Stephen Mark Rainey's Blog, page 106

All Alone in Goblintown

It's been a somewhat slower year for geocaching than others since I took it up in 2008, mainly because I've claimed most of the caches within reasonable proximity and have to travel farther and farther afield to find appreciable concentrations of hides. For a while now, I've been slowly but steadily creeping up on find number 8,000, and for that milestone, I've been hoping to go after something a little out of the ordinary. I finally settled on a cache called "All Alone in Goblintown" (GC1EAWF) at Philpott Lake, near my old hometown of Martinsville, VA. It's out on an island a good couple of miles from the nearest marinas, and it's been sitting out there unfound for the past six years. Since I do not own a boat, I'm reliant on others for water transportation, but happily, a few members of the redoubtable Team Old Fart are aficionados of paddle caches and have kayaks to spare. This weekend looked good for making the attempt, so I got together with Diefenbaker (a.k.a. Scott) and Rtmlee (a.k.a. Robbin a.k.a. Yoda Rob) to paddle out after this lonely, lonely cache.

There was no telling whether the cache might still be out there after all this time, and, if so, what condition we might find it in. All part of the challenge, of course, and most of the fun of geocaching is the journey. And this one proved quite the journey: a seven-plus mile round trip, counting a detour to go after a couple of other, considerably less lonely caches. Outbound, it wasn't too hot and we had a constant breeze, which made for a pleasant morning of it. Once we landed at Goblintown, we made our way to ground zero, and there we found the cache, quite readily and in remarkably good condition. (That's the container you see in the photo above.) We all scribbled our monikers on the log, snapped a few photos, and took a break to chow on some beef jerky and re-hydrate ourselves. Then it was back on the water to paddle over to Turkey Island for a couple of caches there. Now the wind stopped and the sun became oppressively hot — thank ye gods for sunscreen. But for us, mission accomplished.

Once back at Goosepoint marina, we hit the road and, never one to rest on our laurels, Diefenbaker and I stopped to find a few more on our way back to Greensboro. Best part of the trip back — dinner at The Celtic Fringe in Reidsville, which is one of my favorite dining spots anywhere. And lucky for me, while I was gone, a number of new caches have been placed around Greensboro, so I'll at least have a few more in the area to hunt.

Next stop: working on a new short story for an upcoming anthology. Never a dull moment.
Old Rodan on the way to "All Alone in Goblintown" Rtmlee, a.k.a. Robbin, a.k.a. Yoda Rob Old man getting a workout Old man taking a much-needed breather It's not too far now. Mission accomplished. Checking out the contents of the cache. Our route

Deer Damage

One deer: dead (R.I.P., deer). One Mazda 3: a bit cracked up.
Helluva scare for Ms. B. late last night — or rather, in the wee hours this morning. Kimberly and I wanted to hit the Eden Drive-In this weekend, and as I've been in Martinsville helping look after Mum, we decided just to meet in Eden. Poltergeist and Mad Max: Fury Road were showing, which looked like a fun enough double bill. The former movie — hardly unexpectedly — was in dire need of a writer, a director, some actors... you know, movie stuff and all, and Mad Max was pretty decent, much on par with The Road Warrior. The burgers at the Eden Drive-In are to die for, by the way. (I know, I know; under the circumstances, that might not be the best use of hyperbole, but there it is.) Afterward, we departed in our respective vehicles, but it was only a few minutes later that I received a call from an understandably rattled Kimberly. Something — she knew not what — had slammed into her car and shattered the windshield. As I hurried back to meet her, some distance shy of where she was pulled off the road, I encountered a good-size dead deer: clearly, the cause of the upset. By the time I reached her, only a couple of minutes later, a pair of officers were already on the scene.

Now we got to take a good look at her vehicle, and the damage was far more extensive than it initially appeared. Shattered windshield. Broken rear-view mirror. Dented side panel. And crunched rear door. Thankfully, apart from her nerves, Kimberly was fine. The car is going to need some serious medical attention, but I reckon that's better than one of us needing it. Almost ironically, on our way to the theater, we had seen a deer bounding across the highway at top speed and remarked on it — at almost exactly the same location of her accident. Not out on a country road, mind you, but on the main highway through Eden.

