Black Ceremonies

Literature & Fiction

Black, Charles

Genre Fiction

Parallel Universe Publications

You won't be finding any urban elves or sparkly vampires in the pages of Things that go Bump. Nor will you find gratuitous sex and gore. The chills that we are offering are of the more fiendishly subtle kind. And even when our offerings are lacking in bare breasts and buckets of blood, the theater of the mind is amply capable in painting a canvas that more than compensates for this lack of simple titillation. And it is this vividly morbid canvas that is the backdrop used by Things that go Bump. Our first volume is a treasury of what awaits you in later releases. Here you will relive the oppressive rural horror of Edward Lucas White's “House of Nightmare”, the slowly building dread of William Hope Hodgson's maritime classic “The Voice in the Night”. We're even delivering a large dose of unexplainable cosmic horror in the proto-Lovecraftian “The Thing from Outside” by George Allan England. Robert E. Howard, the man who gave us Conan the Cimmerian and the puritan avenger Solomon Kane, supplies us with a tale of eldritch horror from beyond time in “The Black Stone”. And E. F. Benson, the master of the slow burn, will keep you awake with his “The Room in the Tower”, which is an extremely subtle horror story, that once read will make it impossible to stay in a guest room with out asking yourself “what horrid events might have taken place during previous occupancies?”I personally hope that David and I can live up to the collections put together by the great anthologists of the past such as August Derleth, Peter Haining, Lin Carter, Donald A. Wohlheim, Groff Conklin, Mary Danby, Kurt Singer, Roger Elwood, Vic Ghidalia, Leo Margulies, Sam Moskowitz, Christine Campbell Thomson, Hugh Lamb, and Herbert Van Thal. All of these wonderful assemblers of the weird have left some huge footprints that it will be extremely hard to fill. But I can assure that we are up to the challenge. These anthologists inspired the creation of Things that go Bump and it's to their collective memories that this anthology is dedicated. Through their combined efforts, many a great story teller has become a household name and many a wonderful tale has been rescued from oblivion.David and I hope that you enjoy these stories as much as we have. It is our hope that they'll make your sleep this evening just a wee bit more uneasy than it would have been if you hadn't had this treasury of classic weird in your hands. Enjoy!Douglas Draa

Things That Go Bump in the Night: A Treasury of Classic Weird

HODGSON, WILLIAM HOPE

Crawford, F. Marion

MARRYAT, FREDERICK

White, Edward Lucas

Riley, David A.

Draa, Douglas

Clifford, Sir Hugh

England, George Allan

Their Cramped Dark World and Other Tales is David A. Riley's third collection of short fiction, spanning 40 years of publication, from appearances in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural #1 in 1971, to the Ninth Black Book of Horror in 2012.He has had numerous stories published by Doubleday, DAW, Corgi, Sphere, Roc, Playboy Paperbacks, Robinsons, etc., and in magazines such as Aboriginal Science Fiction, Dark Discoveries, Fear, and Fantasy Tales. His stories have been translated into Italian, German, Spanish and Russian. His Lovecraftian crime noir horror novel, The Return, was published by Blood Bound Books in 2013. His fantasy novel, Goblin Mire, was published by Parallel Universe Publications in 2015.Table of Contents Hoody (first published in When Graveyards Yawn, Crowswing Books, 2006) A Bottle of Spirits (first published in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural 2, 1972) No Sense in Being Hungry, She Thought (first published in Peeping Tom #20, 1996) Now and Forever More (first published in The Second Black Book of Horror, 2008) Romero's Children (first published in The Seventh Black Book of Horror, 2010) Swan Song (first published in the Ninth Black Book of Horror, 2012) The Farmhouse (first published in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural 1, 1971) The Last Coach Trip (first published in The Eighth Black Book of Horror, 2011) The Satyr's Head (first published in The Satyr's Head & Other Tales of Terror, 1975) Their Cramped Dark World (first published in The Sixth Black Book of Horror, 2010)

Their Cramped Dark World and Other Tales (David A. Riley Stories)

Coined in the 1950s, Kitchen Sink described British films, plays and novels frequently set in the North of England, which showed working class life in a gritty, no-nonsense, “warts and all” style, sometimes referred to as social realism. It became popular after the playwright John Osborne wrote Look Back In Anger, simultaneously helping to create the Angry Young Men movement. Films included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Entertainer, A Taste of Honey, The L-Shaped Room and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. TV dramas included Coronation Street and East Enders. In recent years TV dramas that could rightly be described as kitchen sink gothic include Being Human, with its cast of working class vampires, werewolves and ghosts, and the zombie drama In the Flesh, with its northern working class, down to earth setting. In this anthology you will find stories that cover a wide range of Kitchen Sink Gothic, from the darkly humorous to the weirdly strange and occasionally horrific.

Kitchen Sink Gothic

Fry, Gary

Farrell, Kate

Darlington, Andrew

Bacon, Stephen

Marsh, Franklin

Jones, Benedict J.

Weird tales by some of the classic authors of the genre, including J. Sheridan Le Fanu (An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street), E. F. Benson (The Judgement Books), Vernon Lee (Oke of Okehurst), Vincent O'Sullivan (When I was Dead), Edith Wharton (The Eyes), W. C. Morrow (A Story Told by the Sea), Irvin S. Cobb (The Unbroken Chain), Edith Nesbit (From the Dead), Robert Murray Gilchrist (Witch In-Grain), Amyas Northcote (The Downs), and J. H. Riddell (The Uninhabited House).

