S. T. Joshi’s Blog from 2018

↑ Entries from 2019…

December 17, 2018 — The Clark Ashton Smith DVD and Others

I am happy to report receipt of a few (only a few!) copies of the DVD of Clark Ashton Smith: The Emperor of Dreams, the splendid 110-minute documentary made by Darin Coelho Spring. This is the official DVD released by Hippocampus Press, containing a 3 x 5 insert listing bonus features (among which are readings of CAS poems by Ashley Dioses, K. A. Opperman, and Charles Schneider) and other information. I am happy to sell my copies for $15.00. As an added incentive, I can offer the long-delayed Summer 2018 issue of Spectral Realms for only an extra $5.00 with the purchase of the DVD.

Copies of my own 21st-Century Horror are still available for $15.00, and I will make the same bonus offer for anyone who purchases this volume ($5 for the current Spectral Realms—and also $5 for the current Lovecraft Annual, a few copies of which still remain here).

I was evidently misinformed as to the release of my Théophile Gautier volume, which will not appear until early next year. Meanwhile, I continue to work on subsequent volumes of the Classics of Gothic Horror series. Two more completed volumes will soon appear: Back There in the Grass (collected weird tales of Irvin S. Cobb and Gouverneur Morris) and The Harbor-Master (best weird tales of Robert W. Chambers). Hippocampus may reprint my edition of D. H. Lawrence (The Rocking-Horse Winner), already out of print from Centipede Press. And I am now working on a book that I had begun years ago—the complete weird tales of May Sinclair, author of Uncanny Stories (1923) and The Intercessor and Other Stories (1931). I am currently assessing whether a number of tales that appeared in her collection Tales Told by Simpson (1930) are weird. These tales appeared in an Ash-Tree Press edition of Sinclair’s work.

Speaking of Centipede Press, I have received some updates on the many forthcoming books I have with that publisher:

• Robert Aickman (Library of Weird Fiction): late January 2019
• Weird Fiction Review #9: end of December
• Bram Stoker (Library of Weird Fiction): February 2019
• Ambrose Bierce (Library of Weird Fiction): June 2019

There are, of course, numerous other volumes (John Metcalfe; W. C. Morrow; E. F. Benson; Robert W. Chambers; J. Sheridan Le Fanu; also W. H. Pugmire’s An Ecstasy of Fear, which I edited), but their dates of publication are evidently not firmly established.

I have, however, begun assembling an enormous volume of M. R. James’s complete weird fiction (which will include all his ghost stories along with his juvenile fantasy The Five Jars and other miscellaneous work) for Centipede’s Masters of the Weird Tale series. A big undertaking!

I was pleased to see the appearance of the Autumn 2018 issue of Vastarien, containing my essay “Richard Gavin: The Nature of Horror” (a chapter of 21st-Century Horror). This superbly produced journal, edited by Jon Padgett and published by Grimscribe Press, is a wonder to behold. The current issue contains fiction (by Kurt Fawver, Michael Uhall, Brooke Warra, among others), poetry (by F. J. Bergmann and Emmie Bristow), and other articles (S. L. Edwards on the fiction of Nadia Bulkin; Michael Cisco on the puppet theme in Thomas Ligotti’s work), and other interesting matter. Check out the magazine’s website: https://vastarien-journal.com/.

My friend and colleague Pete Von Sholly has redesigned his own website, so that you can now more easily order his splendid publications: http://vonshollywood.net/bookstore/. It will be observed that you can now order his collected Lovecraft illustrations (published in 17 different volumes from PS Publishing), among other tempting items.

Speaking of PS Publishing, I was gratified that the publisher, Pete Crowther, has accepted my revised study of Ramsey Campbell, first published as Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction (Liverpool University Press, 2001), and now updated as Ramsey Campbell: Master of Weird Fiction. This treatise now covers all his work down to his superb Daoloth trilogy as well as his new story collection, By the Light of My Skull (2018). Incredibly, Pete promises to get the book out by the spring of 2019, so that it will be only minimally out of date. With a writer as productive as Ramsey, that is a difficult task!

To end on a note of what I hope is pardonable egotism: I have recently gotten in touch with Carl E. Reed, a budding poet whose first published poem will appear in Spectral Realms #10, due out in January or February (one hopes). Reed is a devotee of classic weird fiction and, as it happens, my own unworthy self; and he recently indited the following poem:

A Song For S. T. Joshi

by Carl E. Reed

Before S. T. Joshi picked up the pen
to share his sharp wit on writings weird
monstrous, undead, alien, a-feared
respect for the genre was beyond the ken
of most who critiqued, for again & again
in thrall to realists who postured & sneered
at masters of horror, such fashionistas jeered
art they insisted could but entertain
though never enlighten, instruct, or reveal
the truths of a cosmos far stranger than most
dared imagine save poets, physicists, & those
like Joshi who wrote in defense of the ideal
weird tale: landscapes, fugue states, creatures, or ghosts—
what matters is worldview, theme, & good prose.

A most flattering tribute, if I do say so myself!

December 2, 2018 — 21st-Century Horror Is Here!

I am happy to announce that I have received numerous copies of 21st-Century Horror from Amazon. I have about 12 to dispose of to interested customers. I am obliged to charge slightly higher than the list price (my price is $15.00), but that price includes media-mail postage to US customers, so you will probably save a little bit anyway, as opposed to ordering from Amazon. So come and get ’em!

The only other thing I have to announce—somewhat at the last minute—is my pair of upcoming choir concerts, on Dec. 8 and 15 (http://www.nwchorale.org/concerts.php). I hope that any interested fans in the Seattle area might wish to attend, as the music we are performing is both quite difficult and quite affecting. I may also mention that the performance of my own composition, “Sunset” (a setting of the Lovecraft poem to music, for unaccompanied chorus), is now a certainty for next season’s concerts, on May 11 and 18, 2019.

I understand that Spectral Realms #9 has finally reached (some) contributors. Too bad no copies have drifted in my direction (or, for that matter, Mary’s—she is a contributor) yet! But patience is a noble Christian virtue. I also believe my edition of Théophile Gautier is out, but again no copies have arrived yet. I hope to offer both these items, and perhaps others, next time.

November 26, 2018 — Post-Thanksgiving News

Mary and I had a most entertaining Thanksgiving here, having invited the eminent Wilum H. Pugmire and our friend Belinda Elmer to a feast that we cooked up ourselves (something we had never done in all the eight years of our life together, since we usually were invited to share Thanksgiving with a friend who always made a spectacular feast—but this year she bowed out of the task, professing exhaustion). Wilum’s store-bought pecan pie was a fitting capstone!

An extensive interview of me has just appeared in the October-November 2018 issue of Aphotic Realm (www.AphoticRealm.com), a lavish print journal printed on glossy paper and full of interesting matter. This issue also contains an article by John A. DeLaughter, “H. P. Lovecraft: More Than a Legend, More Than a Mythos,” and a review of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos Tales (Canterbury Classics, 2017) by G. Conner Salter. Here is a trailer about the issue on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUDEmRo5WeQ.

The publisher Actu-SF has announced the French translation of I Am Providence, to be published as Je Suis Providence: https://www.editions-actusf.fr/s-t-joshi/biographie-lovecraft. The book will appear in March, and I have now been invited to attend a science fiction convention, Les Imaginales, in Paris in late May, where the book will be featured.

One of the people I hope to meet in Paris is Martine Chifflot, a professor at Université Lyon who has just issued a charming little book, Howard, Mon Amour (Aigle Botté Éditions, 2018). This slim (88 pp.) is a series of 23 scenes involving Lovecraft and his wife Sonia, although I see that HPL’s aunt Lillian D. Clark appears in at least one scene. It looks like a charming book, and the author is arranging for an English translation for possible publication with some press on this side of the water. The appearance of this book is very serendipitous, as it partly echoes the themes in my own screenplay of the film The Lovecrafts on which Ryan Grulich and I are currently working.

I belatedly note with interest a book on Arkham House that appeared all the way back in 2004: Leon Nielsen’s Arkham House Books: A Collector’s Guide (McFarland). I have not had actual access to this book, but Amazon allows one to “peek” into it. It would seem that the book is frankly based on my own Sixty Years of Arkham House (1999) in format and other details, although it fails to include the comprehensive indexes that I have (the chief virtue of my book, in my estimation). And I see that the author, at the end of his introductory essay (“Howard Phillips Lovecraft, August Derleth and Arkham House”), makes the following remarkable assertion: “In 1980, S. T. Joshi joined the editorial staff and participated in several important collaborations with [James] Turner.” Well! In 1980 I was just graduating from Brown University at the tender age of 22. I would not meet James Turner in person until the World Fantasy Convention in New Haven in the fall of 1982, and that is when we began hammering out the terms of my preparation of the corrected texts of Lovecraft’s fiction. That project, of course, resulted in the three corrected editions of 1984–86. But I was never on the “editorial staff” of Arkham House, as I worked purely as a freelancer.

All this is of some relevance because I myself have nearly finished preparation of a revised version of my own book, now titled Eighty Years of Arkham House, which I hope to release sometime next year through my Sarnath Press imprint. 2019 is, of course, the eightieth year of Arkham House’s existence, although it has been largely quiescent since about 2010. But I have found the relevant information on all publications by Arkham House and its subsidiary imprints subsequent to my Sixty Years, and all that remains is some fine-tuning. So look for this next year!

November 12, 2018 — 21st-Century Horror Now Available

A short blog this time, to announce the publication of 21st-Century Horror, the newest publication from Sarnath Press: https://www.amazon.com/dp/173109731X. You will recall that certain nefarious parties had threatened to launch a boycott against any publisher that dared to issue this book, given my less than charitable assessments of certain sacred cows in our field; the only upshot of that contemptible behaviour is that I have published the book myself and will do all I can to get it widely reviewed and disseminated. I myself have ordered a batch of copies to pass out to reviewers and also to sell to interested customers; but Amazon informs me that those copies will not arrive until late this month. Those who can’t wait to get their hands on the book can order it now; others can wait until my copies arrive and can order it from me directly. Happy reading!

November 5, 2018 — Ave atque Vale Now Available for Pre-order

A number of interesting books have arrived here lately, although I do not have any spare copies of them to offer my customers. Still, they are all choice items and well worth picking up.

First and most momentously, I see that our edition of Lovecraft memoirs, Ave atque Vale, is now available for pre-order from Necronomicon Press (https://necropress.com/ave-atque-vale-reminiscences-of-h-p-lovecraft/). This includes a 100-copy hardcover edition; the rest of the edition will be in trade paperback. I imagine the book (at least the trade paperback) will be available fairly soon, and I will certainly let interested readers know. (I will only be securing one hardcover copy from the publisher, so I will have no others to sell. But I will have some paperback copies to sell whenever they arrive.)

Next up is Birthing Monsters: Frankenstein’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Cruelties (Firbolg Publishing, 2018). This volume—edited by Alex and Bobbi Scully, the publishers of Firbolg (although they have modestly neglected to mention their editorship anywhere)—is not your usual volume relating to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (the 200th anniversary of whose publication occurs this year). Instead, it is a fascinating compendium of fiction, poetry, essays, and other matter by such writers as Michael Bailey, Adam Bolivar, Scott Edelman, Brian Evenson, Lisa Morton, Gene O’Neill, Darrell Schweitzer, Marge Simon, and numerous others, and lavishly illustrated with all manner of artwork both original and reprinted, some going back to the mediaeval period. This attractive hardcover book can apparently be ordered from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1717480497)—and is an incredible bargain at the price.

The second volume of my Mencken edition is now out (https://www.amazon.com/Writings-Smart-Set-1912-1913-Journalism/dp/1729168752/), and it will be followed by the third volume in mid-November.

I have received a remarkable book of weird illustrations—the second he has produced—by Alexander Binder. The images in this paperbound book are extraordinarily vivid and imagination-stirring, and the book belongs in the library of every connoisseur of the bizarre. The book is literally untitled, but you can find out more about it from the publisher’s website: http://www.yardpress.it/untitled/.

Otherwise, I continue my usual run of activity, although I have lately been slowed by a mild flu. After completing the tedious index to another Lovecraft letters book (Letters with Donald and Howard Wandrei and to Emil Petaja), I have begged by co-editor, David E. Schultz, for a little holiday from indexing until next year; as it is, we have the Letters to Family and Family Friends (1200 pp.!) ready to go, not to mention such other volumes as the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography (whose index—which I have had to update repeatedly of late—runs to nearly 100 pp.) and the Smith/Derleth letters (Eccentric, Impractical Devils). All three of these books are likely to appear only in early 2019, as the end of the year is usually not a good time to release books. Also on schedule for early next year is Stephen Woodworth’s scintillating collection of stories, A Carnival of Chimeras. I note with regret that this book was submitted—and accepted—in 2016, and I hereby extend my apologies to the author on behalf of Hippocampus Press for the long delay in its release. But it will be well worth the wait, I assure you!

October 26, 2018 — New Hippocampus Books Available!

I am delighted to announce the arrival of a batch of new publications from Hippocampus Press. I am happy to offer them at a slight discount from the list price:

• Lovecraft Annual No. 12 (2018) ($10)
• David Barker and W. H. Pugmire, Witches in Dreamland ($15)
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and Others ($15)
• H. P. Lovecraft, Letters to Maurice W. Moe and Others ($25)

The Lovecraft Annual, aside from numerous intersting articles, includes my own short essay “Why Michel Houellebecq Is Wrong about Lovecraft’s Racism,” as well as my (not very charitable) review of Scott Cutler Shershow and Scott Michaelsen’s The Love of Ruins: Letters on Lovecraft (State University of New York Pres, 2017).

The Mary Shelley volume includes not only Frankenstein (the 1818 text) but also five of her short stories that could be considered weird. It also has an extensive bio-critical introduction by me.

The huge Letters to Maurice W. Moe and Others (628 pp.!) also contains the letters to Robert E. Moe (Maurice Moe’s son), Bernard Austin Dwyer, Samuel Loveman, and Vincent Starrett. It contains numerous writings by Moe, Dwyer, and Loveman, and a letter by Starrett to Sam Loveman. I only have four spare copies of this book, so better get it quick!

One other item is notable by its absence. I have no idea why Spectral Realms No. 9 (theoretically dated Summer 2018) has not appeared, and I have ceased to ask the publisher to account for its delay. But I am confident it will appear one of these days.

October 17, 2018 — Books and CDs Available

Thanks to the generosity of Charles Lovecraft, the Australian publisher of P’rea Press, a small press devoted to the promotion of weird poetry, I find myself in receipt of a number of copies (all trade paperbacks) of some recent titles that are eminently worthy of the attention of the connoisseur:

• Leigh Blackmore, Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses (3rd ed., 2013)
• Ann K. Schwader, Dark Energies (2015)
• Charles Lovecraft, ed., Avatars of Wizardry (2012)

I wrote forewords to all the books. Copies of the Schwader book are signed by the author. It would be difficult to find a choicer selection of contemporary weird poetry than is contained in these books. I am happy to offer them for $10 each ($18 for any two, $25 for all three).

