THE LIGHT IS THE DARKNESS by Laird Barron Trade Paperback

Reserve your copy of THE LIGHT IS THE DARKNESS by Laird Barron trade paperback and save 16% off the cover price!

We expect to be shipping this title in mid June.

Conrad Navarro is a champion of the Pageant, a gruesome modern day gladiatorial exhibition held in secret arenas across the globe. Indentured by a cabal of ultra-rich patrons, his world is one of blood and mayhem, an existence where savagery reigns supreme while mercy leads to annihilation.

Conrad’s sister has vanished while traveling in Mexico. Imogene, a decorated special agent for the FBI, was hot on the trail of a legendary scientist whose vile eugenics experiments landed him on an international most-wanted list. Imogene left behind a sequence of bizarre clues that indicate she uncovered evidence of a Byzantine occult conspiracy against civilization itself — a threat so vast and terrible, its ultimate fruition would herald an event more inimical to all terrestrial life than mere extinction.

Now, Conrad is on the hunt, searching for his missing sister while malign forces seek to manipulate and destroy him by turns. It is an odyssey that will send this man of war from the lush jungles of South America, to the debauched court of an Aegean Prince, to the blasted moonscape of the American desert as he becomes inexorably enmeshed within a web of primordial evil that stretches back unto prehistory. All the while struggling to maintain a vestige of humanity; for Conrad has gazed into an abyss where the light is the darkness, and he has begun the metamorphosis into something more than human

Nostalgia

art of Luke Radl from blog mymodernmet.com

Perhaps nostalgia is God’s sign that we are getting old. The other day I went through the house yelling, “I can’t find my glasses; where are my glasses?” My wife pointed out that they were propped up on my head.

I have turned into my parents and yearning for my youth.

My parents nostalgia: Clark Gable movies, Betty Grable pinups (va-voom!), Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and the Andrews Sisters.

My nostalgia: Walking to the drug store. No not those big box CVS and Walgreens. My “drug stores” were small shops owned by real pharmacists who graduated with the dream to own a store with a milk shake machine, magazines, greeting cards. No drive thrus. They delivered the pills to your home when you didn’t feel well.

When we called the drug store we picked up the phone and if someone else was talking (it was called a party line) we interrupted and said ‘when you’re done I want to call the drug store’. Oh, and back then there was only one phone company!

Most of the time, though, my Mom and Dad walked with me the several blocks to the drug store to see what new comic books or science fiction magazines were out. Sometimes if I looked carefully at the rack of paperback books (for 50 cents) there would be – shudder – a horror paperback with Alfred Hitchcock’s or Boris Karloff’s picture on it.

I still recall when next to the Batman and Superman comics I loved there was a new comic. It was called “Fantastic Four”. I think that was in 1962 when I was almost six years old. How exciting those guys were in their flying cars.

Then sometime in late 1963, I noticed an issue of “The Amazing Spiderman”. While I never wanted to be bit by a radioactive spider, I immediately decided I wanted to be a chemist. 16 years later I got my college degree in chemistry.

Sometime in 1973 I think I got my first $79 calculator (which added and subtracted, multiplied and divided!).

A real SR-10! It weighed a pound or more, but I thought I had Star Trek level technology!

Years before that I had become addicted to the monthly science fiction magazines: Analog, Amazing, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and others. The cover paintings were almost always about other worlds, strange creatures, and of other times and places. My English teacher taught me standard vocabulary by day, and these magazines taught me a very different vocabulary by night. I learned about parsecs, and trajectories, and time warps, and polysyllabics like socioeconomics, astroarchaeology, and Hari Seldon’s psychohistory. Inside their pulpish pages was a frequent bewhiskered writer named Isaac Asimov. If Peter Parker gave me the dream, Asimov gave me the substance of being a scientist. I read his science articles so many times the flimsy pulp paper began to fall apart.

The 1960′s are long gone. I began that decade with my first haircut – a crew cut I believe. Later I was allowed to crow it so I could have a part in my hair. Radical, yes, but allowable.

It would be no easier to describe the 1960′s to you as it would be to fathom the days of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. The movies invented the term technicolor, but we were the ones who wore it.

By the end of the decade, I personally had white bell bottoms, a large chrome buckle, and an vivid orange turtleneck. Yes, and I wore a peace symbol necklace. And I was one of the conservative dressers. It was a “colorful era” to say the least. My parents felt toward me as I now feel toward droopy pants and tattered jeans. (Did I mention that I have become my parents?)

