Michael Bailey's Blog, page 15
August 25, 2017
GOBLIN – A REVIEW OF JOSH MALERMAN’S LATEST CREATION
Josh Malerman is the author of the novels Birdbox (nominated for both the Shirley Jackson Award and Bram Stoker Award®) and Mad Black Wheel, and his most recent book from Earthling Publications is a fragmented novel called Goblin. I was fortunate enough to receive an Advance Uncorrected Proof to read and review.
Why am I reviewing this? Well, Josh is an all around nice guy, and he happens to write incredible fiction. I adored his debut novel, Bird Box, and highly enjoyed the next, Mad Black Wheel (although I love the Brazilian title Red Piano (Piano Vermelho) perhaps more than I should). I have also had the opportunity of publishing a few of his shorter works, including “The Bigger Bedroom” in Chiral Mad 3, and his Stoker-nominated dark sci-fi novelette “The Jupiter Drop” in You, Human. And later this year, Dark Regions Press will be publishing Bird Box Special Edition, which I had the pleasure of designing inside and out, and which contains a new tie-in novelette called “Bobby Knocks” (pre-order for the deluxe hardback edition has since sold out, but copies of the 500 signed / numbered edition are still available).
Also, I am a big fan of fragmented novels, or meta-novels (all four of my own novels, published and yet-to-be-published, are in this strange format), so of course I took an interest in Goblin, “a novel in six novellas.”
The first page of the Advanced Uncorrected Proof, as well as the back cover, totes heavy praise for Malerman’s latest: “Goblin is a mesmerizing, terrifying tight-rope walk” from Clive Barker; “Malerman has created a Derry for a new generation” from Sarah Pinborough; “Goblin is another triumph from Josh Malerman” from Christopher Golden; and many others. So what kind of blurb would I give? How about this, something longer and encompassing his other works:
“Josh Malerman’s Bird Box is a mastery of fear, capable of holding breaths hostage until the very end, while Red Piano (yes, I’d use that title) reveals he’s not yet done holding our throats. He is a writer capable of forcing us to turn the page, turn the page, turn the page. Goblin is Malerman having absolute fun with his literary hand, an apology of sorts, to all of us, really, Josh saying “Here, have something lighthearted to read for once, but while you’re at it, I’m going to keep you captive in this devilish little town I’ve created.” Stephen King gave us the end of his Castle Rock with Needful Things, and now Josh Malerman gives us his Goblin, yet it feels like a new beginning of this crazy town.”
So what is Goblin? At first I thought the book might be about goblins, something tongue-in-cheek, something not-so-Malerman, yet I was quickly pleased to discover Goblin is the name of a small town in which all six of the linked / intertwining novellas take place. In Goblin it rains, unrelentingly, and surrounding the town are the terrible North Woods, as green as the book’s cover, and living within the town limits is a great jelly bean assortment of odd characters.
A Man in Slices starts things off, about a young man in a love so deep he sends body parts through the mail to his girlfriend. This is followed by Kamp, a ghost story, of sorts, the title of which is the main character, who lives in a hollowed-out skeleton of an apartment and sleeps on a Plexiglas bed in fear of nightly visitations. Happy Birthday, Hunter! centers around a meat-themed birthday party for a man addicted to big-game hunting, with all the town invited, and his fascination to take down the endangered Great Owl of the North Woods. In Presto, a young boy learns real magic from a magician calling himself the Roman Emperor. The penultimate story, A Mix-up at the Zoo, is perhaps my favorite of the six, in which parallel stories about Dirk Rogers, who works at both the Goblin Slaughterhouse and the Goblin Zoo, clash during his emotional breakdown caused by working such odd jobs. Finally, The Hedges, probably my second favorite tale, is about Goblin’s biggest tourist attraction, a seemingly never-ending hedge maze crafted by a man’s struggling with loss. Each of these stories mesh, and are a hoot (I couldn’t help myself, since the Great Owl plays a big part in all of this).
Some of the most brilliant novels are titled after main characters, and Goblin is no different. The most addictive character, perhaps, is Goblin itself … a fun little town.
Goblin is available for pre-order from Earthling Publications (October 2017), and features beautiful cover artwork (pictured above) by Allison Laakko, an introduction by James A. Moore, and interior artwork by Glenn Chadbourne. You can find the pre-order page by clicking any of the Goblin links on this site, or by clicking on that glorious cover.
If you are a fan of Josh Malerman, you will want a copy of this book.