I am also in receipt of copies of the Titan Books paperback edition of Black Wings VI, entitled Black Wings of Cthulhu 6. I am prepared to offer them for $15. I also have exactly one copy of a second printing of Black Wings of Cthulhu 4 that I offer at the same price.

And not to be outdone, I have issue an important new book from Sarnath Press: nothing less than the first volume of the Collected Essays and Journalism of H. L. Mencken, this volume containing the first of eight volumes of his writings in the Smart Set (1908–23). I am enormously indebted to David E. Schultz for designing this attractive volume. As with other Sarnath Press titles, it is exclusively published by Amazon (print and ebook). I myself will not be ordering any copies of the book from Amazon (aside from one copy for my own files), so it is best to order directly from the Evil Empire. I may issue as many as 30 volumes of Mencken’s essays and journalism, since as of January 1, 2019, all his published writings down to the end of 1923 will be in the public domain. Among these titles may be as many as 10 volumes of his “Free Lance” column in the Baltimore Evening Sun (1911–15), which comes to close to a million and a half words.

Finally, my choir, the Northwest Chorale (www.nwchorale.org), has issued a 2-CD set of our performance last May of Mendelssohn’s Elijah. It is a splendid-looking package, and I like to think the performance is quite creditable. Should anyone be interested in this item, I am prepared to let it go for a bargain price of $15.

I have, of course, been busy with all manner of projects. I believe we are achingly close to completing the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography, which I now understand Hippocampus Press will release in both hardcover and softcover. And I have seen the Clark Ashton Smith documentary (all of 110 minutes) prepared by Darin Coelho Spring. I am featured extensively in it (including my readings of the exquisite elegy “To Howard Phillips Lovecraft” and the prose-poem “To the Daemon”), along with Donald Sidney-Fryer, Ron Hilger, Scott Connors, the eminent Harlan Ellison (the last interview he gave before his death), and others. It will shortly be released by Hippocampus Press.

I have prepared a substantially revised and updated version of my study of Ramsey Campbell, initially published as Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction (Liverpool University Press). I now title it Ramsey Campbell, Master of Weird Fiction, and it checks in at a full 100,000 words. I have offered it to Liverpool, and an editor there is considering the matter. If it is declined there, I shall probably publish it myself through Sarnath Press.

A number of items, both print and media, have come in recently. John Locke (no relation, presumably, to the great 17th-century philosopher!) has sent me his treatise, The Thing’s Incredible! The Secret Origins of Weird Tales (Off-Trail Publications, 2018) (http://offtrailpublications.com/history.html). This looks like a substantial and even groundbreaking study of this legendary pulp magazine; I hope to read it soon. I am mentioned a few times in it, as the index shows. But that index reveals a curious and amusing circumstance: it cites thirteen different individuals with the last name Kline! We all know of one—the prototypical hack Otis Adelbert Kline (whom HPL wished to designate as “Oatmeal Addlepate Crime” in “The Battle That Ended the Century,” but somehow neglected to do so). The other Klines are: Allen Paul, Allen Sides, Elinor Marie, Ellen “Curley” Grove, George L., John Adam, Julia Maria Oliver, Louis Adelbert, Lucretia Adelaide Oliver, Ora Fay, Ora Kate Sides, and Ora Sides. What could possibly be the significance of this plethora of Klines? I’ll have to read the book to find out!

I have received two CDs from Fedogan & Bremer. One is Donald Sidney-Fryer’s reading of Smith’s The Hashish-Eater and Other Poems (https://www.fedoganandbremer.com/products/the-hashish-eater-and-other-poems-by-clark-ashton-smith). This would appear to be a reprint of a CD originally issued privately in 2004. The other CD is The Gods of Easter Island and Other Poems by Robert E. Howard, also read by Sidney-Fryer (this appears not to be on the F&B website at this moment). This item contains a total of 27 poems by Robert E. Howard. Both CDs have music by Graham Plowman. I am not aware of any other recordings of Howard’s poetry, so this is certainly a choice item.

October 4, 2018 — On Mike Davis and His Mob

Since, as everyone knows, I long made a conscious decision (one that I have never once regretted) not to participate in any forms of social media, I was blissfully unaware of the kerfuffle that the simple announcement of the completion of my little treatise 21st-Century Horror has caused in certain circles. It would appear that one Mike Davis was particularly outraged at the mere existence of this tome. I cannot trouble myself to read Mr. Davis’s screed, but I assume he is feeling white-hot indignation on behalf of one or more of the six authors whom I treated with somewhat less than Christian charity in that book (perhaps analogous to the quaintly manufactured outrage of Senator Lindsey Graham at the unkind treatment of the beer-guzzling prep-school party boy Brett Kavanaugh). But Mr. Davis is not content at seething with rage; he is now threatening not merely to lead a boycott of PS Publishing, or any other publisher, if it were to have the temerity to pubish the book, but also to pressure present or potential authors to cease working with the hapless publisher. (On this latter point, it would appear that Mr. Davis has been rebuffed in a pungent manner by certain luminaries in our field.)

To paraphrase a query that Ambrose Bierce uttered on numerous occasions: Who is Mike Davis—and why? In other words, what is the reason for Mr. Davis’s existence? I, for one, am having difficulty fathoming this conundrum. For those of you with short memories, let me remind you that some years ago Mr. Davis entered the Hall of Infamy by recklessly claiming that the author/director of the TV show True Detective was plagiarising Thomas Ligotti—when anyone with the slightest excuse for a brain should have realised that the show was paying deliberate homage to Ligotti, Chambers, Lovecraft, and other authors. The only reason the producers of the show didn’t slap a libel suit on Mr. Davis was that they correctly recognised that he was an intellectual pismire who was not worth the trouble of squashing.

Well, the upshot of this current tempest in a teapot is now resolved in a manner that will not be pleasing to Mr. Davis and his fellow fascist wannabes. Rather than cause undue annoyance to PS or any other publisher from the antics of these muscae irritabiles, I have decided to publish 21st-Century Horror myself, through my own imprint, Sarnath Press. And the exquisite irony of this situation is that the book will now achieve far wider worldwide distribution (via Amazon’s CreateSpace and Kindle) than it could possibly have done with any small press in our field. And the book will, essentially, stay in print forever. I will make sure to solicit reviews and notices from leading critics and review magazines in our field, and to affix a price for both the print book and the ebook low enough that even the most impecunious of us can afford it.

And, as a fitting capstone, I will be able to release this book almost immediately—probably by the end of this month. I could have done so even sooner, but I feel the need to compile a thorough and comprehensive index to the work, and that will take a week or so.

Now Mr. Davis and his cohorts are welcome to boycott Sarnath Press to their heart’s content. They can even boycott Amazon altogether (and, following their apparent mentor, “President” Trump, launch attacks on the Washington Post); but I suspect they will be the losers thereby. But then, we knew already that they were losers. Evidently they are not inclined to agree with the ACLU (an organisation to which I donate a small sum on a monthly basis) that the answer to “offensive” speech (granting, for the nonce, that what I have written is indeed “offensive”) is not suppression of speech, but more speech. The idea that they might actually write considered rebuttals of my own comments rather than trying to shut me up never seems to have occurred to them—probably because, intellectually speaking, the writing of such rebuttals is so far beyond their capacities that they cannot even contemplate undertaking the task.

The moral of this whole grotesque story is very simple: tactics of the sort that Mr. Davis and his unruly mob are engaging in never work. If they think that this attempt to silence me will have the slightest effect, they had better think again. I will in fact renew my attempts to purge this field of aesthetic rubbish and to vaunt genuine merit. Mr. Davis, of course, need not fear that I will ever attack any book that he writes; the very idea that Mr. Davis could write a book even approximately similar to mine is funny enough to make a cat laugh. He has, to put it delicately, a less than intimate relationship with the English language.

So be prepared to see the release of 21st-Century Horror right around Hallowe’en—and may it cause suitable nightmares among those who hoped it would never see the light of day.

September 27, 2018 — 21st-Century Horror Done!

I am happy to announce that I am (just about) done with my treatise 21st-Century Horror: Weird Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium. I have apparently been working on this work since at least June 2017, as that is when I began writing my first chapter (on Jonathan Thomas)—and the reading for that chapter must have extended at least a month or two before that. Here is the final table of contents:

• Introduction
• I. The Elite
  • Michael Aronovitz: Teller of Tales
  • Gemma Files: Sex, Myth, and Film
  • Adam Nevill: The Sense of Dread
  • Mark Samuels: Corporate Horror and Others
  • Simon Strantzas: The Cosmic and the Human
  • Jonathan Thomas: A Study in Contrasts
• II. The Worthies
  • Nicole Cushing: Suicide and Other Horrors
  • Richard Gavin: The Nature of Horror
  • Glen Hirshberg: The Sense of Place
  • John Langan: Tales from the Heart
  • Reggie Oliver: Ghosts and More Ghosts
  • Clint Smith: Decaying Cities, Decaying Lives
  • James Ulmer: Exponent of Quiet Horror
• III. The Pretenders
  • Laird Barron: Decline and Fall
  • Joe Hill: Like Father, Like Son
  • Brian Keene: Paperback Writer
  • Nick Mamatas: Failed Mimic
  • Paul Tremblay: Borrowing from His Predecessors
  • Jeff VanderMeer: An Aesthetic Catastrophe
• Works Cited
• Index

I intend to pack this off (electronically, of course) to PS Publishing within days, and am hopeful for a positive result. It is, in effect, the third volume of Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction, although no doubt there are still other contemporary authors (not to mention recent work by established authors such as Ramsey Campbell and Peter Straub) that I could have covered. But my energies are flagging a bit at my advanced age, so—aside from random reviews—I believe I will take a break from the criticism of weird fiction and do other work.

Speaking of reviews, I have published a new edition of my collection of recent reviews, Driven to Madness with Fright. The book is now explicitly stated as being a book under the Sarnath Press imprint, as the first edition of 2016 was not. This edition contains such items as my reviews of books by Richard Gavin (Sylvan Dread), Michael Griffin (The Lure of Devouring Light), Mark Samuels (The Prozess Manifestations), and even Ramsey Campbell’s The Way of the Worm (which is due out in the next issue of Dead Reckonings), along with reviews of The Children of Gla’aki and Looming Low, Datlow’s Children of Lovecraft, and the treatise by Shershow and Michelsen, The Love of Ruins: Letters on Lovecraft, among other items. The book is now a full 257 pp. (with index—I was rightly criticised for not having an index in the first edition). At this moment, only the Kindle version of the new edition is available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Madness-Fright-Further-Fiction-ebook/dp/B01MRT7ZQ9/), but the print book should be available within a day or two. (You can tell the difference by noting the words “Expanded Edition” on the cover image.)

On consecutive days, I gave two interviews on Lovecraft. One was with Benjamin Eskinazi, editor of the French magazine Nez, “the only periodical to be dedicated to scent and the sense of smell,” as it website states (http://www.nez-larevue.fr/). I spoke to Benjamin for an hour about Lovecraft’s fascination with odours, stenches, and related topics. Most entertaining! I believe my interview will be translated into French, and I provided Benjamin with some passages from Lovecraft’s letters and stories on the subject. The next day, I spent some two hours on live radio speaking to Joe Rupe and Eric Marcum, who run a program called Lighting The Void. The chief focus of the discussion was Lovecraft, but we expanded upon that to discuss atheism and other subjects. Joe (who apparently is a Southerner) informed me that I was the first avowed atheist to appear on his show! Lighting The Void seems to be inclined toward promoting occultism, but Joe is admirably open-minded on the subject; and Eric is an enthusiastic Lovecraftian. It was a most enjoyable discussion.

I have just received a copy of The Astounding History of Fantasy & Horror (Flame Tree Publishing). I served as the “Consultant Editor” on the book (as noted on the front cover of the dust jacket) and wrote the introduction (although my authorship of the introduction is, oddly enough, cited only on the bio note about myself on the inside back flap of the dust jacket). Ramsey Campbell wrote the foreword, and individual chapters were written by Mike Ashley, Matt Cardin, Rosie Fletcher, and others. It is a splendid-looking book, lavishly illustrated; and I did my best to urge the various authors to focus on genuinely meritorious weird fiction rather than merely popular fluff. I now see that the book is now set to be officially released on Halloween (https://www.amazon.com/Astounding-Illustrated-History-Inspirations-Techniques/dp/1786648032/).

Speaking of illustrated books, Pete Von Sholly has just come out with a collected edition of the many superb illustrations he did for the seventeen “Lovecraft Illustrated” volumes from PS Publishing. This book, Pete Von Sholly’s Lovecraft Illustrated, is available both in paperback ($50) and hardcover ($90), and can be ordered directly from Von Sholly by sending the requisite money to his PayPal account (vonrex7@gmail.com). The price includes packing and shipping. Feel free to query Von Sholly, using the above email address or through his Facebook page (Peter William Von Sholly, https://www.facebook.com/pete.vonsholly).

Sean Moreland’s critical anthology New Directions in Supernatural Horror in Literature: The Critical Influence of H. P. Lovecraft (Palgrave Macmillan) is now out. It is an anthology of essays on “Supernatural Horror in Literature” by various scholars (including Michael Cisco); I wrote the essay “Lovecraft and the Titans: A Critical Legacy,” discussing Lovecraft’s evaluations of the four “modern masters” (Machen, Dunsany, Blackwood, M. R. James) and how those evaluations have stood the test of time. I fear the book is grotesquely expensive (https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783319954769); and, in accordance with the practice of academic publishers, the ebook edition is also outrageously expensive. So interested readers should hope it becomes available in a nearby library.

I have somewhat belatedly received a copy of a new edition (2012) of Lovecraft’s Il libro dei gatti (The Book of Cats), first published in 1996. This is, as its title indicates, a collection of pieces (essays, stories, letters, etc.) by Lovecraft about cats. I wrote a brief biographical note on Lovecraft for it (which also appeared in the original edition). I see that it is still available on the Amazon Italy site (https://www.amazon.it/libro-dei-gatti-Howard-Lovecraft/dp/8884743052/ ). I won’t say that the book is as comprehensive as my own H. P. Lovecraft Cat Book (forthcoming from Necronomicon Press), but it is a worthy compilation in any case.

And a final, quite irrelevant note: Derrick Hussey has agreed to be my literary executor. Here’s hoping he does not need to fulfil his duties anytime soon!