As an aside, it was very refreshing, after seeing so much negative about the police lately, that the law enforcement officers who responded — the local sheriff and a deputy — were prompt, sympathetic, cordial as can be, and quick to provide an official report in case it's needed for Kimberly's insurance. My hat's off to those folks.

On my drive back to Martinsville, which did involve some lonely back roads, deer were everywhere, and no less than three darted out in front of my car. All of this is a stern reminder how fast the unexpected can happen, and how severe the damage can be from a single deer strike. It could have been much worse, too. The critters are out there, you know, and they might just have your number. Beware!

The Forgotten Door and Others

I've been geocaching in Danville, VA, countless times; in fact, I've cached out the town more times than I can remember, only to have a wealth of new caches pop up, bringing me back again and again. Whereas I once took Danville to be a rather drab, uninviting place, I've taken quite a shine to the place — all thanks to caching, which has introduced me to countless locations I would never have otherwise experienced.

Like all too many southwestern and south central Virginia towns, the industries that were Danville's lifeblood for at least a century — textiles, tobacco, and railroads — in the 1980s and 90s, packed up and left, thanks in large part to NAFTA. Though it hasn't completely bounced back from its hardest times, based on everything I've seen over the past few years, the city is well on its way to becoming a thriving center of commerce again. To me personally, above and beyond all things, Danville has an appealing, multidimensional character. There are several great parks with lots of hiking and biking trails; the beautiful Riverwalk along the Dan River, which extends from Anglers Park, east of town, into the heart of the city; a sizable, picturesque old warehouse district that is in the process of being redeveloped, with cobblestone streets, scenic river views, shops, bistros, offices, and historic sites; and — only minutes outside the city limits — countless miles of beautiful countryside that embody Piedmont Virginia's classic rural charm. Danville does have quite a rich history. It was, briefly, the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War. If you listen to The Band's original recording of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (not Joan Baez's inexplicably reworded version), you'll hear a reference to General Stoneman's cavalry destroying the rail line that was the main supply line between Danville and General Robert E. Lee's forces in Petersburg. You may also have heard the song "The Wreck of the Old 97," a hellish train wreck that happened in Danville in 1903 (there is also a geocache commemorating this event).
There's someone at the door....
Today, I had to head to Martinsville to offer my mom some physical assistance, and I did so by way of Danville, where several new caches awaited me. I'm happy to report that today's haul pretty much exemplified what caching is all about. There was a challenging tree climb; a hike in pouring rain through some mighty rugged woodland terrain — which I ended up making more rugged than it should have been, thanks to my GPS getting ornery and leading me all over the hills and hollers before settling on a stable ground zero; and a little trek through the old warehouse district, where I found a cache called "Forgotten Door" (GC5PKJ2) because, well...see the photos for yourself. It's pretty much an old, forgotten door in a secluded, all-but-unseen alcove in an section of warehouses along the riverfront. I don't know whether this particular building is fated for total refurbishing or what, but I have a feeling no one ought to mess with it. From the noises I heard on the other side of the door, I started looking for a sign reading "Abandon all hope, ye who enter," but I couldn't find one. I'm guessing it must be around there somewhere.

To end my all-too-brief run through Danville today, I stopped at Tokyo Grill for lunch, where I've often had some pretty decent sushi. Today's was absolutely awesome and though the place was jam-packed for lunch, the service was impeccable. Then it was on to Martinsville. I will say this — there are a number of highly skilled, enthusiastic geocachers in Danville who have done bang-up jobs on their wares. I hope there's plenty more to come from them.

Bless you.
Do you see the cache? I wish I could have had a photo taken of me up in this tree. I would look pretty small.

The Lebo Coven — Now an Audio Book

The good folks at Crossroad Press, who have previously released my novels Balak , The Nightmare Frontier , and The Monarchs as audio books, have now released my 2004 novel, The Lebo Coven , as an audio book as well. Read by Chris Andrew Ciulla , The Lebo Coven is the story of two brothers who have chosen very different paths in life but are drawn together — with traumatic results — in the shadow of dark supernatural force. There's murder, mayhem, romance, witchcraft, Satanic rituals, cattle mutilations, and beer.