July 28, 2017
ADAM’S LADDER
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ADAM’S LADDER, a dark science fiction anthology I co-edited with Darren Speegle, is coming soon from Dark Regions Press. This is the follow-up to DRP’s highly successful return to science fiction with last year’s anthology, You, Human, and Marc Levinthal’s debut novel, Other Music. We’re hoping for an August release for the trade paperback edition.
Table of Contents includes:
“Ch-ch-changes” – Chaz Brenchley
“Filigree, Minotaur, Cyanide, Bloom” – Damien Angelica Walters
“How He Helped” – Ramsey Campbell
“Spirits” – Gene O’Neill
“The Mythic Hero Most Likely to Squeeze a Stone” – B.E. Scully
“My Father, Dr. Frankenstein” – John Langan
“Undersound” – Mark Morris
“A Laughing Matter” – Erinn L. Kemper
“The Serile” – Paul Meloy
“Eyes of the Beholders” – Lisa Morton
“Strings” – Tim Lebbon
“Sliced Bread” – Jeffrey Thomas
“I Will Be the Making of You” – Rena Mason
“Nameless Citizen” – Brian Evenson
“Painting the Burning Fence” – Roberta Lannes
“Pity this Busy Monster Not” – Scott Edelman
“An End to Perpetual Motion” – Mark Samuels
“Swift to Chase” – Laird Barron
What is to become of man?
May 23, 2017
CHIRAL MAD 3 – ACCOLADES
Chiral Mad 3 was recently announced as a winner in the Fiction: Anthologies category of the International Book Awards, so a hearty congratulations to all contributors.
Written Backwards titles recognized for the International Book Awards include:
Phoenix Rose – Finalist, Fiction: Horror (2011)
Scales and Petals – Winner, Fiction: Short-Story Fiction (2011)
Pellucid Lunacy – Winner, Anthology (2011)
Chiral Mad – Winner, Anthology (2013)
Chiral Mad 2 – Winner, Anthology (2014)
Qualia Nous – Winner, Science Fiction (2015)
The Library of the Dead – Winner, Anthologies (2016)
Chiral Mad 3 – Winner, Anthologies (2017)
The anthology was also nominated for a Bram Stoker Award® for Superior Achievement in an Anthology, and is currently a Finalist for Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Awards, also known as the Indies/IndieFab, with winners to be announced June 24th.
And while the anthology was submitted for the Benjamin Franklin Awards, there was a mix-up and the book was judged as a children’s book in on of their young adult categories (quite funny), so the book will be re-entered properly next year.
May 22, 2017
CHIRAL MAD 4 – SUBMISSIONS CLOSE 05/31/17
Not much time remains to turn in your collaborative short stories, novelettes, novellas, or graphic adaptations. Please email submissions to cm4@nettirw.com.
Updated (01/23/17):
Lucy A. Snyder has been chosen to co-edit Chiral Mad 4!
More than twenty requests were received over the last few days to co-edit the anthology (from writers and editors around the world), and after careful consideration, series creator/editor Michael Bailey has chosen to work with Lucy to bring you something entirely new with Chiral Mad 4, an entirely-collaborative anthology.
While previous volumes of Chiral Mad focused more on psychological horror, with most stories having some sort of chiral aspect in plot or character development or structure, Chiral Mad 4 will be open to just about anything, as long as the story has some sort of dark or speculative element. The only required chirality is with the collaboration itself … multiple minds working as one, in other words, to create something entirely new. We want this anthology to be as diverse as humanly possible, and will be looking for stories that bend and…
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April 18, 2017
YES TRESPASSING – NOW AVAILABLE!
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Today is Yes Trespassing day! The debut fiction collection by Erik T. Johnson is officially released to the wild. While the collection will be launched by Written Backwards at StokerCon 2017 in Long Beach later this month, the book is now available to order in trade paperback at Amazon.com. Horror. Wonder. Mindscrewing. &c! 436 pages and 1.6 pounds of awesome.
Yes Trespassing collects twenty-five, or maybe twenty-six or -seven or perhaps twenty-eight (let’s say it’s twenty-eight) individual works by Erik T. Johnson, some previously-published, some appearing in this book for the first time, stories like “The Leaf” and “Krug’s Pen,” “The Depopulation Syndrome,” “The Invention of the Mask” (which you can find on the front cover), “The Depopulation Syndrome” and the novella Scissors Seldom Come. Trespass. Read the horror, the wonder, the mindscrewing. This book will change you.
“Erik T. Johnson is insanely gifted, and Yes Trespassing is proof. This collection rattles, roars and shrieks with cognitive dissonances, phosphorescent settings and darker-than-fuck themes. From the handwritten notes to the drawings, this was a unique experience. In some stories, what you except to be a straight narrative devolves into lunacy. Then, what you expect to be lunacy, turns out to be nothing of the sort. You just don’t know which road Johnson wants to take on. Consider that this eclectic collection’s greatest strength. This reader was fascinated by the unexpected journeys. You can’t get these stories out of your head.” – J. Daniel Stone, author of Blood Kiss and The Absence of Light.