September 10, 2018 — A Multitude of Projects

I seem to be constantly busy with a multitude of projects (some of which I do not feel at liberty to reveal at this moment), but not a great many of these have actually appeared. But I believe it is time to unveil one major enterprise: David E. Schultz and I are close to completing work on a comprehensive volume of memoirs of Lovecraft, under the title Ave atque Vale: Reminiscences of H. P. Lovecraft. This will be a new publication by Necronomicon Press, whose website has recently been restored (https://necropress.com/). I do not believe the book has been announced, and it may not appear until early next year; but it has already reached nearly 500 pages and should be a choice item. While there is significant overlap between this book and Peter Cannon’s valuable Lovecraft Remembered (Arkham House, 1998), our selection and arrangement are different, and we have annotated the individual items to correct errors and provide other useful information. We hope the volume will assist in the revival of Necronomicon Press: our field cannot have enough viable small presses!

I was pleased to see a nice review of What Is Anything? by my longtime colleague and fellow devotee of weird fiction, Michael Dirda, in the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/fantasy-horror-or-science-fiction-books-that-defy-categorization/2018/08/14/6fad99e0-9f25-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html). I do not know if this appeared only in the online edition or also in the print edition, but it is certainly gratifying to read of Dirda’s good opinion of my work. Am I really the Christopher Hitchens of the weird field? It would be nice to think so!

Among the recent publications that have emerged from Hippocampus Press, I note A New York State of Fright, edited by James Chambers et al. (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/a-new-york-state-of-fright). This is a charity volume generated by the New York branch of the Horror Writers Association, with all proceeds going to New York City’s Girls Write Now non-profit organization, “which pairs at-risk teen women interested in writing with professional writing and career mentors.” A noble enterprise! I did the copyediting on the volume, and was glad to do so. It contains work by such notables as JG Faherty, Lisa Mannetti, and numerous others, not to mention a piquant collaboration between Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee. I have a few spare copies of this book that I would be happy to let go for $15.00.

I understand that other Hippocampus volumes are imminent, notably the splendid Lovecraftian novel Witches in Dreamland, co-written by David Barker and W. H. Pugmire. It would appear that my volumes on Théophile Gautier and perhaps Mary Shelley (both in the Classics of Gothic Horror series) are imminent. I was, however, disappointed to learn that the huge Clark Ashton Smith bibliography, as well as the equally enormous Smith-Derleth letters (whimsically titled Eccentric, Impractical Devils) will not appear by the time of the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in early October. However, I am still hopeful that these books will emerge before the end of the year.

One of the things I’ve been busy on is yet another collection of my miscellaneous essays and introductions on weird fiction, which I will call The Development of the Weird Tale. Rather than dumping this on a sorely overworked Derrick Hussey of Hippocampus Press, I will publish this myself through my own micro-press, Sarnath Press. Most of the pieces are previously published, but some (including the introductions to several future volumes of the Classics of Gothic Horror series) are not. And I wrote introductions to three novels by L. P. Davies for a planned reprint from some publisher in the UK that apparently never eventuated. Anyway, here is the complete table of contents:

1. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein and Others
2. Théophile Gautier: The Eternal Feminine
3. A Forgotten Weird Fictionist: Henry Ferris
4. W. W. Jacobs: A Pessimistic Humourist
5. Barry Pain: The Occasional Weirdist
6. Algernon Blackwood and the Ghost Story
7. On “A Wine of Wizardry”
8. Samuel Loveman: Shelley in Brooklyn
9. Clark Ashton Smith: Poet of the Stars
   1. Fiction
   2. Prose-Poetry
   3. The Hashish-Eater
10. The Poetry of Donald Wandrei
11. Thomas Burke: Look Back in Terror
12. D. H. Lawrence: Weird Fiction as Symbol
13. Surprised by Horror: The Fantasy Short Stories of C. S. Lewis
14. A Failed Experiment: Family and Humanity in Shirley Jackson’s The Sundial
15. Some Novels by L. P. Davies
    1. Who Is Lewis Pinder?
    2. Twilight Journey
    3. The Shadow Before
16. Atheism and Anticlericalism in the Films of Guillermo del Toro
17. Lovecraft and Some Lost Classics of the Supernatural
    1. Walter de la Mare, The Return (1910)
    2. Algernon Blackwood, Incredible Adventures (1914)
    3. Arthur Ransome, The Elixir of Life (1915)
    4. Robert Hichens, The Dweller on the Threshold (1915)
    5. Leland Hall, Sinister House (1919)
    6. Eleanor M. Ingram, The Thing from the Lake (1921)
    7. Francis Brett Young, Cold Harbour (1924)
    8. Henri Béraud, Lazarus (1925)
    9. R. E. Spencer, The Lady Who Came to Stay (1931)

And not to worry! There will be a thorough and detailed index.

And now for something completely bizarre. My continued ascent as a pop culture icon is now undeniable, as testified by the following item: https://www.amazon.com/BH-Cool-Designs-got-Joshi/dp/B07DZ6VFQD/ . I imagine that exactly zero sales of this item have occurred since it was launched on June 24 (two days after my 60th birthday); indeed, I doubt that I myself will purchase it. But let me not stand in the way of any others who wish to do so!

August 14, 2018 — Robert Aickman and Other Masters

I am pleased (and proud) to announce the publication of my two-volume edition of the weird tales of Robert Aickman, as part of the Masters of the Weird Tale series from Centipede Press (http://www.centipedepress.com/masters/mwtaickman.html). This exquisite edition, totalling nearly 1350 pages, contains all 48 of Aickman’s canonical “strange stories,” in addition to an introduction by me, a “recollection” by T. E. D. Klein, a bibliography of Aickman’s stories and story collections, and illustrations (which are of a charmingly Edward Gorey-esque cast) by John Kenn Mortensen. The two volumes are encased in an attractive slipcase. I was fortunate enough to be provided with two spare copies of this edition, which I am happy to offer to interested customers for the bargain (?) price of $280.

I have been informed that I will soon be receiving copies of my editions of the complete weird tales of Thomas Burke (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/johnson-looked-back-the-collected-weird-stories-of-thomas-burke) and W. W. Jacobs (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/twin-spirits-the-complete-weird-stories-of-w.-w.-jacobs), part of my Classics of Gothic Horror series with Hippocampus Press. So I am happy to take orders for my spare copies: $15.00 each, or $25.00 for the pair.

I was particularly pleased to see the Burke edition, as this author has been one of my favourites ever since I read a copy of his Night-Pieces (1935) at the Muncie Public Library in the early 1970s. The title story of my edition, “Johnson Looked Back,” is a classic of second-person narration. And I’m much taken with Burke’s other writings, notably the vivid series of sketches of London’s Chinatown, Limehouse Nights (1916). Jacobs proved more interesting than I had expected; aside from the classic “The Monkey’s Paw” (which still packs a wallop in spite of its familiarity), Jacobs wrote a surprising number of other weird tales scattered throughout his short story collection. Also, he adapted two of his own ghost stories into short plays, which I have reprinted, along with Louis N. Parker’s dramatic adaptation of “The Monkey’s Paw,” which apparently is still performed in schools and other venues.

Descending from the great to the small, I have a few copies of my H. P. Lovecraft: A Short Biography available for sale for $10.00 a copy. I am aware that this is somewhat higher than the list price on Amazon, but since I am covering media mail postage and could theoretically provide an inscription, I hope at least a few readers might be interested in this humble little item!

Turning to the media front, I was pleased to hear from Qais Pasha, who is busily at work in editing the footage from my April trip to Quebec, in course of preparing his documentary on Lovecraft and Quebec. My sense is that Qais still has a bit of a way to go to complete his work; but he has recently received a grant for the project, so I expect a favourable result in due course of time.

And I believe many of you know that Darin Coelho is very close to completing his documentary on Clark Ashton Smith. A trailer has appeared (https://vimeo.com/281911751), in which I appear very briefly, along with Harlan Ellison, Donald Sidney-Fryer, and others. I am unclear whether the full version of the documentary will appear at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, this October; but in any case, the work seems to be approaching completion.

A devotee of weird fiction, Anton Garcia-Fernandez, a professor at a college in Tennessee, has released a podcast of our discussion of weird fiction, focusing on my interest in Lovecraft and M. R. James, as manifested in my Penguin Classics editions of these authors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV9qV2NufBY. I found this 90-minute discussion with Anton very engaging, and I hope other listeners might find it so.

July 31, 2018 — Yet Another Lovecraft Biography

Things have been unusually hectic here in terms of work—no summer vacation for this poor wight! But I have managed to get out a fourth version of my Lovecraft biography, and the shortest one yet. It is, appropriately enough, called H. P. Lovecraft: A Short Biography, and it is the newest publication from Sarnath Press (https://www.amazon.com/H-P-Lovecraft-Short-Biography/dp/1724348329/). It checks in at all of 108 pages. I will presently be getting a few copies to sell, but readers should probably go ahead and order the print book (or ebook) directly from Amazon. I am well aware of the fact that my two-volume, 1200-page I Am Providence is a bit weighty for some readers, and the originally published version, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (Necronomicon Press, 1996), at 700 pages, is still a bit too large for easy consumption. The 150,000-word version, A Dreamer and a Visionary (Liverpool University Press, 2001), is currently unavailable except from used-book vendors, but I may make an effort to get this back into print somehow. But now you can have the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version, which you can probably read in under two hours.

Otherwise I am bogged down with the fearful task of indexing two large volumes that we hope to get out for the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival: (1) Eccentric, Impractical Devils: The Letters of Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, and (2) Clark Ashton Smith: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Both books will approach or even exceed 600 pages, and there is certainly much of interest in them for the Smith (or Derleth) devotee.

Things have not been entirely of the “all work no play” variety. Mary and I did manage to spend a long weekend on the Oregon coast, staying (or going through) Seaside, Cannon Beach, Oceanside, and Tillamook while meeting up with Mary’s sister Katie Kurmis and her family. It was all most entertaining. On Monday, July 23, we stopped at Vancouver, Washington, and spent time with Jason and Sunni Brock and also with the venerable William F. Nolan, now a full ninety years old. He presented me with a copy of his latest book—a smallish but very well-assembled volume of stories, A Little Gray Book of Shadows (Borderlands Press, 2018). I may review this piquant little item in due course of time.

I understand that my two-volume edition of Robert Aickman (for the Masters of the Weird Tale series) is in the process of being shipped out. I hope I might get at least one spare copy to offer to an interested customer; if so, I will offer it at a modest discount from the list price (http://www.centipedepress.com/masters/mwtaickman.html). The publisher tells me that my volume of Aickman stories for the Library of Weird Fiction (a selection of what I deem to be 18 of the author’s best stories) will also be out in the reasonably near future, and I imagine that book will be quite a bit more affordable.

I recently read Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (Harper, 2016), and have to confess that I was pretty disappointed. I had heard good things about the book, and I also knew that it is being made into an HBO miniseries by Jordan Peele (director of the striking crime/horror film Get Out). But the book fails on a number of levels. In the first place, the Lovecraftian element is surprisingly scanty, making the title come across as false advertising. We are dealing with an African American family in the 1950s, dealing not only with the horrific race prejudice of the period but also with the machinations of a white family, the Braithwhites, to which they have a hidden connexion. At the outset there is much discussion of Lovecraft, Arkham House, and related subjects (including a reference to a published version of Lovecraft’s notorious poem, “On the Creation of N——,” even though that poem was in fact never published and was not known to exist until the 1970s).

The “Lovecraft Country” of the title proves to be a county in central Massachusetts where race prejudice against African Americans is notably high and where one member of the Braithwhite family seeks possession of an esoteric work, The Book of Names (which the author consciously adapts from The Book of Dead Names—one of the most inaccurate of the several false derivations of the word Necronomicon), for various nefarious purposes. All this sounds potently Lovecraftian, but (a) most of the action of the book takes place, not in “Lovecraft Country,” but in Chicago or other locales; and (b) the Lovecraftian content gives way to a general occultist/supernatural scenario involving ghosts, revenants, and mumbo-jumbo of the sort utilised in William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki stories. And these supernatural elements are handled singularly poorly, being both incredible in themselves and expounded in prose of such little affect or emotional tensity that they fail to inspire any genuine response in the reader. And the novel ends without much of a resolution. The best parts of the book are the searing depictions of race prejudice.

Well, let’s hope Jordan Peele can make something out of all this. Matt Ruff is a (white) author living in Seattle, although I am not acquainted with him.

Let me end on a note of whimsical egotism. I have of late been thinking much about manuscripts, since I recently sent two large batches of handwritten manuscripts by Jonathan Thomas to the John Hay Library for a Jonathan Thomas Collection it has recently established. In one of these batches is the manuscript of an unpublished novel, A Season of Centuries. I did not care for this work (which I believe was written well before Jonathan began publishing his story collections with Hippocampus Press in 2008), but it is no doubt an interesting work that probably deserves to see print. Anyway, I have decided to present below nothing less than one of my grocery lists! Since I am the chief shopper in our humble household, I regularly make lists of this sort on Post-It notes, since my bum memory can’t possibly keep track of all the items we need at any given time. The present list has been augmented by Mary—can anyone tell who has written what? You may be interested to know that, when I was cataloguing the Clark Ashton Smith Papers for the John Hay Library, I encountered a fair number of CAS’s grocery lists—in which various forms of liquid refreshment dominated, if you catch my meaning.

July 15, 2018 — Fire Sale!

I am in receipt of a splendid 2-LP package of Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, read by Andrew Leman and with splendid cover art by Dylan Garrett Smith and sound by Theologian. This is, of course, another superb release from Cadabra Records (http://www.cadabrarecords.com/2018/03/h-p-lovecrafts-the-call-of-cthulhu-read-by-andrew-leman-sound-by-theologian/). I wrote the fairly extensive liner notes. The LP also comes with an oversize poster of Smith’s cover art. I have no spare copies to offer to customers, so I trust they can order directly from Cadabra. At a later time I may have an interesting announcement of a new Cadabra project in which I am involved.

I have just released a volume (paperback and ebook) of the introductions to my various editions of H. L. Mencken’s works. This is the newest release from my micro-imprint, Sarnath Books (https://www.amazon.com/H-Mencken-Artist-Critic-Baltimore/dp/1722605863/), so those readers who are intent on collecting all books issued under this imprint are urged to pick up the book without delay!

I recently wrote an afterword to a “new” juvenile work by Lovecraft that has surfaced recently: The Annual Report on the Science of Astronomy (1904). This previously unknown 12-page handwritten booklet has now been published in facsimile by Necronomicon Press. I am unable to find any page for it online, but it is being offered as a fundraiser for future projects (one of which will, I trust, be my compilation of The H. P. Lovecraft Cat Book). I have exactly one copy for sale, which I will happily offer for $10.

