New from Hippocampus Press:
Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Edited by Gary William Crawford, Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers
Trade paperback
December 2011

“Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) is one of the leading weird writers of the nineteenth century, the author of Green Tea, Carmilla, Uncle Silas, and other classic works. In this volume, the first collection of essays about Le Fanu, three distinguished scholars have amassed a wealth of material on every aspect of the author’s life, work, and influence. A biographical section features memoirs of Le Fanu along with reproductions of many portraits of the author. Early reviews of his many books are reprinted, as is important early criticism by M.R. James, E.F. Benson, V.S. Pritchett, and others. Recent essays by Jack Sullivan, John Langan, Victor Sage, and many others discuss a wide array of topics relating to Le Fanu’s writing. Nine of these essays are printed here for the first time. All in all, this book provides a definitive guide to the weird fiction of Le Fanu.”

Full details on the Hippocampus Press website

Hadley Rille Books have published Theatre of Curious Acts by Cate Gardner, in hardcover, paperback and kindle format.

“Returned home from the Great War, his parents and brother in their graves, Daniel walks a ghost world.

When players in a theatre show lure Daniel and his friends, fellow soldiers, into a surreal otherworld they find themselves trapped on an apocalyptic path. A pirate ship waits to ferry some of them to the end of the world. Already broken by war, these men are now the world’s only hope in the greatest battle of all.”

More information can be found at the author’s website

Ghost Rider writer/creator Gary Friedrich has lost his court battle over rights.

Friedrich conceived the character, whose first appearance for Marvel Comics was in 1972. When the first Ghost Rider film came out in 2007, he sued Marvel claiming it had infringed his rights because he owned the character. However, the judge in a recent hearing ruled that, as creating comic books involved so many other processes in addition to the writing, Ghost Rider was undoubtedly owned by Marvel, not the writer. Friedrich had also cashed cheques from Marvel, it was reported, thereby relinquishing his rights to the character. He intends to appeal against the ruling.

Read the full BBC story HERE

Subterranean Press are planning two collections of short stories by authors best known for their longer novels.

A Stark and Wormy Knight is a new collection by best-selling fantasy author Tad Williams, due next summer. Tad Williams is an acknowledged master of the multi-volume epic. A Stark and Wormy Knight, though, offers readers something both special and surprising: a virtuoso demonstration of Williams’ mastery of a variety of shorter forms.

Secondly, Subterranean announce the largest collection of Jonathan Carroll‘s short fiction yet published. The Woman Who Married a Cloud will feature 37 stories-including his limited edition novella, “The Heidelberg Cylinder”. Always better known as a novelist, Carroll has also created a compelling and deeply moving body of short fiction. Perhaps more eclectic and slant-wise than some of his novels, stories like World Fantasy Award winning “Friend’s Best Man” and Pushcart Prize and Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire honouree “Home on the Rain” stand amongst his very best work.

The Woman Who Married a Cloud: Collected Stories will be the best and most complete collection of Jonathan Carroll’s fiction ever published. It collects 35 stories written across a thirty year long career, a number appearing in print for the first time, in a single landmark volume that stands as the perfect introduction to this unique and wonderful writer.

Abaddon Books is to publish its first ever ebook-only title, while capitalising on the recent success of its series omnibuses. The next book in the Twilight of Kerberos series – The Wrath of Kerberos by Jonathan Oliver – will be the first time the imprint has published a brand new title as only an ebook. The Twilight of Kerberos is a shared-world fantasy series set on a planet inhabited by the remnants of lost civilisations, orbiting the gas giant Kerberos. The Wrath of Kerberos will be the series’ ninth book.

With its READ ANYTHING campaign and commitment to producing first rate genre fiction, the Abaddon Books team are firm believers in new forms of publishing. The Twilight of Kerberos series is a perfect fit for experimenting with an ebook only release. And with the success of the recent series omnibuses – including the The Best of Tomes of the Dead and Afterblight: America – and capitalising on the growing US readership who are finding our shared-worlds through them, Abaddon Books has decided to focus the Twilight range on this format.

The long-awaited third book of the Lucius Kane Trilogy by Matthew Sprange, Legacy’s Price, will see print in March 2012 as part of the first Twilight of Kerberos Omnibus, with two more omnibuses in the series to collect the titles by Mike Wild and Jonathan Oliver.

The Lovecraft eZine Issue 9 (December 2011) is now available for download from the website.  Stories included are:

Elder Instincts by W.H. Pugmire

Among the Dark Places of the Earth by Julio Toro San Martin

At Best An Echo by Bradley H. Sinor

Stone City, Old as Immeasurable Time by Kelda Crich

Just An Accountant by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen

Estronomicon is a free online magazine from Screaming Dreams. Each issue features a selection of short stories, artist showcases, interviews, book reviews and much more.

The current issue is the Christmas Special : December 2011.

Some chilly tales for the festive season! Fiction by Neil Williamson, Neil Davies, Bob Lock, John Forth, Jan Edwards, Marion Pitman, Ian Hunter, Mark Howard Jones, James Bennett, Stuart Young, Stewart Horn, Peter Coleborn and Matt Finucane.

Cover art by Steve Upham.

Download your copy HERE

The Hammer Out Book of Ghosts 2012 is a collection of short ghost stories published in aid of Hammer Out, a charity which helps fund research, raise awareness and provide support for people suffering from brain tumours and their families. With a Foreword by Tracey Childs, this volume includes the following stories:

Immortal Monster by Sam Stone
The Widow and the Deserter by Alex Barrett
Sleeping Lions by Niall Boyce
Orbyting by Jan Edwards
The Noise from the Flat Upstairs by S.E. Branson
Tower Song by Richard Howard
Deadline by Paul W.T. Ballard
The Attic Nursery by Raven Dane
Chillers and Breathers by Sam Stone
We Attract That Which We Fear the Most by Louise Jameson
Last Rites by Simon Guerrier

Every penny raised will go towards the charity. The book can be purchased HERE. Hammer Out’s own website is HERE

Chomu Press have launched their thirteenth and final release of 2011, The Secret Life of the Panda, by Nick Jackson. It is described as “a collection of unclassifiable stories suffused with a delicate realism so skilful it is impossible to trace the line that marks where strangeness begins. The stories encompass diverse settings and situations: revolutionaries in Cuba, a heretical naturalist in 16th Century Germany, the private worlds of those growing up and growing old in modern Britain. But in all of them Jackson captures with precise external imagery and inward observation moments of penetrating personal significance for the characters.

This subtle but exotic collection forms a menagerie of the imagination, in which the reader encounters, in an intimacy sometimes wild and sometimes captive, a variety of creatures from water fleas to oropendola birds, appearing as specimens to be anatomically examined or as totems enabling the characters to live those parts of themselves otherwise hidden.”

Full details at the Chomu Press WEBSITE

The first book in the Imaginings series from NewCon Press, Cold Grey Stones by Tanith Lee (with artwork by John Kaiine) is ready and is set for release on 26 January 2012. The second volume in the series will be Last and First Contacts by Stephen Baxter, scheduled for release on 26 April 2012.  It features artwork by David Hardy.

Full details of the Imaginings project can be found at the NewCon Press website HERE