Tag: new release

Mixing Up the Genres with The Talking Cure

By Kathy L. Brown

I’m delighted to share that a supernatural Yuletide follow-up to The Big Cinch is headed our way in time for the winter holiday season. In book two of the Sean Joye Investigations series, The Talking Cure, a haunted woman claws her way back to reality by reconnecting with her magical powers.

What is The Talking Cure?

Committed to an insane asylum, Violet Humphrey is isolated on the Illinois prairie with only her own thoughts and a persistent new voice in her head for company. When she is accused of murder, Violet suspects her road to both freedom and recovery lies through confronting her painful past and solving the crime. Magically summoned, Sean Joye skids through an ice storm to help Violet, but can they catch the killer and defy an eldritch horror before Violet loses her tenuous grasp on reality?

“The Talking Cure is a marvelous story—an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery infused with a strong sense of the Weird… and a hearty dose of magic on the side. It’s ideal for all fans of the sinister, the surprising, and the strange.” —Cherie Priest, award-winning author of Boneshaker

How to Mix Up the Genres

As you may have gathered from Cherie Priest’s endorsement, this book can’t be pegged into one genre. While I describe my stories “supernatural noir,” this one introduced a fair amount of eldritch horror and golden-age detective fiction tropes as well.

There was a time when publishers hated cross genre; they didn’t know how to sell it. That is, they didn’t know what its bookstore section should be. But now with electronic search capabilities authors and publishers can tag their offering with all applicable descriptors. It is so much easier for readers to find the perfect combination of their favorite tropes and styles.

I see cross-genre writing everywhere (even literary fiction is getting pretty blatant with speculative elements: 3rd and 4th place on the New York Times Best Seller list this morning are a book about an alchemist and a one about dragon riders.), and us indie and small press types really love to mix up the genres. Not being pigeonholes suites our imaginations quite well.

Brainstorming Genre at Gen Con

The Talking Cure is my response to a challenge to combine unlikely genres. Picture this: It’s August 2018. The Big Cinch is a finished manuscript, and I’m slogging through the agent-finding process and thinking I need to start the next book.

Meanwhile, I go to GenCon for the first time. Of course I attend all the writing workshops I can squeeze in. Bradley P. Beaulieu makes an off-hand remark in his “Brainstorming Your Way to a Breakout Novel” talk, “…or you might try mixing up unlikely genres and see what happens.”

I have my notes from that day. After the talk, I sat in the Indianapolis Marriot’s lobby and made two long lists under the key terms: “Cthulhu” and “Cozy,” followed by what turned out to be the basic elements for “Violet’s Novel.” The big question in the margins, “How cozy? How Cthulhu?”

The cozy aspect is evident in the setting, a favorite mystery trope: a small group of people isolated in a country house at which a murder occurs. Yet while my protagonists Violet and Sean collect evidence to solve the mundane crime, a hidden eldritch agenda becomes evident.

If you would like to sample the new book, read on! As the late December darkness gathers on the prairie, so do the Elsass Institute’s Board of Directors for their annual meeting. Head nurse Carrie has arranged for a few of the more presentable patients, including our protagonist, Violet Humphrey, to attend the welcome party and demonstrate the effectiveness of The Talking Cure.

The room grew darker as the afternoon faded, with just the glow of the hearth and the  lights on the Christmas tree. When a fresh contingent of board members lumbered into the parlor, the parrot squawked, and the elderly tree trimmers equally took fright. Dr. Elsass approached the new arrivals, arms outstretched. “Come in, gentlemen. Have a hot drink. There will be ‘something stronger,’ and a fine meal presently.”

Suddenly, a passing shadow blocked the glow from the fireplace, a darkness that smelled of decaying fish, sulfur, and algae bloom. Then Berta, who’d been so calm, sank to her knees, her eyes darting about, and croaked in a wavering voice, “Dagon lives. Mighty Dagon. Dagon. Dagon. Dagon.”

The bird joined in as a chorus, “Dagon, Dagon, Dagon.”

Having no idea to whom or what they referenced, I was struck for a moment with total conviction that Berta, and perhaps the parrot, knew some secret of infinite portent. I utterly believed them, the words a carillon to my ears. I took a deep breath. This wouldn’t do at all. I’m sure it was just what Carrie had been worried about, one of us crazy people acting crazy at the normal-people party.

The Talking Cure will be available from Literary Underworld by mid-December 2025!

KATHY L. BROWN lives in St. Louis, Mo. and writes speculative fiction with a historical twist. Her hometown and its history inspire her fiction. When she’s not thinking about how haunted everything is, she enjoys hiking, crafts, and cooking for her family. Montag Press published the first novel in her Sean Joye Investigations book series in 2021. Follow her social media platforms: Instagram at kathylbrownwrites, Facebook at kbKathylbrown, and Twitter at KL_Brown. The Storytelling Blog lives at kathylbrown.com. Her novel The Big Cinch is currently available from the Literary Underworld.

 

It’s Archon time!

It’s time for our hometown party! Archon is a neighborhood con for many of us here in the Literary Underworld, and always a great time. This year we expect to see Underlords Jim D. Gillentine, Kathy Brown, Sela Carsen/Silke Campion, Cole Lanahan, Diana Morgan, Mary Koppenhofer, Michales Joy, and perhaps some others! (Oh, and Overlord Elizabeth Donald.)