And now to the main subject of this blog. My devoted spouse, irked by the number of books in the house (which somehow seem to grow by a curious process of osmosis), is urging me to dispense with them in some fashion or other; and I can think of no better way of doing so than having a kind of fire sale in which I offer my spare copies of various titles for the bargain price of $10.00. I can further sweeten the deal: purchasers of one title can purchase another for $8.00, and any number of other titles for $7.00. So here goes:

• Park Barnitz, The Book of Jade
• Jason V Brock, The Dark Sea Within (only 1 copy available!)
• Jason V Brock and William F. Nolan, ed., The Bleeding Edge
• Peter Cannon, Forever Azathoth
• Lord Dunsany, The Ghost in the Corner (ed. STJ and Martin Andersson)
• Michael Fantina, Alchemy of Dreams
• Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Lost Ghosts
• Eleanor M. Ingram, The Thing from the Lake
• Lynne Jamneck and S. T. Joshi, ed., Gothic Lovecraft (trade edition)
• S. T. Joshi, The Original Atheists (only 1 copy available!)
• S. T. Joshi, Varieties of the Weird Tale
• S. T. Joshi, ed., Black Wings of Cthulhu 2 (Titan)
• Josh Kent, The Witch at Sparrow Point
• Rudyard Kipling, The Mark of the Beast (ed. STJ) (only 1 copy available!)
• H. P. Lovecraft, Contro la religione (Italian trans. of Against Religion)
• Lovecraft Annual (2017)
• Lovecraftian Proceedings No. 1
• Richard A. Lupoff, Dreams
• Richard A. Lupoff, Visions
• E. Nesbit, From the Dead
• William F. Nolan, Nolan on Bradbury
• Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven (Penguin, 2013) [I essentially edited this book]
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Penguin, 2013)
• Donald Sidney-Fryer, The Atlantis Fragments: The Novel
• Donald Sidney-Fryer, The Golden State Phantasticks
• Don Swaim, The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce
• Don Webb, Through Dark Angles
• William Hope Hodgson: Voices from the Borderland, ed. Massimo Berruti, STJ, and Sam Gafford (only 1 copy available!)

I am also prepared to offer the signed/limited edition of Gothic Lovecraft for $25.00.

So come and get ’em!

July 1, 2018 — A Trip to New York

Our trip to New York (June 16–24), both upstate and downstate, was a tremendous success. Mary and I flew into Syracuse and drove down to Ithaca, where we would be staying for four nights. Among our activities in that beautiful part of the country was a renewal of my acquaintance with the village of Moravia, where I lived from 2005 to 2008. I was struck by how the married couple who purchased my house in 2009 have transformed it: it has been newly painted (from white to a kind of light brown, or maybe burnt orange), put in a fence in the backyard (and maybe also a gazebo), radically upgraded the decrepit barn/garage (which I believe is actually is older than the house itself), and put in all manner of new plants and shrubs in the front and back gardens. I would hardly have recognised the place! We even got a peek inside, as the owners were on hand and gave us a quick guided tour. Later we went to the charming little resort town of Skaneateles (pronounced “skinny-atalus”), the county seat of Auburn, the village of Aurora (with the venerable and restored Aurora Inn), and numerous wineries.

On other days we gave Ithaca itself (and especially Cornell University) a thorough investigation, and also toured the town of Seneca Falls. This was the site of a celebrated gathering in 1848 that essentially launched the movement for women’s rights in this country, with Susan B. Anthony, the atheist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others in attendance. Mary has some connexion with this area: all the way back in 1983, she took a bus from Minneapolis to Seneca Falls to protest the deployment of cruise missiles in the area! I expressed my regret that she was not arrested on that occasion: how proud I would be to have married an ex-convict! On our last night we suffered a near-disaster when we discovered that my favourite Japanese restaurant in the area, the Plum Tree, was closed for the early summer! I was crestfallen, since I had been anticipating a splendid meal at this establishment for months; but it turned out that another Japanese restaurant, quite near to our hotel, had received favourable reviews—and sure enough, it provided a fine meal.

On the 20th we drove down to Newark Airport, dropped off our rental car, and made our way to our hotel on West 30th Street. In the succeeding days we canvassed the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (in the company of Jonathan Thomas, who had come down from Providence) and also nearby Prospect Park (where we found the Vale of Cashmere—a spot Lovecraft liked to take Sonia to during his stay at 249 Parkside Avenue), the Tenement Museum in the lower East Side, and other interesting locales.

Friday the 22nd, of course, was my birthday bash at O’Reilly’s, and I was gratified that so many luminaries were in attendance—Peter Straub, Darrell Schweitzer, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Peter Cannon, Donald Sidney-Fryer (now living in Cape Cod), Don Swaim, Fred Phillips, and many others. I was thrilled to meet Clint Smith and his wife: Clint, a hugely promising weird writer from Indiana, is putting the finishing touches on his second story collection, The Skeleton Melodies, which Hippocampus Press will publish. I was also pleased to meet Jordan Smith, Derrick Hussey’s intern at Hippocampus, who is doing incredible research on various projects at the New York Public Library and elsewhere. I was tickled by the fact that numerous individuals—Leigh Blackmore, Adam Bolivar, Fred Phillips, and Donald Sidney-Fryer—wrote poetic tributes to me for the occasion. These and other birthday wishes were read by Derrick Hussey after dinner had been served, and I made a few remarks of my own.

The official occasion of the party was, of course, to launch my memoirs, What Is Anything?, and I was gratified that, some days prior, it had received a nice review in Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-61498-220-3.

But now it’s back to work! I did see copies of two new volumes in my Classics of Gothic Horror series from Hippocampus—W. W. Jacobs’s Twin Spirits and Thomas Burke’s Johnson Looked Back—but as yet I do not have copies to offer to customers. Otherwise, I continue working on all manner of projects—the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography, the indexing of the 1100-page edition of Lovecraft’s Letters to Family and Family Friends, the preparation of the next issues of Weird Fiction Review and the Lovecraft Annual, and so on and so forth.

At my birthday bash, Don Swaim had copies of his new novel, Man with Two Faces (Montag Press, 2018). This is a hugely entertaining novel set in the 1930s and involving all manner of historical figures, ranging from J. Edgar Hoover to Clarence Darrow. I wrote a blurb for the book and strongly urge everyone to purchase it.

I recently read proofs of W. H. Pugmire’s forthcoming story collection (of which I am the editor) from Centipede Press, An Ecstasy of Fear and Others. It has many splendid items, ranging from novellas to prose poems, and is well worth picking up when it appears. And Wilum is getting some international attention as well. The Swedish scholar and critic Rickard Berghorn has recently put out a new issue of his Weird Webzine (http://weirdwebzine.com) with several articles about Wilum, including one by me, translated into Swedish. My piece is essentially an extract from my discussion of Wilum in The Rise, Fall, and Rise of the Cthulhu Mythos along with some of my reviews of his recent work. There is also an article on Wilum by Bobby Derie, and the issue contains numerous other articles of interest.

June 6, 2018 — What Is Anything? and Others

I am thrilled to announce that copies of What Is Anything? Memoirs of a Life in Lovecraft have now reached me. It is a beautiful hardcover book of 346 pages, with a splendid and evocative dust jacket illustration by my old friend Jason C. Eckhardt. I have a grand total of six copies available to sell to interested customers. The publisher has terminated the discounted price he had offered for pre-publication orders, and the book is currently available at the list price of $45.00 (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/h.p-lovecraft/about-hp-lovecraft/what-is-anything-memoirs-of-a-life-in-lovecraft). I am happy to offer my six spare copies for $40.00, on the usual terms.

In addition, I have received copies of the first two volumes of my Classics of Gothic Horror series from Hippocampus Press: From the Dead by E. Nesbit and Lost Ghosts by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Each volume contains the totality of the weird short fiction of these writers, along with an extensive introduction and a bibliography. Both books feature superb cover art by Aeron Alfrey (cover design by Daniel V. Sauer). Each book is selling for $20.00 from the publisher, but I have an abundance of copies that I am offering for $15.00 each.

In addition, I have a few copies of the newest issue (#23) of Dead Reckonings, containing my reviews of James Ulmer’s The Fire Doll and Mark Samuels’s The Prozess Manifestations along with my pungent essay on “The Theory and Practice of Satirical Criticism” (an expansion and revision of my blog post of November 6, 2017). I see that I also still have a fair number of copies of the last issue (#8) of Spectral Realms. So I am now making a special offer: Anyone who purchases any of the titles cited above can also secure a copy of these magazines for only $5.00!

Otherwise, things continue at their usual entertainingly hectic pace. Jason V Brock and I are working hard to complete our mostly original anthology, Future Weird: Tales at the Intersection of Science Fiction and the Weird. We have already received splendid original contributions from Cody Goodfellow, James Gunn, Joe R. Lansdale, Lisa Mannetti, William F. Nolan, Darrell Schweitzer, John Shirley, and others, and we have bolstered the volume with reprints of relatively obscure stories by Charles Beaumont, Nancy Kilpatrick, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Robert Silverberg, F. Paul Wilson, and others. Several other authors expect to send in original contributions soon.

I am pleased to note that Hippocampus Press has agreed to publish a volume of Mark Samuels’s best stories, under the title The Age of Decayed Futurity. It is a splendid volume that reprints the best stories from Samuels’s seven previous collections, and Mark expects to write one or two new stories for the book. I imagine it will appear next year.

The next issues of Spectral Realms (#9) and the Lovecraft Annual (#12) are nearing completion. The latter has some splendid essays by such scholars as Kenneth W. Faig, Jr., Duncan Norris, Darrell Schweitzer, Bobby Derie, James Goho, Robert H. Waugh, and several others. I have written a pungent review (presented here) of a scholarly book on Lovecraft that came out last year, under the peculiar title The Love of Ruins, by Scott Cutler Shershow and Scott Michaelsen (State University of New York Press, 2017). It is a deeply silly book, as I hope my review indicates. In addition, I have written a brief article on Michael Houellebecq’s treatment of Lovecraft’s racism in H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (1991).

The other day I was interviewed by Alexandre Philippe, who is preparing a comprehensive documentary on the film Alien, the fortieth anniversary of whose release (1979) will occur next year. This documentary should be widely shown at film festivals (including Sundance) as well as available on Netflix and other venues. I of course spoke of Lovecraft’s extensive influence on the film, via the screenplay of Dan O’Bannon and the set designs by H. R. Giger.

Perhaps less widely available will be Darin Coelho’s documentary on Clark Ashton Smith, which I understand will soon be issued by Hippocampus Press and will also be shown at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, this October. I was interviewed for the documentary, although I do not know how extensively I am featured in it.

I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Michael Fantina (b. 1946) a few days ago. Michael had sent some of his last poems (one of them actually about me) to me some months ago, and they will appear in Spectral Realms #9. I also arranged to have a collection of Michael’s scintillating fantasy tales (inspired by the work of Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith) accepted by PS Publishing, and I trust that publisher will proceed with the publication of the volume next year. I knew Michael only by correspondence, but felt a deep attachment to him because of our mutual love of weird poetry and weird and fantasy fiction.

May 28, 2018 — Joshi Books, Foreign and Domestic

I was thrilled to receive copies of Caitlín R. Kiernan’s Houses Under the Sea: Mythos Tales, a spectacularly beautiful volume from Centipede Press (http://www.centipedepress.com/horror/housesunderthesea.html). It is a beautiful hardcover slipcased volume assembling the totality of Caitlín’s Lovecraftian tales. I wrote the introduction, and Michael Cisco has written an afterword. The volume is illustrated by a quartet of talented artists: Piotr Jablonski, Richard A. Kirk, John Kenn Mortensen, and Vince Locke. The book is not cheap (the current list price is $225), but I am happy to offer my one spare copy for the bargain price of $175—and included in that price will be priority mail shipping in a sturdy box.

Another item that I was delighted to see is an Italian translation of my compilation of Lovecraft’s atheistic writings, published here as Against Religion (Sporting Gentleman, 2010). The Italian edition is titled Contro la Religione and is issued by a firm called Nessun Dogma, apparently based in Rome. It is a fine-looking paperback volume, with translations by Guido Negretti and an afterword by Carlo Pagetti, a leading Italian scholar on Lovecraft and weird fiction. I have several spare copies of the book for interested customers. The list price in Italy is 18 euros, and I am happy to offer the book for $15.00.

Yet another item that delights and amuses me is a Spanish translation of my pungent essay on Jeff VanderMeer (“An Aesthetic Catastrophe”), appearing in a journal entitled Ulthar (April 2018). Here is the magazine’s website: http://ultharmagazine.blogspot.com. My piece (“Jeff VanderMeer: una catástrofe estética”) appears on pp. 84–101 and is extensively illustrated (chiefly with stills and other matter from the film Annihilation). I have no spare copies of this item, so interested readers should purchase it through the website.

Speaking of Spanish, I have recently purchased (or been given) three volumes of Clark Ashton Smith’s work in Spanish, as I needed information on them for the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography (which is now nearly done and should be out this summer or early fall). The three books in question are:

• El libro de Hiperbórea (Cátedra, 2015) [https://www.amazon.es/El-libro-Hiperbórea-Letras-Populares/dp/8437633923/
• Hiperbórea, y otros mundos perdidos (Valdemar, 2014) [https://www.amazon.es/dp/8477027781/
• Zothique, el ultimo continente (2011) [https://www.amazon.es/dp/8477027056/">

The first is a paperback, the other two are hardcovers. I have no particular use for these volumes, so if anyone is interested in taking them off my hands, I will be happy to let them to for $15.00 each (or $25.00 for any two, and $35.00 for all three).

Another book on which I have been working lately is The Astounding History of Fantasy and Horror, a lavishly illustrated volume to be published by the English firm, Flame Tree Publishing. I will apparently be listed on the title page as a consultant (I say “apparently,” because the title page did not appear in the pdf they sent me!), and I wrote the introduction. The volume’s various chapters were written by a number of leading scholars. I was not privy to the authors of some of the chapters, although I know that Mike Ashley and Matt Cardin wrote one each. The later chapters were, in my estimation, unduly weighted toward media (especially film and television), and the book as a whole seemed more focused on “fantasy” than “horror”; but I hope that my various recommendations to augment discussions of leading weird writers past and present had some effect. And Ramsey Campbell wrote a foreword! I imagine the book will be out later this year. At a minimum, it will be a physically impressive volume, with numerous illustrations of various sorts that ably complement the text.

I was interested to see that the response to Laird Barron’s crime novel Blood Standard (to be officially released on May 29) has been a little less than enthusiastic, if some early reviews in prominent venues are any guide. Consider this from Publishers Weekly (https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7352-1287-9). Then there is this from Kirkus Reviews (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/laird-barron/blood-standard-an-isaiah-coleridge-novel/). “Often formulaic” … “Hard-boiled without being distinctive.” Not so hot, as HPL once said (in reference to one of his line drawings).

