We shuffle again to weird fiction, and turn the spotlight this time on author Sam Gafford, with mention of three – yes, THREE – forthcoming books. Sam is the Quiet Man of weird fiction, and does not like the spotlight – or the brazen clash of cymbals we added – but that’s tough. So today we are pleased to present an exclusive excerpt from The House of Nodens, art from Some Notes on a Non-Entity, and generally lather you up for his short story collection The Dreamer in Fire.
The lurcher is not a marine animal. It rarely dives into the sea for herring, or migrates across leagues of trackless ocean. It does, however, like a paddle now and then – and may, very occasionally, go full swim. We confess that none of ours have ever been of the total-immersion persuasion. Top of the legs is usually quite enough, and anything oceanic which looks as if it’s going to involve a serious bath is avoided. But being at the seaside in general – oh yes.
Continue reading Lurchers for Beginners: This Water Tastes Funny
A diversion into the lands of horror, intended to praise Ramsey Campbell, mention Stephen King’s new ‘Castle Rock’ book with Richard Chizmar, Gwendy’s Button Box, and stop Edward M Erdelac fishing in our pond as he brings out his collection Angler in Darkness. We include an exclusive excerpt from one of Ed’s tales as we stumble through strange places, so it’s a miscellany of wonders today…
There is a strong precedent for the re-imagining of geography in weird and horror fiction, sliding the real and invented together in to create a place that may just be – but isn’t. Irreverent writers like John Linwood Grant do it, developing long and unnecessary strands of an alternative Yorkshire Wolds, but real authors do it properly.
We need hardly go into H P Lovecraft’s whip-poor-will haunted New England – Innsmouth, Arkham and Dunwich, amongst other places – but almost as famous is the psychogeographic strangeness of Ramsey Campbell, mentioned on greydogtales before.
Campbell’s alternate Severn Valley is a counterpart to the doom-laden New England of H P Lovecraft, and is just one fascinating aspect of his work (we won’t say weird fiction, in honour of his recent statement “I write horror,” which wrecked many a mediocre journalistic analysis).
The term Severn Valley Mythos has even been bandied around. There will come a time, we imagine, when “Campbell Country” will be a major tourist attraction, and a TV series will show two loveable veterinarians with their arms stuck up eldritch posteriors, with hilarious consequences. We might be wrong about that last bit, of course.
The imaginary Cotswolds town of Temphill first appeared in The Church in High Street, which was also his first published story (Dark Mind, Dark Heart anthology, Arkham 1962).
In it, he refers to “worship of trans-spatial beings still practiced in such towns as Camside, Brichester, Severnford, Goatswood, and Temphill…”. These names, especially that of Brichester, recur in many tales. We said a few other things about the subject here:
http://greydogtales.com/blog/h-p-lovecraft-and-the-brichester-chronicles
We mustn’t repeat ourselves too much . But we will remind folk that it was August Derleth’s nudging in the Sixties which encouraged Campbell to break free of the traditional Lovecraft locations (and pastiche work), to work on his own geography. Our earlier musings also skirted Goatswood, where hooded figures worship the Black Goat of the Woods, and said it had a tinge of Innsmouth (albeit not the wet bits).
There is another strong Campbellian contender for the Innsmouth Award, more familiar to many holidaying Brits. Campbell’s novella The Last Revelation of Gla’aki (2013) is set in the remote British seaside town of Gulshaw (“a long drive from Brichester).
Others have tried to pin Gulshaw down, but the consensus is that it lies somewhere on the Northwest coast around Morecambe. As we grew up in such places on the Northeast coast, we can assure you that anyone who has visited decaying British seaside towns has truly experienced horror. It’s one of the reasons we live well inland, near the Dales.
HPL’s Miskatonic University also has its counterpart in Brichester University, and it is an archivist from this establishment, Leonard Fairman, who travels to Gulshaw, in search of the set of books collectively titled The Revelations of Gla’aki (there are variously eleven or twelve volumes).
Afficionadoes might even remember that Taylor, the protagonist of ‘The Mine on Yuggoth’ (originally known in a longer version as ‘The Tower on Yuggoth’), encounters The Revelations of Gla’aki, borrowing a copy from another cultist. After the volumes become unavailable, he eventually consults an old, half-deaf farmer who lives “off the Goatswood Road”, in his pursuit of the Mi Go, those fungus/crustacean denizens of Yuggoth. It’s a metal shortage thing, is all we’ll say.
