Issue 10 of Dead Reckonings: a review of horror literature, out now. Includes an index to the first ten issues.
Dead Reckonings #10
06 Sunday Nov 2011
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
06 Sunday Nov 2011
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
Issue 10 of Dead Reckonings: a review of horror literature, out now. Includes an index to the first ten issues.
04 Friday Nov 2011
Posted in New books
The Spanish Association of Horror Writers has a new collection of the best Lovecraft Mythos stories in Spanish, Los Nuevos Mytos de Cthulhu. On sale on the 2nd of December 2011, and it’s the flagship title of their new Edge Books imprint.


04 Friday Nov 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
The H.P. Podcraft full-story readings were teetering on the verge of toppling and sinking below the black mire of iTunes bandwidth…
“from this point forward, our full story readings will no longer be appearing as Podcast episodes – they’ll only be available exclusively from the site, and will be disappearing from the iTunes feed in the future.”
But they’re been rescued by Michael Walker, and will still be available on the site. Nice one, Michael! Currently available full readings for download: “From Beyond”; The Picture in The House”; “The Haunter of the Dark”; “Cool Air”, and “The Cats of Ulthar”.
I don’t use iTunes, but I’m puzzled why bandwidth should be an issue there. Is it that… when bandwidth for free iTunes stuff exceeds a certain amount, Apple pulls the plug and makes you offer it for payment?
04 Friday Nov 2011
Posted in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts, REH
Genius British comics artist Hunt Emerson provides a lovely new portrait of Ernst Haeckel, Zoologist and Painter, on the Steampunk and Phenomena profile of Haeckel.

Haeckel’s full set of Kunstformen der Natur plates are available on Wikimedia. These are likely to have visually influenced Lovecraft and Giger, and Haeckel is cited as one of Lovecraft’s “chief philosophical influences” via Haeckel’s The Riddle of the Universe (1899). He was also an influence on R.E. Howard (circa 9th August 1932, Howard told Lovecraft that he… “used to be a violent admirer of Haekal”). There’s also a 60 minute documentary on Haeckel, Proteus (2004).

03 Thursday Nov 2011
Posted in Films & trailers, Lovecraftian arts
Wildside Cinema has a new review of Cthulhu (2007). I must say I’ve never heard of the movie, but it sounds like a very free adaptation of “The Shadow over Innsmouth”…
“That the movie is exquisitely photographed helps immensely, some of the camera angles and setups look like paintings in an art gallery.”

02 Wednesday Nov 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Scholarly works
Miskatonic Books announces pre-orders for S.T. Joshi’s Medusa’s Coil and Others. The Annotated Revisions and Collaborations of H.P. Lovecraft, Vol.2.. Superb cover artwork by Zach McCain.


150 print-run, collector’s hardback. Only eight copies left of the first volume, apparently.
02 Wednesday Nov 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Peanuts, the Lovecraft adaptations…
02 Wednesday Nov 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Whats On Stage reviews a recent British theatre adaptation of “The Call of Cthulhu”, presented at The Lowry in Salford, Manchester…
“with a few tweaks to the script Sabbaton could transform this from a slightly scary Jackanory to a truly terrifying experience”
01 Tuesday Nov 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Odd scratchings
The hand-coded ebook edition of my The Spyders of Burslem novel has just landed on the Kindle. It’s now available from Amazon USA and Amazon UK. If you’re in France or Germany, it’s there too.

“It is the year 1869 in the English Midlands pottery town of Burslem, where a new age of industry and learning struggles to be born. A young graduate has arrived to teach the workers, but finds himself on the trail of a deadly evil.”
60,000 words, hand-coded, linked table of contents. Five passes of extra proof-reading for the Kindle edition.
31 Monday Oct 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
I’m very pleased to say that my novel The Spyders of Burslem has been published on Halloween, as planned. Available to buy now as a paperback. Kindle users will have to wait just a little longer, because the Amazon approval process holds things up for a day or two. Here’s the blurb…
The Spyders of Burslem. A dark historical mystery, brought to vivid life. It is the year 1869 in the English pottery town of Burslem, where a new age of industry and learning struggles to be born. A young graduate has arrived to teach the workers, but finds himself on the trail of a deadly evil. A new and original novel of 60,000-words, rich with authentic period details and characters.
Here are the chapter contents from the book’s website… with a link to a free sample chapter. Kindle users will, of, course, be able to read the first 10% of the new book for free.
CONTENTS:
Chapter One: Arrival.
Chapter Two: A Providential Meeting.
Chapter Three: The Raising of the Zodiac.
Chapter Four: A Pint of the Finest.
Chapter Five: In a Darkling Aetherstorm.
Chapter Six: Death and Time.
Chapter Seven: Discoveries.
Chapter Eight: The Scrying.
Chapter Nine: A Cunning Kiss.
Chapter Ten: What the Dark Brings.
Chapter Eleven: The Face and the Mind.
Chapter Twelve: The Shadows of the Blind.
Chapter Thirteen: The Workings of Men.
Chapter Fourteen: Lost and Dreaming.
Chapter Fifteen: A First Frost.
A historical note.

29 Saturday Oct 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
A new in-depth Gamasutra article on Scary Game Findings: A Study Of Horror [Video]Games And Their Players, which delves into exactly what scares Xbox 360 players. Finding out how good PC games look, compared to the Xbox — now that would be pretty scary…
28 Friday Oct 2011
Posted in New books
The New York Times reviews a new Library of America volume: Ambrose Bierce…
“If there’s a genre Bierce was born to, it’s horror. He collected his supernatural tales under the title “Can Such Things Be?” — a question whose tone is cunningly ambiguous, hovering between cool skepticism and slack-jawed amazement. And that is exactly the tone of the stories themselves.”