“[You] will thrill to the many conceits contained herein, marvel at the anoxic heights and the plutopian depths, become slightly queasy at the monstrous malformations of reality and despair at a glimpse of universes less than a nudge removed from our own.” – John F.D. Taff, author of The End in All Beginnings.
April 16, 2017
THE FAR FUTURE – NOW AVAILABLE!
The Cal Wild Chronicles is complete! This magnum opus by Gene O’Neill (illustrated throughout by Orion Zangara) concludes with The Far Future, the fourth and final book in the series. Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy … Gene blends them all.
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Each book features a separate introduction: John R. Little for The Confessions of St. Zach (Volume #1), Lisa Morton for The Burden of Indigo (Volume #2), Meghan Arcuri for The Near Future (Volume #3), and Scott Edelman for The Far Future (Volume #4).
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Book #4 will make its official debut at StokerCon 2017 at the end of this month, and the entire series will be available so you can complete your set. And did I mention the entire set looks gorgeous on bookshelves with its 4-part spine image?
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This four book series was a joint effort by Written Backwards and Dark Regions Press. Look below for the cover images for each book in the series. Clicking each will bring you directly to their Amazon.com pages for purchasing so you can collect the whole set in affordable trade paperback.
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February 27, 2017
LIARS, FAKERS, AND THE DEAD WHO EAT THEM – NOW AVAILABLE!
“Had it not been for Scott Edelman and the other comic book storytellers of that time, I would have never wanted to become a writer, I would have never persisted until I actually became a writer, and I would certainly have never written The Rising, which means that zombie literature might not have enjoyed this new heyday.”
So says Brian Keene in his introduction to Liars, Fakers, and the Dead Who Eat Them, a collection of zombie novelettes by seven-time Bram Stoker Award nominee Scott Edelman, which includes “Only Humans Can Lie” and “Faking It Until Forever Comes.
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A Vegan chef believes meat is murder. A determined waitress longs for stardom. He hopes to convince the world to abandon killing animals. She hopes to convince a director to make her a star. Both of those hopes are challenged when a zombie apocalypse traps them in small towns where their dreams might come true—or else be crushed under the weight of an invading undead horde. Join Tim and Shelley as they struggle to survive—and retain their sanity—in a world where death suddenly holds no dominion.
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Both novelettes are illustrated throughout by Italian artist Daniele Serra with half-page, full-page, and page-spanning artwork. Check out some of these killer illustrations! Serra also designed the artwork used on the cover.
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Liars, Fakers, and the Dead Who Eat Them is the second book in the Allevon series by Written Backwards, following Gene O’Neill’s At the Lazy K (pictured below, and now only $8.95), which was illustrated by L.A. Spooner, and featured an introduction by Rena Mason.
These specialty numbered books are a smaller 8″x5″ trade paperback size, each illustrated by a different artist, and the designed for those who enjoy literary/speculative fiction, as well as for book collectors looking for something unique to add to their libraries.
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Liars, Fakers, and the Dead Who Eat Them is available now at Amazon.com for the low price of $8.95, and will be celebrated with an official launch at StokerCon 2017 in Long Beach, California at the end of April, with author Scott Edelman.
February 11, 2017
ADAM’S LADDER
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Adam’s Ladder is officially the next book I’ll be working on for Dark Regions Press, an evolutionary / sci-fi anthology I’m co-editing with Darren Speegle.
Contributor announcements will be leaked soon, as contracts are finalized, so stay tuned. Not too much can be revealed about this project as of yet, other than the fact that it’s full and we are not accepting submissions, but I can tell you that much like You Human, Qualia Nous, The Library of the Dead, and the Chiral Mad anthologies, this one will be epic, and will feature some incredible writers I’ve never had the opportunity of worked with before.
February 6, 2017
THE NEAR FUTURE – AVAILABLE NOW!
Gene O’Neill covers an immense spectrum of color in a post-apocalyptic vision of California in The Near Future, the third book in The Cal Wild Chronicles. Book 3 is illustrated throughout by the wonderful Orion Zangara (illustrator for the entire series), and features an introduction by rising star Meghan Arcuri, whose short fiction can be found in various publications, including the first and third volumes of Chiral Mad.
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A meta-novel of sorts, part three of The Cal Wild Chronicles collects some of Gene’s most memorable fiction, cohesively connecting stories such as “The Armless Conductor,” which was published over thirty years ago in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, to Doc Good’s Travelling Show, a Bram Stoker Award nominated novella, and “Coyote Gambit.”