There have been attempts at cartography for this alternate Severn Valley, and Chaosium even developed RPG scenarios, but we prefer to leave much to the imagination.
(Incidentally, Andy Sawyer argues in Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror (2014), that Brichester is Liverpool, or based on echoes of Campbell’s childhood Liverpool. The truth is probably that many disparate memories feed the final geography of fiction)
Our trivia aside, the real point here is that Campbell is a damned good writer, and knows what he is doing. Instead of mapping weak versions of another literary world, which perhaps Derleth feared might occur those many years ago, there is a genuine frisson to Campbell’s work in the ‘Severn Valley Mythos’. His England is not so far from our own…
Keeping to our theme, Stephen King, who comes from Maine, also does The Geography Thing. He created a trinity of fictional towns – Castle Rock, Derry and Jerusalem’s Lot, as central settings for a lot of his writing (not to mention Chamberlain, Haven and others). Castle Rock is mentioned (or is a key feature) in over thirty King stories or adaptations – Needful Things (1991) being our personal favourite. So we’re curious to see what comes of a recent return to a setting which is quite familiar to many readers.
This is a mysterious and poignant return, as well, because didn’t the town pretty much explode at the end of Needful Things? And wasn’t that marketed at the time as “The Last Castle Rock Story”? As this is one of those things we haven’t had time to read, we’ll set the scene and you can explore at your leisure…
Earlier this year, Cemetery Dance Publications published hardcover and eBook editions of Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar. The novella is the first-ever collaboration between these two long-time friends and award-winning authors.
“It was a pleasure to work with Rich Chizmar one-on-one after all these years,” Stephen King said. “I had a story I couldn’t finish, and he showed me the way home with style and panache. It was a good time, and I think readers will have a good time reading it. If they are left with questions, and maybe have a few arguments, all the better.”
“Steve and I have corresponded about books and movies and life for twenty years now,” said Richard Chizmar, “I’m a huge admirer of both his work and the man himself. Writing Gwendy’s Button Box with Steve was truly a dream come true for me.”
“Steve sent me the first chunk of a short story,” Chizmar explained. “I added quite a bit and sent it back to him. He did a pass, then bounced it back to me for another pass. Then, we did the same thing all over again – one more draft each. Next thing you know, we had a full-length novella on our hands. We took a free hand in rewriting each other and adding new ideas and characters.”
Gwendy’s Button Box is the coming-of-age story of twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson, who spends the summer of 1974 running the “Suicide Stairs” that connect Castle Rock to the Castle View Recreational Park. One day, while she catches her breath at the top of the stairs, a stranger calls to Gwendy. On a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat…
Gwendy’s Button Box is now available through Cemetery Dance Publications and all major booksellers, and an audio version was released recently by Simon & Schuster.
And you can find more info by visiting the publisher:
Finally, author Edward M Erdelac, author of Monstrumfuhrer, Andersonville and much, much more, is about to have his first short story collection published, Angler In Darkness.
Ed kindly provided us with an excerpt from one of the stories within, which we present with pleasure. This time we’re re-imagining the landscape of the Old West – not Morecambe, but the States. Here’s part of ‘Bigfoot Walsh’, a weird western story about a group of Texas Rangers investigating a string of savage murders in the Texas hill country, who are joined by a unique scout singularly suited to the task….
The monstrously tall stranger was possibly one of the ugliest individuals I’d ever seen. I had encountered many of the old trapper types in my travels, and in my service with the First Texas Rifles. As unacquainted as many of those men had been with the razor and soap, I had never encountered so prodigiously hairy and filthy looking a man as this. The whiskers on the sides of his face crept up nearly to his nose and halfway up his cheekbones. They were so abundant on the backs of his overlarge hands as to appear almost lustrous, dirty blonde in hue.
I had seen a person with this rare condition before in a traveling Mexican circus in Austin, but combined with his immense size (he was perhaps over seven feet and could look Captain Shockley in the eye even seated as he was atop his horse) the overall effect was startling. The stranger looked like some sort of prehistoric throwback, more ape than man. The small, bright blue eyes that peered out of the face did so from the shadow of a thick, nearly simian suborbital ridge. The skin of his chin, which was clean shaven, was slightly mottled as if with some birthmark or disorder of the pigment.
