Tag Archives: the lure of devouring light

Review Round-Up: Tales from a Talking Board, An Augmented Fourth

Our forthcoming anthology Tales from a Talking Board (Oct 24) just picked up its first review, courtesy of Leah Bond at Legends of Tabletop. Leah shares spoiler-free thoughts on all fourteen stories, and on the anthology as a whole. Check out the full review at Legends of Tabletop, and preorder your copy of Tales from a Talking Board today!

Tales from a Talking Board edited by Ross E. Lockhart

In other news, Tony McMillen’s An Augmented Fourth just picked up a new review–in Russian–as one of RussoRosso‘s Top 8 Recent Horror Books. From what we’ve been able to figure out with the help of Google Translate, it’s a rave review. And, we’ve got to say, the title looks downright metal in Russian: Дьявольский интервал (Literally, “The Devil’s Interval”).

An Augmented Fourth by Tony McMillen

And finally, it looks like Amazon has a few Word Horde titles at deep discounts right now. Grab Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace for just $8.47 (43% off!), This Is Horror Award-winning anthology Cthulhu Fhtagn! for just $13.38 (33% off!), and Michael Griffin’s The Lure of Devouring Light for just $11.37 (33% off!). While supplies last, of course.

Vote Word Horde

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, it’s Awards Season in the genre fiction community. This is your chance to suggest, nominate, and vote for your favorite books of the year. And if a 2016 Word Horde title made your list of favorites, we’d like to encourage you to suggest, nominate, and vote for it in the appropriate venues.

IMG_8130

Last year, we were honored with wins in the Anthology of the Year (Cthulhu Fhtagn!) and Publisher of the Year categories of the This Is Horror Awards. This year, the This Is Horror Awards have recognized Word Horde in five categories:

Nominated for the 2016 This Is Horror Award for Novel of the Year:
The Fisherman, John Langan

Nominated for the 2016 This is Horror Award for Short Story Collection of the Year:
Furnace, Livia Llewellyn
The Lure of Devouring Light, Michael Griffin

Nominated for the 2016 This is Horror Award for Anthology of the Year:
Eternal Frankenstein, edited by Ross E. Lockhart

Nominated for the 2016 This is Horror Award for Publisher of the Year:
Word Horde

We’d like to encourage you to visit the This Is Horror Awards website and VOTE for your favorite books of 2016. It only takes an email!

Another prestigious award that has just opened up for nominations is the David Gemmell Award for Fantasy. Please consider dropping by their website and nominating John Langan’s The Fisherman for The Legend Award for best fantasy novel. We’d love to see John win an axe. And once again, it only takes an email!

Obligatory Awards Eligibility Post

As we come to the end of another year, it is traditional to look back through the last 365 days and take stock of one’s accomplishments. In 2016, Word Horde published five books: Furnace, by Livia Llewellyn; The Lure of Devouring Light, by Michael Griffin; The Fisherman, by John Langan; A Brutal Chill in August, by Alan M. Clark, and Eternal Frankenstein, edited by Ross E. Lockhart.

If you read and enjoyed any (or all) of these Word Horde books in 2016, we ask that you consider nominating those books in their respective categories in the Hugos, Locus Awards, Nebulas, Bram Stoker Awards, or similar awards. Likewise, the Novellas, Novelettes, and Short Stories we published this year that are eligible for your awards consideration. Plus, we’ve included a list of Related Works you may have otherwise missed. Thanks for your consideration, it means the world to us!

Best Collection:
Furnace, by Livia Llewellyn
The Lure of Devouring Light, by Michael Griffin

Best Novel:
The Fisherman, by John Langan
A Brutal Chill in August, by Alan M. Clark

Best Anthology:
Eternal Frankenstein, edited by Ross E. Lockhart

Best Novella:
“The New Soviet Man”, by G. D. Falksen (10738 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“The Black Vein Runs Deep”, by Michael Griffin (38620 words, The Lure of Devouring Light)
“The Human Alchemy”, by Michael Griffin (11043 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“The Un-Bride; or, No Gods and Marxists”, by Anya Martin (11669 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Mary Shelley’s Body”, by David Templeton (27611 words, Eternal Frankenstein)

Best Novelette:
“Wither on the Vine, or Strickfadden’s Monster”, by Nathan Carson (9342 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“The Jewel in the Eye”, by Michael Griffin (8862 words, The Lure of Devouring Light)

Best Short Story:
“Thermidor”, by Siobhan Carroll (3490 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Sewn Into Her Fingers”, by Autumn Christian (5540 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Orchids by the Sea”, by Rios de la Luz (1772 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“The Beautiful Thing We Will Becone”, by Kristi DeMeester (4010 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Baron von Werewolf Presents: Frankenstein Against the Phantom Planet”, by Orrin Grey (5874 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Dreaming Awake in the Tree of the World”, by Michael Griffin (4248 words, The Lure of Devouring Light)
“The Accident of Survival”, by Michael Griffin (3609 words, The Lure of Devouring Light)
“The Book of Shattered Mornings”, by Michael Griffin (3948 words, The Lure of Devouring Light)
“Living”, by Scott R Jones (2759 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“In the Court of King Cupressaceae, 1982”, by Livia Llewellyn (6256 words, Furnace)
“Frankenstein Triptych”, by Edward Morris (3180 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Postpartum”, by Betty Rocksteady (6649 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Torso Heart Head”, by Amber-Rose Reed (1312 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“They Call Me Monster”, by Tiffany Scandal (3233 words, Eternal Frankenstein)
“Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice”, by Damien Angelica Walters (4900 words, Eternal Frankenstein)

Best Publisher:
Word Horde

Best Editor, Short Form:
Ross E. Lockhart

Best Editor, Long Form:
Ross E. Lockhart

Best Original Cover Art:
A Brutal Chill in August, Alan M. Clark
Eternal Frankenstein, Matthew Revert

Best Related Work:
Word Horde Presents John Langan, interview by Sean M. Thompson
“The Soul of You” Music Video, (“The Soul of You” as sung by the Bonehill Ghost in the novel A Brutal Chill in August by Alan M. Clark. Song produced by Matt Hayward. Lyrics by Alan m. Clark. Music by Michael Green. Vocals by Gerard Smith. Piano by Anna Muhlbach.)
Facebook Live: Eternal Frankenstein Launch Party at Copperfield’s Books
Live-Blogging Jack London’s The People of the Abyss, Alan M. Clark

 

REVIEWERS: If you missed any of these books, drop us a line and we’ll be happy to send you an electronic reading copy for consideration. publicity[at]wordhorde[dot]com.

There’s Still Time to Read the Best Books of 2016 Before the End of the Year

If a Word Horde book was one of your favorite reads of 2016, we hope you’ll help us tell the world by sharing a link, posting a review, telling a friend, or nominating for an award.

And with that, here’s our 2016 lineup. Books make great holiday gifts! Thanks for helping us make 2016 our best year yet!

 

Furnace, by Livia Llewellyn.

furnace“Beautiful and hideous in the same breath, its 13 tales of erotic, surreal, existential horror pack a logic-shattering punch. […] Llewellyn is steeped in the eerie tradition of H.P. Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti, and a sympathetic sense of dislocation and dread permeates Furnace. […] Bursting with blood and shadow and dust, with horror and wonder.” –Jason Heller, NPR

 

The Lure of Devouring Light, by Michael Griffin

lure“Michael Griffin’s The Lure of Devouring Light is one of those rare first story collections that defines both the writer and the genre, with stories that linger long after the last page is turned. In a year already full of amazing collections from established as well as new writers, we feel this is one collection that will remain one of your favorites for years to come.” —This Is Horror

 

The Fisherman, by John Langan

fisherman“In his superb new novel The Fisherman, John Langan also manages to sustain the focused effect of a short story or a poem over the course of a long horror narrative, and it’s an especially remarkable feat because this is a novel that goes back and forth in time, alternates lengthy stretches of calm with extended passages of vigorous and complex action, and features a very, very large monster.” —The New York Times Book Review

 

A Brutal Chill in August, by Alan M. Clark

abcia“Everything about this novel inspires admiration. It reveals terrible things about the world of London’s poor, yet it is a work of great beauty, ceaselessly entertaining and compellingly readable. The rigging of a ship burning in the fire at the London Docks ‘sparkles like a spider web dripping with dew at sunrise’. When we finally meet Jack the Ripper, he emerges from the darkness like an ordinary man, smelling of sulphur and soap. A Brutal Chill in August is a triumph.” —Ripperologist Magazine

 

Eternal Frankenstein, edited by Ross E. Lockhart

frank“This impressive compendium contains a rich array of short stories inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. […] All of the writing is high quality, all the stories are suspenseful, and though most involve reanimation of the dead, the perspectives all differ, as do the historical time periods. […] The anthology would make an excellent college classroom companion to Frankenstein because of its relatable narratives interwoven with history and biography, as well as some vivid present-day tales (particularly Tiffany Scandal’s “They Call Me Monster” and Damien Angelica Walters’s “Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice”) that address bullying, loneliness, and body image.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

 

A shout-out to the crew at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, CA for helping us show off our books.

 

PS: Just noted at Tor.com: John Langan’s The Fisherman and Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace make the list: Reviewers’ Choice: Best Books of 2016:

“Langan’s novel is deliberate, elegant, and beautifully written; the horror and trauma of these two men is explored to the bone, and in the end, knowing them so well only makes the horrors to come that much more terrifying. If you enjoy horror, I’d highly recommend this incredible novel.”

“…the collection that most stayed with me—I read it back in January—was Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace and Other Stories. Vicious, beautiful, and darkly erotic, these stories got under my skin in the best possible way.”

 

The Word Horde Summer Solstice Goodreads Giveaway (Plus the Latest News)

We’ve just kicked off our biggest Goodreads Giveaway yet, with copies of Michael Griffin’s The Lure of Devouring Light, Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace, Orrin Grey’s Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts, Ross E. Lockhart’s Cthulhu Fhtagn!, and John Langan’s The Fisherman up for grabs. All you have to do is click through, sign up for Goodreads (if you haven’t already), and enter to win. On the Summer Solstice, June 20, we will select winners and ship books (July 4 in the case of John Langan’s The Fisherman).

Here are the Goodreads Giveaway links:

The Lure of Devouring Light
Furnace
Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts
Cthulhu Fhtagn!
The Fisherman (runs June 1-July 4, 2016)

In other news, The Driftless Area Review just posted a new interview with the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Mr. Suicide, Nicole Cushing, wherein they discuss conventions, “likeable characters,” Louisville, KY, and the definition of evil. It’s a great read.

And you can now read the title story from Livia Llewellyn’s Word Horde collection, Furnace, courtesy of the folks at Weird Fiction Review. Llewellyn’s Shirley Jackson Award-nominated story “Furnace” originally appeared in the Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.-edited Thomas Ligotti tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets. Read it here.

An Interview with Michael Griffin

Happy Walpurgisnacht! Today marks the release of Michael Griffin‘s The Lure of Devouring Light. We’re currently launching the book with Mike at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro, but a few days ago, Sean M. Thompson interviewed Mike about the collection.

The Lure of Devouring Light by Michael Griffin

What do you feel the role of genre is in fiction?

Genre is especially useful for booksellers, marketers and publishers. I think genre divisions are useful for people trying to find their way toward work they would enjoy, as a way of herding together works that share certain traits. From the opposite perspective, that of a writer, I would stop short of saying genre is a negative thing, as I’ve seen some other writers say. Some writers gladly align themselves to a genre, wear it like a badge on their sleeve, and go around proudly waving the flag. Many writers, though, don’t want to think about it too much, and look at genre as a necessary thing unavoidably imposed upon them. The writers I most respect pretty much seem to do what they want to do without consciously aiming at a certain genre target. The create the work, and their agent or their publisher or the critics decide what it is. I think this last approach makes the most sense to me, but I don’t want to disparage those who are flag-wavers for their chosen territory, and who exclusively write (and read) within it.

How do you think the weird has evolved in modern fiction, if you think it has at all?

I used to believe the weird had evolved a lot, but the more widely I read beyond the obvious starting point (Lovecraft) the more I discovered examples of weird writers throughout history creating all kinds of challenging and diversely varied stuff. I do feel that in the last ten or fifteen years, the number of people writing truly strong, individual work is higher than it has ever been before. But I no longer believe that the kind of thing being written now is entirely different in kind from what came before my lifetime. Maybe a slow evolution.

You’ve told me before you’re a proponent of a lot of edits. What’s the most you’ve ever edited your work?

There are different kinds of edits. I used to line edit endlessly, second-guessing word choices, adding commas, changing pronouns and shifting around phrases. That’s still important, and I spend a lot of time trying to get every word and every sentence just right. Certainly more important, though, is editing with a wider angle of view. By this I mean looking at the overall shape or trajectory of the story, maybe trimming or adding entire pages or even scenes. Once I start writing, I continue to pause, step back and look at my stories with a wider view. Sometimes I do what I call a “reverse outline,” where I look at the structure of the story as it’s written, and I create an outline from it. This helps me find things like jumps in logic, or especially repetition. Sometimes in a reverse outline I discover something like, “Hey, I don’t really need to have him visit the lawyer’s office and talk about the case in scene 9 because he basically did the same thing in scene 6.” I make sure each piece of the story contributes something, or else it gets changed or removed. I have to say, I read a lot of stories that could benefit from this kind of structural analysis. Very often stories include dead scenes or repetitive sections. But to answer the original question, I have stories I’ve reworked at least 20-30 times, and quite a few that have gone through more than 10 versions. As I get better at this, so I make fewer mistakes and follow fewer dead-ends to begin with, it seems like I’m able to get by with fewer drafts, maybe four to six.

What is the significance of the title of your collection?

First of all, it’s the title of the lead story, so that’s why it’s the title of the collection, not just because it’s the first story but because it’s also representative of what I do, and a good opener, neither too long nor too short, and not too confusing. But to explain the significance of the story’s title, I’d say something that’s important to me is to avoid the too-easy trap of Horror and Weird writers making everything “black” and “dark.” There’s certainly plenty of darkness and nighttime and black imagery in my work, but I’m interested in different kinds of fear and unease. Also, the story makes the point that sometimes people or things that are dangerous or malicious don’t in fact appear horrifying or gruesome. They may be appealing, attractive or seductive. They have something to offer, something to draw us nearer, otherwise we would just run the other direction.

How do you think your style has changed from when you first started writing?

My style hasn’t changed too much, in terms of how I tend to build sentences. What has changed is that my way of conveying to the reader what’s happening has shifted to give a perspective from inside the mind and senses of the point of view character. As much as possible, everything should be filtered through the mechanism by which this person makes sense of their surroundings and what they see and hear unfolding around them. I guess a simpler way to say this would be that I try hard to make the point of view more subjective.

Ultimately what do you hope readers take away from The Lure of Devouring Light?

Aside from the obvious, like wanting to provide entertainment or enjoyment, the outcome I most hope for is that readers will find the characters believable, convincing human beings. I also hope some of the images or situations will linger in the mind after the reading is done.

Word Horde at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro, CA

hplffsite_headerimages_hplffsp_2016

Join Word Horde as we return to the Los Angeles area in order to sell you books at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro, CA, April 29-May 1, 2016. We’ll be sharing space with the incredible Dim Shores, and we’ll have plenty of free Word Horde buttons, stickers, and bookmarks (just sign up for our mailing list). Plus, we will be debuting Michael Griffin‘s new collection, The Lure of Devouring Light, at the festival, and Mike will be on hand to sign copies. Tickets to the festival are still available, and it’s going to be more fun than you can safely shake a shoggoth at. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Cover Reveal: The Lure of Devouring Light

We are pleased to reveal the cover to Michael Griffin‘s The Lure of Devouring Light, which Word Horde will be publishing in April. This cover features artwork by Jarek Kubicki and design by Scott R Jones, and if you like what you see on the outside, just wait until you have a chance to dig in to the inside. Preorders are now open.

LoDL_frontcover_004

Over the last few years, Michael Griffin has been heralded by critics as an author of breathtaking skill, melding the aesthetics of quiet horror, dreamlike wonder, and the strangeness inherent in the classical weird. Readers have sought his stories, scattered throughout prestigious anthologies, magazines, and limited-edition chapbooks, hoping to assemble their own collections of Griffin’s ferocious, poetic fiction.

Now, Word Horde presents Michael Griffin’s debut collection, The Lure of Devouring Light. Here you will find strange and luminous tales, character-driven, emotionally resonant, and grappling with horrors both everyday and supernatural.

Experience for yourself The Lure of Devouring Light.

Livia Llewellyn’s Furnace cover reveal, preorders now open on two 2016 Word Horde books

We are pleased to reveal the cover to Livia Llewellyn’s collection Furnace, which we will be publishing in February. We are now accepting preorders for Furnace.

Furnace by Livia Llewellyn

Horror fiction has long celebrated and explored the twin engines driving human existence. Call them what you like: Sex and Death, Love and Destruction, Temptation and Terror. While many may strive to reach the extremes, few authors manage to find the beauty that rests in the liminal space between these polar forces, the shuddering ecstasy encased within the shock. And then there’s Livia Llewellyn, an author praised for her dark, stirring, evocative prose and disturbing, personal narratives.

Lush, layered, multifaceted, and elegant, the thirteen tales comprising Furnace showcase why Livia Llewellyn has been lauded by scholars and fans of weird fiction alike, and why she has been nominated multiple times for the Shirley Jackson Award and included in year’s best anthologies. These are exquisite stories, of beauty and cruelty, of pleasure and pain, of hunger, and of sharp teeth sinking into tender flesh.

Also now available for preorder (though the cover isn’t quite ready to show off yet) is Michael Griffin’s The Lure of Devouring Light, which we will be publishing in April. If you love short fiction like we love short fiction, 2016 is going to be your year!

Over the last few years, Michael Griffin has been heralded by critics as an author of breathtaking skill, melding the aesthetics of quiet horror, dreamlike wonder, and the strangeness inherent in the classical weird. Readers have sought his stories, scattered throughout prestigious anthologies, magazines, and limited-edition chapbooks, hoping to assemble their own collections of Griffin’s ferocious, poetic fiction.

Now, Word Horde presents Michael Griffin’s debut collection, The Lure of Devouring Light. Here you will find strange and luminous tales, character-driven, emotionally resonant, and grappling with horrors both everyday and supernatural.

Experience for yourself The Lure of Devouring Light.