqurC

Two Years of Weird Shelving

THE TOP TEN

We always try to provide copious links for those books we mention, either because they’re new, strange or useful – sometimes all three. How many times listeners follow up a book link is a matter of mystery (and some haven’t been up as long as others). So this isn’t a competition, it’s an eyeball on what other people are following.

Here are the top ten books that have drawn serious attention on the site, by traffic registered and enquiries. It’s incredibly satisfying to see that people have been investigating such a wide range, as that’s what greydogtales is for.

1) Cthulhusattva

Tales of the Black Gnosis. Our out-and-out winner (by miles, actually), with a book which has clearly intrigued many. You can also read our interview with Scott R Jones, the Lord of Martian Migraine Press, here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/cthulhu-on-mars-an-interview-with-scott-r-jones/

2) Carnacki: The Lost Cases

Possibly not a surprise given our regular coverage of Carnacki and William Hope Hodgson. A sort of companion to those anthologies where writers develop cases mentioned in passing in Sherlock Holmes stories – but this time we focus on a different detective, and the supernatural definitely does apply.

3) Corpse Roads

Folk horror in its many forms is dear to our hearts, and we covered the subject of corpse roads twice last year as a result of this great anthology of striking images and poetry:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/on-corpse-roads-bound/

http://greydogtales.com/blog/corpse-roads-again-walking-the-dead/

4) The Last Words of Robert Johnson and Other Tales

A skilful blend of history, horror, myth and fantasy in the stories here. Author J Malcolm Stewart kindly gave us an interview about his writing here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/went-roadhouse-met-j-malcolm-stewart/

5) Probably Monsters Ray Cluley

This collection still intrigues. We spoke to Ray Cluley about his work some eighteen months ago:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/stranger-seas-3-ray-cluley-surfaces-for-air/

6) Blood, Sweat and Fears

Memories of a bankrupt New York, a confused London, and those strange seventies where horror was king and queen. An anthology of another time by the writers of the Now.

7) Witchfinder Volume 3 The Mysteries of Unland

Kim Newman et al. This came up as part of our highlighted piece on Hellboy and Sir Edward Grey, with art by Santiago Caruso and others:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/hellboy-santiago-caruso-the-three-sir-edward-greys/

8) The Raven’s Table: Viking Tales

A gripping collection with about as much Viking fantasy, action and creepiness as you could ever need. Christine Morgan was a pleasure to interview, especially as we cling to the North Sea and Nordic legends of our youth:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/come-face-raven-viking/

9) The Secrets of Ventriloquism

By Jon Padgett. This bowled us over. A strange and intertwined collection, which may not be what you think – but which may change what you think anyway. A must for fans of what some call the New Weird, and others call writing.

10) Carnacki the Ghostfinder (Audiobook)

We were delighted to speak to many of the people involved in this audio project, and even more delighted that actor Dan Starkey brought Carnacki to life in a way which we and others have called ‘definitive’. An essential listen for true enthusiasts.

More Testimonials at Gunpoint

Our other quotes for the day comes from two UK writers. The first is Matt Willis, who we talked to concerning his Daedalus and the Deep fantasy/historical novel – and who shares our interest in peculiar historical events and facts.

“Since first being invited to contribute to greydogtales I feel as though I’ve been drawn into a world of underground fiction populated by charismatic and dangerous figures who will fill your mind with paranormal weirdness and unsettling adventures while they empty your wallet and leave you wondering where the day went. As well as stumbling into various genres I barely knew existed I’ve met some splendid fellows, read a lot of hugely enjoyable fiction and been foolish enough to try and emulate it a little bit, which will probably end in my being sucked into a demonic realm. And I definitely want a long dog.”

— Matt Willis, author, with J A Ironside, of An Argument of Blood (Oath and Crown Book 1)

51+KAWcEjjL._SY346_ http://amzn.eu/g08lD7V

Our full interview with Matt is here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/sea-serpents-saltwater-and-ships-biscuits/

Bev Allen also has an interest in soldiers (her words, not ours), and divides her time between fiction, much of it very English in the quirkiest and best possible sense, and mad quilting.

“I would like to thank greydogtales for saving me from my antimacassar addiction. Before them I spent my days washing, starching and ironing, but now I have overcome this horror and any tendency to run my fingers along picture rails. I now live happily ankle deep in dust and free from doilies etc, and spend my days writing tales of supernatural domestic mayhem and an occult lady detective.