I suppose what brings this all to the top of that aging quagmire – my brain, is finding a fifty cent copy of March 1987 Amazing Tales at the used book store. Could that really be 25 years old? aieeee! In that issue was a fiftieth anniversary commemoration of Lovecraft’s death. Looking through it at Steve Fabian and George Barr’s art made me long for those days. The cover was spectacular.

Look at it. All Lovecraftian, tentacular, murky, Fabaianesque, weird, and wonderful!

Inside it was chock full of stories from now classic writers.

It even included an art gallery!

Though it had F Paul Wilson, Richard Lupoff, Ferdinand Fegg, Robert SIlverberg, and Darrell Schweizer on Lovecraft, the scariest thing seemed to be the $1.75 price tag to me. Yes, showing my age again. It would cost $7.95 today, maybe, but I still remember 12 cent comic books and fifty cent magazines. As I picked up my 50 cent museum piece, I wondered if someone had died or gotten sick and this magazine was sold off. How long had they treasured this in a closet or box? How many more were at the bottom of a city dump? The last place one would find a copy would be in a library!

I am old enough to remember when a library was a place you could read a book or do research. I can’t tell you the horrible stories where someone took a $150 valuable and collectible horror book to a local library – austensibly so some young reader could actually read it – and only to come back a few days later to find it selling for $2 on the sale table.

Why?

“Oh, we have to sell all these books to raise money to keep the library open.”

Dear Lord, the world has gone over the edge!

So, excuse me, sometimes I have to retreat back into nostalgia and antiquarianism. Oh the old world had plenty of devils and demons, but like in Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein, those ancient monsters seem a little less scary than the ones today.

Hippocampus Press SALE! Up to 70% Off.

Today we are putting one of our favorite publishers titles on sale. Here you can find over 70 titles at 40% to 70% off cover price. And remember that all orders in the US no matter what size the order will cost only $5 in shipping. So stock up on some great genre fiction and nonfiction.

Click the Hippocampus icon below to see all the Hippocampus Press titles we have on sale at Miskatonic Books.

About Hippocampus Press:

Founded in 1999, Hippocampus Press specializes in classic horror and science fiction with an emphasis on the works of H. P. Lovecraft and other pulp writers of the 1920s and 1930s. Working closely with the leading scholars in the field we offer unique, high-quality, affordable editions of these important works.

Hippocampus Press founder Derrick Hussey says, “I met S. T. Joshi in the mid-1990s and began to work for him as a volunteer typist on various projects. I soon joined the Esoteric Order of Dagon, an amateur press association devoted to H. P. Lovecraft. Joshi later remarked to me that if I cared to start a small press, he would give me permission to publish his annotated version of the Lovecraft essay ‘Supernatural Horror in Literature’. I fairly leapt at the chance and began the process of forming Hippocampus Press.”

 

Below are just a few of the fantastic publications from Hippocampus Press on sale at Miskatonic Books.

AN EPICURE IN THE TERRIBLE: A Centennial Anthology of Essays in Honor of H. P. Lovecraft (Trade Paperback) Edited by David E. Schultz & S. T. Joshi

When An Epicure in the Terrible first appeared in 1991, commemorating the centennial of H. P. Lovecraft’s birth, it was hailed as a significant contribution to Lovecraft studies. Its thirteen original essays, along with a lengthy biocritical introduction by S. T. Joshi, contained penetrating work by leading authorities in the field. Among them were Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.’s pioneering study of Lovecraft’s parents; Jason C. Eckhardt’s analysis of Lovecraft’s heritage as a New England Yankee; and Donald R. Burleson’s treatment of the key theme of “touching the glass,” epitomized by “The Outsider.”

Other essays in the book deal with such topics as the theme of isolation in Lovecraft’s fiction (Stefan Dziemianowicz); Lovecraft’s cosmic imagery (Steven J. Mariconda); Lovecraft’s progression from a macabre writer to a cosmic writer (David E. Schultz); and Lovecraft’s “artificial mythology” and its development (Robert M. Price). Essays by Peter Cannon, Robert H. Waugh, R. Boerem, Norman R. Gayford, and Barton L. St. Armand round out the volume.

This paperback edition presents these perspicacious essays to a new readership, and shows the richness and complexity of H. P. Lovecraft’s writing-writing that is destined to endure for centuries. Citations to Lovecraft’s work have been updated to reflect newer and more accurate editions that have appeared since 1991, and some of the essays have been revised in other particulars.

 

A WEIRD WRITER IN OUR MIDST edited by S. T. Joshi (Trade Paperback)

It is well known that H. P. Lovecraft was virtually ignored by the mainstream literary community in his time, being known only in the tiny worlds of amateur journalism and fantasy fandom. And yet, it is surprising how much comment on Lovecraft appeared in various venues, both obscure and prominent, in his own time and just shortly after his early death in 1937.

