Black Wings - Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

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BLACK WINGS: NEW TALES OF LOVECRAFTIAN HORROR

Edited by S. T. Joshi

The work of H. P. Lovecraft continues to inspire many of the leading contemporary authors of horror and the supernatural. In this anthology, S. T. Joshi, the world's leading expert on Lovecraft and the author of the lively treatise The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, tries his hand at assembling a modern-day Lovecraftian anthology, casting his net on both sides of the Atlantic and producing a volume that radically expands our notions of what constitutes "Lovecraftian" fiction.

Caitlín R. Kiernan, Brian Stableford, and Nicholas Royle produce innovative deconstructions of Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model" and "The Hound." Michael Shea transfers the Cthulhu Mythos to San Francisco, Laird Barron and Philip Haldeman set their Lovecraftian horrors in the Pacific Northwest, and Donald R. Burleson and William Browning Spencer enliven the parched Southwest with cosmic monsters. Ramsey Campbell, Jonathan Thomas, Jason Van Hollander, and others make Lovecraft himself a character in tales of cosmic menace, while David J. Schow and Michael Cisco ring new changes on the Lovecraftian concept of the forbidden book. These and other stories by Michael Marshall Smith, Norman Partridge, W. H. Pugmire, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., Darrell Schweitzer, Donald R. and Mollie L. Burleson, Sam Gafford, and Adam Niswander all reveal how vital and vibrant the Lovecraftian idiom remains . . . and how terrifying.

S. T. Joshi is a leading authority on H. P. Lovecraft and the author of The Weird Tale (1990), The Modern Weird Tale (2001), The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos (2008), and other critical and biographical studies. His biography, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), won the British Fantasy Award and the Horror Writers Association award; it has now been published in an unabridged edition as I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (2010). Joshi has prepared corrected editions of Lovecraft's fiction, poetry, and essays, and is working on a long-range project to publish Lovecraft's collected letters. He has also done work on Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and other writers. He has received the World Fantasy Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. He lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife, Leslie, and numerous cats.

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The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places (The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson, Vol. 2)

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The second of a five volume set collecting all of Hodgson's published fiction. Each volume contains one of Hodgson's novels, along with a selection of thematically-linked short fiction. Introduction by Jeremy Lassen The House on the Borderland Carnacki the Ghost Finder * The Gateway of the Monster * The House Among the Laurels * The Whistling Room * The Horse of the Invisible * The Searcher of the End House * The Thing Invisible * The Haunted Jarvee * The Find * The Hog Other Tales of Mystery and Suspense * The Goddess of Death * The Terror of the Water-Tank * Bullion * The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship * The Ghosts of the 'Glen Doon' * Mr. Jock Danplank * The Mystery of Captain Chappel * The Homecoming of Captain Dan * Merciful Plunder * The Haunting of the Lady Shannon * Heathen's Revenge A Note On The Texts

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Dark Awakenings

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From its earliest origins, the human religious impulse has been fundamentally bound up with an experience of primordial horror. The German theologian Rudolf Otto located the origin of human religiosity in an ancient experience of 'daemonic dread.' American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft asserted that weird supernatural horror fiction arose from a fundamental human psychological pattern that is 'coeval with the religious feeling and closely related to many aspects of it.' The American psychologist William James wrote in his classic study The Varieties of Religious Experience that the 'real core of the religious problem' lies in an overwhelming experience of cosmic horror born out of abject despair at life's incontrovertible hideousness. In Dark Awakenings, author and scholar Matt Cardin explores this ancient intersection between religion and horror in seven stories and three academic papers that pose a series of disturbing questions: What if the spiritual awakening coveted by so many religious seekers is in fact the ultimate doom? What if the object of religious longing might prove to be the very heart of horror? Could salvation, liberation, enlightenment then be achieved only by identifying with that apotheosis of metaphysical loathing?

In Dark Awakenings, author and scholar Matt Cardin explores the ancient intersection between religion and horror in seven stories and three academic papers that pose a series of disturbing questions: What if the spiritual awakening coveted by so many religious seekers is in fact the ultimate doom? What if the object of religious longing might prove to be the very heart of horror? Could salvation, liberation, enlightenment then be achieved only by identifying with that apotheosis of metaphysical loathing?

This volume collects nearly all of Cardin's uncollected fiction, including his 2004 novella 'The God of Foulness.' It contains extensive revisions and expansions of his popular stories 'Teeth' and 'The Devil and One Lump' and features one previously unpublished story and two unpublished papers, the first exploring a possible spiritual use of George Romero's Living Dead films and the second offering a horrific reading of the biblical Book of Isaiah. At over 300 pages and nearly 120,000 words, it offers a substantial exploration of the religious implications of horror and the horrific implications of religion.

REVIEWS:

"In Dark Awakenings, Cardin proves himself to be an adept in the fullest sense of the word. To both the morbid and the cosmically minded, who may be one and the same, he delivers his visions and nightmares in a master's prose. In the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft, Cardin's accomplishments as a writer are paralleled by his expertise as a literary critic and theorist, as readers can witness in this volume. His analyses of supernatural horror and its practitioners are also dark awakenings in the dual manner of his stories, with one eye on the black abyss and the other on an enlightened transcendence without denomination. Again, this quality of Cardin's work can be seen in the writings of Poe and Lovecraft, two other felicitous freaks who merged the antagonistisms of their imagination into a chimera as awful as it is awe-striking." -- Thomas Ligotti, author of Teatro Grottesco and The Nightmare Factory

"Matt Cardin channels visions of dark, maniacal intensity. His otherworldly divinations will have you lying awake in the dark, counting stars in that most pitiless gulf that yawns above us all. A master of terror and dread, he ranks among the foremost authors of contemporary American horror." -- Laird Barron, author of The Imago Sequence & Other Stories

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The Cockatrice Boys

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The idea for this book might have come from National Enquirer: hideous demonic monsters invade England, laying it waste and devouring most of the inhabitants. Embargoed by the rest of the world, the English barricade themselves underground. After five years on the defensive, an armored, heavily-armed train is built to attack and, if possible, find the source of the plague: the Cockatrice Belle and her crack Cockatrice Corps crew. The train sets out for Manchester, and by chance it picks up Sauna, a young girl who embodies both cause and cure.

Joan Aiken's characters are evocatively Dickensian and strange--Sauna, Dakin, Clipspeak, Bellswinger, Tom Flint. This send-up of every other alien-invasion story is a quirky, inventive fantasy.

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Collected Poems: Nightmares and Visions

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Black Wings [jhc]

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