To augment Mr. Barron’s discomfiture, there is the awkward fact that a hard-boiled novel that I wrote, The Removal Company, received a glowing review in Publishers Weekly when it appeared in 2009 (under my pseudonym “J. K. Maxwell”): https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4344-5717-2. Now, one or two reviews do not constitute a critical consensus … and I daresay Mr. Barron’s sycophants are already peppering various online sites with lavish encomiums of his book. But the opinions of more objective and critical evaluators offer a salutary antidote to this sort of bootlicking.

May 5, 2018 — A Visit to Quebec

I have just returned from a quick trip to a place of great significance in the life of H. P. Lovecraft—none other than Quebec, a city he ranked only third (behind Providence and Charleston) among his favourite places in the North American continent. The visit was arranged by Qais Pasha, a young Canadian filmmaker of Pakistani parentage who is in the process of assembling a documentary about HPL’s fascination with Quebec. Along with his camera man, Ben Wong, and his sound man, Adrian Pop, we tramped all around Quebec over the course of two full days (Saturday, April 28, and Sunday, April 29), as well as filming a separate interview on more general matters pertaining to Lovecraft.

As this was my first visit to Quebec (a place I should have visited prior to completing my biography of Lovecraft, given its importance to HPL), I was thrilled to see all manner of landmarks that I had only read about—chiefly in HPL’s long travelogue (A Description of the Town of Quebeck, 1930–31), but also in various letters on the subject. The following picture shows me admiring the spectacular interior of a church:

Unfortunately, I cannot recall which church this was! It could not have been the Anglican Cathedral (which HPL admired), since we went there on Sunday afternoon, only to find it closed. It also could not have been St. Matthew’s Anglican Church, since that church has now been converted into a library (!), although many of the interior elements of the church still remain. I think this was Notre Dame des Victoires, which HPL admired.

Another photo has me looking over one of the parapets of St. John’s Gate, near Artillery Park, with ominous cloud formations in the background:

Finally, there is a photo of the plaque that was set up on a building where HPL stayed on one of his visits to Quebec. This plaque dates to 2001—a period when even Providence had not set up anything remotely similar to honour its illustrious scion.

We stayed at the Hotel St. Paul, near the old train station. HPL himself had stayed at a hotel of this name, but the current hotel is a relatively new one (although the outer façade looks old), either on the exact spot of the older hotel or very near it. We explored the train station (a cavernous building that reminded me of Providence’s Union Station), along with other such sites as the Rue Sous-le-Cap (“the narrowest street in Canada”), the “oldest house in Quebec” (which HPL believed to date to 1641, but in fact dates to 1675–76—now a restaurant, where we had lunch on Sunday), Dufferin Terrace (which presents a spectacular view of the harbour and the adjacent land masses across the St. Lawrence), Point Lévis (a town on the other side of the St. Lawrence which presents a vista of Quebec much appreciated by HPL), Montmorency Falls (an impressive waterfall some miles outside of the city), the Ursuline Convent, and other sites.

The only drawback was that Sunday was rainy throughout the day, and exposed areas like Dufferin Terrace were tremendously windy (the umbrella that Qais had purchased for me bit the dust there); so I am not certain how well the footage of these sites turned out. Qais says it came out quite well, so let’s hope for the best. When I came home, I was able to locate a map from the B & M (Baltimore & Maine) Railroad’s online archives that appears to indicate the exact route that his train took on his 1930 visit.

There is obviously a great deal to be done in shaping the raw footage that was shot and in adding other ancillary material; but I am confident that Qais and his crew can produce a splendid documentary that illuminates this significant and heretofore unexamined aspect of Lovecraft’s life.

On matters closer to home…I am preparing to perform Mendelssohn’s spectacular oratorio Elijah with the Northwest Chorale on May 12 and 19 (http://www.nwchorale.org). I can assure you that this will be a fabulous performance, with a full “Romantic” orchestra. The second performance will be recorded and eventually made into a CD (or, more likely, a 2-CD package, like our recent Israel in Egypt CD). Any locals who are otherwise unoccupied are urged to attend one or both concerts!

I now see that the distinguished Lovecraftian illustrator Pete Von Sholly is in the process of gathering the illustrations he has done for the seventeen volumes of PS Publishing’s Lovecraft Illustrated series into a lavish volume. Every Lovecraftian should support this undertaking, and I trust you will take the time to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for the book (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1268917023/pete-von-shollys-lovecraft-illustrated/posts/2175539). I will be writing an introduction to the book in due course of time.

I am approaching the completion of my treatise, 21st-Century Horror. Currently I am writing my essay on Clint Smith (whose second collection, The Skeleton Melodies, will be published next year by Hippocampus Press). After that, I have essays on Simon Strantzas, Reggie Oliver, Gemma Files, Jason V Brock, and Nicole Cushing to write—and that will be it! The book will come to about 100,000 words, and Pete Crowther of PS Publishing has already expressed an interest in it. It will, in essence, be the third volume of Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction.

April 20, 2018 — A Blizzard in Minnesota

Mary and I have just returned from a nightmarish visit to Minnesota. Why nightmarish? Well, we thought that April would be a safe enough month to visit that state—and so, too, I daresay, did Mary’s niece Laura Miller (no relation, mercifully, to the dreadful journalist who has made such a fool of herself in her discussions of Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, and other writers), who was to be married on April 14. We got to the Twin Cities (staying with Mary’s mother, Nancy Krawczak) safely enough on the 10th, and on the 12th had a very pleasant meeting with Dwayne Olson, also paying a visit to DreamHaven Books (http://dreamhavenbooks.com), where I signed numerous copies of my various books. But then the snow that was forecast for the weekend started to fall—and fall—and fall. … In short, the snow began on Friday and did not let up until (I believe) the wee hours of Sunday morning.

We managed to get to the venue for the wedding (the basilica in Minneapolis) safely enough, although even that was touch and go, as many streets were not ploughed (I believe city officials felt they needed to wait until the snowfall had ended before bringing out the plows, so that they wouldn’t have to do the work over and over again). But when we tried to get to the reception—held in the town of Stillwater, about 25 miles away—we simply were unable to get there. On three separate occasions, as Mary valiantly drove her mother’s vehicle, I had to push the car out of snowdrifts into which it had gotten stuck. At last we determined that we simply couldn’t go on—either to the reception or even back home. We pulled into a gas station and attempted to call a taxi (as well as drivers working for Uber or Lyft) to take us home—all to no avail.

At last, Mary took a bold initiative. Seeing a snow plow being filled up with gas, she approached the driver and pleaded with him to drive us back home—about a 15-minute drive, under ordinary circumstances. We of course offered to pay him for his services, and he accepted. He and a colleague took us back home—it probably took close to half an hour, and the plow itself found the going treacherous, since the streets in Nancy’s development were entirely unploughed. But we managed it! We cobbled together a reasonably nice dinner of our own—and then went to bed!

We were fearful of the prospects of flying back to Seattle the next day, but by then the streets (and especially the freeways) were indeed reasonably well ploughed and our flight was theoretically on schedule. In fact, it was delayed nearly three hours on the runway, but we finally did take off. I was never so glad to get back to a civilised climate. I was also so hungry that I immediately drove to Wendy’s for a double cheeseburger!

But happier events are in the offing. I was pleased to find that my essay on Richard Gavin (“Richard Gavin: The Nature of Horror”) has been accepted for publication in Vastarien, a new literary journal devoted to the study of weird fiction being edited by Matt Cardin and Jon Padgett. I have not been informed as to which issue my essay will appear in, but I imagine it will be soon enough.

I see that my memoirs, What Is Anything?, are now available for advance order: https://www.hippocampuspress.com/h.p-lovecraft/about-hp-lovecraft/what-is-anything-memoirs-of-a-life-in-lovecraft. As can be seen, it features a superbly cosmic dust jacket illustration by Jason C. Eckhardt—its only drawback being my own ugly mug appearing in three different renditions (at ages 20, 40, and 60, I imagine). I cannot resist printing the full photo layout of the book here (6 pages of photos to be scattered throughout the book), to give you some idea of the other individuals who will be discussed in the book. Only 250 copies of the hardcover will be printed (they will not be signed—you’ll have to come to the publication party scheduled for my birthday in New York, where I will be signing some copies), so better order soon!

The Little Prince with his father and mother. S. T. in Poona, age 4. The Joshi family c. 1962): Tryambak, Ragini, Nalini, S. T., Padmini.

S. T. at Leal School (Urbana, Ill.). S. T. at 1107 W. Green Street (Urbana, Ill.). S. T. at 4621 Cornelius Avenue (Indianiapolis, Ind.). S. T. at 405 S. Normandy Drive (Munci, Ind.).

S. T. and Fritz Leiber at Lovecraft panel, Iguanacon (Phoenix), September 1978. Crispin Burnham, Keith Daniels (standing), Donald R. Burleson, Bob Eber, Will Hart (standing), S. T., and Dirk W. Mosig at Iguanacon. S. T., Ken Neily, Donald R. Burleson, Marc A. Michaud, and Jason Eckhardt at H. P. Lovecraft's gravesite c. 1979). Charles Hoffman, Robert M. Price, [unidentified], Marc A. Cerasini, S. T., Sam Gafford, and Peter Cannon in New York c. 1983).

Will Murray, Jennifer B. Lee, Jon Cooke, and S. T. at H. P. Lovecraft Memorial Plaque, John Hay Library, Brown University (August 20, 1990). Gail Schultz, David E. Schultz, S. T., Scott Briggs, and Hubert Van Calenbergh at NecronomiCon, Providence, R.I. (1993?). Ramsey Campbell and S. T., NecronomiCon (Providence, R.I.), 1995. T. E. D. Klein and S. T. in New York (April 2003).

Linda Aro, Chris Pfaff, Leslie, and S. T. in New York (April 2003). Sunni K Brock and Jerad Walters in Lakewood, Col., 2014. S. T. and Lady Dunsany at Dunsany Castle, 2013. S. T., Mary, Sunni K Brock, Jason V Brock, and William F. Nolan at our wedding, 2014.

S. T. playing the violin, 2014. Greg Lowney, W. H. Pugmire, and S. T., 2017. S. T. and Mary in Santorini, 2017. S. T., Jonathan Thomas, and Derrick Hussey in Seattle (2016)

I am also delighted to see that Sean Moreland’s anthology of essays on “Supernatural Horror in Literature” has now been officially accepted by Palgrave Macmillan. It appears that the book will simply be titled Supernatural Horror (Moreland’s chosen title had been The Call of Cosmic Panic). It could appear as early as this fall. I have written an essay for the book entitled “Lovecraft and the Titans: A Critical Legacy,” focusing on HPL’s discussion of Machen, Dunsany, Blackwood, and M. R. James in the final chapter of his essay.

April 6, 2018 — Adam Nevill: The Sense of Dread

Some time ago I was encouraged to investigate the novels of Adam Nevill, a young British writer who had contacted me all the way back in 1990 to pass on a thesis on Lovecraft that he had written for a British university, but from whom I had not heard since then. Nevill has written a number of impressive novels in the past decade and a half, and I now present my chapter on Nevill from 21st-Century Horror. The person who recommended him to me was none other than Ramsey Campbell, whose comment to me (that Nevill has a “good sense of dread”) I have boldly used as the subtitle of my essay. I wish I had had time to read more of Nevill’s work—he has published two collections of short stories—but time is short! I hope my piece gives some idea of my general admiration for this dynamic young writer.

I am happy to announce the acceptance of my Varieties of Crime Fiction by Wildside Press. I think this is just the right press for this book, which is designed as a popular (not academic) study of the subject. I have no idea when Wildside will issue the book, but I have signed a contract and hope to see proofs in due course of time.

A highly interesting book has come to me from Henrik Möller, a Swedish writer and filmmaker who has teamed up with the artist Lars Krantz to produce a book (bilingual in Swedish and English) called Vägen till Necronomicon / Creation of the Necronomicon. The book was actually published in Latvia by a firm called C’est Bon Kultur (2017). It consists of brief passages about Lovecraft and the Necronomicon with splendid black-and-white illustrations by Krantz (a well-known comic book artist). This distinctive publication is well worth securing by all devotees of Lovecraft. Here is some more information on it: https://www.bokus.com/bok/9789187825125/vagen-till-necronomicon-creation-of-the-necronomicon/.

The other day I had occasion to do some good old-fashioned library research. In this case, I was attempting to locate a letter by Leah Bodine Drake that was published in the American Mercury (September 1948). (This was, of course, the magazine that H. L. Mencken had co-founded in 1924, but he had retired from its editorship long before, in 1933.) I found the letter at the University of Washington Library and made a scan of it—which I present below, with a large part of my gnarled hand accompanying the page:

The letter by Leah Bodine Drake in the American Mercury

Otherwise, I continue frantically inputting information (secured by the diligence and tenacity of David E. Schultz and Scott Connors) for the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography. That book will be close to 600 pages when it appears later this year from Hippocampus!

Jason V Brock and I are also focusing on the completion of our anthology Future Weird, which has garnered some powerful contributions of late. We hope to finish the book in the next two months—and also hope to secure a good publisher by then, if not much earlier.

March 24, 2018 — Weston Ochse, World-Class Hater

Recently a screed against me written by one Weston Ochse last November was re-posted on the S. T. Joshi Enthusiasts Facebook page. I had not read this document when it was originally posted, since with exquisite moral delicacy Mr. Ochse believed that speaking about me behind my back was a more admirable course than addressing me directly. All I can say, now that I have digested this post, is that it amazes me how someone can go around seething with such hatred and resentment. Don’t you get tired, Mr. Ochse? Are these not utterly fatiguing emotions to feel? The inspirations for Mr. Ochse’s post were my essays on Laird Barron and Brian Keene, which, in an impeccable instance of Freudian projection, he himself believes to be motivated by hatred—this in spite of the fact that (as I have repeated time out of mind) there was not one phrase about the personal characteristics of either writer in these pieces, but only a dissection of their literary work. But Mr. Ochse’s own screed goes well beyond whining like a baby at my purportedly unjust treatment of his pals; he attempts to deliver a succession of body-blows to my work in general and my place in the field. Well, let me state bluntly that the word of Mr. Ochse is not likely to carry the day. But some counter-arguments to his post may be in order even at this late date, for they get to the heart of so much that is wrong with this field.

Mr. Ochse maintains that my piece on Laird Barron was not in any sense “academic” and amounts to something he might have read in an “English 226” class. I am not clued in on the cryptic significance of that number, but no doubt an “academic” of Mr. Ochse’s high standing no doubt can explain it to us. I am at least not to be classified among college freshmen, who customarily take classes in the 100 range. So I guess my paper qualifies as the work of a fair-to-middling sophomore. Well, that’s something!