"...Rainey gives his horrors an original cosmic twist...A few twists and a well-executed climax raise The Lebo Coven above more routine horror fare."
—Publishers Weekly
Here's a little more detailed information:

"After a ten-year absence, Barry Riggs returns to his hometown of Aiken Mill, Virginia, in search of his brother, Matt, who has mysteriously disappeared. Not only is the younger Riggs missing, but his house has been ransacked and branded with the strange word Lebo — painted in blood on the master bedroom wall. Faced with a local sheriff whose efforts to solve the crime are anything but devoted, Barry sets out on his own to discover the truth. He meets a number of locals he had known in his youth, including a young woman named Jennifer Brand, whom he had once treated with contempt because she suffered from a repulsive, crippling affliction. After some awkward moments, the two become friends, and together they attempt to unravel the mystery of Matt’s disappearance. Certain locals suggest that the name Lebo holds ominous significance, but no one will so much as whisper its meaning. Barry eventually encounters a mysterious character who goes by the name of Ren — a reputed worshiper of Satan. As Barry and Jennifer unravel the clues, they learn that all is far from what it appears — and that dark, inhuman forces truly are at work."

Here is the Audible site link, from which you can download the audio file: The Lebo Coven by Stephen Mark Rainey at Audible.com

You can order the ebook from Crossroad Press at Amazon.com: The Lebo Coven by Stephen Mark Rainey

PI PSA

I do a lot of geocaching in the woods — I hid a new cache on one of Greensboro watershed trails just this morning — and especially at this time of year, I run into lots and lots of poison ivy. It's North Carolina's de facto state plant, as it grows more profusely here than anywhere else I've ever been. Certainly, in this part of the state, you can't step into a wooded area without being surrounded by it, and the fact I am deathly allergic to the stuff does me no favors. Years ago, I had such a bad outbreak of it — when I say I had a rash everywhere, I mean everywhere — the only relief I could get from the itching was to scrape my skin with a razor blade to break up all little blisters and then bathe in alcohol. Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it was agony, but compared to the endless, maddening, driving-me-to-the-brink-of-insanity itching, it was a little slice of heaven. The outbreak was so bad that I eventually had to see a doctor, who had me take steroids and regularly apply some kind of ointment, which did, in fact, dry up the poison ivy; the ointment was so potent, however, it also dried up any unaffected skin until it withered and flaked off.

Since then, I have taken desperate measures to avoid a repeat of such an affliction. Abandoning or postponing geocaching is not an option, so prevention and treatment have been very high on my agenda. I've read and heard all kinds of anecdotes and recommendations; tried quite a few; and, happily, found an effective, very inexpensive solution that I will pass onto you here. Consider it a little public service announcement.

Rather than spend bunches of money on Tecnu and other poison-plant-specific products — which, by the way, for me have been essentially ineffective — I carry around a little bottle of Purell hand sanitizer with me. It's good for general hand-cleaning as well as breaking up urushiol oil, which is the nasty substance that causes the rash. While geocaching, I find myself frequently wading through vast gardens of poison ivy, climbing trees laced with its vines (mind those big fuzzy ones, by the way, as touching them will also result in some serious grief), and occasionally grabbing bunches of the plants while making my way through some challenging woodland corridor. If I can apply a generous amount of hand sanitizer to any exposed skin within about an hour of contact, the urushiol oil won't bond and cause the rash. Just as a matter of course, I always scrub up with some sanitizer after a deep woods outing. Then, once I get back home, I scrub even more thoroughly with dishwashing liquid, which is also good for breaking up oil on the skin, and cold water (not warm, since it will open your pores and make your skin more likely to absorb any urushiol). Plain soap and water is better than nothing, but it isn't anywhere near as effective as an alcohol-based product or what is essentially a degreaser.

For about the past five years, I have conscientiously used the hand sanitizer and dishwashing liquid treatment, and I've been all but poison-ivy free ever since. The only times I have suffered an outbreak at all, and these very minor, are when I've failed to scrub up after handling the clothes or shoes I was wearing while out in the woods. The urushiol oil will stick to your apparel and remain potent for some time. It pays to be careful on that count.

