Diverse Tales

by Nicholas Grabowsky

Diverse Tales is the long-awaited collection of the lost works of the celebrated master of offbeat and macabre fiction, Nicholas Grabowsky.

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 2005

About the author

Nicholas Grabowsky’s novels of horror/fantasy and mainstream pulp fiction, both as himself, as Nicholas Randers, and as Marsena Shane, have generated worldwide acclaim for over three and a half decades and praised by many of today’s popular horror gurus in the literary world and horror industry at large. He began his career in traditional publishing houses with brisk sellers in mass market paperback horror and romance, and in the last two decades is seen by many as a mentor to many authors and the smaller presses, which has become to him a passion.
His body of work includes the award-winning macabre aliens-among-us epic The Everborn, The Rag Man, Pray Serpent’s Prey, Halloween IV (and its special editions), Diverse Tales, Reads & Reviews, The Wicked Haze, Sweet Dreams Lady Moon, Red Wet Dirt, numerous anthologies, magazine articles, and self help books, with projects extending to screenplays, poetry, songs, film, and a wide variety of short fiction and nonfiction since the 1980s.
He’s a veteran special guest at numerous genre conventions and makes appearances and signings across North America. He has been in the limelight a radical gospel preacher right out of high school and in the following years a rock vocalist, teacher, lecturer and activist, editor, publisher and founder of the Sacramento-based Black Bed Sheet Books, which publishes “exemplary literature, fiction & non” but specializes in horror/fantasy, and Blue Bed Sheet Books, which published children's books, and subdivisions in progress.
Currently, Nicholas is at work with numerous anthologies, graphic novels and comic books, an Everborn sequel and the novels The Downwardens and The Sirens of Knowland. His independent film projects include the slasher creature feature Cutting Edges.

Quotes about Grabowsky:

"My Dear Nicholas: You seem to me---in a way that's entirely admirable----a man out of time. You're writing horror epics when the audience has become increasingly numbed by cinematic hokum and stale ideas. I salute you: your ambition, your dedication, your achievements, your blissfully complex imagination...." ----Clive Barker (bestselling author & director, Hellraiser, etc.)
"Grabowsky succeeds in making the whole world creepy...." ----Heidi Martinuzzi, E! Entertainment Television
"Grabowsky's writing is at times touching and emotional, however, his real talent is his ability to infuse his writing with a sense of dread and loathing that I have not experienced since H.P. Lovecraft..." ----Tahoe Daily Tribune
"Grabowsky has imagination to spare.....!" ---Sacramento Bee
"Impressive storytelling....." ----Wes Craven (Dir., A Nightmare on Elm Street)
“…..soon we’ll all be hearing about this Grabowsky guy….” ---Joe Dante (Dir, Gremlins, The Howling)
“Keep ‘em coming, Nicholas….” ----Stephen King
“All hail Grabowsky!” ---Horrorweb.com
“Grabowsky melds horror and Sci-fi with such expertise that I am left speechless.” ---Gorezone Magazine

Reviews

[Norm Applegate · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Clive Barker say’s “Nicholas, I salute you!” the rest of us need to take notice
Creativity is a force we think we have, or at least some of us wish we had, well, Nicholas Grabowsky owns it. Consider this, author, actor, singer, songwriter, and tutor, which includes novels, screenplays, poetry and songs...WOW.
His journey of writing the short story goes as far back as elementary school and years later went by the pen names of Nicholas Randers (and occasionally Marsena Shane) but in the mid-nineties, the horror writer we know as Nick Grabowsky emerged.
His list of titles include Halloween IV, Sweet Dreams Lady Moon, The Rag Man, Nancy, Diverse Tales, Tale of the Makeshift Faire, Shocker II (for Wes Craven, though never produced), The Wicked Haze, Diverse Arcanum, a series of self-help books, scripts, poetry and short stories. 
In 1995, he moved from Southern California to Sacramento, and in 2003, founded a publishing/promotions organization Diverse Media.   
     A couple of note worthy points, his novel The Everborn was awarded the 2005 Predators & editors top 10 finisher, and with the Halloween novels he is helping to establish Mike Myers as an American horror icon.
His novel Diverse Tales published in 2004 with 13 short stories is an honor to review. Did I say 13 stories, oh yeah; I failed to mention there is more, as an added bonus a collection of poems and thoughts. His writing style is colorful, alarming and is guaranteed to leave you with scary thoughts that will come back and haunt you in your dreams.
If you are allowed to have a favorite story among so many I do, The Newspaper Rack. I don’t know where it comes from but out of no where Nick surprises you. Here is a story of a young hotel employee who works the night shift and out of boredom develops a personal challenge to help himself to whatever he finds, and can loot, but gets so much more. In the tradition of the Grabowsky horror, layers are added to this tale until we realize were in the middle of a chain reaction of events that end with a nightmarish finale.
With titles like The Wanting Seed, The Falling, and Mental this collection of macabre stories will remind you why Nicholas is a major voice in horror.