But a question immediately arises: what exactly is Mr. Ochse’s authority for uttering such an Olympian pronouncement? He holds a B.A. from some place called Excelsior College (Albany, NY) and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from some entity named National University (La Jolla, CA). Even though these institutions of higher learning are not very well known, they are no doubt considerably more prestigious than the colleges I attended, Brown (B.A. and M.A.) and Princeton (half of a Ph.D.). And I repeat that Mr. Ochse is himself an academic of impressive credentials. He teaches (or has taught) at Cochise Community College, wherever that might be, whereas I have never taught anywhere, being a dropout from Princeton Graduate School (where I scornfully discarded the Paul Elmer Fellowship in Classical Philosophy).

But let’s dig a little deeper, shall we? When Mr. Ochse opines whether anything I have published has been “peer-reviewed,” I am humbly forced to say: “Well, yes.” Aside from random articles in such peer-reviewed journals as Extrapolation, American Literary Realism, and others, I have had thirty-nine books issued by a variety of academic publishers. (I list these publishers in my blog of September 6, 2017.) In each case, these books were evaluated by two or three bona fide academicians hired by the publisher, who then pronounced the books academically rigorous enough to be published. I am of course gratified that these professors should be so charitable toward a non-academic “barbarian and alien” (as Lovecraft would have said) such as myself. What is more, the great majority of these books were reviewed favourably in the academic press. Let us now consider how many books Mr. Ochse published with academic publishers. The answer is readily forthcoming: zero. That’s right, zero. But let’s never forget that Mr. Ochse is an “academic” and I’m not!

Mr. Ochse goes on to make the astounding claim that I have illegitimately profited from the work of the impoverished dreamer from Providence, H. P. Lovecraft. He seems incensed that so many books of Lovecraft’s work found in bookstores bear my name. Well, to anyone who loathes me as much as Mr. Ochse does I daresay this ubiquity of my despised moniker must indeed be highly annoying; but let me say here and now that, in the great majority of cases, publishers have solicited me to assemble these editions; I did not solicit the publishers. This process started in 1982, when James Turner (managing editor of Arkham House) sought me out at the World Fantasy Convention in New Haven to prepare corrected texts of Lovecraft’s fiction, and has carried on through most of the other editions that I have edited, including my three Penguin editions. There are, of course, some exceptions: I worked closely with Marc Michaud of Necronomicon Press to assemble various small editions of Lovecraft’s obscure work (which required extensive research to unearth and annotate), and I did approach Derrick Hussey with the idea of publishing Lovecraft’s Collected Essays (2004–06; 5 vols.)—for which I was paid nothing—as well as the recent variorum edition of Lovecraft’s fiction.

Even those editions of Lovecraft that do not explicitly identify me as editor—such as Joyce Carol Oates’s edition of Lovecraft’s Tales (1997) and the Library of America edition (2005), edited by Peter Straub—use my corrected texts. For the use of these texts I was again paid nothing. I felt it was important that my texts receive wide dissemination in contrast to earlier, corrupt texts. I very much doubt that Mr. Ochse (since he does not do work of this kind) has any conception of the amount of time, effort, expertise, and research that have gone into the preparation of many of these editions. If I were to calculate what rate of payment I received from all these editions, I would have to estimate that it amounts to perhaps a dime per hour. No one is likely to become financially secure preparing editions of H. P. Lovecraft!

Mr. Ochse also believes that we should all be supporting one another as writers rather than tearing one another down. A laudable sentiment, indeed! I would be the first to hang up my satirical barbs if certain other figures—Ross E. Lockhart, Scott Nicolay, Nick Mamatas, and, yes, Laird Barron—were to do the same when it comes to addressing me and other individuals. But they seem in no way inclined to do that. So the question becomes: why doesn’t Mr. Ochse condemn these worthies instead of merely belabouring me? Is there some esoteric reason why these gents receive a pass for their intemperate vituperation (almost always uttered behind my back) and I don’t? Trust me, my own blogs could have been written by Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm in comparison to the torrent of abuse I have laughed off from these and other individuals over the past several years. But Mr. Ochse is apparently not bothered by these attacks in the slightest. And his own screed against me, as I have mentioned, is itself so full of hatred, insult, and resentment that it unwittingly undercuts his “Can’t we all get along?” exhortation.

But perhaps Mr. Ochse is referring to reviews or critical essays—in which case I fear I cannot follow him. For he seems to be suggesting that we should all puff up one another’s work as if it were all superlatively great—but who could possibly agree with such a naïve assessment? Is it really the case that Brian Keene’s work is equivalent to that of Ramsey Campbell? If it isn’t, then why is it some kind of treason to say so, as Mr. Ochse seems to believe? Are there to be no critical standards in our field? Is everything uniformly praiseworthy? I have stated repeatedly that my screed on Keene was deliberately satirical, because his literary infamies are so flamboyantly extreme that only satire is sufficient to deal with them. But I maintain that my essays on Laird Barron, Nick Mamatas, Paul Tremblay, Jeff VanderMeer, and others are unequivocally fair and balanced; if I find that these authors come up a little short of literary excellence, it is because that is my informed judgment as a critic.

We do our field no favours by pretending that anything written by anyone is worthy of the Pulitzer Prize. Distinctions need to be made; for the long-term health of the genre, only the worthiest products (as determined by a consensus of opinion by well-informed critics and readers) should be promoted. I am well aware that tastes and standards change over time, so that the reputations of some authors rise and others fall; but I believe it is still possible to say that quality wins out over the long term. It is particularly essential, in my judgment, to ascertain whether those writers who have attained popular or critical acclaim are actually deserving of their accolades. In all too many instances they are not. Long ago I popped the bubbles of overrated writers such as Stephen King and Clive Barker, and I will continue this mission for the foreseeable future. How can this be considered “literary bullying”? That is a grotesque and disingenuous misuse of the term. I have never—I repeat, never—trashed a novice or obscure writer with a satirical article or review. What would be the point? On the contrary, I have assisted dozens of apprentice writers, helping them improve their craft so that a good many of them are now established professionals who have little need of my help. As for Mr. Keene—let us recall that he received (by some inexplicable twist of fate) the Grand Master Award at the 2014 World Horror Convention! That would seem to suggest that he is hardly in the novice class, and I daresay he would be mightily offended if he were considered anything but a tough-guy professional. If he really is such a delicate flower that he needs Mr. Ochse to defend him from hostile criticism—well, that’s his lookout!

Has Mr. Ochse forgotten the derivation of the word “criticism”? It comes from the Greek verb kritein, which originally meant “to divide” (as in a piece of land), but then developed the figurative meaning of “to judge, to distinguish, to discriminate.” This is why I (following the lead of Ezra Pound, Ivor Winters, Wayne C. Booth, and others) believe that it is a central function of criticism to discriminate—most particularly between good writing and bad.

I have stated until I am blue in the face that criticism is not an exact science but an exercise of critical judgment; and my judgments are meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive. If there are those who find my judgments unsound, then the thing to do is not to vilify me with all manner of intemperate abuse but to offer counter-arguments based on an alternative reading of the material in question (and this requires something a bit more detailed and cogent than merely saying “I like this book!” or “I think this guy’s a good writer!”). This is how rational people conduct a debate of this kind. It is a lesson Mr. Ochse and those who think like him seem incapable of learning.

March 20, 2018 — The Whining Continues!

I am pleased to announce the receipt of my 252nd book—my edition of D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner and Other Supernatural Tales from Centipede Press (http://www.centipedepress.com/horror/rockinghorsewinner.html). It is a fine-looking book—but that is hardly a surprise from this publisher. I am informed that the book may be sold out already, but I have a few copies that I am willing to let go for $40. And since the response to my previous offer to sell copies of Spectral Realms (issues 6, 7, and 8) and Lovecraft’s Library (4th rev. ed.) was rather less than overwhelming, I am prepared to throw in copies of Spectral Realms for $5.00 and Lovecraft’s Library for $10.00 to those who purchase my three spare copies of the Lawrence book.

I am informed that I am once again the target of vitriol and billingsgate from certain quarters. The recent whining dredges up claims that do not even have the virtue of originality, as they have been aired before—that I am a “literary bully” (in which case, comments by certain of my opponents, notably Ross E. Lockhart, would seem to brand them as “literary terrorists”); that I am woefully insensible to the transcendent brilliance of that “rising star” Laird Barron; that it was unfair of me to point out the bewildering array of grammatical blunders in the work of Brian Keene (errors that the [non-existent] copy editors at his two-bit publishing houses should presumably have caught); and so on and so forth.

I could not have asked for a more pungent and triumphant confirmation of the substance of my previous blog, so I thank my antagonists for their acknowledgment of my prescience. Only days after writing that blog, in fact, I received thunderous confirmation from the Master himself. I refer to a passage in a letter by H. P. Lovecraft in which he was discussing whether there is a need for an author to be an “egotist” to produce outstanding work. Lovecraft demurred on the point, stating in part:

“The most exasperating spectacle is that of the inferior pretender who, without any of the skill or substance of greatness, possesses the coxcomb vanity & coddled neurotic egotism commonly associated with artistic eminence. These pathetic clowns fancy that they are great because they have the weakness which great persons sometimes have—as if all club-footed persons were as great as Byron because Byron had a club-foot! Actually, egotism is simply a result of the absence of thought. It is not absolutely universal among the foremost artists—Virgil, Milton, Wren, Copley, Wordsworth, Galsworthy, & scores of other front-rank creators have been thoroughly normal & modest—because the moment one starts to think, he cannot help dropping it at once …. & there is nothing about great art which utterly forbids its practitioners to use the frontal lobes of their brains.” (Letter to Helen V. Sully, 28 October 1934)

Spot-on, HPL! The question, of course, is whether my antagonists actually have anything in their frontal lobes—but that is a query for another day.

One of the more unusual criticisms now directed at me is that, as a critic, I only discuss dead white males. The timing of this criticism is singularly unfortunate, for Hippocampus Press is about to release the first two volumes of my Classics of Gothic Horror series, featuring the work of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and E[dith] Nesbit. Here is the publisher’s page for the Freeman book (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/lost-ghosts-the-complete-weird-stories-of-mary-e.-wilkins-freeman) and for the Nesbit book (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/fiction/from-the-dead-the-complete-weird-stories-of-e.-nesbit). Now while both these authors are emphatically dead, I believe (correct me if I am wrong) they are also emphatically not of the male gender. And in my corpus of publications I see editions (with introduction and commentary) of the work of Gertrude Atherton, Edna W. Underwood, and other non-male writers, not to mention an entire anthology called The Cold Embrace: Weird Stories by Women (Dover Publications, 2016). This book, in fact, was to be the first of a three-volume set, but a change of editors at the publishing company derailed plans for the other two volumes.

And in the many dozens of reviews I have written over the past forty years, I find discussions of the work of Sherry Austin, Jacqueline Baker, Karen L. Garst, Lois H. Gresh, Joan Wylie Hall, Susan Jacoby, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Faye Ringel, Sharon Talley, and Connie Willis. (Some of these are writers on atheism and freethought.)

But all this is too absurd. I have stated before that it is only a curdled liberalism that focuses on the racial or sexual aspects of an artist as opposed to the intrinsic merits (or lack of them) of that artist. It hardly need be added that literary merit can be found in writers of all different sorts, and I have done just that, as any reader of Unutterable Horror and other of my treatises can attest. But I flatly admit that I am such a traitor to American democratic ideals that I indulge in the vilely aristocratic and elitist principle of vaunting quality as the supreme test of literary greatness. I am on record as stating (in reply to Clive Barker’s fatuous comment that “You get your material to the largest cross-section of people you possibly can”) that “Art is not a democracy, but only an aristocracy of excellence.” I rather like that turn of phrase—it should be in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations!

Now consider some of the writers I have recently discussed in essays planned for my 21st-Century Horror book, or other individuals I have mentioned (or who have discussed me):

• Laird Barron: white guy
• Joe Hill: white guy
• Brian Keene: white guy
• Ross E. Lockhart: white guy
• Nick Mamatas: white guy
• Scott Nicolay: white guy
• Paul Tremblay: white guy
• Jeff VanderMeer: white guy

I suppose this means that, when all these worthies descend into their graves (let it not be soon!—they are providing me with too much amusement), no critic should be permitted to discuss their work. Of course, that is likely to happen in any event—but for entirely different reasons.

Let us pause a moment on this Keene fellow. Much as I am disinclined to attack the characters of those who perceive themselves to be my antagonists (a restraint that those same antagonists are happy to dispense with when it comes to discussing my unworthy self), I am compelled to point out some very dubious practices that this person has lately indulged in. He recently issued a podcast in which he condemned Chris Morey of Dark Regions Press for failure to pay royalties to his authors. I have no knowledge of the substance of this claim, but I can assure you that I myself have always been paid promptly and fully by Mr. Morey for all the books I have prepared for this publisher.

But we need to dig a little deeper. Exactly why did Mr. Keene issue this podcast at this particular time? Of course, the white-hot fervency of his righteous indignation on behalf of his fellow authors must always be considered; but can it be that a recent kerfuffle with Mr. Morey lent any impetus to his attempt to blacken Mr. Morey’s reputation? I refer to the fact that Mr. Morey once paid Mr. Keene an advance of $1,500 for a book—and then waited three years for the book to be delivered. It never was, and Mr. Morey then asked Mr. Keene to return the advance, which Mr. Keene reluctantly did.

Now all this is beyond my powers of understanding. Mr. Keene has always exhibited an evil facility in producing books—not surprisingly, since it would seem an easy task to churn out pseudo-literary rubbish if one pays no heed to style, grammar, coherence of plot, plausibility of character portrayal, and other elements that despicable elitists such as myself think are necessary for “good” writing. So why Mr. Keene never delivered on whatever book Mr. Morey commissioned is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But there it is. Now of course we cannot be so vulgar as to assume that this dispute had anything to do with the issuance of Mr. Keene’s podcast. That would convict Mr. Keene of being petty, vindictive, resentful, and intent on tit-for-tat vengeance, and we cannot attribute such base motives to this valiant crusader for authors’ rights. Can we?

But it gets worse. It has come to my attention that Mr. Keene is bragging about his contribution to an insane magazine for gun nuts called Prepper Survival Guide (http://www.briankeene.com/2018/02/14/prepper-survival-guide/). Please observe that this post on Mr. Keene’s website occurred on the very day of the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida! And what is more, it is still available on Mr. Keene’s website. Now I have no idea whether Mr. Keene is himself a gun nut (I think the prospect is highly likely, since he proudly describes himself as a “‘white-trash’ Appalachian”) or is merely being a crass opportunist in writing for such a vile rag. Whatever the case, it does not speak well of the social morality of Brian Keene.

If the bulk of my antagonists are on the intellectual and ethical level of Mr. Keene—and they must be, if they support and defend him—then I don’t think I have much to worry about.

