Bøger udgivet af Hippocampus Press

The second issue of Penumbra is highlighted by "Lost for Words," a new story by Ramsey Campbell, the leading writer of weird and supernatural literature of our time. In addition, veteran writers Darrell Schweitzer and Mark Samuels contribute original tales. Among younger writers, Curtis M. Lawson presents a science fiction/horror hybrid; Katherine Kerestman pens a skillful tale of vampirism; Scott J. Couturier, Geoffrey Reiter, Scott Bradfield, and Shawn Phelps offer glimpses of terror and strangeness; and Manuel Arenas contributes a moving prose poem. The issue also includes, as its classic reprint, Algernon Blackwood's first published weird tale. Among the articles in this issue, Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen examines religiosity in the early tales of Lord Dunsany; James Goho analyzes the roots of terror in the work of Caitlín R. Kiernan; John C. Tibbetts studies weird elements in the oeuvre of acclaimed science fiction writer Greg Bear; S. T. Joshi presents a comprehensive account of the weird work of Guy de Maupassant; and other essays discuss William Hope Hodgson, vampire poetry, Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea cycle, John Collier, and other subjects. Adam Bolivar, Wade German, Ann K. Schwader, Leigh Blackmore, Maxwell I. Gold, and Frank Coffman are among the poets included in this issue. In all, Penumbra No. 2 is a cornucopia of the bizarre in fiction, essays, and verse.

"Mr. Cannyharme stalks the seedy Mission District of San Francisco in the aftermath of the hippie movement of the 1960s. Holed up in a rundown hotel, the seemingly harmless Cannyharme-aged, feeble, bent almost double with a crippling disease-is the focus of the supernatural terror in the novel. Jack Hale, who manages the hotel, is one of the few who sense the danger to society and the world that Cannyharme represents. With a motley band of young whores and drug dealers, he takes on the challenge to counteract the horrors that Mr. Cannyharme seeks to release upon an unsuspecting world. Mr. Cannyharme, written in a vibrant prose that brings to life the multitude of characters that populate the book, is a triumph of Lovecraftian terror, but also speaks of the way in which those who are regarded as the refuse of society can assert their dignity and self-worth in a grim environment. In this sense, it proves to be a novel affirming the triumph of the human spirit over the horrors facing it."--back cover.

In this anthology of weird fiction, twenty-two authors share their harrowing visions of worlds shaped by the Yellow Sign, in stories and poems inspired by Robert W. Chambers's foundational works of weird horror. From the personal to the historic, from the macabre to the fantastic, the stories and poems gathered here illuminate new, unexpected realities shaped by the King in Yellow, under the sway of the Yellow Sign, or in the grip of madnesses inspired by their power.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), the pioneering writer of weird fiction, has himself become an icon in popular culture. Stories, novels, and other works featuring the gaunt, lantern-jawed gentleman from Providence, Rhode Island, have proliferated. These works have been triggered by the incredible amount of knowledge we have on the writer-his family, his friends, his idiosyncrasies and eccentricities-as found in his thousands of surviving letters. This anthology takes the figure of Lovecraft and enmeshes him in a series of bizarre and supernatural adventures. Darrell Schweitzer focuses on Lovecraft's childhood, when he was plagued with dreams of "night-gaunts" and was left bereft by the early death of his father.John Shirley depicts Lovecraft as a gawky teenager evolving his notions of "cosmicism," while Scott Wiley emphasises Lovecraft's devotion to cats. Stephen Woodworth and Donald R. Burleson ring changes on the Lovecraftian theme of personality exchange. Lovecraft famously collaborated with Harry Houdini on a story. Donald Tyson and Jonathan Thomas write very different stories on the association of these two figures.Mark Samuels focuses on Lovecraft's creation of imaginary tomes of forbidden lore, while the stories by Richard Gavin, David Hambling, Jason V Brock, and S. T. Joshi supply broader ruminations on the origins of Lovecraft's revolutionary motifs. While eschewing Lovecraft himself as a character, the tales by W. H. Pugmire and Simon Strantzas exhibit figures who reveal strikingly Lovecraftian elements while probing the psyche of the man from Providence.H. P. Lovecraft's work has captured the imaginations of millions-and now he himself has become no less fascinating. In every sense of the word he was, as Vincent Starrett said of him, "his own most fantastic creation."