Literary Underworld will have our usual booth just to the left of the dealer’s room entrance. We have planted our flag on that spot and it is ours. This year we are premiering a few new books released over the last few months by our amazing Underlords!

Blackfire Rising by Elizabeth Donald

It was an experiment. A way to create a better soldier. Colder, more efficient. But some things shouldn’t be altered, and some creatures are best left to myth.

Sara Harvey has faced the Cold Ones again and again, losing friends and comrades in a running battle to keep the world safe from the monsters released by an experiment that should never have happened.

Because you shouldn’t have to pray to just stay dead.

 

 

 

Madam, Don’t Forget Your Sword

Do we ever think of them, the little people who make their masters larger than life? The ones tasked with the routine jobs: Picking up the laundry, packing snacks for the quest, renting the secret lair, oiling the death machine, walking the eldritch horror? The people who keep the heroine’s sword sharp and her chainmail polished—does she ever notice? What are their lives like? How did they get their jobs? There would be no story without them, but what are their stories?

Here, we present twenty-eight innovative and remarkable speculative fiction tales that reveal how the companions, sidekicks, and minions make that hero—or villain—super. Authors include Underlord Diana Morgan.

 

 

 

Vegas Run by Rachel Brune

Some debts you can’t outrun.

An unprovoked attack destroys Rick Keller’s refuge and sends him back to civilization. Adrift, alone, his past reaches out to him as the agency he escaped–and the old Soviet spook he almost didn’t–call in their debts. His choice: work with MONIKER one more time, or face the rest of his life on the run.

From the snows of the north to the sand of the Las Vegas strip, Rick finds himself enmeshed in a web of old alliances and new, as his team heads out on the trail of the latest development in the supernatural arms race. While Rick has been hiding in the north country, MONIKER has been building a supernatural army. No matter how fast or far he runs, it won’t be enough. This time when they call him in, they don’t need an agent–they’re eliminating the competition. This time, he’s going to burn them to the ground.

 

 

Marathonarium Vol. 2
Ed. by Stephen Zimmer, including Underlord Kathy Brown

The short stories within this anthology are the result of a creative journey that began on Thursday, July 18th, of 2024, on the eve of the 11th Imaginarium Convention. Writers of many styles and genres gathered together for a marathon writing session of three hours in length. All of the participants were encouraged to tell the story that they wanted to tell; there were no restrictions on genre, there was no common theme, nor were there any parameters on the voice the story had to be told in.

The stories were completed and edited in the months that followed, and the result is a group of tales that will entertain, captivate, provoke thought, stoke the imagination, thrill, and engage readers of a broad range of fiction!

Discover a highly talented group of up-and-coming writers dedicated to the craft of writing and the art of storytelling in Marathonarium II.

 

 

Weird STL, ed. by the St. Louis Writers Guild.

Eighteen short stories, poems, essays, flash fiction, and even a script that were all written by St. Louis Writers Guild members. Among them are Underlords Elizabeth Donald, Kathy Brown and Diana Morgan, each exploring the weirdness of our beloved St. Louis.

 

 

 

 

Baby Monster by John McFarland

Return with us to Ste. Odile, a cursed town indeed.

A familiar scientist is conducting a study on teeth, using participants from the women’s wing of St. Mathurin’s Home for the Insane.

A resolute woman must perform an unspeakable act to save herself from a life-ending condition.

An abandoned and crumbling orphanage hiding a horrific secret, a woman’s obsession with speaking to the dead, and her husband trying to save their son from potential murder come together in a thunderous storm of shock and terror.

Step into the end of intimate acquaintances and the beginning of tenuous relationships. Mysterious men, undaunted women, warped creatures, maddened minds, human atrocities… all await you in McFarland’s second volume of harrowing short stories, including two novelettes, published here for the first time.

“In Baby Monster, McFarland revisits the cursed town of Ste. Odile, where the darkest angels of our souls, all our souls, reside.” ~ Dacre Stoker, author of Dracul and great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker.

All these and many more are waiting for you at the Literary Underworld booth at Archon this weekend! And if you can’t make it to the show, they are all available on our online store. Just click the book covers to purchase! Remember, when you shop from the Literary Underworld, you’re buying directly from authors and small presses, which pays them more than buying from Big River. Support small presses, support authors, buy Literary Underworld!

See you at Archon!

Vegas Run

By Rachel Brune

Run Faster…

Rick Keller, werewolf secret agent and grumpy retired soldier, came to me over the course of three or four writing exercises. I wasn’t expecting him to set up shop in my creative brain until those exercises turned into Cold Run, the first book in the Rick Keller Project. Nor did I expect there to be more books, short stories, and half-formed ideas that would grow along the way, each waiting to be set down with greater or less patience.

But after Cold Run, which had its own long, strange trip to its current publication with Falstaff Books, I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go in. We’d already visited the trope of the retired spy being dragged back in from the cold, with the shady government agency that treats him like just another resource to be used up at their discretion. Did Cold Run work as a standalone book? Did it have series potential? And what would that series potential look like?