“Mayhem, domestic and strange can be found here.”

— Bev Allen, author of A Solemn Curfew

51fm3WaEoRL._SY346_ https://kentishmaid.wordpress.com/books/a-solemn-curfew-and-other-dark-tales/

We talked to Bev about all sorts of things this Spring:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/solemn-curfew-folklore-horror-cheese/

An Actual Competition

Finally, our modest extra offer for the anniversary. We have 3 advance pdf copies of John Linwood Grant’s A Persistence of Geraniums on offer for free. The book will be coming out soon, in print format only initially, from Electric Pentacle Press, written and designed by JLG and illustrated by Paul Boswell.

Enormous thanks to all our guests and contributors. Next time – our Top Ten Features, more authors join us to speak their piece, and lots of fun. Depending on what you define as fun, of course…

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THE BALLAD OF BLACK HOWARD – Lovecraft & LaValle

August 19, 2017 greydogtales Leave a comment

In which I offer a rambling meditation on writing Lovecraftian fiction (or not), some comments on The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, a new Lovecraftian anthology Equal Opportunities Madness from Otter Libris, and certain oddities from my own pen. And there are no rants, in case you wondered.

Speaking of rants, such is the nature of debate over H P Lovecraft and post- or neo-Lovecraftian fiction nowadays that a few words seem necessary first. I’m here for the writing, and to find out if it’s interesting or enjoyable. Yet merely raising some of the issues causes apoplexy in certain quarters, ranging from the cadre who revere Lovecraft as an unassailable saint, right across to those who decry everything about his work, his life and his abilities without reservation or filtering. It gets a bit intense.

Voices are raised as to which ‘side’ you are on, and even your right to comment. As far as I know, I belong to no cadre, camp or circle in the matter. As a teenager in the seventies and eighties I read Lovecraft (and his circle) avidly and repeatedly. I have all his work, a large selection of the post-Lovecraft anthologies and collections, and I even have a copy of the Dagon collection to hand for bathroom reading right now. And I’ve had enough strange fiction of my own published to reckon I dare offer the odd word.

Regarding HPL’s racism or the lack of women in his work, plenty has been examined elsewhere. In brief, I feel his phobias and prejudices fed his work, and helped form the ‘cosmic horror’ which is his legacy. As for his more appalling statements, views and phrases, I find them indicative of a troubled and flawed man, beating out at a world which wasn’t the one he wanted, in so many ways.

On a personal level, he was horribly racist at a time when an educated man or woman could have chosen not to be. No ‘everyone was like that back then’, please – if you read some of his letter comments on ‘the negro’, even into the last decade of his life, you’ll get the picture. Depressingly, of course, he wasn’t the only writer to hold such views, so I don’t shovel all my anger on to him in particular.

But if some of his prejudices are dreadful, some of his writing is fascinating. And if I write Lovecraftian fiction, which I do on a very occasional, ad hoc basis, I write it because his literary themes and tropes are interesting, unusual, or whatever. A legacy is not a command. But I’ll come back to that. Firstly, I want to mention Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom.

LaValle and Red Hook

Let’s go straight in. Is this a good book? Is it interesting? Is it well written? Yes. And the fact that Victor LaValle is a black author adds additional relevance, though you don’t need to know that to appreciate it. Basically, the book relates to and reinterprets Lovecraft’s story The Horror at Red Hook, a tale which is a melting pot of Lovecraft’s worst views. Poor people and non-Whites, miscegenation, immigrants, etc.

“The population is a hopeless tangle and enigma; Syrian, Spanish, Italian, and negro elements impinging upon one another, and fragments of Scandinavian and American belts lying not far distant. It is a babel of sound and filth, and sends out strange cries to answer the lapping of oily waves at its grimy piers and the monstrous organ litanies of the harbour whistles. Here long ago a brighter picture dwelt, with clear-eyed mariners on the lower streets and homes of taste and substance where the larger houses line the hill.”

The Horror at Red Hook, H P Lovecraft

Which fits pretty much with Lovecraft’s description of New York, as he saw it when he lived there:

“an Asiatic hell’s huddle of the world’s cowed, broken, inartistic, and unfit.”