This volume gathers, for the first time, a wide array of early criticism of Lovecraft, including poignant obituaries by such friends as Walter J. Coates and Hyman Bradofsky; early attempts to analyze Lovecraft’s work by such writers as Rheinhart Kleiner and Frank Belknap Long; voluminous discussions of Lovecraft’s tales in the letter columns of Weird Tales and Astounding Stories; an abundant selection of criticism from the fan world of the 1930s and 1940s, including articles by August Derleth, P. Schuyler Miller, and Francis T. Laney; and reviews of the first Arkham House books of Lovecraft’s work by Will Cuppy, T. O. Mabbott, Vincent Starrett, William Rose Benét, and many others.

Compiled by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Lovecraft’s life and work, this volume sheds unique light on the faint wisps of recognition that Lovecraft received during and just after his lifetime—recognition that would become universal and worldwide with the passing of decades.

REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS DARKLY: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Trade Paperback)

Reflections In a Glass Darkly is the first book on J. Sheridan Le Fanu to cover classic and new scholarship and criticism of Le Fanu. The volume will be a welcome and long-overdue source-book for fans, scholars and students of horror fiction, Anglo-Irish and Victorian literature, and the history of the weird tale.  Assembled by a Le Fanu “dream team” of three top editors of the scholarly online journal Le Fanu Studies, it is the only such book available. An introduction, notes, and an index are provided. As an added bonus, a variety of portraits of Le Fanu himself are reproduced, many for the first time.

 

 

TEMPTING PROVIDENCE by Jonathan Thomas (Trade Paperback)

Jonathan Thomas follows up the critical and popular success of his collection from 2008, Midnight Call and Other Stories, with this new and substantial volume of weird tales long and short. The title story is a marvelous evocation of Providence yesterday and today, with much for the ghost of H. P. Lovecraft to dislike in the way his city has evolved. Providence is the setting for several other tales—tales that introduce us to such anomalies as a Lord of the Animals who seems to have an inexplicable sympathy with our four-footed friends, and a man whose quest for an extremely rare psychedelic album leads to something much stranger . . . In these twelve stories, Thomas fulfills the promise of his earlier work and shows that he has become one of the leading figures in contemporary supernatural horror.

“Myth and archetype, as well as the influence of masters of the Gothic tale, seep in from the groundwater in Jonathan Thomas’s world, but the landscape is wholly his own. The stories amuse, challenge, and unsettle.”—From Sherry Austin’s Foreword

“I found [‘Tempting Providence’] by Jonathan Thomas unexpectedly charming (if it’s permitted to describe a horror tale as charming), not least in its evocation of old Providence . . . It certainly brought back memories of my own wanderings around the city in the ’60s, the same ‘wistful daydreams’ his hero engages in, the sense that, if only HPL hadn’t died so young, he might still be renting rooms in one of the neighborhood houses and enjoying a sundae or an evening stroll.”—T. E. D. Klein

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE by Thomas Ligotti (Trade Paperback)

“The Conspiracy against the Human Race sets out what is perhaps the most sustained challenge yet to the intellectual blackmail that would oblige us to be eternally grateful for a ‘gift’ we never invited.”
–From the Foreword by Ray Brassier

“The Conspiracy against the Human Race is renowned horror writer Thomas Ligotti’s first work of nonfiction. Through impressively wide-ranging discussions of and reflections on literary and philosophical works of a pessimistic bent, he shows that the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination. The worst and most plentiful horrors are instead to be found in reality. Mr. Ligotti’s calm, but often bloodcurdling turns of phrase, evoke the dreadfulness of the human condition. Those who cannot bear the truth will pretend this is another work of fiction, but in doing so they perpetuate the conspiracy of the book’s title.”
–David Benatar,
author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence; Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Thomas Ligotti is one of the foremost authors of supernatural horror literature. In this genre, he has been classed with Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. His works include Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Grimscribe, My Work Is Not Yet Done, and Teatro Grottesco. Ligotti lives in Florida.

Ray Brassier is a member of the philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He is the author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (Palgrave Macmillan 2007).
Contents

Foreword

• Introduction: Of Pessimism and Paradox
• The Nightmare of Being
• Who Goes There?
• Freaks of Salvation
• Sick to Death
• The Cult of Grinning Martyrs
• Autopsy on a Puppet: An Anatomy of the Supernatural
• Notes

Book is in new unread condition.

