Hollow Earth Expeditions: Inside at Last
It’s publication day! Notes from Underground arrives in bookstores today, and should be landing in the hands of those who pre-ordered any day now, if it hasn’t already. Among other things, that means this will be our last Hollow Earth Expedition, and that you’re getting it a day early. I hope you’ve enjoyed this deep dive into the subterranean world, and the myriad influences that informed the writing of Notes from Underground. And, of course, I hope that you enjoy the book itself even more!
For those who are just now arriving with us in the interior world for the first time, Notes from Underground is both like and unlike other books I’ve published in the past. In some ways, it’s similar to my earlier short story collections, in that it is made up of six short stories and one novelette, all of which can be read on their own. In other ways, it’s very different, as each of those seven stories is part of a linked “story cycle,” that paints a unified picture when all the stories are gathered together, as they finally are in Notes from Underground.
To help signal this difference, Ross Lockhart, my publisher at Word Horde, hired Matthew Revert to create and design the cover, which is a major departure from any of my previous Word Horde titles (all of which bore cover illustrations by either Nick Gucker or Yves Tourigney).
Notes from Underground also has different proportions than my previous books, measuring 4.25 by 7 inches. Small enough that you can perhaps tuck it in your pocket to take with you on your own subterranean adventures.
Books like this are often seen as the product of a single imagination and, to some extent, that’s true. But no book ever comes to life entirely through the work of its author. As always, I am indebted to the patience and support of my friends and loved ones, as well as Ross at Word Horde, who has helped to shepherd many of my books into the hands of readers.
I’m also grateful to Trevor Henderson, old friend, fantastic artist, and author of Scarewaves, who gave Notes from Underground a phenomenal blurb:
“Orrin Grey uses the fantastic imagery of the high strange and the charming weirdness of pulp adventure stories as gateways to deeper, murkier depths. He tunnels deep into the honeycombed caverns of his characters’ interior lives and shines a light on what lurks there. A wonderful collection quite unlike any I’ve read before.”
“Quite unlike any I’ve read before” is a sentiment that I hope a lot of you will share after you’ve read Notes from Underground – even if you’re already a fan of some of my earlier books.
In previous Hollow Earth Expeditions, I’ve discussed how my own conception of the Hollow Earth, as deployed in these tales, took shape, and how the interior world of the stories reflects (and, indeed, in some ways encompasses) the interior worlds of the characters experiencing it. This style of heavily recursive storytelling is something I hadn’t really experimented with before, but I hope that my metaphysical rooting around proves entertaining, or perhaps even enlightening.
I’ve talked about the various inspirations that went into writing Notes from Underground, from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Clive Barker to Mike Mignola and beyond. There are plenty of others that I didn’t get to – including ones that I’m probably not even aware of.
One non-obvious inspiration likely came in the form of films noir, particularly those fringe cases that deal with carnival barkers, revival tent preachers, mentalists, and psychics – both real and frauds. There’s a certain fatalism that is tied up with the noir, and a similar sense permeates many of the stories here, even while my own fatalism has a note of potential transcendence buried deep within it.
A few of the films that might have been in the back of my mind while concocting some of these stories include the classic Nightmare Alley (1947), the underseen Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) – with its suggestion that being able to see the future may not mean that you can actually do anything about it – and even Lord of Illusions (1995) and X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), which aren’t strictly films noir but also… aren’t they?
If you’ve already pre-ordered a copy of Notes from Underground, I want to say thank you, from the very deepest interior of my heart. And if you haven’t ordered your copy yet, now’s a perfect time. With any luck, you’ll enjoy these trips to the inside of the Hollow Earth – and the insides of these characters. And who knows? Perhaps Notes from Underground will be what you need to find your own Symmes’s Hole, by which to get at the inside at last…
“Nothing lasts forever, not even forever.”