I’m a history nerd with a long reading list in 20th century shenanigans, and one of the elements that stood out to me when learning about the arms race was the absolute amorality of the sprint to developing nuclear weapons. Project Paperclip showed that the mission to develop and keep the edge in the nuclear arms race against the U.S.S.R.

Without giving away spoilers for Cold Run (and if you haven’t read it, it’s available right here on the Literary Underworld), at the end, Rick Keller tries once again to disappear into the wilderness—but there are some loose ends that are going to eventually bring him back.

And those loose ends are directly tied to the fact that governments and extra-national organizations will, in the vast game of might-against-might, will do anything they need to or can do to pursue that edge in race for the bigger and better weapon.

Even if it ends up destroying them.

Keep running!

Vegas Run, the sequel to Cold Run, is now out and available for purchase here at the Underworld, as well as from Falstaff Books. (And I guess you could buy it from other places, too, but if you’re here, you probably enjoy supporting indie authors and publishers.)

There’s a bunch of themes and topics I’ve been thinking about while planning out the rest of the series. Vegas Run is where I went hard on the theme of found/chosen family. It’s the book where I worked through my feelings about the decision to leave the military and what that would look like. (Spoiler alert – I immediately joined the Reserve because, like my main character, I am a masochist.)

Vegas Run also has a few hints as to where the next books in the series will go. And, I have to say, the final climactic sequence was immensely satisfying to write.

But of all the different plot twists and characters introduced and various themes touched on, I kept coming back to the idea of how far people will go to pursue power and a technological edge, even if the final weapon has the capability to wipe us off the face of the earth, along with whatever group of them we’re demonizing and othering at the moment.

But pace yourself…

When I pitch my series to readers, I tell them it was written by someone who grew up in the Cold War and served in the global war on terror, and enjoy reading spy and thriller novels—but always wished they had a werewolf.

When my publisher pitches the book, he pitches it: “If Joe Ledger were a werewolf, he’d be Rick Keller.”

The arms race never went away. The desire for power and strength and pursuing the technological edge to keep that power and strength never went away.

As Vegas Run launches, and I work on finishing up the third book in the series, Trial Run, it reminds me that when faced with the banal malevolence of large entities embarked on the quest for absolute power, the only thing that can throw dirt in the gears of the machine is finding the people who will be your family and stand with you—and hand you another handful of dirt.

I hope that the folks who have given the series a chance will enjoy the ride, and that if you—like me—get nostalgic for a little Spy vs. Spy—with werewolves!—you’ll check out the series. And take care of yourselves and your chosen and found families.

RACHEL A. BRUNE graduated from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2000, and was immediately plunged into the low-stakes world of entry-level executive assistantship. Her unexpected journey out of that world and into the military is chronicled in her self-published book Echoes and Premonitions. Rachel served five years as a combat journalist, including two tours in Iraq, and a brief stint as a columnist for her hometown newspaper. After her second tour, she attended graduate school at the University at Albany in NY, where she earned her M.A. in political communication, and her commission as a second lieutenant in the military police corps.

Although her day job has taken in her in many strange, often twisted directions, Rachel continues to write and publish short fiction. She released her first novel, Soft Target, in early 2013, and other books have followed. In addition to writing, she is the founder and chief editor at Crone Girls Press and edits the Falstaff Dread line of horror fiction at Falstaff Books.

Some debts you can’t outrun.

An unprovoked attack destroys Rick Keller’s refuge and sends him back to civilization. Adrift, alone, his past reaches out to him as the agency he escaped–and the old Soviet spook he almost didn’t–call in their debts. His choice: work with MONIKER one more time, or face the rest of his life on the run.

From the snows of the north to the sand of the Las Vegas strip, Rick finds himself enmeshed in a web of old alliances and new, as his team heads out on the trail of the latest development in the supernatural arms race. While Rick has been hiding in the north country, MONIKER has been building a supernatural army. No matter how fast or far he runs, it won’t be enough. This time when they call him in, they don’t need an agent–they’re eliminating the competition.

This time, he’s going to burn them to the ground.

BLACKFIRE RISING has shambled to Literary Underworld

By Elizabeth Donald

I’m happy to announce that Blackfire Rising has finally been resurrected, and is now shambling your way via the Literary Underworld.

Longtime readers know that the Blackfire series has been going on for 15 years in various forms, beginning with a novella published by Sam’s Dot Press and continuing through novels, short stories and another novella, published a few years ago by Crone Girls Press. Now the good folks at Falstaff Books have picked up the series, and our first release collects all the Blackfire pieces into one volume with some new stories and a look forward at what might be ahead for Sara Harvey and (what’s left of) her team.

 

It was an experiment. A way to create a better soldier. Colder, more efficient.

But some things shouldn’t be altered, and some creatures are best left to myth. The dead know no peace, and they are coming for Sara Harvey.

Sara has faced the Cold Ones again and again, losing friends and comrades in a running battle to keep the world safe from the monsters released by an experiment that should never have happened. Again and again, Sara is drawn back into Blackfire, as it hunts the things that hide in the shadows.

The clock is ticking, and the slaughter has begun.

And you shouldn’t have to pray to just stay dead.

From award-winning horror author Elizabeth Donald comes a compendium of the entire Blackfire series… so far.

