A brief interlude from our usual weirdness to bring folk up to speed. We’re looking forward to the second outing of Occult Detective Quarterly, and here’s some official news.
We’ve had terrific reviews for Issue One, and a whole raft of new submissions for the next few issues. In fact, we’ve had more stories than we can possibly print, so there is fierce competition for space. Sam Gafford, the old reprobate John Linwood Grant and Dave Brzeski have been reading around the clock, assisted by our professional readers. And they’re getting there.
The magazine is planned to go to layout in early April, with printing at the end of the month – if the batteries hold out on the electric pentacle. Occult Detective Quarterly Issue Two should therefore be available to purchase (and for despatch to subscribers), in early May 2017. This time, the print edition should be available to purchase through Amazon as well, as ODQ expands its distribution.
Note: The eformat version of Issue One is now available as a packed pdf from Electric Pentacle Press. Click the link on the right-hand sidebar to get your copy.
Here’s a more detailed look at what you can expect in Issue Two. Note that this is only what we’ve picked out so far, though we expect to have at least nine thrilling new stories in the final magazine.
FICTION
mutartis boswell’s interior for ODQ #1
We have another exciting and different blend of fiction this time round, from the Edwardian period to the present day. And our protagonists range from Brandon Barrows’ classic occult detective Thomas Carnacki, through Steve Liskow’s Deputy Sheriff Pamela Ironwood, to Kelly A Harmon’s Assumpta Mary-Margaret O’Connor, to name but three.
Already planned to appear are:
The Arcana of the Alleysby Brandon Barrows. A younger Carnacki the Ghost Finder gets himself caught up in the affairs of opium lords in Boston, Massachusetts, and finds an unlikely ally.
The Black Tarotby Mike Chinn. A series of cursed papyrus fragments, and a Tarot deck, lead occult adventurer Damian Paladin into danger.
Light from Pure Digestion Bredby Kelly A Harmon. A demon-marked woman and her rather dapper (but hellish) companion discover that something on the menu of a Baltimore coffee shop may not be as agreeable as it looks.
Death and the Dancing Bearsby Steve Liskow. When grisly death comes to a carnival, one of the police officers involved must draw on her Native American background to search out the truth.
Grabbermanby Tim Waggoner. A psychologist who know the Dark only too well must come to the aid of a young woman whose nightmares threaten to become real.
terry pavlet’s striking cover for odq 1
Plus…
Occult Legion Part 2by Joshua M Reynolds. The next instalment, a story in its own right, building on Part One by Willie Meikle in the last issue.
NON-FICTION
a sample of sebastian cabrol’s fabulous style
Our expert in occult detective fiction returns with a new article, and we look at another comic book character, the urban, doom-laden John Constantine.
Doctors of the Strangeby Tim Prasil. The erudite scholar of ghost-hunters explores the tradition of the occult physician – tracing the historical origins of this medical wing of occult detection.
The Constant Englishmanby Danyal Fryer. An introduction to the background of John Constantine, of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer fame – his upbringing, his nature and his English roots.
Reviewsby Dave Brzeski and James Bojiacuk
ART
when we all meet – by luke spooner for ‘gutted – beautiful horror stories’ from crystal lake press
We’ve been very fortunate with our artists once again, and expect to be showing off the work of illustrators from the United States, the United Kingdom and Argentina. As last time, some of the B/W interiors are being produced exclusively to illustrate stories in the issue.
Coverby award-winning artist Alan M Clark, who greydogtales interviewed last year concerning both his art and his dark historical fiction.
alan m clark’s cover for one of his own books
Interior illustrationsby Luke Spooner, Sebastian Cabrol, Mutartis Boswell and more
a ‘rough’ for the forthcoming cover, by alan m clark
And that’s where we are at moment. We’ll share more news during April as we finalise the contents, so stay tuned…
We fell silent here for a few days due to writing commitments, Chilli’s attack of the runs, and a new project hatching at the Doomed Meddlers’ secret base in the Antarctic. So here’s the scoop on that last one. Electric Pentacle Press is announcing a brand new ODQ Presents anthology, devoted to the psychic, paranormal and down-right odd investigators that we love.
