I'm ba-a-a-a-ack...
It's been a few months since my previous author site went down, so this is my attempt to reclaim my little plot of cyberspace. After all, every author needs a website, or so I'm told--although I did consider staying offline and becoming a mysterious recluse instead. However, it's quite difficult for recluses and hermits to announce new book releases, or to share their latest thoughts with the world. Hence, my return to this digital playground.
Announcement: Jackanapes Press will release my first-ever horror collection in early 2023. I've done a couple of fantasy collections (most recently last year's WORLDS BEYOND WORLDS from DMR Books), but I've been writing horror almost as long as fantasy, so it's nice to get all of my horror tales under one cover.
DARKER THAN WEIRD collects fourteen tales published in various places between 2009 and 2019, i.e. ten years of weird horror fiction. Special thanks to Dan Sauer at Jackanapes, who will also be designing the miraculously macabre cover art. (Which I will post here as soon as possible.)
The collection will consist of three "sections" divided by the nature of the stories therein. The first few fall under the category of "The Weirdness"-- your basic weird fiction that doesn't fit under any other label. The second section is "Welcome to the Urbille," featuring three tales set in a haunted metropolis where humanity's flesh and blood are traded for silver and brass. The first of these Urbille stories appeared in Laird Barron's THE YEAR'S BEST WEIRD FICTION, Vol. 1, back in 2014. The second and third tales expand the Urbille universe in dark new directions. (I also wrote an Urbille novel, but it's hiding now in the ultimate darkness of the void, waiting for the right moment to reveal its hideous visage to the world. Madness will surely ensue...)
The final section of DARKER THAN WEIRD will be "Shades of Lovecraft," which includes several tales inspired by the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft. Most of these stories were done for anthologies or magazines that celebrate the Lovecraftian mythos. I no longer write Lovecraftian fiction, so collecting these tales preserves my contribution to that field.
I have a major fantasy series in the works right now, but the process of finding a publisher for it is ongoing. The pandemic slowed down pretty much everything, including publishers. So patience is more important than ever for novelists these days. As soon as my next series finds a home, I'll announce it right here.
Recently I watched the first season of Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN on NetFlix. What an amazing adaptation of the world's most important comic book. Kudos to Neil for waiting thirty years to make this happen because he wanted it to be just right. Mission accomplished! It's every bit as gorgeous and captivating as the comic series was on first read. I remember buying the first issue off the comic store rack when I was in college, and I was instantly hooked. SANDMAN, along with SHADE THE CHANGING MAN, was something I could not miss every month. Both series raised the bar for comics storytelling in general, alongside such works as Alan Moore's SWAMP THING, Frank Miller's RONIN, and Bryan Talbot's THE ADVENTURES OF LUTHER ARKWRIGHT.
The second season of PRIMAL on HBOMax has been fantastic. It's a great time for fantasy fans because we have HOUSE OF THE DRAGON coming in late August, and Amazon's RINGS OF POWER starting in September. As a lifelong Tolkien fan, I'm pretty stoked for this one. If it's even half as good as Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy, it will be spectacular. It's about time someone started mining THE SILMARILLION for more stories of Middle Earth--there's enough lore and legends in that book for a dozen such shows. Doing them in the form of miniseries also removes the constrictions of a two- or three-hour movie. Really looking forward to immersing myself in Middle Earth on the screen again. Based on the previews, it should be a glorious experience.
Cheers,
John