Blackfire Rising is published in ebook, trade paperback and hardback. Preorders are on their way and will be shipped as soon as they’re in our hands. If you didn’t preorder, feel free to order right away! If ordering through Literary Underworld, you can have it signed upon request – be sure to indicate it in your checkout.

And you can join me on Monday for a live Zoom chat where I will read selections from the book, talk about its weird shambling journey to resurrection, what might be coming in the future for this series, and also pass the bourbon. Click here to RSVP on Facebook, or if you eschew the book of face, you can register at EventBrite. The Zoom link will be shared closer to the event.


Where to buy the book: 

Direct from me

Literary Underworld

Falstaff Books

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Many thanks to the awesome folks at Falstaff Books for their fine work on this book, even making me fix all those em dashes. Special thanks to Rachel Brune, editor extraordinaire (and fellow Underlord!), and publisher John Hartness for their hard work and patience and faith in this series.

I have had so much fun with this book in all its iterations. I hope you enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed writing it.

A fungus amongus

By Rachel Brune

Crone Girls Press has published horror for five years and counting at this point, but it was only until a year or so ago that I realized we were an independent press whose books were not available through most independent bookstores. And so, with our latest release, Dark Spores: Stories We Tell After Midnight Volume 4, we’re focusing on giving our readers options.

An Inherent Contradiction

When I started Crone Girls Press, I knew a good deal about what makes a good story, how to cajole my connections to provide me with a good story, and how to work with an author to make a good story even better. From the time we published the first volume of Stories We Tell After Midnight, I have learned a lot about how to be a better editor, coach, mentor, friend, and anthologist.

The thing I wished I knew, back in 2019, was limiting it could be to publish exclusively on the Big River Site. I listened to podcasts and followed author groups that recommended rapid release and Kindle Unlimited exclusivity and various other Amazon-focused profitable techniques that made a lot of sense for publishing speculative fiction but, as I learned, had limited application to other genres and forms.

But still, publishing KDP was a place to start, and that’s where we began.

Genre Horror and a Punk Attitude

I’ve always pursued creative ventures. I had a band in college (shout out to Pop’s Basement), I enjoyed blogging and publishing interviews, and I have been writing songs, poems, and fiction for years. Through those years, I’ve seen various platforms that claim to support independent creatives come and go, from Lulu to CreateSpace to CDBaby to Bandcamp to Spotify for Podcasters and many more. The one element they all had in common was relying on creatives’ work to drive aggregate traffic to their platforms where they would parcel out pennies to the creator and bank the rest.

For book publishing, it seemed the same. Sure, we could strike up partnerships with collectives like The Literary Underworld (shoutout to The Underlords!) Or, we could consign books with certain bookstores, especially local indie shops. But for the most part, it seemed like the Big River Site was the only, or at least the best, way to go.

But was it?

Corporate monopolies aren’t very punk rock, and it seemed like an indie press like ours could put in the time and leg work to start growing an organic presence and giving readers an alternative to purchasing our works that weren’t (only) through their ’Zon accounts.

First Step—The Underworld

Elizabeth Donald was one of the first people I thought of when it came to horror. And shortly after we started publishing, she invited me to become part of the Literary Underworld. And in fact, this partnership contributed to the motivation to dig into how and where and why we were selling our work, and to do the leg work to understand more of how we could get away from sole reliance on Amazon.

Take a look over at the Underworld catalogue. You’ve got all genres from horror to sci-fi to urban fantasy to romance. You can find some of my personal titles there (Cold Run and Side Roads), as well as a number of Crone Girls Press titles, a few of which contain familiar Underlords in the tables of contents (Coppice & Brake, Tangle & Fen.) And, one sale of a title through the Underworld returns about three times the amount of an Amazon sale. (Punk rock might not be about profits, but book sales help keep the lights on.)

Next Step—The world! Muahahaha!

Dark Spores: Stories We Tell After Midnight Volume 4 is our first anthology in the series to follow a theme. We fell in love with the idea of mushrooms and fungus and mold and mildew creeping along in the dark underground, building and multiplying, until they extrude through the soil or the skin. The theme resonated with our authors who sent in tales of loneliness, isolation, and fear, as well as forced assimilation, willing submission to the darkness, and other fearsome fates.

As with our other projects, we looked for the widest and deepest variety of voices and perspectives that we could invite, seeking unique ways of looking at life—or death, as the case may be.

And, with this volume, we are doing our best to offer different ways of inviting the spores into your library. (We realize that’s possibly not the best way of putting it…)

First, you will be able to order the anthology through The Literary Underworld.

Or, and this is our second-favorite way, you can head to your local bookseller, especially if you have a local bookstore you enjoy frequenting, and order it through them.

Finally, you could order it through a link on the book page on our website.

Feeling a little short on funds? Aren’t we all… Not to worry! My local library has a link where we can request a book, whether through Interlibrary Loan, or for the library to purchase the book. If yours has a similar link, fill it out and let’s spread our spores through the public library system!

Many thanks to Elizabeth Donald and The Literary Underworld, who have been gracious supporters and partners to me and Crone Girls Press from the beginning. Thanks to everyone who has purchased one of our volumes through the Underworld, and especially, who has gone to their review site of choice and left some kind words for us. Here is to a future with more great books and wonderful partners—and lots of independent options for our readers.