Tying these stories together are completely new chapters of Cal Wild, such as a new short story, “Return of the Ice Man,” as well as a new novelette, Mohave Transfer, and a new novella, The Scarlet Man, in which the lives of colorful DP’s, or Dyed People, cross paths as they try to survive a world left in ruin.
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Gene O’Neill masterfully blends decades of literary creation in this penultimate book of a genre-building series that may one day be called his magnum opus of his speculative work. Horror, fantasy, and science fiction collide with unforgiving, unflinching abandon as The Near Future of Cal Wild draws closer to The Far Future.
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So pick up a copy of The Near Future to help complete your set. If you need to catch up, feel free to order a copy of the first book in the series, The Confessions of St. Zach , or the second, The Burden of Indigo , and stay tuned for the final book in this epic series, The Far Future … in the not so distant future.
January 14, 2017
CHIRAL MAD 4 – OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS UNTIL 05/31/17
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Chiral Mad 4 is officially open for submissions! The anthology is scheduled for publication in the first or second quarter of 2018 by Written Backwards, an imprint of Dark Regions Press, to be edited by Bram Stoker Award winning editor Michael Bailey. Much like Chiral Mad 3 and The Library of the Dead, this latest installment will be published in trade paperback, eBook, and deluxe hardback editions.
Unlike past Written Backwards projects, this fourth volume in the critically-acclaimed series of anthologies will be a completely collaborative effort of originality, collecting 4 short stories, 4 novelettes, 4 novellas, and 4 graphic adaptations (to celebrate this 4th book), all co-authored and/or co-created. The anthology itself may even possibly be co-edited. We’re also seeking individuals willing to write a co-introduction for the book. Email CM4@nettirw.com if interested in either of these opportunities.
The goal of Chiral Mad 4 is to help bring our creative community together, to make us stronger, to strengthen relationships already in place, and to help create new relationships entirely. It’s time for all of us to play nice, to get along, and to do what we do best: create somethings out of nothings… and we’re going to create these beautiful somethings together. Have a specific writer/artist you’ve always admired? Well, now’s your chance. Reach out. Ask! That’s all it takes to get started. Find a partner, or two, or three, and start collaborating! The more unique the collaboration, the better the chances you have of making it into Chiral Mad 4. The more diverse the collaborations, the better the chances you have of making it into Chiral Mad 4. Now, here’s the hard part: knowing whether or not someone is already collaborating… Email CM4@nettirw.com if you have any questions or concerns about this.
While half the anthology will be filled with commissioned works (the book is nearly half-filled already, with a few of the early acceptances announced below), the rest of the anthology is open for submissions for a short period of time. The submission window for non-commissioned contributors closes May 31st, 2017. So get to it! This is a very short window of opportunity.
What are we looking for?
4 short stories (5,000 words max)
4 novelettes (10,000 words max)
4 novellas (20,000 words max)
4 graphic adaptations (1,500 words max, or 10 pages)
Payment will be $.05 per word, capped at the max word counts listed above, split evenly between contributors. Two contributors writing a 5,000-word short story, for example, would split $250, or $125 each. Contributors writing a 10,000-word novelette would evenly split $500. Contributors writing a 20,000-word novella would evenly split $1,000. Graphic adaptations will be determined by the publisher/creator prior to acceptance; these are unique collaborations and payments for such are not as simple to calculate. In fact, 3 of the 4 slots for graphic adaptations are already filled, so please query CM4@nettirw.com before submitting. And, as always, contributor copies of each edition are part of the deal.
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That said, the first acceptances for Chiral Mad 4 include the following:
Elizabeth Massie & Marge Simon have joined forces with a new short story called “The Substance of Belief” or “At the Crest of the Mountain.”
Darren Speegle and Gene O’Neill have collaborated on a new novella called “Fifteen Lifetimes, Plus a Lifetime More.”
Glenn Chadbourne and Jack Ketchum have been commissioned to adapt “Firedance.”
James Chambers, Jason Whitley, and Christopher Mills have collaborated on “The Ghost of the Bayout Piténn,” a sample of which is pictured above.
Other commissioned works include a novelette co-authored by a foursome of writers, and even a collaboration between a contemporary writer and a writer no longer with us.
So, hopefully all of this gets you excited, gets you eager to reach out to others in our creative community. Chiral Mad 4 is the most ambitious project ever imagined by Written Backwards. Please, be a part of it.
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4 short stories / 4 novelettes / 4 novellas / 4 graphic adaptations
