Gratuitous Recommendation

Though the SLM has published its last issue, there's no reason why I can't pop in to abuse the random reader with reading recommendations as they come to mind.

Today, it'll be "The Derelict" by William Hope Hodgson.

The funny thing about this one is that it's a frame-tale, like Onions' "The Cigarette Case" or E.F. Benson's "Horror-Horn."  In fact, the opening of "Derelict" is even more ruminant than the other two.  But get past the first page or two and the remainder reads with an intensity and pace more comparable to the last 30-40 minutes of Carpenter's Halloween.

Some writers are steady and rise periodically toward brilliance.  Other writers are starkly original and rise similarly toward adaptation of parts and address.  Hodgson falls into the latter category: The Night Land is a fantastic vision but is not for everyone.  House on the Borderland is closer to a common taste but still well toward the outer rim.  But "Derelict," together with "Voice in the Night," is readable by any standard.  It's one of the true home runs of horror tales and deserves to be read by anyone who likes atmosphere and a thrill.

In this case, the experience is easily had.  Click here:  http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/h/hodgson/william_hope/derelict/

The December joint Fantastic Horror-Southern Literary Messenger issue is online

Read it here.

The Fall SLM / Fantastic Horror issue

will be online before long. Meanwhile, here's the SLM's table of contents:

Unmasking, by Allen Mendenhall
Portholes into the Past: A Conversation with Pinhole Photographer Willie Anne Wright
If You Have Heard Voices: Poems by Rex Cox
A Dream, by Edgar Allan Poe (recording)
A Taste for Hypocrisy, by JJ Burke
The Nebuchadnezzar, by Arthur Lemmler
Night in the City of Tents, by Jack Faber

An anthology from Fantastic Horror

From the FH blog:

NOXIOUS TWITTERING: AN EXORDIUM

I'm pleased to announce that Fantastic Horror has published its first anthology, replete with stories drawn from the first 7 issues (#0-6). It includes authorial introductions, in which are revealed the most hideous of secrets, the most terrifying of revelations, the most--well, they generally give a nod or two to the hideous writers who inspired them. Besides all of which, the cover bears the lovable likeness--nay, the spitting image, of Fantastic Horror's beloved Skru-head: The very skull that broke the bottle over FH's debut issue.

I plan to post regularly here over the next few weeks, bringing the breath-bated masses tidbits of trivia, ingots of interviews and unquiet, occasionally quipish quotations from the otherworldly beyondness of the pages of our not-quite-nameless anthology.

In the meantime, I recommend that every reader of this post immediately hurry over to the storefront and plunk down his measley $15 for what, in years to come, is bound to be a collector's item of the highest water or at least the most stylish and intriguing doorstop within a country mile of whichever door it happens to be stopping.

The July issue

The new issue of the SLM is online. Here's what it's got:

Reaper Nine One, by Mike Gray

Of Bees and Boys, by Allen Mendenhall

Bourbon and Glenn Miller, by Micah Rickerson

The Adventure of the Natal Treaty, by Mike Gray

Strange Seasons

This is the first issue composed entirely of fiction and poetry. I hope you like it.