His patched blanket coat was hand-stitched with yellow thread, and he wore a coil of stiff rope over his shoulder. A brace of big horse pistols was belted around his waist, and he carried a stubby big bore rifle with a skeletal iron stock, the make of which I had never seen before. His shirt and trousers appeared to be homespun, and his feet were covered in great hairy hide boots, so near to the color of his body hair that he almost appeared to be barefoot.
“Leather it, boys,” said Captain Shockley. “This man’s one of ours.’ ‘Lo, Bigfoot.”
“Captain Shockley,” said the hairy stranger, in a voice surprisingly as articulate as it was deep.
He smiled, showing big teeth like white marble tombstones, the canines slightly pronounced.
Tackett rode up alongside his captain and ogled the new man openly.
“Thought you were riding with Hays over in Bexar County,” said Shockley.
“He gave me leave to go after this one. They attacked Waverly’s stage stop, killed Ben Waverly.”
“Take anything?”
“Just the Santee woman he kept around to sweep up.”
“They killed a couple Mormons out by Zodiac,” said Captain Shockley. “We figure it was Comanches.”
“I don’t think so,” said Bigfoot. “No arrows anywhere about the place.”
“Any bodies?” said Tackett.
“No sign of ‘em,” said Bigfoot.
“They got a long hard ride to Old Mexico with captives,” said Shockley.
“They’re not headed to Old Mexico,” said Bigfoot.
“Where else they gonna sell ‘em?” Tackett said.
“I don’t believe they intend to sell ‘em.”
“What then?”
“Come over here and lemme show you something.”
In a while the large man had led us behind the cabin, and there we found a dead horse, the meat ripped from its rump, most of the guts scooped out, and the tongue pulled out of its head, which had been wrenched completely around on its strong neck.
“What do you make of that?” Bigfoot asked.
“They butchered the Mormon horse too,” said Shockley, sliding off his mount. He got down slowly on one knee and squinted at the carcass.
“And the stage stop team. Well, not so much butchered as ripped apart,” said Bigfoot.
“Comanches have been known to eat horses,” Tackett said.
“Yeah but they’ll use a knife,” said Shockley, “not twist their damn heads around. These look like the meat’s been pulled off the bones. What do you say, Doc?”
I examined the horses. They were in wretched condition. The remaining ligaments hanging from the bones did indeed look torn. But who had the strength to pull muscle from bone?
“There are marks of teeth on the bones,” I said, “and the intestines have been gnawed.”
“Well if we ain’t talkin’ about Comanches, what are we talkin’ about?” Tackett asked.
Bigfoot rubbed his discolored chin, then looked away and shrugged.
“I ain’t sayin’ yet.”
###
Angler in Darkness, which we rather fancy, is available for pre-order now, and will be released on 1st August. Eighteen strange stories await you:
And we must run away, to have a few days off with the dogs. Back next week, dear listener, with more oddities. If you want to know what and when, just sign up for free by email (top left)…
Like, do you know how many books and comics are published each year, sister? I mean, it’s like dozens, and reviewing is so last year, that’s what Becky says, and she’s totally rad, and goes out with Marlon and stuff, and they are sooo cool. She’s so rad she says ‘rad’ is out, and I’m all “Whaaat, girlfriend?” Anyhoo, there’s like loads of new stuff to mention, so let’s party…
Dear little greydogtales is buried under review copies and interview ideas, but today we’re simply going to highlight a few fun things to read. Otherwise we will not only stop wagging, but our tail will drop off. Today we have news of the forthcoming Turn to Ash Issue 3 from Benjamin Holesapple, African comics from Kugali, horror by Brian Barr, a creepy anthology campaign Test Patterns, and new urban/Gothic dark fantasy from Ian McKinney (apparently on special offer on Sunday 23rd July).
Where to start? We had a contact from author Ian McKinney, who wanted to mention a series of book which might have escaped us. Which it had, so we’ll summarise here – they sound quite cool, and seem to have had a lot of five star reviews.
“I write and publish a trilogy of Gothic thrillers set in Liverpool past and present under the title: ‘Scouse Gothic’. They combine: Vampires; Gangsters; Homicidal old ladies and an Angel disguised as a pigeon. All wrapped up with pitch black humour, maps, illustrations and cocktail recipes.”
“Melville wakes with a pounding headache – there had been too many hangovers recently, but this one felt different. What had he been drinking last night? Then he remembered – it was blood.
Enter the bizarre world of Scouse Gothic where a reluctant vampire mourns a lost love and his past lives, where a retired ‘hit man’ plans one more killing and dreams of food, and a mother sets out to avenge her son’s murder, and, meanwhile, a grieving husband is visited by an angry angel.
Set in present day Liverpool, vampires and mortals co-exist, unaware of each others’ secrets and that their past and present are inextricably linked. But as their lives converge, who will be expected to atone for past sins?”
Book 1: The Pool of Life… and Death
Book 2: Blood Brothers… and Sisters
Book 3: All You Need is… Blood?
The books Scouse Gothic 1, 2 and 3 will also be subject to free promotion on Kindle this coming Sunday July 23rd. Start at the link below:
The next issue of Benjamin Holesapple’s Turn to Ash is now on preorder, and has a great range of creepy fiction in it.
“Turn to Ash, Vol. 3 is now up for Pre-order at the Turn to Ash Store. Orders will ship around the first week of September, shortly after the hangover from NecronomiCon has faded. Be sure to order soon as I’ve only got the rights for Matt Tisdale’s glorious cover for a limited amount of time. There will be at least 100, but probably not many more. Once those rights expire, the issue will either go out of print or we’ll release a second edition with a different cover, depending on demand and the number of copies sold.”
We talked to Mr Holesapple at length here:
http://greydogtales.com/blog/names-ash-benjamin-turn-ash/
And you can explore Turn to Ash through this link:
This week we downloaded Ziki Nelson’s Kugali Mag Issue 0, with b/w art by Salim Busuru, Bill Masuku and Gbenle Maverik (plus writers and others, full credits in the comic).
It’s a great taster for African comic-book work. Being fans of African Mythic, we particularly like Oro – “Aberration or God?”.
“The story of a prince who was born deformed, abandoned in the forest and raised by spirits. He is mentored by the spirit of a scarmarker (ancient weapon makers). He builds a powerful weapon called a Leech and protects the kingdom that rejected him.”
This is a new comics anthology that features the best stories from across Africa. The pilot issue comprises of three comics from Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, each bringing a unique take on the African art, culture and aesthetic. The long-term plan is to produce 60+ pages of comics, artwork, interviews and more exclusive content, on a monthly basis.
http://store.kugali.com/magazine-issue-zero/
Writer Brian Barr has been on greydogtales before, mostly to do with his comic Empress, and we hope to say more later about his other work, including Carolina Daemonic, but as a newsflash, we’ll mention that his 3 H’s Trilogy: The Head, The House, and The Hell is now available in a complete collection that is a weird mix of cosmic horror, weird fiction, comedic bizarro, and dark romance!
We’ve already read The Head, which was certainly odd, so we’ll be checking out the other two as well.
“The 3 H’s Trilogy begins with the story of a woman who falls in love with a decapitated head. From there, the story only gets weirder and darker, and is unlike any other tale ever written…”
You can find out more about Brian’s imaginative work from our longer piece here:
lurchers in the wind and an empress
That fine chap Michael Adams, with others, is putting together his planned Test Patterns anthology, and had started an Indiegogo campaign to help the process along. It looks mighty interesting.
“Test Patterns will be a collection of short speculative fictions written with classic television shows such as The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and The Night Gallery in mind. Richly varied stories which might impart a moral, inspire thought, offer meaning, inspire hope, or instil dread. Tales told in unique ways, employing provocative twists and surprises, and exploring the universal themes of humanity and self-discovery through the lenses of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.”
You can find out lots more, including a list of great authors planning to participate, and look at supporting the campaign, here:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/test-patterns-a-weird-fiction-anthology-fantasy-horror#/
That’s it, but we’re going to have to run another medley post soon, just to keep up at all. Join us regularly for news of exciting weird stuff!
amazon uk