A 1924 parade by the Universal Negro Improvement Association on Lenox Avenue, Harlem (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. 1924)

LaValle has said of HPL’s racism and views in this area:

“As an adult, I realize the point isn’t to separate Lovecraft’s writing from his prejudices, because his work is infused with, and informed by, those exact prejudices. In fact, his work wouldn’t be as interesting if he wasn’t such a profoundly prejudiced person. One of things he did incredibly well was to tap into a specific kind of fear—white, male, intellectual, upper class (if not wealthy any longer)—and turn that into a dreamy phantasmagoria that generations of readers and writers would eventually have to wander through. I like wrestling with that kind of thing rather than ignoring it.”

Interview, Nightmare Magazine October 2016

In LaValle’s work, the central character is a fine challenge to Lovecraft’s take – Tommy Tester, a black con-man trying to survive in 1920s New York. A real man, in a real world. Yet ironically that’s also one of the awkward aspects. Lavalle is so good at bringing out Tester, later known as Black Tom, and his environment, that you’re drawn into his reality.

“A little after 8 a.m., he left the apartment in his gray flannel suit. The slacks were cuffed but scuffed and the sleeves conspicuously short – fine fabric but frayed. This gave Charles a certain look, like a gentleman without a gentleman’s bank account. He picked the brown leather brogues with nicked toes, then the seal brown trooper hat instead of the fedora. The trooper hat’s brim showed its age and wear, and this was good for his hustle, too. Last, he took the guitar case, essential to complete the look. He left the guitar itself at home with his bedridden father. Inside, he carried only a yellow book, not much larger than a pack of cards. In the apartment, Charles Thomas Tester went by Charles. But on the street, everyone knew him as Tommy – Tommy Tester, always carrying a guitar case. This wasn’t because he aspired to be a musician. In fact, he could barely remember a handful of songs, and his singing voice might be described kindly as wobbly. His father, who had made a living as a bricklayer, and his mother, who spent her life working as a domestic, had loved music. Dad played guitar and mother could really stroll on a piano. It was only natural that Tommy Tester ended up drawn to performing. The only tragedy being that he lacked talent.”

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle

For me, Charles ThomasTester himself is more interesting than the broader Lovecraftian plot. About halfway through, I wished that the whole thing was about him, his father, his associates, and that the ropes of Lovecraft might be let drift a little. Don’t get me wrong, it all works. It’s simply that I wanted even more of the life of Black Tom – the striking descriptions of a black person’s limits in that society, the finely-nuanced touches concerning Tester’s hustles and machinations, and his relationships. At one or two points I almost resented the fact that LaValle slid back to huge cosmic themes, not Tester’s experiences on the streets and the small, weird tasks he undertook.

It is an excellent read for anyone, and deserves to be recommended and shared. I do wish that it been longer (always a good sign, I suppose), and that it had less overtly Lovecraftian stuff in it. But then it wouldn’t be what Lavalle was trying to achieve, I guess.

If you want an intriguing, directly Lovecraftian story with genuine character, then you’re there. If you want a black protagonist who slides into Lovecraft’s horrifying cosmos, written by a black author, then you’re in the right place as well. LaValle has real talent, no doubt of that, and has done something strong.

ballad-of-black-tom http://amzn.eu/gQKWQ5B

You might be interested in the anthology Heroes of Red Hook, though I believe that this is only available in print directly from the publisher, Golden Goblin Press.

427108050 http://www.goldengoblinpress.com/store/#!/Heroes-of-Red-Hook-Softcover/p/74102013

Lovecraftian Leaps

Crawling back to where I was, there are many pitfalls in deliberately writing Lovecraftian fiction these days, even if race and gender characterisations are now considered in a more sane manner (we hope). The most common of these is that it lends itself to over-use of the Mythosian beings rather than the philosophies. There is a limit to how many things can be indescribable yet then frequently described, to the number of passing visits Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath can make to your street before they become more like annoying neighbours.

“That Mr Tsathoggua has put his bins out early again, Fred, and blocked the drive.”

“Embodiment of cosmic evil, him. And he ate the cat last week.”

“Be fair, though. You never liked that cat anyway.”

It’s a problem when publishers and editors come up with a new anthology concept, and you’re an author who might want to slide in there. Amplify a time-honoured Lovecraft theme or trope in your own way? Shove Dagon back or forward a few centuries? Utterly subvert the old approaches? Or take a general weird story and slam a Mi-Go in it for luck. The Waltons, but with brain canisters. Good night, John Boy. Dzzz… crackle… dzzz.