Everyone reacts differently to poison ivy exposure, but even people who believe themselves immune can occasionally receive a nasty shock. I've passed this technique along to numerous folks of my acquaintance, with highly positive results. Now, forearmed with this information, you may feel free to get out there and hunt my new cache when it's published — it's a Twin Peaks -inspired hide called "Let's Rock" and requires that you overcome a little challenge to secure the coordinates before you hit the woods. I can assure you, you'll want to do some serious scrubbing up after you've visited this one.

And beware of Bob, by the way.

Exists

I've gotta tell you, I'm a sucker for movies about Bigfoot and other cryptozoological beasties. During my teenage years, it was a rich time for all things Bigfoot, with movies such as... wait for it... Bigfoot , with John Carradine (surely one of the world's worst movies, yet such an all-fired hoot I can't help but love it); The Legend of Boggy Creek ; The Creature From Black Lake ; Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot ; et. al. Exists hearkens back to just that kind of movie — both hokey and creepy as all get-out. It's directed by Eduardo Sánchez, who brought us The Blair Witch Project and others some years back. Not unlike Blair Witch , this one is largely seen through the eyes of various cameras — Go-Pros, cell phones, and such — though it isn't found-footage per se. The camera's eye views are not as erratic and shaky as Blair Witch or Cloverfield (the latter of which I refuse to watch again because the shaky-cam footage isn't just overdone, it's stupidly overdone). Exists , fortunately, is largely shown through a more traditional camera lens and features an honest-to-god score, composed by Nima Fakhrara.

The story is classic drive-in movie fare: five young adults — brothers Matt (Samuel Davis) and Brian (Chris Osborn), Dora (Dora Madison Burge), Todd (Roger Edwards), and Elizabeth (Denise Williamson) — take a weekend trip to a remote cabin, located somewhere in the wilds of eastern Texas. On the way, they run over some critter, which they take to be a deer until they discover some odd hair stuck in the radiator grill. It isn't long before something begins making scary squalling sounds out in the woods and then comes prowling around the cabin. Next thing you know, said something has smashed the youngsters' car, leaving them stranded and all but helpless. Matt decides to try fleeing on a bicycle so he can bring help. Alas, he never reaches his destination. And the remaining four young people become subject to a relentless assault by the thing — or things — out in the woods. There is much destruction, screaming, hollering, and even some blood. These young 'uns at last realize that their chances of getting out of the woods alive are mighty slim.

The wooded setting and cabin couldn't be more conducive to frightening things happening; happily, it's all filmed on location, without any dopey-looking sets or crappy CGI. There's an atmosphere of both serenity and strangeness about the woods that couldn't be more genuine. (As a matter of fact, the woods closely resemble those around what I call the Bigfoot Trail, just a few miles up the road, where I've done quite a bit of geocaching over the years.) Until just about the end of the film, the critters are shown only in silhouette or in quick cuts, and one scene, in which the monster is seen as a black shadow racing through the woods alongside a trail in pursuit of Matt on his bicycle, is actually pretty hair-raising. When, at the end, we have the big reveal, it's not disappointing. It's pretty damned good. I'd go so far as to say Exists offers a few of the best-staged Bigfoot scenes, well, maybe ever.

What Exists also offers... unfortunately... is a great big nasty-tasting, nausea-inducing, brick shit house full of stupid. Oh, my lord. The characters, to the last, are obnoxious, ever-swearing, hyper-screaming, pot-smoking, stereotypical boneheads who can't formulate a rational thought even when they're not panicking, and there's more than enough panic going on here for about four movies. Yes, it may bloody well be true that in highly stressful, likely deadly situations, many people will, in fact, lose their shit. But I think that segment of the population has been more than adequately represented in horror movies over the years, and I am weary beyond weary of them. (And even most of them would have a fair idea of when to actually get rid of the Go-Pro.) Why not make a movie with the same scenario but with characters who, between them, have more than a single functioning brain cell? Or at least make them colorful. Ever see Creature From Black Lake , with Jack Elam, Dub Taylor, Dennis Fimple, and John David Carson? Talk about enjoyable characters. Dopey, maybe, but what hoots! In The Legend of Boggy Creek , we have plenty of not-necessarily-bright characters, but the audience never looks down on them. They're kind of charming in their way. Hey, Travis Crabtree even had his own ballad written about him. It doesn't get much more charming than that. I tell you, the world is dumbed down aplenty as it is, and Exists , despite so many wonderful aspects that work, is insulting to an even marginally thinking audience. Mr. Sánchez, is it really, really true that your film won't make a buck unless your characters are idiots?