March 11, 2018 — A Disquisition on Crybaby Authors

I am in receipt of two new items from Hippocampus Press: Spectral Realms No. 8 (Winter 2018) and the 4th revised and expanded edition of my compilation of Lovecraft’s Library: A Catalogue (2017). The former item hardly needs an introduction. The current issue of this journal of weird poetry contains spectacular contributions by such poets as Richard L. Tierney, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Ashley Dioses, Adam Bolivar, Darrell Schweitzer, K. A. Opperman, Alan Gullette, Christina Sng, John Shirley, Ann K. Schwader, and—not least—two poems by Mary Krawczak Wilson. One of its “classic reprints” is a poem written by Farnsworth Wright and published in Weird Tales under a pseudonym. It also contains a long and rigorously argued article on “Verse vs. Free Verse” by Frank Coffman. The price of this issue has now been reduced to $10.00.

Lovecraft’s Library (now fittingly bearing David E. Schultz’s name as co-compiler) now lists a total of 1085 books in Lovecraft’s library, or more than 150 titles more than the original compilation of 1980. Schultz and I have also provided much more detailed notes about Lovecraft’s use of the various titles in his work and his citations of them in his letters. This edition is priced at $15.00.

I have a fair number of copies of both titles available to interested customers and am prepared to offer them for $10.00 (Spectral Realms) and $12.00 (Lovecraft’s Library). I still have 2 copies of issue #7 of Spectral Realms, and 6 copies of issue #6. Should anyone be interested in any two issues, I would be happy to let them go for $15.00. All three issues can be purchased at $20.00.

My attention has been drawn to an interesting crowdfunding campaign to finance a new “complete” (intégrale) edition of Lovecraft’s stories in French: https://fr.ulule.com/lovecraft-prestige/. I believe this is from the same publisher that recently issued the three-volume Clark Ashton Smith edition, which I can assure you is—at least from a physical standpoint, and probably from other standpoints as well—a superlative job of book production. In fact, I believe I have been asked to supply an introduction or other commentary for the edition. So any interested readers are urged to support the venture.

And now I trust I may be allowed to vent a little.

I have to say that recent responses to my various essays and reviews on contemporary weird fiction have been even more disheartening than I had expected. I suppose I was not fully aware of the extent to which certain writers are so pathetically insecure that they cannot endure even the slightest and most constructive criticism of their immortal masterworks. They have gotten so puffed up with arrogance, self-importance, and delusions of impeccability that anything less than undiluted praise strikes them as some kind of lèse-majesté (for those of you who don’t know French, that phrase basically means treason).

But it is not the grotesque and contemptible antics of the authors themselves that is the worst part of this whole sorry spectacle. Their rabid, uncritical, and still more insecure toadies and sycophants exhibit an even more despicable and hysterical response to criticism. What they tend to do is to react in fury at such perceived slights to their lord and master and, in classic mob fashion, attempt to gang up on the bold and outspoken critic for his or her temerity in questioning the superlative greatness of the author whom they have chosen (for reasons that often remain opaque, but appear to have more to do with tribal affiliation than abstract literary merit) to idolise.

I should point out that my own essays and reviews say virtually nothing about the personalities of the authors I discuss. Even my satirical piece on Brian Keene made no mention of his character (about which I know—and want to know—nothing); I merely made some harmless witticisms directed at his multifarious crimes against the English language. And yet, he and his claque uniformly responded as if he and they have been personally attacked, and as a result their own ripostes were nothing but personal attacks upon myself. But given that these furious screeds do not address any of my fundamental critical points—or, at best, single out some tiny and insignificant issue, distort it wildly, and turn it into an attack on my character (usually—predictably enough—from the perspective of race or gender), I am forced to conclude that none of my attackers can actually find any meaningful rebuttal to the essence of my argument, and that leaves me more convinced than ever that my judgments are sound.

If these disreputable lickspittles think they can silence me with this tsunami of vitriol, they had better think again. I am more resolved than ever to utter my critical opinions fearlessly and defiantly. It is apparently a widespread belief that casting evaluative judgments, as I habitually do, is somehow not even a legitimate function of criticism; but to me it has always been central to the critic’s role. There is a great need for the critic to take on, at times, the job of a sanitation worker—clearing away literary rubbish so that works of genuine aesthetic merit can be more readily perceived by readers.

There is, in my judgment, only a single author in our field today who deserves the unstinting praise that these authors and their bootlickers fondly seek; and that is Ramsey Campbell. But even he is not immune from criticism! I like to think of myself as one of his champions, but I do not care for some few items in his extensive output. What is more, Campbell himself takes negative criticism in stride—and even makes a game of it. Consider the pamphlet Two Obscure Tales (Necronomicon Press, 1993). On a page facing the title page, under the bland heading “Other Works by Ramsey Campbell,” he has provided a bevy of extracts from hostile reviews of his various books up to that time. What is widely regarded as one of his superior novels (and, hence, one of the superior novels in all weird fiction), Incarnate (1983), was regarded as “plodding” by Library Journal and as “slow, meandering” by Kirkus Reviews. (I believe Arthur Machen takes the prize in matters of this sort, as his Precious Balms [1924] is an entire volume of negative reviews of his work.)

Here’s my advice to these delicate flowers who cannot endure any criticism short of slavish encomium: Don’t publish your work. Just hand it out individually to those of your cronies who, in your estimation, are certain to lap it up with relish and tell you so (whether they actually enjoy it or not). That will save you the agony of less-than-enthusiastic notices of your work at the hands of insensitive oafs such as myself.

My general point is that authors, by the very act of publishing, do not get to choose their readers, nor their critics. You’d better get used to that idea if you have any inclination to maintain your status as a professional writer. I myself have developed a pretty tough hide over the decades; and when my own books come out (such as my memoirs, or a thick volume of my collected mystery and horror fiction, or my novella Something from Below, which will all appear later this year), I fully expect any number of hostile or negative evaluations. But I, for one, am capable of distinguishing between genuine criticism and vindictive vituperation. Are you?

March 4, 2018 — John Langan: Tales from the Heart

There seems to be an unwarranted belief that I don’t care for any contemporary weird fiction—a strange attitude for people to have, given my enthusiasm for the recent work of such writers as Ramsey Campbell (the third volume of whose Lovecraftian trilogy, The Way of the Worm, I have just read in ms.—and found spectacular), Caitlín R. Kiernan, Richard Gavin, Simon Strantzas, and many others, not least of whom are my own (former) protégés Jonathan Thomas and Michael Aronovitz. (I say “former” only because I cannot regard them as “protégés” anymore, as they are now veteran writers with several books—novels and story collections—under their belts.)

All this reminds me (and I suppose I am only confirming my status as an old coot as I mention this) of those old Life cereal commercials, where a little boy named Mikey has a notorious dislike of any and all cereals—until he comes upon Life, which he gobbles up with gusto. The analogy is particularly apt in that I myself have been a devotee of Life cereal (usually with blueberries or strawberries) for many years.

So I now present a chapter on John Langan from 21st-Century Horror which I hope will indicate that I can say good things about a contemporary writer. My views of John’s work are, to be sure, mixed, and I do not indulge here in unstinted praise; but I find far more to admire in his work than to deprecate, and I trust that readers find some value in my analyses. I discuss only a portion of his third story collection, Sefira and Other Betrayals, which is not yet complete: John has not submitted the final two stories in the book, including the title story. And the publication date of 2018 is also a tad optimistic, given that the Hippocampus Press schedule for this year is rapidly filling up. But we do hope to get the volume out as expeditiously as possible once John submits those final two stories.

Otherwise I have been working diligently on the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography, which is likely to be about 400 pages in print. The index alone (names, titles, periodicals) comes to 88 single-spaced pages on my computer! I like to think it is a pretty exhaustive compilation, although no doubt we have missed some foreign editions. (I am trying to find detailed information on seven Japanese editions, dating from 1974 to 2011, but have so far found such information on only one.)

I have begun examining David E. Schultz’s toweringly impressive edition of Leah Bodine Drake’s collected writings, tentatively titled Song of the Sun. Although I will be listed as a co-editor of this volume (which I hope can appear later this year from Hippocampus), I am merely a freeloader. David has done about 95% of the work so far, and I am now adding my two-cents’ worth on various textual points and matters of annotation. Drake published the first single-author poetry collection with Arkham House (A Hornbook for Witches, 1950), but that is the least of her virtues as a poet. Her “weird” poetry is in fact a relatively small facet of her overall poetic work, which has considerable merit for its simple elegance, its fascination with myth and legend, and its depth of emotion. She also wrote some weird tales (one published in a late issue of Weird Tales) that are creditable.

Copies of Spectral Realms #8 have gone out to contributors, but have not reached here yet. I also understand that some ARCs of my memoirs, What Is Anything?, have been prepared and will be sent out to (very) select reviewers and reviewing venues. I think the best things in the book are my baby pictures.

Here’s hoping the attendees of StokerCon in Providence, R.I., can literally hold on to their hats (does anyone wear hats these days?) as they dodge the nor’easter plaguing the East Coast!

February 26, 2018 — Mr. VanderMeer’s Claque

I suppose it was to be expected that I would be raked over the coals in certain circles for my critical (in every sense of the word) essay on Jeff VanderMeer. Somehow I had overlooked the plain fact that he is among those privileged few writers who are self-evidently immune from any and all criticism. I am not sure how one enters this highly exclusive and lofty club, for it is abundantly obvious that I myself am persona non grata with a vengeance.

One of the earliest defenders of Mr. VanderMeer, predictably, is the eminent Laird Barron, who also feels he is a member of that exclusive club. And yet, the sum total of his criticism of my article rests in his citing the following quotation from it:

“It is amusing to note that among VanderMeer’s characters are a black woman (Grace Stevenson), a Hispanic man (John Rodriguez), a gay man (Seth Evans), and a lesbian woman (Grace Stevenson). All very proper according to the canons of politically correct multiculturalism.”

I should have predicted that this comment would be quoted in this manner; for, taken by itself, it might suggest that I have a problem with depictions of non-white (or non-heterosexual) persons in fiction. That would be very bad—if it were true. But I beg to point out the inconvenient fact that Mr. Barron did not quote my full remarks on the subject:

“The only problem is that these figures are all so indistinguishable from one another that their ethnic or sexual characteristics are of little relevance to their overall personalities and have no bearing upon the actions that their author mechanically forces them to carry out. In particular, the scenes with Seth and his lover are so mortifyingly wooden and clumsy as to seem like parodies of gay lovemaking.”

Ah! This puts a very different complexion (pardon the pun) on my comment! One must not of course assume that Mr. Barron deliberately failed to quote this latter passage; that would make him appear disingenuous and duplicitous, at the very least. No doubt the white heat of his righteous anger blinded him to the full text.

But Mr. Barron’s citation generated a predictable barrage of faux outrage on the part of his own sycophants. One charming fellow opined that I was somehow on his “friend list” and immediately expressed the desire to “find [me] and delete [me].” I can only imagine his discomfiture when he made an awkward discovery: “Oh, I can’t find him on social media.” I am aware that, in this technological age, one’s absence from social media is tantamount to being a Flat-Earther. Or is it possible that I deliberately avoid social media in order to get some actual work done and be a productive member of society?

Otherwise, it appears that I have been accused of being a bigot, a misogynist, a transphobe, and sundry other derelictions. To which my only response is: *Sigh.* I suppose most of my antagonists are unaware that I myself have compiled books on some of these very subjects; to wit, Documents of American Prejudice (1999) and In Her Place: A Documentary History of Prejudice against Women (2006). The amount of research that went into these volumes is probably inconceivable to most of my valiant opponents. It would then appear—if my antagonists are correct—that I paradoxically compiled these volumes to promote the very evils I was ostensibly condemning! Anyone who reads my introduction and commentary in these books will find that interpretation a trifle implausible.

People, do you not realise what you are doing? By flinging such accusations around recklessly and with no regard for evidence, you are playing into every right-winger’s caricature of the dogmatic, intolerant liberal fascist. You are thereby bringing disrepute to the very causes you claim to be championing. You are, in fact, not liberals but dictator-wannabes (rather like our current “president”). You are no different in temperament from a rabid Christian fundamentalist or a Second Amendment absolutist. Fanaticism on the left has an uncanny similarity to fanaticism on the right, and the basis of that similarity is a mutual and fatal tendency toward authoritarianism. We have already witnessed one entire political party (the G.O.P.) descend into the abyss of cultivated ignorance, fact-denial, corruption, hypocrisy, and now a thirst for tyranny; there is no need for members of the other party to follow it.

Mr. Jason V Brock has written cogently and pungently on this very subject in a recent statement. In spite of its length, I urge everyone to read it carefully: http://www.jasunni.com/2018/02/22/the-risks-of-being-different/.

And if you want an example of genuine and muscular liberalism, you might read my column in the next issue of Free Inquiry, entitled “The Party of Traitors.” You can read this dissection of the current Republican party on the Selected Writings page.

Meanwhile, I remain mystified at why Mr. VanderMeer’s followers believe that he—or any writer—should be shielded from critical scrutiny. What good can come of that? My essay on him was a critical judgment, not a statement of fact. The proper way to refute me is not to hurl insults at me, which always backfire by showing the hurlers to be petty, vindictive, and full of rage and resentment. The only way to rebut me is to demonstrate that my judgments are unsound. If there are any people out there who can show why Mr. VanderMeer left so many critical plot threads in his trilogy unresolved, why so many seemingly significant characters appear and then disappear seemingly at random, why every character (male, female, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, lesbian) is bland and undistinctive, and why his prose is so lacking in emotive resonance, they would be doing me and the whole field of weird fiction a great favour. But so far as I can tell, no one has had the critical acumen to make such a statement.

If we have really reached the stage where honest, hard-hitting criticism of weird fiction is verboten, then we’ve come to a pretty pass, haven’t we?

February 23, 2018 — Jeff VanderMeer: An Aesthetic Catastrophe

A short time ago I spent a week or two digesting Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), published in 2014. I was quite stunned at how appallingly bad it was. Whatever my opinions on VanderMeer as a person may be, I had actually been expecting his trilogy to be at least respectable, if not scintillating. It is very much otherwise. I here present my essay on VanderMeer for 21st-Century Horror.

[It is, of course, entirely a coincidence that I disseminate my essay on the day that the film version of Annihilation opens. I am not likely to see the film—although I saw a trailer for it the other day that made me scratch my head as to what the movie could possibly be about. One review states that the film made radical changes in the book’s plot—not surprising!]

On a much happier note, I have at long last received some copies of Black Wings VI from the publisher, PS Publishing. The book actually came out late last year, but my spare copies have only just arrived. It is selling for £25 in the UK, and I am prepared to offer my copies for $30.00 on the usual terms. I have only three spares, so better get them quick!

Coincidentally, I see that a reasonably favourable review of Black Wings V (the paperback edition, titled Black Wings of Cthulhu 5) has appeared in Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-78565-691-0. I was interested to note that the reviewer singled out the Nicole Cushing story, which (to my mind) was quite a departure from the usual run of stories that have appeared in Black Wings.