For those of a far more analytic nature than myself, a recent paper in Palgrave Communications (by Dibyakusum Ray) discusses certain philosophical issues as to what is ‘Lovecraftian’. It even cites work by contemporary weird fiction authors such as Michael Wehunt, John Langan and Brian Evenson, as well as Thomas Ligotti.

“ ‘Lovecraftian’ is used rather casually in modern American mass-media. There was incongruity in Lovecraft’s own philosophy as well; lapses mostly owing to zeitgeist—a strong undercurrent of Orientalism including phonetic othering of Eastern sounding names, tendencies explicable now through postcolonial critical framework. The Lovecraftian, in short, inevitably loosened its grip over the unmaking of Rationalism, creating a space for anything involving a ‘mysterious’ eldritch—from creature to body horror—to identify itself to the moniker.”

Following the above statement, an example is given with regard to Mr Wehunt:

“Wehunt is Lovecraftian not because there is a general supernatural mystique in the majority of his stories, he is not Lovecraftian because of the ubiquitous decadent paranoia of the twilight of imperialism (Wehunt is, if anything, deeply concerned with the alienation of the increasingly bourgeois urbanity)—he is Lovecraftian by the dint of the inscrutable theoretical challenge his brand of supernatural imposes.”

The article is quite heavy, and I’m not sure if I agree with everything, but it’s worth a look (link at the end). I suspect that some of those cited would not consider many of their stories at all Lovecraftian, despite the retro-analysis. And it’s a shame that all of those cited seem to be white male authors.

Falling into the Sandpit

I’ve faced the question of writing identifiable Lovecraftian fiction four or five times in the last couple of years, and had many doubts about where I was heading. As a reader, I can enjoy the odd lumbering, squirming monstrosity, but as a writer I find it harder to go there. I’m perhaps closer in sympathy to Wehunt, Griffin and others.

My broad feeling is that if you actively choose to go Lovecraftian, you search out what is truly monstrous, not the monsters. You consider scenarios and psychologies which give access to exploration of sanity, reality and the rest by real people rather than cutouts. I’m a ‘people first’ kind of chap.

So, to give concrete examples – in ‘Messages’, my story for the Cthulhusattva anthology from Martian Migraine, the tale is about the psychology of a mother and daughter who follow Nyarlathotep, not blindly but with clear intent. They have reasons, and reason. They are people on a different path. If anything, they despise the classic Lovecraftian cultists as the ill-informed and unbalanced wannabes that they are.

We who serve the Messenger do not judge by appearances. Schalck and McConnell are ugly inside, small-minded and self-serving. McConnell even looks the part due to the plastic surgery which has widened his mouth and thickened his lips, homage to his professed belief in Dagon. He is wholly human, without any taint of the reef, which must sting him.

In ‘Whiskey, Beans and Dust’, a Mamma Lucy story, the true challenge is not between Mythosian powers, but between the mind-set of an old conjure-woman and a sect of hill-folk.

“You don’t know better, hoodoo woman. A bag of roots and junk in a dress pocket; silver strings on a banjo – and prayers to a God who never was.” He sketched a twisted sign with his left hand. “Our End Times will come, and all will be scoured clean by the wind from the stars.”

“This happenin’ soon?”

“We are not told.”

“So, could be awhile yet, time to set a kettle on the stove, maybe plant some corn.”

“You mock us.”

Mamma Lucy laughed. “Sure as spit, I do.”

Equal Horrors

And then there’s ‘With the Dark and the Storm’, just out in the anthology Equal Opportunities Madness from Otter Libris. I now realise that in terms of any of my tales brushing on Lovecraft, this is the first time I deliberately wrote the ‘heroes’ as non-white characters. In other cases, the protagonists just arrived in my head, whatever colour or gender they were.

This project, however, was proposed as a slightly tongue-in-cheek jab, not so much at Lovecraft as at the typical protagonists of his stories – and many subsequent Lovecraftian tales.

“In the depths of the cosmos there is madness to be found and there are stories to be told… The Elder Gods, Cthulhu, Nyarlethotep, and the like have a taste for fear, for madness, for flesh… But over the years they have grown bored with the taste of the standard straight, white male so often portrayed in the tales of the Mythos. Like a human being with a hankering for Thai after a steady diet of steak and potatoes, the Gods of the Mythos are craving something different…”

I almost didn’t go there, but due to a falling out with Edgar Wallace over his African stories, I wrote a story which was a riposte to the colonial white protagonists of Wallace and the cultist white protagonists of Lovecraft. A story of Igbo villagers in 1920s colonial Nigeria, facing yet more disruption to their way of life – and dealing with it on their own.