I believe you're wrong. Really, really fucking wrong.

That doesn't even begin to cover some of the contrivances, the hackneyed plot devices, and the almost note-by-note reproducing of scenes from The Blair Witch Project . Even these would be somewhat more palatable if it were possible to give a hoot about the people on the menu.

Four and a half Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetinis for the atmosphere and the Bigfoot scenes. One Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetini for the overall movie.

Shame on you, Eduardo. Shame on you for taunting me with all kinds of goodies and then throwing a rancid pie in my face.
A rare moment of non-panic, and not a bad one at that. (For this, you need to watch the deleted scenes.) Nincompooper! Is upside down! You'd think that with this beast in hand, Todd might not panic quite so badly. You would be wrong. "If you say 'Where's my Go-Pro?' one more time, I'm gonna drown you." That ain't Harry out there.

Face Your Phobia

I like snakes. They're neat creatures, and it really distresses me when people say things like "The only good snake is a dead snake," and other such nonsense. Without snakes, you personally would probably have to deal with all kinds of unpleasant pestilence you never even think about, and I'm betting that since you probably don't really have to deal with snakes all that often, you're better off leaving the snakes be than suffering the pestilence. I bring this up mainly because of a couple of Facebook posts from the past few days that included photos of snakes, and the sheer venom of some of the comments really showcased the irrationality of people's fears.

The photos above are from two or three years ago when I ran across this very friendly, six-foot-long black racer at Cedarock Park in Alamance County, NC. When I'm out geocaching, I'm often in their environment, and over the years, I've encountered just about every variety of slithering serpent that North Carolina has to offer. Make no mistake: even the venomous ones — around here, primarily Copperheads — would rather do their own things than mess with you, and most often, they'll make every effort to avoid dealing with you and your phobia. A while back, I was crossing a creek and inadvertently stepped on a Copperhead, and the fellow had the decency to vacate the premises with all due haste when he could have, had he been so inclined, just as easily given me a chomp on the leg. (Note that I call the snake "he" only because he had very masculine shoulders; nothing against the female of the species.)

I'll tell you something. Up until I started geocaching and found myself, not only in snakes' environments, but in spiders', I had a damn near debilitating case of arachnophobia. I was always fascinated but truly, deeply terrified by spiders of all types and sizes (of course, the bigger the more horrifying). Any spider I encountered was a dead spider, no ifs, ands, or buts. Awful, awful creatures; predators; alien-looking. Then I did a cache called Greensboro Underground, and the name says it all. To claim this cache, I had to go considerable distances through underground pipes, and at one stage, I was forced to confront my gravest imaginary dread.
Northern Black Widow (Lactrodectus variolus).
Don't mess with it, and it won't mess with you.
It went like this:

I was with a couple of gentlemen (who, I might add, are not wimps, in the technical sense of the word) that I will call Tom and Ethan. (To answer your question: yes.) To reach stage 1, we had to enter a very tight culvert, and Ethan had the good grace to go first. It wasn't moments before he was screaming in a panicked, high-pitched voice that led Tom and I to believe he must have been gravely injured. We're hollering, "What is it? What's wrong?" And he cries back, "This is the biggest spider I've ever seen! Wait — there's another one. And another one. Oh, Christ, the place is full of them!"

Tom and I debated a moment. There were spiders, and there was the geocache. All right, then; we do have our priorities, you know. The two of us wormed our way into the pipe, and — oh, my Christ — the confined space was absolutely crawling with big honking spiders, the smallest of which probably had a four-inch leg span. Our destination lay through a specific pipe, above which a huge wolf spider was resting on its laurels. Ethan put his foot down and declared that he was not going into the pipe with that spider hanging right there. Well, feigning the air of the undaunted, I took my hiking stick and knocked the spider off the wall — at which point it angrily began to scurry straight toward Ethan.

