The Gulpepper Mythos
I’m a huge fan of when an author builds a fictional geography and frequently sets stories there (like Stephen King with Castle Rock). I’ve been working on that for a while with the Gulpepper Mythos. I’m also a huge nerd for easter eggs in fiction and I’ve been dropping Gulp easter eggs in various places. So I thought I’d share all those connections with you guys. Of course, if you’d rather try to spot them for yourself, stop reading now. Otherwise, Gulpepper Mythos spoilers ahead! Try to catch them all.
Gulpepper is set in a fictional geography somewhere on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. It’s further south than, say, Bateman’s Bay, but not as far as the Victorian border. I’ve always been slightly ambiguous about where it is exactly, but if you want to check on a map, imagine an extra bit of Australia somewhere around the Bermagui/Tathra-ish sort of area.
As described in The Gulp, Gulpepper is about halfway between two other fictional towns – Enden and Monkton. These places have cropped up in several stories and several other stories are peripherally part of the Gulpepper Universe, some even reverse engineered, because I’m such a nerd. So here’s how it breaks down so far:
Firstly, of course, the area is explored in The Gulp and The Fall. These two books are the only official Tales From The Gulp so far.
Some of my more recent work is set in the area. Blood Covenant starts in Enden, then the action at the hotel is set in the mountains to the west of there.
A new novel called Abattoir Road, currently with my agent, is set in Monkton and references events in The Fall quite extensively.
The best band in the world, Blind Eye Moon from Gulpepper, are mentioned in last year’s novella, The Leaves Forget. One of the characters wears a BEM ball cap. So while that story is set in Tasmania, it’s also part of the Gulpepper Mythos.
Another new novel I’m working on right now is set in Wollongong, New South Wales, but there’s a brief mention of Gulpepper and Blind Eye Moon in that story. So that book, while also going nowhere near Gulpepper, is still in the Gulpepper Mythos. There’s a bigger connection too, which I’ll get to next.
It starts with some reverse engineering of a kind. I wrote a story in 2016 for Jack Dann’s anthology, Darkness Down Under, called “Served Cold” (and it’s also reprinted in my second collection and gave that books its title). That story is set in an outback town that I’m pretty sure I never actually named in the story. I’ve always imagined it was somewhere in western New South Wales. In that story is a biker gang called the Desert Ghosts.
Just for fun, when I was writing the Eli Carver novellas, I needed a biker gang again. Always better to use a fictional one, of course, and I remembered the Desert Ghosts from “Served Cold”. So I used them, thus establishing that there are Desert Ghost chapters in Australia and America, as Manifest Recall (the first Eli Carver book) was set in and around New Orleans, then lots of other places around America as the trilogy progresses.
At the time, that was just a little Desert Ghosts easter egg. But when I wrote The Gulp, I dropped one tiny mention of the Desert Ghosts in the story “Mother In Bloom”. Suddenly, the Desert Ghosts are part of the Gulpepper Mythos, which means “Served Cold” and the Eli Carver books are also in the Gulpepper Mythos, all connected by the existence of the Desert Ghosts in all those stories.
The Desert Ghosts are also an integral part of that new novel I mentioned above, set in Wollongong, NSW, that directly references Gulpepper and BEM. It’s all connected now, baby.
Lastly, back in 2021 I wrote a story for John F.D. Taff’s anthology, The Bad Book, called “Nurturing His Nature”. That story was set in Monkton and it was a kind of unofficial sequel to an original story from my second collection, Served Cold, called “Exquisite”. Which means both of those stories are now part of the Gulpepper Mythos, because “Exquisite” would also have been in Monkton even though that wasn’t stated at the time. I wrote that story long before the Gulpepper Universe was born, just like “Served Cold” and Eli Carver.
And I think that’s it. I can’t be certain as I might have dropped a little easter egg in other stories and forgotten about it. If you know of any others or you spot any, let me know! Meanwhile, I’ll continue to drop these things, because it’s fun. Blind Eye Moon and the Desert Ghosts seem to be the most common Gulpepper Mythos easter egg at this point. I’m sure others will crop up as time goes on.
Here’s the list of Gulpepper Mythos books and stories so far:
Novels/Collections
The Gulp
The Fall
Blood Covenant
Abattoir Road (currently out on submission)
New novel with my agent
Standalone Novellas
The Leaves Forget
New novella currently being written – working title, The Cassidy Ghost
Short Stories
“Served Cold” from Darkness Down Under/Served Cold
“Exquisite” from Served Cold
“Nurturing His Nature” from The Bad Book
EDIT:
In an update to this post, the novella I’m currently working on, which you can read here as I write it if you’re at the Devourer level or above, is also in the Gulpepper Mythos, as I draw a Gulpepper reference there with the main character. So once that’s finished and has a final title (current working title is The Cassidy Ghost), that will be added to the list as well. Because the Mythos will be continuing to grow, I’ll be updating this post whenever a new book or story becomes a part of the Gulpepper Mythos.
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