The Big Cinch!

I’m Kathy L. Brown and delighted to join The Literary Underworld team! I write speculative fiction with a historical twist. My hometown— St. Louis, Missouri —and its history inspire my fiction.

A Sherlock Holmes story collection captivated me as a ten-year-old. If every tale must have a maker, I resolved to be a maker, too. I immediately wrote a knock-off Sherlockian story, which was greeted with wide critical acclaim (by my teacher). I was hooked, really. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had ruined me for honest work.

However, I came of age in a tumultuous time. Despite the nascent women’s liberation movement’s encouragement, I convinced myself I had nothing to say to a world in upheaval. Thus, as a new college graduate, I landed a job as a book editor, an ideal pairing of my desire to read all day and a personality that picks at small details. Those skills served me well in a subsequent (and better paying) medical research career.

However, the need to make stories never truly left me. The haunted 1920s world of my book series, The Sean Joye Investigations, was conceived in a beginners’ creative writing workshop.

My supernatural noir stories’ gestation and birth took years. Meanwhile, I earned a creative writing certificate and wrote various fantasy stories for magazines and anthologies. Under my own imprint, I published two short Sean Joye adventures while working on a novel, The Big Cinch. Montag Press Collective published The Big Cinch in December 2021, and it is now available through The Literary Underworld website.

Currently, I’m polishing the next Sean Joye novel, The Talking Cure. We live in an exciting time for stories, and I want to be part of it all. My goals include produce stories in more formats, such as serials, audiobooks, and games. Check out the Sean Joye short stories and novellas at my website, kathylbrown.com.

The Big Cinch

The Big Cinch embeds readers in a magic-laced St. Louis, once known as Mound City, home of the indigenous Americans’ Mississippian ancestors. Little evidence of their civilization survives in 1924, apart from the popular Piasa monster image, invoked to sell plows as well as ornament civic pageants.

Sean Joye, a recent Irish immigrant, tried to avoid fae attention and ignore his magical abilities since childhood. A young veteran of 1922’s Irish Civil War, he aims to atone for his assassin past and make a clean life in America.  Sean helps a wealthy, powerful, magic-dabbling family—founders of the most exclusive club in town, the Piasa Lodge—with a discreet inquiry or two. Sexually involved with a secretive, high-society flapper, he falls hard for her fiancé, a Great War flying ace with a few secrets of his own.

But Sean asks the wrong questions about a kidnapped toddler and missing Native American artifacts and becomes a suspect in his lover’s bludgeoning and a tycoon’s murder. Can he master the paranormal abilities he’s rejected for so long in time to protect the innocent and save his own skin?

The Big Cinch will appeal to a wide range of readers:

  • Fans of a wise-cracking mage, such as in Ben Aaronovitch’sThe Hanging Tree, Steven Blackmoore’s Dead Things, and Jim Butcher’s Skin Games
  • Lovers of secret societies who worship mysterious, supernatural forces, such as in Matt Ruff’sLovecraft Country, Victor LaValle’s Ballad of Black Tom, Cherie Priest’s Chapelwood, and China Mieville’s The Last Days of Paris
  • Supporters of fiction that reflects cultural and sexual diversity, such as in Anne Bishop’sLake Silence: The World of the Others and V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Light

Kathy L. Brown lives and writes in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Her hometown and its history inspire her fiction. When she’s not thinking about how haunted everything is, she enjoys writing elaborate notes about her tabletop roleplaying games. Her supernatural noir novel, The Big Cinch novel won the 2022 Imadjinn award for best urban fantasy novel. Other stories in the Sean Joye Investigations world include The Resurrectionist and Water of Life. Kathy’s blog lives kathylbrown.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13 Octobers returns to familiar spooky ground

By Alexander S. Brown

I would like to start this by giving thanks to the Literary Underworld for granting me the opportunity to elaborate on my collection, 13 Octobers. Since this will primarily focus on why I chose to release this collection as an author’s preferred edition, I will spare the reader of what inspired this work in the first place. If you’re interested in those details, just visit my YouTube page Bookworm of the Damned and watch my video entry titled “Great News.”

Originally 13 Octobers was released in 2016. Back then, it was called The Night the Jack-o’-Lantern Went Out. Which despite how cool of a title that was, I couldn’t take credit for its name, as that was suggested by my publisher. And for this reason, when I decided to make this collection available to the public once again, I changed the name simply because it felt right.

Primarily, there were quite a few reasons why I decided to pull my work and regain my rights.  But instead of listing everything that went wrong, or what I considered to be a red flag, I’ll stick to the main factors that played into 13 Octobers becoming my preferred edition over the original text.

The main problem I had with The Night the Jack-o’- Lantern Went Out was because it had been published with a plethora of errors. And when I brought this to the publisher’s attention, I was told it wasn’t a big deal. It may not have been a big deal to him, but it was to me. After I requested a revision multiple times, and nothing was done, I came to the realization that no changes would be made. Imagine the frustration there.

As other issues began to mount, the weekend that made me decide to yank all of my work took place at a horror convention where I had been invited as a guest. At this convention, my publisher and I sat on a panel together to speak about the horror fandom. Shortly after we introduced ourselves to the audience, he said, “Horror is a dead genre.” Then he proceeded to explain how horror doesn’t sell.