At this point, Ethan screamed a piercing scream and began a dance routine that would have shamed Gene Kelly. Tom and I took to chuckling, and since said spider had vacated its perch, I decided to take advantage of the moment, and go into the next pipe.

Oh, shit, did I really do that?

At this point, I did question my wisdom, for this pipe was also full of spiders. They were all just hanging around on the walls and ceiling, and not really bothering me. However, as I ducked to go in, something fell onto my shoulder with a distinctive plop.

"Tom, my dear, friend," I said. "Please tell me that was a not a big spider."

"Nope, just a hunk of grass and mud from the drain up there."

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

"Not about that."

All right then. On I went, past veritable walls of spiders that sat contentedly watching me. They didn't really do diddly but scare the living crap out of me. Yet, after Ethan's little dance there, it was hard for me not to go through that pipe overtaken by paroxysms of laughter.

From that moment on, I never again suffered a fear of spiders. They didn't want to bother me. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure they were all laughing at Ethan too.

For what it's worth, if you come upon a snake — or a spider, or some other basically innocuous creature — that for reasons anything other than rational make you want to kill it, try instead picturing its in its underwear or maybe a big old dude like Ethan break dancing inside a culvert filled with spiders. Really, it's funny as all hell.

You don't need to kill or otherwise antagonize the critters. Just give it some thought. Face your phobia. Fuck your phobia.

It worked for me.
A fun little black rat snake that was meandering about in the heat of winter, a couple of Decembers ago.
I'm sure he would rather have had cool weather and been taking a nap.

Gravely Park Haunts

There are several geocaches in Gravely Park, in Henry County, VA, including three I hid myself some years ago. A few new ones have recently given me opportunity to return to the trail system, which I've enjoyed because it's a beautiful area with a quite a few scenic views of the Smith River, several historical structures, and an old graveyard. Despite having hiked all around there any number of times, I had never previously come upon what is surely the most haunted location in these woods. I've got to say, it was agreeably creepy back in there today, so I'm grateful to the cache owner for enticing us to come back here.

The Gravely Nature Trail greeter today was, sadly, a dead bat hanging on the fence at the trail head. The poor little guy appeared to have gotten hung in one of the barbs on the fence. From there, Ms. B. and I went on into the woods, where we found the cache readily enough — and from which I happened to notice several crumbling structures some distance away through the trees. Being that such old relics are among my favorites things to discover in the woods, we decided to do a bit of exploring. Most pleasantly, we were the only ones in the woods today, and the afternoon was growing a little dark and breezy, with rain clouds beginning to gather. (At least the bottom was considerate enough not to drop out until after we got out of the woods.) At one of the old barns, we found another of my favorite things: a dead baby — okay, actually a rather ancient doll — tucked into the hollow of a near-collapsing support post. (I have a cache in the woods in Greensboro, called "No Dead Baby Jokes, Please," with a similar such doll at ground zero. Hey, it's a nice theme.)

Ms. B. talked me out of worming my way down into one of the old structures, which I suppose is just as well, as I'd have gotten filthy dirty, and I wasn't wearing my best clothes for getting filthy dirty. Still, it was all a nice bit of Halloween-style fun in the middle of spring, and that just can't be bad.

It wasn't all just skulking around in old haunted places, since we took Mum out for lunch after church, where she had been honored for fifty-plus years of singing in the church choir, from which she recently retired. That was all nice and everything too. Sometimes you just have to do that kind of thing.
An unfortunate bat hung in the barbed wire greeted us as we set out on the trail. Ms. B. at one of the old collapsing barns. Take note of the base of the support post on the right. A slightly more intact structure. The barn, I mean; not sure about the old geocacher. Not quite so haunted — a nice Mother's Day lunch with Mum at the Dutch Inn in Collinsville.
That's one lucky son right there.