(A scoop was also needed for the lurcher problem, but you probably don’t want much more detail on that one. Let’s just say it was mostly a Category One, if you know your ‘Lurchers for Beginners’ chart.)
Occult Detective Quarterly launched in print in January 2017, and has had some fantastic reviews (you can get copies through the link on the right-hand side). We had been receiving submissions since the middle of 2016, and a lot of them. Every so often we received a story far too long for the magazine, or a detailed proposal for a novelette or novella length piece of fiction. We’re talking anywhere from 8,000 to 28,000 words. As we went through the process of story selection, and then started reading submissions for Issue 2, due April, we felt that we had a creative conundrum.
The conundrum arose because more than enough classy tales in the typical 3,000 to 6,000 zone were coming in to meet our forward needs for the magazine itself. In fact, a number of the 2nd round submissions were superb. The long stories we’d seen would take up two, maybe three, of those slots – but some were very tempting. We wanted a wide range of tales in each issue, and yet we liked the bigger stories as well. Um.
So, we came up with an idea which would also be an experiment. Was there a genuine appetite for meatier (or tofu-ier) stories, typically 10,000 words or more? The obvious way to find out was to publish some, and see what happened.
Cunningly, we combined Sam Gafford’s enormous creativity, John Linwood Grant’s willingness to follow orders, and Travis Neisler’s blood-lust for publishing. We prodded our experienced Consulting Editor Dave Brzeski with a stick in case he passed out at the idea, and eventually came up with…
Occult Detective Quarterly Presents
ODQ Presents No. 1 will be an anthology of longer occult detective fiction, showing off a wide range of talent. The stories inside will run from 10,000 to 30,000 words. They have been chosen from the queries, samples and proposals mentioned above (even then we couldn’t take everyone). These will be accompanied by two or three additional long tales that we’ve been discussing on the quiet.
As we had most of the material in hand, and this was a trial venture, we decided against an Open Call for submissions. Asking writers to compete for maybe only one new fiction slot would be time-consuming for everyone, and frankly not very much fun. 99% of it would have involved sending out rejections to jolly good stories that wouldn’t physically fit in.
However, if ODQ Presents works, such an anthology would become a regular event, and a way of writers getting out that longer material. So we’ll need people to support the experiment, buy copies and spread the good word.
ODQ Presents – Contents
What’s going to be in the first ODQ Presents? Some of that will be announced in Doomed Meddler Central on this site as we go along. What we will say is that we are delighted to be anchoring the premier issue with a brand-new novella by Adrian Cole, a rollicking and wild occult adventure.
Adrian was with us in ODQ #1, and has had lots of success with his Pulpworld stories (amongst others). His latest gritty collection Tough Guys was released in 2016. A prolific short story writer, his Nick Nightmare series already has many occult detective fans in its grip, and a collection of those stories, Nick Nightmare Investigates, won a British Fantasy Award for “Best Collection”.
Without ODQ Presents, we had no way of offering this novella to the readership. Look forward, therefore, to AT MIDNIGHT ALL THE AGENTS…, possibly the maddest Nick Nightmare escapade yet.
And to complement it, we will be including six or seven (yes!) exciting occult detective novelettes with very different settings and themes. We have some terrific authors lined up, and some of their contributions may well surprise you. We’re doing this because we want to show how weird and varied the occult detective field can be.
Our time-scale at the moment is to have all the final material together by early Summer 2017. This allows for agreement on the direction of proposals and drafts already received, cover and layout decisions, ongoing edits and so on, to produce the finest end-result we can.
Publication is planned for Autumn 2017, and the book will be made immediately available on Amazon UK and US. As we said, should it sell well, we would be keen to do ODQ Presents No. 2, this time with an Open Call for new submissions.
So there we are. Be an Occulteer, and a member of the coolest gang in town. You can find current status, guidelines and general ODQ content details in Doomed Meddler Central to the right. You can also join our active Facebook group, where news and views are shared regularly:
What can we say about Joshua Reynolds? Founder of the Royal Academy of Arts, noted 18th century portraitist knighted by George III in 1769… wait a minute. Who wrote these notes? Django!!! Bad dog. This is the wrong Reynolds, you daft animal. Uh, right. Today’s guest is the other guy, Joshua M Reynolds, who, well, he writes stuff. Good stuff.
one of our researchers, now on a warning
Yes, it’s greydogtales, the only site still using lurchers for in-depth research and a labrador as a doorstop. It’s muddy here, and so our notebooks are covered in bloody great paw prints, but we’ll see what we can do.