All I could do was sit there and think, well, you just shot yourself in the foot. Then I asked myself, if the genre is so dead, why are you representing me? Since I wasn’t in the mood to argue, I expressed how I saw the genre reinventing itself.  Once the weekend concluded, I mulled over a gameplan to regain my rights, which resulted in me sending an email that expressed it was time to part ways. Of course, I was met with resistance, but I eventually got what I wanted.

From there, my work went out of print, but I knew I needed a creative outlet.  For that reason, I began the YouTube channel Bookworm of the Damned. This came about mostly because I wanted to document what I read and connect with other readers. Since I had spent nearly the last decade doing conventions and speaking on panels, I had a good idea of how I wanted to present myself.

But while my main focus became directed at this channel, I couldn’t just throw away my books altogether.  Because of that, I decided I would to return to the author life when it was right for me. Nonetheless, I continued to write new stories, until I felt it was time to return my attention to my previous published works.

Among my out-of-print collections and novel that I had released over the years, I decided to tackle The Night the Jack-o’-Lantern Went Out first. In 13 Octobers, I give a deeper meaning why I chose this collection first. But for here, I will simply say the subject matter was symbolic and comforting, as many of its characters reminded me of my family.

When time would allow, I tried to eliminate plot holes, gain historic accuracy, and fix grammatical and spelling errors that had gone untouched with its first printing. Then I handed my book over to friends and family, who I trusted could give me constructive criticism, which they did. Over the better part of two years, we corresponded frequently about what needed to be revised, and had it not been for their help, I doubt I would be writing these words now. Also, since the original cover art for The Night the Jack-o’-Lantern Went Out was provided by the publisher, I knew I wanted a new cover. I reached out to local artist Chuck Jett to create the current image.

Being DIY with this book was a great learning experience, especially when it came down to formatting the ebook and paperback.  But to prevent future struggle, I made notes from beginning to end of the steps I took for 13 Octobers to exist. While going through all of these steps did prove to be a headache, the fact that I now have complete control over my work, and I can make changes whenever I like, I can sleep better at night.

Before I close out, I would like to advise that not all publishers are like the one I described. Please don’t think I’m bashing all publishers. Nonetheless, if you are interested in a publisher, no matter what size house they are, purchase a few of their books and read them. When finished, ask yourself if the book was good quality. Then go online and research the publisher. Not only will a quick search help you determine how established their house is, but it will also allow you to see if the publisher has been in hot water. Furthermore, if you’re able, reach out to authors of that house, inquire about their publishing experience, as well as how loyal that publisher has been with sharing royalty statements.

In this mixed bag of treats … and tricks, readers will return toI/ older times. Back when oral tradition warned of grisly things that lurked about on autumn nights. A bygone era when people heeded superstitions and lore, and few dared to brave the forbidden.

Readers will encounter thirteen chilling stories presented in four decades of vintage life. These horrors include: ghosts, unlucky animals, murderers, creatures, and the devil himself.

ALEXANDER S. BROWN is a Mississippi author whose first book, Traumatized, was published in 2008, later re-relased by Pro Se Publications. Brown is currently co-editors/coordinator with the Southern Haunts anthology series published by Seventh Star Press. His horror novel Syrenthia Falls was published by Dark Oak Press. His short story collection The Night the Jack O’ Lantern Went Out reached bestseller status in three literary categories on Amazon.com upon release.   Brown is the author of multiple young-adult steampunk stories found in the Dreams of Steam anthologies, Capes and Clockwork anthologies, and Clockwork Spells and Magical Bells. His more extreme works can be found in the anthology Luna’s Children published by Dark Oak Press, Reel Dark published by Seventh Star Press and State of Horror: Louisiana Vol. 1 published by Charon Coin Press. Brown is also an actor and producer in the short film The Acquired Taste inspired by a story in Traumatized and directed by Chuck Jett.

Escape with Bladespell

By Steven L. Shrewsbury

Questions are posed to me often about what I write. I’m pretty approachable, oddly enough. Although many experienced writers have warned me to be a bit more exclusionary, I have a tough time not interacting with folks. Sometimes, that is different, but in this case, I’ll share.

Someone asked me, “Did you set your new novel, Bladespell, in Africa to be trendy?”

First, I doubt that sword & sorcery pre-flood tales set in Africa are a trend. Second, while I get the question, the book wasn’t set there as part of some agenda. “Africa was in the direction our main characters traveled in when they sailed off at the end of Killer of Giants.” S’true.

I do my best to make my novels, be they about Gorias La Gaul, Joel Stuart or in this case, Rogan the Kelt, as single, standalone tales. One can pick up any novel and enjoy it without getting the rest in a series or saga. Hopefully, the reader will want to seek out the others in time. In the past, I’ve been distressed to see a tome that looks very intriguing and then see it’s number 4 in a series. Ugh.

The yarn unfolds in primeval Africa not out of any desire for inclusiveness or whatever political agenda some might have. I told a story. I didn’t check boxes. That’s it. I’m a true believer that fiction should be escapism, a way to get away from the harangues of the media and the insanity of politics. Open the pages of a book and you escape from the drivel online or on the television.