The Fouke Monster and the Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

McQuarrie painted the original movie poster of Legend of Boggy Creek

Long before there was a Paranormal Activity or Blair Witch Project, horror had met esoterica. An independent film maker Charles B. Pierce (1938-2010) struck upon an idea to do a pseudo-documentary of a real folklore monster sighted frequently near the small town of Fouke (pronounced F-ow-k), Arkansas. This is in the area known as Texarcana, the intersection of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

Grabbing a quality camera, Pierce began to interview locals and splice in low-budget fictional representations of what may have happened. He edited the film and began to show it in local areas attracting a Hollywood distributor and moved it to the then-popular drive-in circuit. It made, reportedly, 20 million dollars. This placed it 11th in revenues for the year and compares to the big budget movie The Godfather (#1, 135 MM) and Irwin Allen’s The Poseidon Adventure (#2, 93 MM). In other words, Pierce pulled in a fortune in profits.

While it distributed as a horror movie, it somewhat capitalized on the 1969 documentary by Roger Patterson. It motivated a whole new generation of young people to become cryptozoologists, and showed the power of a well made independent film.

The movie poster was painted by a then-unknown artist, a technical artist at Boeing Company, Ralph McQuarrie. He would not be unknown for long, because a short time later a young movie maker named George Lucas tapped him to do some sketched to show to 20th Century Fox. It was a little movie later known as Star Wars.

Ralph McQuarrie (1929-2012)

A new book on the folklore, legendary sightings, and history of the Fouke monster has appeared. A recent interview on Coast to Coast AM represents the book as having up to date sightings (through 2011) and it covers the history of the movie, and the legendary Big-Foot-like creature back to at least 1908. The book is by Rue Morgue columnist Lyle BLackburn.

Back to Pierce, much of his Hollywood career was as a set decorator in dozens of movies and TV shows (notably for Henry Winkler’s McGyver in 1991), and he occasionally acted, directed, produced, or wrote for his own shows or for others. perhaps his next best known movie is the cult favorite, the Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) about a 1940′s Arkansas serial killer.

Isaac Asimov Wanted to be An Historian!

In a March 1991 * article, Isaac Asimov made some very personal revelations. He begins simply, “When I was going to college, the United States was not yet out of the Great Depression … I was not going to get a job after I graduated in 1939. The only thing I could do was to go on to graduate work, obtain some advanced degrees, and hope …”

There are millions of 20-somethings today who have the same concerns as Asimov did over 70 years ago.

However, we read on, “…what subject …? I was hung up between history and chemistry. I thought I could handle either one, but there was no question in my mind that I was more interested in history.”

This point blank shocker must have made 1991 readers drop their magazine. The grand master of science fiction, and the master of explaining science to the masses wanted to be an historian? It gets more interesting.

“If I get my degree in history, then the chances are … I will get {a job} in some small college away from my beloved city of New York. … if … in chemistry … with a large research firm for an ample salary …”. The choice was made on purely pragmatic grounds. “I obtained my Ph.D. In chemistry in 1948.” He had a long delay due to WWII.

In 1949, the job he found was, ironically, at a small college away from New York at a very small salary. “Chemistry was a big flop … I didn’t like it and I was no good at it …”.

Another stunner! The great Asimov was not a good scientist? So, how did he get from the dregs of 1950 to being the notable Asimov?

“… in 1958 I was fired … by that time I had another career, that of writing … Becoming a professional writer was a third option {in college} but one that I didn’t consider for even a split-second. By the time {1949} I had begun work at the medical school, I had written 68 stories and sold 60 … my total earnings for all eleven years amounted to $7700 …”.

That was not an insignificant sum in the 1950′s, but not enough to be a full-time writer. Asimov had written a novel, and added to this, so, “…in 1958, my literary earnings amounted to only $15,000 a year, enough to keep me going … by that time I had a wife and two children …”.

Asimov made a bold choice. He decided to do what he loved the best – history. HE estimated that it would take three years of research to write a “three musketeers historical fiction novel” and little prospect of it selling well. After consulting with John W. Campbell, Jr., he decided to write science fiction historical fiction novels. Few had thought of that idea, at the time, so he began to write what would become his Foundation novels, later expanding to his Robot novels. Their popularity can scarcely be exaggerated for their time, and they allowed Asimov to essentially write anything he wanted, anytime he wanted, and make money from that time forward.

Asimov had tinkered with this idea in Astounding Tales writing eight stories between 1842 and 1950. In 1951, he published Foundation with Gnome Press. Gnome then reprinted Asimov’s original stories in two more volumes (1952, 1953) cementing his legacy and winning a 1966 Hugo award for best all-time series. [Young Lin Carter was notably influenced by this series].