Our guest writer is well known in at least two quite separate fan circles, and if they ever meet we may need more than longdogs to keep them in order. For Warhammer enthusiasts, Joshua Reynolds has written – and is still writing – a number of novels based on those heady days of utter carnage, betrayal and mad zealotry.
friday night in any yorkshire town
If you’re not familiar with it, Warhammer is one of those things you do with a table-top when you’re not chopping up chicken carcasses. Scary lead and plastic figures creep into the madness that lies beyond the tomato ketchup, and there are even more rules for where you put the cake knife.
On the other hand, you may prefer the spine-chilling, rather stylish adventures of Charles St Cyprian, the Royal Occultist, for Mr Reynold’s other main endeavour is chronicling the adventures of this renowned occult detective. Set mostly in the 1920s, the tales follow in the footsteps of William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, except that St Cyprian is a rather more droll and stylish fellow.
“Formed during the reign of Elizabeth I, the post of the Royal Occultist, or ‘the Queen’s Conjurer’ as it was known, was created for and first held by the diligent amateur, Dr. John Dee, in recognition for an unrecorded service to the Crown. The title has passed through a succession of hands since, some good, some bad; the list is a long one, weaving in and out of the margins of British history and including such luminaries as the 1st Earl of Holderness and Thomas Carnacki.”
no, django, that’s the wrong joshua reynolds again
Let’s see if we can get any of this right in our interview…
the real author, honest
greydog: Welcome to greydogtales. Important stuff first – Josh or Joshua? Or Mr Reynolds, Sir, in our case?
josh: Josh is fine. Or Joshua. Or Your Most Squamous Majesty. Face-Eating Willy. Tupelo Jim Smalls. Clyde. I answer to most anything, really.
Except Tupelo Jim Smalls. Not any more. I got my reasons, and I’ll thank you not to ask.
greydog: We wouldn’t think of it. Right, we dragged you here mainly because two of your recent stories stirred our old brain cells. The first was The Fates of Dr Fell, an excellent twist on the old portmanteau idea of multiple stories, in the manner of the films Dead of Night and Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (see our feature here: spawn of the ripper: the true story). Are you a horror film sort of guy?
josh: I am! The older, the better. Silver screams are the best screams. Keep your CGI, I want practical effects, goshdarnit. Gimme a guy in a grossly unrealistic gorilla suit, ambling awkwardly across a darkened Hollywood soundstage. That’s my jam.
That said, I have seen some newer stuff recently that I really enjoyed. From the Dark (2015) was a pretty swell vampire film which I encourage everyone to see, if they get the chance. It’s a good, old fashioned monster film with some nice sequences and plenty of mounting tension.
greydog: We can only agree. Films from the old days are still our favourites – but maybe we’ll try From the Dark now.
The second story that caught our eye was your novella The Door of Eternal Night, which manages to weave Arthur Conan Doyle and his creations into the tapestry. Both stories are part of the highly enjoyable Royal Occultist series, which seems to grow and grow. Is there a grand plan mapped out for Charles St Cyprian and Ebe Gallowglass?
josh: Not as such. I know roughly how the series ends and when, but I’m in no hurry to get to it. There are still plenty of stories to be told before starting that particular grim fandango. Basically, I’m happy to write about St. Cyprian and Gallowglass haring about in their Crossley, shooting hobgoblins, as long as people are willing to read about it.
greydog:The Royal Occultist is the nearest thing we know of to our own Tales of Last Edwardian. They’re somewhat different, but both draw on the legacy of Thomas Carnacki, the Ghost Finder. How did you get involved with William Hope Hodgson’s work, and what made it appeal to you?
josh: I first came across Hodgson in an anthology called Grisly, Grim and Gruesome. The story was “The Horse of the Invisible”, which is still perhaps my favourite Hodgson story – Hodgson’s descriptions of the sounds the eponymous phantom makes still creep me out a bit, even today. Even then, I was drawn to the idea of someone investigating a haunting as if it were a mystery. I credit that story with sparking my love of not just Hodgson, but occult detective fiction as a whole, really.