The main character, Rogan, is a swaggering savage from thousands of miles away from where the book is set. How he survives in such a place, and against evil folks, cannibals, forces, demons and time traveling wizards, well, that’s the deal. Never once did I have the thought “THIS will piss folks off” or “Better include THIS class of people.” Just told the tale. If the story jerks a knot in someone’s undies, praise Jesus. Things happen.

Does that sound vanilla? It isn’t. The world, even back then, was made up of all sorts of interesting people, thoughts and stuff. These segue into a story, and I don’t need to consult a chart or give sacrifices to a political ideology to feel swell about myself. Am I dissing folks that do have such agendas? Naw. Do what makes ya feel good. Readers will judge whether to purse their lips, toss the book away, or read more.

Up against all that, Rogan encounters bad folks and good, but that’s life. I weave in some Lovecraftian horrors, the scope of which turns broad towards the end, and yeah, one of the time traveling wizards is Aleister Crowley in the form of shaman Oliver Haddo. What’s he up to in such ancient times? You’ll have to check it out and see.

That is if you want to escape this world of oppressive nonsense and dwell in a place of action, intrigue and wild times.

One can find Bladespell at the Literary Underworld or at Amazon.

STEVEN L. SHREWSBURY lives, works, and writes in rural Illinois. More than 360 of his short stories have appeared in print or electronic media, along with more than 100 poems. Nine of his novels have been released, with more on the way. His books run from sword & sorcery (Overkill, Thrall, Bedlam Unleashed) to historical fantasy (Godforsaken) extreme horror (Hawg, Tormentor, Stronger Than Death) to horror-westerns (Hell Billy, Bad Magick, and the forthcoming Last Man Screaming). He loves books, British TV, guns, movies, politics, sports and hanging out with his sons. He’s frequently outdoors, looking for brightness wherever it may hide.

 

 

 

The structure and writing of Days of Darkness

 

Days of Darkness proved to be a very interesting project for me in terms of the overall structure and kind of writing necessary to tell this particular story.  It is a unique story for several reasons, and as such it brings it into some rarer territory when it comes to the elements typically used in writing novels, or even feature film screenplays.

One thing that readers of the book may be surprised by is that Days of Darkness has no protagonist.  Nor is there an anti-hero.  In fact, the main character that readers follow the entire story with, Ambrose, is a very despicable individual, and any sense of an arc concentrates merely on the process of personal revelation, as opposed to a fundamental development of character like is seen with main characters in novella/novel-length fiction.

In most other realms of storytelling, it is difficult to tell a tale where the reader is not going to have a strong connection of some kind with the character whose perspective the story is being told through.  In most stories, the lack of a main character to bond with is a shortcoming.  In Days of Darkness, not only was it not any kind of shortcoming, I found, but rather a strength that was the best route for this tale.

Here, the dynamic of the story from start to finish is that of a steady, dark-edged thrill ride, and it is more the setting and the journey through it that propels the reader through the story, without the typical bond a reader typically has with a more common type of main character.  Ambrose’s encounters and interactions with the unfolding world around him, rather than a character arc, are what draws the reader in deeper and creates a hunger to see what comes next.

The nature of this story’s main character also had a strong effect on the overall structure of this story.  There are three primary phases in the novel, but they do not fall into any usual kind of three-act structure.  The first part of the story takes place in an urban setting, the second in a suburban setting, and the third in a rural setting, after which things come full circle for the climax of the storyline.

Throughout all of these phases, there is a constant escalation of action and scale.  It begins with the world as most of us know it, with nothing seeming to be out of the ordinary.  Then, things begin to gradually unravel, and as they do, the stakes get bigger in relation to the kinds of entities that begin to manifest and the chaos that breaks out and spreads within this world.

There is not really an ebb and flow, but rather a steady, expanding progression, until the reader arrives at the grand finale, which features an event that exceeds the magnitude of everything that has taken place before that.

The atmosphere, the settings, and the nature of this particular Hellscape drive the story on a continuum as Ambrose is taken along a macabre journey of revelation and ultimate accountability.

Looking back on Days of Darkness, I am confident that readers will find this book engaging, compelling, and intriguing; and even though it may be disturbing at times, there are thought-provoking themes regarding the nature and essence of evil underlying all of it.

To do this without a more typical novel structure, and without any sort of protagonist or anti-hero driving at the core of this story, has marked another stride in my writing and storytelling.  It is not the usual horror novel, but it delivers a powerful and unique kind of story that readers of the horror genre are going to love.  My wish is that readers come to enjoy it as much as I did writing it!

I am already looking forward to writing the next foray into the Hellscapes, no matter the form it may take!

————————

Stephen Zimmer is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and broadcaster based out of Lexington, Kentucky. His titles as an author include the Rayden Valkyrie Tales (sword and sorcery), the Ragnar Stormbringer Tales (sword and sorcery), the Hongvi Shadow Walker Tales (sword and sorcery) the Faraway Saga (YA dystopian), the Rising Dawn Saga (cross-genre), the Fires in Eden Series (epic fantasy), the Hellscapes short story collections (horror), the Chronicles of Ave short story collections (fantasy), and the Harvey and Solomon Tales (steampunk).