The dibia looked up. He was thin and naked except for a dirty white cloak which lay over one shoulder. The cloak covered his lap and went down to the torn matting on the ground.

“Nduka son of Onodugo. I did not think to see you.”

“I did not think to come.” Nduka sat cross-legged opposite the dibia. “Until today. But a dead man once told me that you speak to the gods.”

“It has been known.” The dibia smiled, showing broken teeth.

Equal Opportunities Madness contains the following stories:

Scars of a Certain Value by Christine Lucas
The Horror of the Atoll by DJ Tyrer
With the Dark and the Storm by John Linwood Grant
The Sisters Derleth by Michelle D. Sonnier
A Singular Event, in Several Courses by Kris Dikeman
The Bath, Bottle, and Bar’nyeth Party by Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi
Innsmouth Blues by Jean Roberta
The Black Magnolia on the Bank of the Night’s River by Gordon White
The Thing at Akeley Farm by A.Z. Louise
But Who Can Catch Leviathan? by Chris Pearce
North Bronx Nightmare by Andrea Stanet
The P’tulpa Cult by Daniel S. Duvall
Golem by Jennifer R. Povey
Dreidel of Dread: The Very Cthulhu Chanukah by Alex Shvartsman

It’s available now in print on Amazon, and as an ebook from Smashwords.

61Ox8lZZIUL http://a.co/hK8oMuU

http://amzn.eu/ghp8IGs

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/738264

The fact is that the bulk of my work doesn’t draw on old HPL’s legacy in any immediate way, although I have no doubts about his influence on the field of weird fiction in general. And I don’t expect to be writing Lovecraftian pieces that often, but it’s an interesting place to visit now and then.

For reference, that interview with Victor Lavalle can be found here:

http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/interview-victor-lavalle/

And the philosophical article mentioned above is, in full, Ray D (2017) The true-weird and the dreadful ‘large’: post millennium American horror literature. Palgrave Communications. 3:17080 doi: 10.1057/palcomms.2017.80

https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201780

Phew. Next time, anything – there’s a lot going on. And in September, more lurchers, to celebrate the second anniversary of Lurchers for Beginners…

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HOLMES & THE DAUNTLESS DETECTIVE BOOKSHELF

August 10, 2017 greydogtales Leave a comment

In which Sherlock Holmes goes canonical with MX Publishing, goes speculative with Belanger Books, and finally goes downright supernatural with Willie Meikle. We also call in on Vernon Loder’s 1928 classic murder novel The Mystery at Stowe, and revisit The Department of Dead Ends by Roy Vickers. So today’s article is for anyone who like a good crime or detective story. Unless you insist it has to be set on the mean streets of Glasgow with an alcoholic Scottish police officer barely hanging on to his job. We might have one of those in a later article, mind you…

The Great Detective

So, first out of the cells is Sherlock Holmes, with two huge collections of new Holmes tales coming up this Autumn. In the interests of full disclosure, we note that John Linwood Grant, the old reprobate, has stories in both, but you can always pull his stories out and feed them to the cat.

The ideas behind these particular anthologies were too cool to miss out on, which is why he chanced it. Authentic Holmes with a special twist, and a new version of Wellsian fiction. Who could resist?

1) Eliminate The Impossible

For MX Publishing, the Holmes scholar and editor David Marcum has put together two volumes of new stories under the title Eliminate the Impossible. These are Volumes VII and VIII of the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – forty eight new tales specially written for Halloween.

All the stories are set in the canonical world of the great detective, with the stimulating proviso that these are cases which initially appear to have some supernatural element – until Holmes is through with them. JLG contributed ‘The Second Life of Jabez Salt’, a curious tale about a hanged man who has apparently returned to threaten those who turned on him…

Royalties will go to Stepping Stones, a school for children with learning difficulties) for specific projects such as the new literary program. The Kickstarter has already exceeded its goals, but if you want to take up one of the offers, you’ll find it here, along with details of the authors:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1229605719/eliminate-the-impossible-sherlock-holmes?token=fd92312c

2) In the Realms of H G Wells

Our second Holmes for the day is another anthology with a somewhat different approach. Derrick Belanger and C. Edward Davis have collected more than twenty exciting tales which take Holmes into the imaginative realms of H G Wells.