Classic Weird 2

NESBIT, EDITH

Le Fanu, J. Sheridan

LEE, VERNON

Benson, E.F.

Cobb, Irvin S.

Morrow, W. C.

Riddell, J. H.

WHARTON,EDITH

Gilchrist, Robert Murray

Northcote, Amyas

Fishhead: The Darker Tales of Irvin S. Cobb

During his lifetime Irvin S. Cobb was one of the most celebrated writers in American literature, though nowadays he is almost forgotten, apart perhaps from his Lovecraft connection. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was born in Paducah, Kentucky on the 23rd June, 1876. His father, unable to cope with the death of his own father, succumbed to alcoholism when Cobb was only sixteen. As a result, Cobb’s education came to an end and he started work, first on the Paducah Daily News, then the Louisville Evening Post. By 1904 Cobb’s career in journalism was doing so well that he moved to New York, where he would go on to spend the rest of his life, starting work at the Evening Sun, though it wasn’t long before an assignment to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire so impressed Joseph Pulitzer that he offered Cobb a job at the New York World, where he became the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States. In 1911 Cobb moved to the Saturday Evening Post. Three years later he was asked to cover the Great War. Amongst the many stories he wrote while there were the exploits of the Harlem Hellfighters, a unit of black American soldiers who had gone on to earn distinction for their courage and discipline, which Cobb celebrated in his book The Glory of the Coming. Besides his prolific work as a journalist, Cobb’s fame largely came from his humorous stories, which were published in the leading magazines of his day, and collected in numerous books during his lifetime. But, though he was best known as a humourist, he did have a darker side, exemplified by the tales collected in this volume. Two of the most famous succeeded in catching the attention of H. P. Lovecraft. It is claimed that Fishhead influenced Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. And there is certainly no doubt that Lovecraft was favourably impressed with this tale. In his groundbreaking essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft wrote: “Fishhead, an early achievement, is banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake…” The Unbroken Chain gave Lovecraft the key idea behind The Rats in the Walls, though in all other respects the two tales are totally different. Besides writing and journalism, Cobb’s career extended to Hollywood, where legendary director, John Ford, made two films based on his books: Judge Priest (1934) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953). Other films included Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), starring Jackie Coogan, and The Woman Accused (1933), with a young Cary Grant. Cobb also did a stint at acting himself, appearing in ten movies altogether, including Pepper, Everybody’s Old Man (1936), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) and Hawaii Calls (1938). It’s a sign of the prominence he had achieved that in 1935 he was invited to host the 7th Academy Awards. Other than the tales that inspired Lovecraft, Cobb also wrote some brilliantly dark stories that culminate in a kind of sadistic irony. They are some of the finest conte cruel ever written. Amongst the best of these is the final story in this collection: Faith, Hope, and Charity, whose protagonists, as is often the case in Cobb’s stories, struggle against fates that are not only pre-ordained but are horrendously appropriate! It must be added his hapless victims are far from blameless. What fates await them under Cobb’s pen have most definitely been brought upon them by themselves! Through most of the tales there is a wry sense of humour, so wry, in fact, that it never detracts from the impact at the end; indeed, it often adds to and embellishes it! I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did and share with me the conviction that it is high time they were revived.

Andrew Darlington has had masses of material published in all manner of strange and obscure places, magazines, websites, anthologies and books. He's also worked as a Stand-Up Poet on the ‘Alternative Cabaret Circuit’, and has interviewed very many people from the worlds of Literature, SF-Fantasy, Art and Rock-Music for a variety of publications (a selection of favourite interviews collected into the ‘Headpress’ book ‘I WAS ELVIS PRESLEY’S BASTARD LOVE-CHILD’). His latest music biography is ‘DON'T CALL ME NIGGER, WHITEY: SLY STONE &amp; BLACK POWER’ (Leaky Boot Press).

A Saucerful of Secrets: Fourteen Stories of Fantasy, Warped Sci-Fi and Perverse Horror

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction

Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso is an MA graduate of Creative Writing, Swansea University Wales. His short stories, poems and non-fiction have appeared in a couple of journals, anthologies and magazines such as Emanation: Foray into Forever, Africa Roar Anthology, Open Road Review, Criterion Journal, ANA Review, Ground's Ear Anthology, Future Lovecraft, African Eyeball, Miracle e-zine, Episteme Journal, Texts on SAVVY Journal. He has been shortlisted in IdeasTap Inspires: Writers' Centre Norwich Writing competition, Ghana Poetry Prize, and Quickfox Poetry Competition. "If you would like something fresh to read with a different perspective to the usual stories that sit on a fantasy shelf then this collection might just be for you." Alex S. Bradshaw, BFS review

Haunted Grave and Other Stories: Eight Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction from the African Continent

Chukwunonso, Ezeiyoke

During his lifetime Irvin S. Cobb was one of the most celebrated writers in American literature, though nowadays he is almost forgotten, apart perhaps from his Lovecraft connection. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was born in Paducah, Kentucky on the 23rd June, 1876. His father, unable to cope with the death of his own father, succumbed to alcoholism when Cobb was only sixteen. As a result, