In book news, I entered into what may be the last phase of edits for the collection NIGHTMARE GROVE. This book compiles material from my ebook Before Crazytown and several newer stories, three of which were written especially for the collection. Here’s a look at the table of contents (the asterisked are new):
Ink
Linkage*
The Forgotten God*
Ghoul Picnic
The Whispering Trees
Green
Pawprints *
Pnakotic Reaction
Frieze in Blue and White*
Waiting for the Sun (both the story and as a title for a flash fiction section)
E-versions (“Eebs”) and ARCs will be made available for review purposes, upon request, from moderanathotmaildotcom, shortly after the first of the month.
“Ink” is the rewritten version of “Parchment”, which I’ve stolen from the Crazytown collection. “Linkage” is a new short that elaborates on some of the concepts embodied in “Ink,” and applies them to a slightly different area of endeavor. That leads in to “The Forgotten God,” which I had originally meant to submit to Cthulhusattva, but the thing ran way too long and stubbornly refused to make good sense when it was cut down. So I cribbed it for this book, where it fits the theme nicely.
“Ghoul Picnic” and “The Whispering Trees” used to be the short and the long versions of the same story. Now they’re related pieces, with a similar cast and setting, which offer more detail about the underworld and the Dreamlands, until the theme surfaces again in “Green,” which is a much-expanded version of the older EC-styled piece from the early 2000s.
“Pnakotic Reaction”, a greatly-expanded version of the story published in The Fall of Cthulhu, comes complete with some additional looks at the schemes and machinations of the Crawling Chaos, the only Great Old One to have much direct interest in Earthly affairs, and touches upon his role in the “cosmic all”. Nyarlathotep makes several appearances in other tales, and is quite literally the “star” of the show, as we find out in “Pnakotic Reaction” and “Frieze in Blue and White”, which also features the August Derleth creation Ithaqua and his rather gelid idea of “slow glass”.
The last segment is a collection of older stories, poems and flash fictions appearing under a common heading. These pieces appeared in “before Crazytown”.
Tomorrow, some music news. Thanks for reading. Feel free to regale me.
RetroGrade A 