Stephen’s visual work includes the feature film Shadows Light, short films such as The Sirens and Swordbearer, and the Rayden Valkyrie: Saga of a Lionheart TV pilot. Stephen also co-hosts the Star Chamber Show, a weekly live audio podcast on PodBean featuring creative talents from around the world.

Stephen is a proud Kentucky Colonel who also enjoys the realms of music, martial arts, good bourbons, and spending time with family.

Author Links:

  • Website: www.stephenzimmer.com
  • Facebook: www.facebook.com/stephenzimmer7
  • X App (Formerly Twitter): @sgzimmer
  • Instagram: @stephenzimmer7
  • Threads: @stephenzimmer7
  • TikTok: @stephenzimmer7

————————

Days of Darkness

Ambrose awakens to find dense, rolling layers of ash-gray clouds spanning to the far horizon, shrouding the city beneath in a drab pall.  He begins his day, thinking it no different from any other.

Though it is in the height of summer, an icy, anomalous chill sifts into the air later that day, until it becomes colder than the depths of winter.

Then, the sun sets, and darkness falls.

The night does not end, as there is no sunrise to follow.

Bizarre and frightening apparitions begin appearing across a city and world shrouded in an inexplicable darkness.  It is only the beginning of an unfurling, deepening nightmare, one that will take Ambrose on a terrifying journey of self-discovery and revelation.

For Ambrose, and everyone in the world around him, the Days of Darkness have only just begun.

Print
Ebook
Coming soon to the Literary Underworld store!

 

Invasive Species, and the Suffering Sequence Trilogy

By Elizabeth Lynn Blackson

Invasive Species is the third book in the Suffering Sequence trilogy. Man-eating, shapeshifting daemons have infiltrated humanity’s systems of power. Their blood poisons the world. Against that threat, a clandestine group of heroes have gathered, but the more they face the daemonic threat, the more it infects them, until they are targeted for eradication.

Teetering on the edge of the supernatural, FBI Special Agent Javier Torres leads an FBI Critical Incident Response Group. In their midst, to his shock and dismay, he finds family and love. Special agent Sophia DeMarko, second in command, grapples with the fear of the demonic threat to her young child. LaTanya Jefferson, Marine-turned-Medic, has her faith in God tested. Madison “Lucy” Carpenter is thrust into the spotlight as the world watches her. David Pruitt’s Marine training prepared him to fight daemons, but never taught him how to be a father. Greg Tillman is trapped in a facility with other would-be scions of the daemonic overlords. He must serve them or be destroyed. Hannah Olson crawls out of the earth again, called back to life in service of cthonic powers. The daemon Tigrosa turns to confront her former masters. Joining them is new recruit, Vinny Bowers, ranger, tasked with eradicating this Invasive Species.

That’s the blurb. The plot in a nutshell. I don’t think it does a good job of saying what this book and series are ABOUT, though.

You want to know what my Suffering Sequence Trilogy is? A short passage from Invasive Species to illustrate:

Lucy paused, and took a breath. “I had nightmares, and I didn’t know what to do with all that… pent up… pain, I guess. And I thought ‘What if I was just honest? Totally honest.’ I didn’t have to ever show anyone the pictures if I didn’t want to. I never had to admit that I was a scared, fucked-up, ball of hurt and rage, if I didn’t want to. This feels more like a therapy session than an art exhibit to me, and any minute now, I kind of expect you all to start pointing and laughing, knowing what a fraud I am.”

That.

The nightmare scenario for me is to try to describe my Suffering Sequence Trilogy. Urban fantasy. Dark urban fantasy or urban fantasy/horror. The Dresden Files if it were written by Clive Barker. A d20 Modern RPG if Stephen King was the game master. A modern mythological tale. My own therapy session.

In the forward of the first book I wrote this: “This book is about a succubus and how two very different people have two very different reactions to her existence. It’s about the path to hell that’s paved with best intentions. It’s about poverty and property values. It’s about racism in St. Louis. It’s about being LGBT. It’s about art through the eyes of an underclass young woman. It’s about guns and blood, and splintered bones. Except, it’s not. The truth is, this book is about trauma. It’s about the horrible things some people have to do to survive. It’s about fighting demons, figurative and literal. It’s about finding self worth.”

It’s the story of a handful of characters confronted with humanity’s systems of power taken over by shapeshifting, soul-sucking, flesh-eating Daemons.

But that’s not what the book is ABOUT. For one character, it’s about faith. For another, it’s about losing faith. For one, it’s about finding self worth. It’s about getting the ‘gold ring,’ and seeing it for the garbage it actually is. It’s about the price you pay for doing the right thing.

It’s about the masks we wear, the roles we play, and the horror of rejection when people see beneath that mask. It’s about peeling the mask away, to see the truth underneath.

And, damn, that all sounds pretentious to me when I say it like that.

ELIZABETH LYNN BLACKSON grew up in a small town in Eastern Ohio, living on a steady diet of comic books, horror movies, and Stephen King novels, while playing D&D and listening to heavy metal. It twisted her into the maniacal creature you now see before you. While certain she was going to be a comic artist, life pulled her in a different direction, and she ended up in the St. Louis metro area, where she lives with her hubby and two cats.

Invasive Species will soon be available from the Literary Underworld! Preorder your copy now!