Drawing on Wells’s speculative stories, here our detective hero has to consider some truly strange conundrums which take him out of his usual zone. Although Conan Doyle and Wells had their occasional differences, you would hope they might appreciate a work which explores both their creations.

This, like Eliminate the Impossible, is a two volume anthology, with a wealth of wonders. Have the Martians returned – or did they ever leave? What altered beasts dwell in the shadows? And what could Cavor’s last words from the moon really mean? The anthology includes ‘The Affair of the Red Opium’, a novelette by greydog. Gosh.

The Case of a Natural Selection by M. M. Elmendorf
The Pigeon’s Rest by Emma Tonkin
The Curious Case of the Sleeper by Steve Herczeg
The Manor House Horror by Michael Siverling
An Adventure in Darkness by Daniel D. Victor
The Adventure of the Traveler’s Bootstraps by William Campbell Powell
The Mystery of the Last Martian by G. C. Rosenquist
The Affair of the Red Opium by John Linwood Grant
The Adventure of the Invisible Man by David Friend
A Matter of Some Gravity by Derrick Belanger
The Adventure of the Red Planet by Steve Poling
The Clash of the Miracle Men by Rohit Sawant
The First Selenites on the Earth by Derek Nason
The Martian Spy-Glass by Jaap Boekestein
The Adventure of the Beastly Excisions by Benjamin Langley
The Adventure of the Disintegrated Man by Michael T. Wells
Sherlock Holmes and The New Accelerator by Mark Levy
A Trap to Catch the Sun by Andrew Lane
The Misplaced Mystery Writer by Richard Paolinelli
The Beast Within by Katie Magnusson
Dr. Watson and the Martians by C. Edward Davis

(Bonus Story if Kickstarter meets Stretch Goal)

Sherlock Holmes in the Realms of H G Wells will be launched via Kickstarter in October, and published before Christmas by Belanger Books. We’ll keep you posted.

3) The Dreaming Man

Thirdly in our Holmes news, we have the pleasure to publish a special review by Dave Brzeski, in which he reports for us on Willie Meikle’s book, Sherlock Holmes: The Dreaming Man, out from Gryphonwood Press earlier this year. This seemed a good point to mention it, and yep, in this one the detective openly meet the supernatural.

Dave Brzeski writes:

I have to confess that I have a bit of a history with this book. When the first part was initially published on its own as Sherlock Holmes: Revenant in 2011, I picked up a review pdf… but I didn’t get around to it. I actually bought a signed paperback copy at Fantasycon in 2012, but still didn’t read it. Them in 2013 it was reissued as a bonus story in the collection, Sherlock Holmes: The Quality of Mercy and Other Stories in 2013 and again I managed to get a review pdf from the author. Nope, still didn’t find the time.

Now ‘Revenant’ has been reissued once again, but this time as the first half of the novel, Sherlock Holmes: The Dreaming Man. Yet again I was supplied with a review copy, this time on Kindle. Unwilling to face the potential embarrassment of not getting around to reviewing it yet again, I decided I’d better prioritise it.

I’ve read quite a few post-Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stories – I’ve even edited several. I can’t deny the fact that I have at times expressed some concern over the sheer number of Sherlock Holmes supernatural adventures that have seen print over the last several years. I felt there was a very real danger that they could soon outnumber the canonical styled tales. This does not mean that I’m automatically biased against supernatural Holmes stories, just that they really need to be very good.

There’s another element that I generally do not want to see in a new Holmes adventure—Moriarty! Yes, he’s always been regarded as Holmes’ greatest adversary, but he only appeared in two of the original stories. It has sadly proven near impossible for the many authors who’ve followed in the wake of Conan Doyle to resist using Moriarty to an extent that’s only rivalled by Jack the Ripper.

William Meikle has not only given us a supernatural Holmes story, but it also involves Moriarty—I hope no one considers this too much of a spoiler, but I figure anyone who can’t work out exactly who is referred to in the blurb, “A fall is coming, a fall that has haunted Holmes’ dreams, and now must be faced again, in the place where past and present become one, and two old foes meet for a final battle.”, has likely never heard of Sherlock Holmes or Moriarty.

I’m a fan of Meikle’s work, so I didn’t let myself be put off. Just as well, as this is possibly the best Sherlock Holmes supernatural adventure I’ve read to date, if not one of the best post-Conan Doyle stories of any sort.