I am also prepared to announce the contents of a Best of Black Wings that PS Publishing will issue sometime in paperback:

Lesser Demons	Norman Partridge
Howling in the Dark	Darrell Schweitzer
Passing Spirits	Sam Gafford
When Death Wakes Me to Myself	John Shirley
The Abject	Richard Gavin
Dahlias	Melanie Tem
Bloom	John Langan
Thistle’s Find	Simon Strantzas
Houdini Fish	Jonathan Thomas
Artifact	Fred Chappell
Cult of the Dead	Lois H. Gresh
The Dark Sea Within	Jason V Brock
Night of the Piper	Ann K. Schwader
The Woman in the Attic	Robert H. Waugh
The Walker in the Night	Jason C. Eckhardt
The Organ of Chaos	Donald Tyson
Voodoo	Stephen Woodworth
The Shard	Don Webb
To Move Beneath Autumnal Oaks	W. H. Pugmire
Lore	Wade German

It was, as you can imagine, difficult to boil down the contents of six books into a single volume: every story had a right to be considered for inclusion. But this was the best I could do—and, all things considered, I think it is a pretty good selection. The final piece is of course a poem, as I felt the need to have at least one poem in the book to reflect the fact that the last three volumes of the series have included such items.

Just yesterday I gave an interview to Miguel Peromingo (a writer in Berlin) on the subject of Lovecraft’s autodidacticism. Here is the link: http://autodidacticon.com/interviews/howard-philips-lovecraft-the-pulp-genius-interview-with-s-t-joshi/. I could have gone on at considerably greater length, but I suppose I blabbed enough as it is.

I have also been in touch with an individual who wishes to do a documentary on William Hope Hodgson. An excellent idea! Meanwhile, I hope that the documentaries on Clark Ashton Smith and Arthur Machen, both of which are in progress, get finished soon.

February 8, 2018 — I Am Providence in German

I was happy to receive some copies of the German translation of volume 1 of I Am Providence, which appears from Golkonda Verlag as H. P. Lovecraft: Leben und Werk (2017), translated by Andreas Fliedner. The publisher’s website (http://golkonda-verlag.de/cms/front_content.php?idart=625) is of interest in having some blurbs from German scholars or critics on my book; these must have been solicited by the publisher somehow. Very flattering! The book is selling for nearly 40 euros, and I have one spare copy of it, if anyone wants it. I’m willing to let it go for the bargain price of $25. It’s a big book (734 pages)! I think the second volume will appear later this year.

Speaking of German, I have now received an unauthorised translation of my compilation of Lovecraft’s writings on religion, entitled Against Religion (published in 2010 by Sporting Gentleman). The German edition appears as Gegen die Religion (JMB Verlag, 2017); my introduction (and Christopher Hitchens’s foreword) were removed, although my notes to the book were retained (without credit to me). Indeed, my name does not appear in the book anywhere, so far as I can tell. As I say, this book was unauthorised, and I later heard from the publisher, apologising for the violation of my copyright. My US publisher has now officially sold German rights to Festa Verlag, which has published much work by Lovecraft and other weird writers. An Italian edition of Against Religion is also forthcoming.

I present herewith the index to my memoirs, What Is Anything?, so that interested readers can find out who is—and is not—mentioned therein. Of course, the fact that some particular individual is cited in the index is no indication of what kind of reference I make to the person in question. To find that out, you’ll have to get the book!

A very strange thing has happened: I have just set a Lovecraft poem to music. I had long thought of setting one of Lovecraft’s nicer (i.e., non-weird) poems as a choral piece, so that my choir might perform it. After beginning such a venture some months ago, I wrote exactly four bars before giving it up. But lately, thanks in part to urging from Janice Klain (the president of the Northwest Chorale), I finished the job. I chose the three-stanza poem “Sunset.” The piece is set for a cappella (i.e., unaccompanied) four-part chorus. I believe this is the first time a poem by HPL has been arranged for chorus, since previous settings have been for solo voice. Whether the piece is any good or not is a debatable point. I shall have to get my choir director’s opinion on the matter sometime. But if the piece is found acceptable, it may be performed in our winter concert this December. To prove that I have actually done what I have said, I present herewith a facsimile of the rather untidy first page of my handwritten manuscript:

First page of the choral arrangement for Lovecraft’s “Sunset”.

On to a more serious matter.

I am obliged to make some comments on one of the most contemptible kerfuffles in our field—and that is saying something. Evidently a tsunami of convenient outrage has been directed at Jason V Brock because of a single inconsidered comment he made regarding the singer Pink—a comment that was grotesquely (and, I must believe, disingenuously) misconstrued as a slur against transgendered people, even though Pink (i.e., Alecia Beth Moore) is a heterosexual white woman. Jason immediately took down his post and apologised to those he had offended, but that wasn’t enough to have him banned from participation at StokerCon.

Let us contrast the reaction to this incident—which, at worst, is indicative of a certain imprudence on Jason’s part, but is more pertinently indicative of an utter lack of humour on the part of his antagonists—with Ross E. Lockhart’s scurrilous and malicious “roast” (as he and his defenders now call it) of myself. It appears that Jason’s single-sentence comment is incalculably worse than the several-minute diatribe by Mr. Lockhart, which was clearly intended to wound and injure its target (although it of course fell far short of that goal). And whereas Jason apologised for his post, I am not aware that Mr. Lockhart has made any attempt to apologise to me or anyone else about his rant. Does he not believe he has anything to apologise for? If not, why not?

One has to wonder about the morality (and—dare I say it?—hypocrisy) of those who heap abuse on Jason but give Mr. Lockhart a pass in these matters. It would seem to be infinitely more heinous to direct a harmless jest toward a celebrated white woman (although, in my ignorance of popular culture, I had in fact never heard of her before) than it is to deliver a sustained farrago of abuse against a (male) person of colour. So the abuse of Jason (which also includes abuse of his wife) is condoned, while Mr. Lockhart (whose rant included abuse of my wife, my parents, and others) remains a member in good standing.

It appears that the outrage of certain persons is directed, not at a given offence, but at the person who happens to commit it. If you are part of the “in” crowd, you can pretty much do or say anything you like; but if you are one who refuses to kowtow to that crowd, then any amount of abuse directed at you is apparently not only forgiven, but actually encouraged.

If these are the morals that the members of the “in” crowd adopt, I thank my stars I am not one of them.

January 25, 2018 — Weird Fiction Review Available at Last

I have at last received copies of the 2017 issue of Weird Fiction Review (http://www.centipedepress.com/anthologies/wfreview8.html), which in fact was published just before the end of the year but didn’t reach Centipede Press until early January. I now have two copies to spare and am prepared to let them go for $20 each. It is the largest issue yet (nearly 400 pages), with a bountiful array of fiction (a total of ten stories), essays, interviews, and other matter of interest.

I also have two spare copies of my edition of Arthur Machen in the Centipede Press Library of Weird Fiction (http://www.centipedepress.com/masters/machenlwf.html), an enormous 700-page omnibus of his best tales, including the complete contents of The Three Impostors (1895) and Ornaments in Jade (1924), and many other tales. I will be happy to offer my spare copies for $30 each.

Other Centipede Press editions are slouching toward publication. My edition of D. H. Lawrence’s weird tales is almost ready, although the publisher informed me that there was a snafu regarding the signature page, so the book has been slightly delayed. And (momentously) I am just about to begin reading proofs of my two-volume edition of Robert Aickman’s collected weird tales, a project that totals 1352 pages. I imagine publication of this set is still a few months off, but it will be well worth waiting for.

On a very different note, I was tremendously flattered to have received a translation of my introduction to An Epicure in the Terrible (1991)—which, in my humble estimation, comprises a reasonably sound overview of Lovecraft’s life, career, and critical reputation—into Spanish from a colleague, Miguel Bernardo Olmedo Morell. The translation can be found here. I hope it will enhance the appreciation of Lovecraft in the Spanish-speaking world, and I understand that Mr. Morell will be distributing it on Spanish-language websites. Those interested in learning more about the translator should consult his own website: https://islasdepapelytinta.com.

I was delighted to receive, at long last, copies of the two-CD recording of my choir’s performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt last May. Actually, the recording is a fusion of the two performances we had. I won’t say we were perfect in either performance, but I think the overall package is pretty nice. Sunni K Brock designed the sleeve; here is the front cover:

The Israel in Egypt CD

If anyone is interested in securing this item, I have a few spare copies that I am prepared to part with for $15.

I have now completed indexing my memoirs, What Is Anything?—but of course the book will not appear until June. The photo layout for the book (containing as many as 24 photos) is not quite complete, but close. Meanwhile, I have also been looking over the proofs of my collected mystery and horror fiction, The Recurring Doom, which checks in at nearly 180,000 words. This book will be released (in trade paperback, I believe) simultaneously with What Is Anything?, which will initially be published in hardcover.

I have lately—and not very enthusiastically—been reading Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” trilogy, published in one volume as Area X (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014). I will have more to say about the substance (or, as I am sorry to note, the lack of substance) of the work at a later time. Right now I wish to focus on some points of grammar and style that occurred to me as I read the first 200-odd pages.

From a grammatical point of view, what is notable is how frequently VanderMeer uses both correct and incorrect usage on exactly the same grammatical point—an alternation that strikes me as pretty irrational, and, more tellingly, a sign that VanderMeer really doesn’t even understand that he is sometimes committing a grammatical mistake and at other times (accidentally) using correct usage. To wit:

Misuse of “like” for “as” or “as if”: “My heart felt like an animal had become trapped in my chest” (29 [incorrect]); “Sometimes it felt as if I had been placed with a family rather than born into one” (29 [correct]). Note that this alternating usage occurs on the same page.

Erroneous use of “different than” rather than “different from”: “The psychologist was no different than she had been before” (25); “Old Flopper [was] so much different from Ugly Leaper” (30).

Erroneous use of “of” after “all”: “All of these tiny remnants” (33); “[I] turned on all the lights” (37); “all of his resolve” (150); “the decay of all that plant matter” (151).

I bypass such a slight thing as the us of “disassociation” (84), when proper usage dictates “dissociation.”

Let me emphasise that this book was published by a major New York commercial publisher, which presumably hired a professional copy editor to go over VanderMeer’s book. Evidently it was the author’s, copy editor’s, and/or publisher’s feeling that the above errors aren’t errors anymore; but in that case, why didn’t they enforce the erroneous usage (“all of,” “different than,” “like” for “as” or “as if”) uniformly? A perplexing quandary.

January 10, 2018 — Sarnath Press Books Available

I have now received copies of some of my recent self-published books—to wit, Lovecraft and Weird Fiction (my selection of blog posts) and my edition of Robert Hichens’s splendid weird novel The Dweller on the Threshold. Both these books bear the Sarnath Press imprint. I now see that I still have copies of a previous Sarnath Press book, The Stupidity Watch (a collection of my writings on religion and politics, as published in the now-defunct American Rationalist). I offer these volumes at the following prices:

• Lovecraft and Weird Fiction ($12.00)
• The Dweller on the Threshold ($10.00)
• The Stupidity Watch ($10.00)

Any two of these can be purchased for a total of $18.00; if you wish all three, I can let them go for $25.00. (This price includes media mail postage for US customers; for overseas customers, we will have to negotiate an additional fee for postage.) Copies of all three volumes are very limited, so first come, first serve!

To prove that I can actually say something nice about someone when the occasion warrants it, I offer the following review of a new book by James Ulmer. Ulmer gets almost no press in the weird fiction field, in spite of the fact that he has two books of ghost stories, The Secret Life (2012) and the volume I have reviewed, The Fire Doll (2017). This review will appear in the next Dead Reckonings. I have read Ulmer’s earlier volume, a fine book (but The Fire Doll is better), and have now fused my discussion of it with my review to make up a chapter on Ulmer for 21st-Century Horror.

More later when time permits!

January 4, 2018 — Nick Mamatas: Failed Mimic

I spent the last several weeks slogging through the oeuvre of the esteemed Nick Mamatas. I was expecting the job to be pretty dreary, but after a time I began to wonder why I was bothering: there is some doubt as to whether his work even qualifies as “weird fiction,” let alone weird fiction of any quality or substance. However, readers can make up their own minds: here is my essay on Nick Mamatas, scheduled for inclusion in my book 21st-Century Horror.

Otherwise, my activities have been much more pleasant. My choir performed Handel’s Messiah twice in December, on the 2nd and the 9th. At the latter performance there was a reporter from the Everett Herald (Everett is a northern suburb of Seattle) who reported favourably on the performance and, more pertinently, several photographs of the event. I can be seen in one of them (the one with the caption “Dozens of musicians …”) in the second row, fourth from the left. I am, after all, just about the only person of colour in the group (aside from the director, Lynn Hall, who is African-American). Here is the link to the online version of the article: http://www.heraldnet.com/news/a-classic-for-the-holidays/.

Otherwise, I have resolved to finish work on the Clark Ashton Smith bibliography (which I spent years, off and on, compiling, in conjunction with Scott Connors and David E. Schultz). The bibliography is in reasonably good shape, but a number of incomplete items (including several foreign editions of Smith) need to be fleshed out, and the whole work needs to be updated to cover works that have appeared in the last year or two. The book will appear from Hippocampus Press later this year—which, I need hardly remind anyone, is the 125th anniversary of Smith’s birth. To commemorate this event we will be publishing at least one volume of letters by Smith (probably to August Derleth).

Speaking of books, other of my works are either out or soon to be out—including a fourth revised edition of Lovecraft’s Library (Hippocampus Press), Black Wings VI (PS Publishing), my compilation of Arthur Machen’s works for the Library of Weird Fiction (Centipede Press), my edition of D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner and Other Supernatural Tales (Centipede Press), and the first two volumes of my Classics of Gothic Horror series for Hippocampus, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s Lost Ghosts and E. Nesbit’s From the Dead. Oh, yes—and there is Weird Fiction Review #8, which was delayed in arriving from the printer to Jerad Walters’s house in Colorado, but copies of which I hope to have soon. I also expect to have a few copies of my book of blogs, Lovecraft and Weird Fiction. Please do not ask me to reserve copies of any of these items for you. I will alert readers to their official arrival here in a future blog, and interested customers can order copies at that time.

I have also seen preliminary proofs of my memoirs, What Is Anything?, handsomely designed by David E. Schultz. The book comes to 327 pp., not including the index. I continue to add tidbits to it here and there, and I am also working hard on assembling an interesting cache of photographs—as many as 25 scattered throughout the book, and depicting me from the age of six months to my current advanced age of fifty-nine. Naturally, many of these photos include family, friends, and colleagues, ranging from Derrick Hussey to David E. Schultz to Jason & Sunni Brock to Jonathan Thomas. The book should come out on schedule this summer, in time for my sixtieth birthday on June 22.

↓ Entries from 2017…