Beyond the Mountains of Madness

"The umbrella has collapsed. The portal is open."
This one was sure a beast getting onto the street, but — finally, at long last — here it comes. Some years back, editor Robert M. Price approached me wondering whether I might be interested in writing a story for an anthology based on H. P. Lovecraft's short novel, At the Mountains of Madness, which is one of his better known — and one of my personal favorite — works of fiction. Of course I was, so I wrote a story, titled "The Danforth Project," which takes place in contemporary times. In it, a phenomenon in Antarctica reveals a mountain range that has never been seen — except by a number of individuals, specifically, those from Lovecraft's tale plus a handful of others over a long span of years. An air reconnaissance mission is hurriedly launched to investigate, and most of my story is an account of the pilot's experiences on his long excursions over the mysterious Antarctic continent. Solidly based on Lovecraft's epic work, I've also woven in a bit of lore from some of his other tales, "Dreams in the Witch House" being the most prominent of them.

Dark Quest Books was initially slated to produce the book, but over time, problems with the publisher began to mount. Some authors were paid, some were not. A few copies of the book were printed, but it was never put into official release, and for all intents and purposes, as a product, it died a cold, ignominious death — at least until Celaeno Press, which had recently come onto the scene with In the Court of the Yellow King (which includes my story, "Masque of the Queen"). Publisher Edward Lipsett and editor Price worked to get the book repackaged, using the same cover art and most of the same content, with two additional tales. At long last, the deal was done, and now the book is available for purchase. I can safely say this one is a winner, and my hat is off to all parties who worked hard to make this happen. There couldn't have been a more deserving volume to be rescued from the pit into which it had been shamefully discarded.

Besides myself, contributors to Beyond the Mountains of Madness include Ken Asamatsu, Glynn Owen Barrass, Pierre Comtois, Laurence J. Cornford, Cody Goodfellow, C.J. Henderson, Willie Meikle, Edward Morris, William Patrick Murray, Joe Pulver, Peter Rawlik, and Brian M. Sammons, with a special guest appearance by Weird Tales legend John Martin Leahy and an introduction by Robert M. Price.

Here's a link to the Amazon page: Beyond the Mountains of Madness

Return to the Mountains of Madness

"The umbrella has collapsed. The portal is open."
This one was sure a beast getting onto the street, but — finally, at long last — here it comes. Some years back, editor Robert M. Price approached me wondering whether I might be interested in writing a story for an anthology based on H. P. Lovecraft's short novel, At the Mountains of Madness, which is one of his better known — and one of my personal favorite — works of fiction. Of course I was, so I wrote a story, titled "The Danforth Project," which takes place in contemporary times. In it, a phenomenon in Antarctica reveals a mountain range that has never been seen — except by a number of individuals, specifically, those from Lovecraft's tale plus a handful of others over a long span of years. An air reconnaissance mission is hurriedly launched to investigate, and most of my story is an account of the pilot's experiences on his long excursions over the mysterious Antarctic continent. Solidly based on Lovecraft's epic work, I've also woven in a bit of lore from some of his other tales, "Dreams in the Witch House" being the most prominent of them.

Dark Quest Books was initially slated to produce the book, but over time, problems with the publisher began to mount. Some authors were paid, some were not. A few copies of the book were printed, but it was never put into official release, and for all intents and purposes, as a product, it died a cold, ignominious death — at least until Celaeno Press, which had recently come onto the scene with In the Court of the Yellow King (which includes my story, "Masque of the Queen"). Publisher Edward Lipsett and editor Price worked to get the book repackaged, using the same cover art and most of the same content, with two additional tales. At long last, the deal was done, and now the book is available for purchase. I can safely say this one is a winner, and my hat is off to all parties who worked hard to make this happen. There couldn't have been a more deserving volume to be rescued from the pit into which it had been shamefully discarded.

Besides myself, contributors include Ken Asamatsu, Glynn Owen Barrass, Pierre Comtois, Laurence J. Cornford, Cody Goodfellow, C.J. Henderson, Willie Meikle, Edward Morris, William Patrick Murray, Joe Pulver, Peter Rawlik, and Brian M. Sammons, with a special guest appearance by Weird Tales legend John Martin Leahy and an introduction by Robert M. Price.

Here's a link to the Amazon page: The Mountains of Madness