Any misgivings I may have held about the supernatural elements of the story were soon dispelled. Meikle treats the supernatural in a very scientific way, which makes it much easier to stomach Holmes’ reluctant acceptance. It works so much better than the endless re-imaginings of the Hound of the Baskervilles as a werewolf tale. ‘Revenant’ is very good, the new material, ‘The Dreaming Man’ is even better.

I’ve yet to read Meikle’s Concordances of the Red Serpent, or Augustus Seton Collected Chronicles, both of which are referenced here, but I hope to find time to rectify that soon. Seton in particular is a major player in this story which cleverly ties in Sherlock Holmes to the author’s own Meikleverse characters and concepts.

I recommend this book very highly to anyone who might fancy seeing how Holmes and Watson might cope with a case which does not lend itself so easily to a rational explanation. This is not to say I didn’t find any faults. When I’ve edited new Sherlock Holmes books, I tend to keep a copy of the complete stories open on my desktop, so I can check the dialogue against that of Conan Doyle. Willie Meikle has a tendency to overuse a mild pejorative, “bally”, that was never present in the original adventures. When I have to resort to that level of nitpicking to balance an overly positive review, I must really like the book!

(Dave Brzeski is a regular reviewer and editor of things strange, pulpish and/or arcane, as well as being an editor for the magazine Occult Detective Quarterly)

You can find copies of the book in various formats through these links:

51Ni21ZtcCL dreaming man on amazon uk

dreaming man on amazon us

Stowe It, You Chaps

If you want a break from the consulting detective, then why not spend time with an ex-Colonial Administrator who is really after the girl. In Vernon Loder’s The Mystery at Stowe (1928), the amateur sleuth Jim Carton doesn’t turn up until page 57, and his main motivation is to clear suspicion from his childhood sweetheart. Not quite Conan Doyle. Carton both annoys and interests the police officers as they go about their investigation, and is looked on with doubt by most of the participants in general. Even his sweetheart is uncooperative – but why?

The Mystery at Stowe was the first of twenty two novels by Vernon Loder, who was really a chap called John George Hazlette Vahey (1881-1938). Vahey also wrote under the pseudonym John Haslette from 1909 to 1916, including The Mesh (1912), and used few other names besides – even Henrietta Clandon.

We decided to include it on greydogtales because it’s rollicking good fun, a great example of classic crime fiction, with a cast rather too large to remember most of the time. In addition, the suspect is a bold female explorer, expert in using poisoned Amazonian weapons, the murder victim has a dart in her back, and no one can work out how any of it happened.

Cue 200 pages of misdirection, and a most peculiar solution, which one commentator described as ‘borderline genius yet utterly insane’ – well, we just had to mention the book. Our only warning is that you need to get through the first couple of chapters and all the many people littering the house party before it gets into its stride. More a Poirot-type gathering than a Holmesian one.

There are no ghosts or Martians here, by the way. It may be something to order from the library for a laugh – we’re not pretending it’s anything more than a satisfying bit of Golden Age mystery. Should you want your own copy, it’s on Amazon.

stowe detective the mystery at stowe

The Inverted Detective

Finally, a brief reminder of a book we covered some time ago, The Department of Dead Ends by Roy Vickers. Our initial mention of this detective oddity was here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/sherlock-holmes-versus-the-thinking-machines/

As we said at the time, The Rubber Trumpet, the first of Vicker’s thirty-seven stories featuring the fictitious Department of Dead Ends, appeared in Pearson’s Magazine in September 1934.

Partial collections of the stories were later made in 1947, 1949, and 1978. We have the 1978 Dover Edition, introduced by E F Bleiler (who also edited science fiction and fantasy fiction anthologies).

A friend of ours, Nina Zumel, has recently written up her own take on the collected stories, including discussion of the ‘inverted mystery’ concept. Her article is well worth a read.

“The bulk of each story focuses on the crime and its background: what makes the murderer tick, what drove them to what they did. The narration is omniscient and rather distant, and tends to read a bit like a non-fiction true crime article in The New Yorker or The Atlantic. In fact, Vickers worked for a while as a journalist on the crime beat, as well as a court reporter. As in real life, the crimes are messy and often unpremeditated, the solutions less brilliant deduction than luck plus legwork and the ability to remember things and put them together.”

You can find the whole piece on her site here:

https://multoghost.wordpress.com/2017/08/07/the-department-of-dead-ends/

Enough detective stuff for today. We’re away for a few days, but will be back later next week with the usual irrational mixtures of literature, lurchers and life…

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