Asimov circa 1965

Asimov influenced countless story writers including Gene Roddenberry (The Federation of Star Trek), and Asimov (in print) speculated on George Lucas’ Star Wars features and the possibility that the writers and producers used his novels. There is no question that Forbidden Planet‘s (1955) Robbie the Robot follows Asimov’s laws of robotics. Asimov had a 1940 story named “Robbie”, but the writer of Doc Savage (1935) predated the use of the name “Robbie the Robot”.

The iconic Asimov, later in life, as we remember him.

History will have a difficult time deciding whether Asimov, Ray Bradbury, or Robert Heinlein impacted mid-20th century culture the greatest, but Asimov – who died too soon in 1992 – is greatly missed by his many fans. He who longed to be an historian ended up making history.

* Fantasy and Science Fiction, “All Four Stanzas”, March 1991, p. 133ff. Asimov had a decades long monthly column, usually on one aspect of applied science or another, but very frequently on an historical subject such as this one: Francis Scott Key’s The Star Spangled Banner.

Two Exciting New Preorders Announced

WEAVEWORLD: 25 ANNIVERSARY EDITION by Clive Barker (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

Earthling celebrates 25 years of Clive Barker’s Weaveworld with the definitive edition of this dark fantasy masterwork. Weaveworld: 25th Anniversary Edition will be released late 2012 in a modest print run consisting of gift, numbered, and lettered editions:

hand numbered 1-350; signed by Clive Barker and illustrator Richard Kirk; leatherbound; fine endsheets; bound-in satin ribbon page marker; traycased; includes bonus appendix material printed in full color: previously unreleased art as well as an early treatment/synopsis and original typed and hand-edited manuscript pages for Weaveworld when it was inititally conceived as a children’s book

feature new typesetting and design, two-color offset printing on fine paper (likely 80# Finch), 7×10 inch oversized pages, and smyth sewing…and nearly 30 original pieces of art by Richard Kirk, who has illustrated other projects by Clive Barker as well as Earthling releases by China Mieville and Christopher Golden.

Time magazine calls Weaveworld “an irresistible yarn,” and Peter Straub says it is “pure dazzle, pure storytelling.” This 25th anniversary edition of Weaveworld will undoubtedly be the one to own and experience.

THE TWELVE by Justin Cronin (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

Deluxe Oversized Hardcover Limited Edition of 948 signed and hand-numbered copies bound in full-cloth and Smyth sewn with a satin ribbon page marker and featuring a full-color signature sheet

In his internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong.

With The Twelve, the story continues…

n the present day:
As a man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos, desperate to find others, to survive, to witness the dawn on the other side of disaster.

Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, has been so broken by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her.

Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced by loss of electrical power to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far.

April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a minefield of death and ruin.

These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.

One hundred years in the future:
Amy, Peter, Alicia, and the others introduced in The Passage work with a cast of new characters to hunt the original twelve virals… unaware that the rules of the game have changed, and that one of them will have to sacrifice everything to bring the Twelve down.

The scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic tale of sacrifice and survival begun in The Passage surges forward in this breathtaking sequel.

Special Features Exclusive to this Collector’s Edition:
• epic cover artwork by Tomislav Tikulin
• at least ONE DOZEN black & white interior illustrations by Jill Bauman
• deluxe oversized design with a fine binding
• Smyth sewn with a bound-in satin ribbon page marker
• extremely collectible print run that is a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of copies of the edition you’ll see in bookstores — and you will NOT see our edition in chain bookstores!

Egyptian Lost Book … Found!

We here at Misky love old books. Perhaps as we get older, we wish we could live as long as some of these old relics!

We also get frustrated with libraries and museums because they can be simultaneously covetousness of their holdings, and yet careless. Here is yet another example. IT took scholars a century to uncover fragments of the very important Egyptian Book of the Dead. Amenhotep preserve us from bureaucratic admins who lock up important relics never to be seen again, and yet as likely sell them for $1 on the discard table.

The last missing pages from a supposedly ‘magical’ Book of the Dead from an Egyptian priest, Amenhotep, have been found after a century-long search – in a museum in Queensland.
British Museum Egyptologist Dr John Taylor said he was ‘floored’ by the discovery of the 100 fragments.
It’s the end of a worldwide search by archaeologists for the papyrus scroll – which supposedly contains spells to guide spirits into the afterlife. Read more

Written in about 1450 B.C. (B.C.E.) this 3500 year old document comes from the unusual historical era of Amenhotep II. It is an early example of a Book of the Dead manuscript that has several unusual features found on only four or five extant manuscripts.

Believed to be Amenhotep II

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2132755/Last-pages-magical-Egyptian-Book-Dead-museum-Queensland–worldwide-search-archaeologists.html#ixzz1sxgffUsz

Thank you, Dr. Taylor!