greydog: In Sam Gafford’s anthology, Carnacki: The New Adventures, you actually have Carnacki meeting a young St Cyprian. Is this the ‘official’ origin story for St Cyprian’s involvement, or have we missed one?
josh: It is and you haven’t! “Monmouth’s Giants” is chronologically the first St. Cyprian story. That said, there are also several Carnacki/St. Cyprian adventures available, set during the Great War, when St. Cyprian was serving as Carnacki’s apprentice.
greydog:You grew up in South Carolina, yet the world of the Royal Occultist is very English. Did that come naturally from reading UK fiction, or did it require an awful lot of research? And spelling lessons, putting the ‘u’ back in color etc?
josh: A bit of both, really. I read a lot of period literature–Waugh, Wodehouse, Sayers, Allingham–and did plenty of research into English history, especially the inter-war period. Also, I live in England now, so there’s probably some sort of osmosis going on.
greydog: You have an impressive back-catalogue. Part of that includes work set in the Warhammer universe, and we did vote Nagash in the last election. At least he’s honest. Did you find writing in an established world like that one limiting?
josh: Nah. Limits make things interesting. There are always stories to tell, if you look hard enough. And established franchises are prone to having all sorts of intriguing nooks and crannies to explore. Places where new canon overlaps with old, and blank spaces on the maps.
Also, Nagash 2016. Serve him in life AND in death.
greydog:We’ve seen worse campaign banners. We’re interested in your authorial stance, which seems to be “I do a job”. A while ago someone asked how you got into a particular line, and you said: “I was scrounging around for submission opportunities and ran across X’s guidelines. I figured it was worth a shot, so I knocked out a novel pitch that day and submitted it.” You’re not into the ‘tortured artist having vapours in a Parisian attic’ routine, then?
josh: Ha! No. Writing is my profession, and I like to think I’m good at it. It’s what I do to make money, which I then use to pay my mortgage bill and buy groceries and such. To accomplish that, I have to treat it like a job…eight to ten hour days, invoices, taxes, the whole nine yards. As my old granny is known to say, ‘them vapours is not conducive to financial stability’.
greydog: A wise woman. Now, we always wonder what writers read. What sort of fiction do you use to relax? More in the fantasy and supernatural genres, or something quite different?
josh: If we’re talking about relaxing specifically (as opposed to inspiration), I like mysteries. Thrillers, procedurals, cozy, noir… I read ’em all. You give me a sewing circle or a washed-up actor or a cat solving crimes, and I’m a happy fellow. Too, I’m a mark for writers like Dorothy L. Sayers and Ernest Bramah. Real Golden Age of Detective Fiction stuff.
greydog: Bramah is sadly rather overlooked these days. His blind detective Max Carrados is an interesting read, though his tales of Kai Lung the Chinese storyteller, are even better. And we know you have more stories on the way. Any major projects for 2016 that you can share here?
josh: Well, hopefully, Infernal Express, the long-delayed third novel in The Adventures of the Royal Occultist series, will be out sometime soon. Not to mention the equally delayed second volume of Eldritch Inquests, the occult detective anthology I co-edited with Miles Boothe for Emby Press.
Novel-wise, there’ll also be a few Warhammer-related projects, but if I talk about those, they take away my cheese club privileges.
neferata
greydog: We’ll ask no more, then, but we’re coming in with our knuckle-dusters up for our last question. St Cyprian and Ebe Gallowglass versus Abigail Jessop and Henry Dodgson. Who’s going to win?
josh: Oh, that’s obvious. Us, when we rake in all that sweet, sweet box office money. I mean, we were planning to sell tickets, right?
greydog: We are now. Many thanks, Joshua M Reynolds (not an 18th century painter).
We do have an accidental publishing connection with Josh, although we didn’t know it until recently. His novella The Door of Eternal Night is part of the series The Science of Deduction from 18th Wall Productions, and our own contribution to the series, A Study in Grey, is due out this month.
Next week on greydogtales: Lurchers and folk horror, but not at the same time. Subscribe, or follow on Facebook, and you’ll know which posts to avoid (we’re sure we should put that more positively, somehow).
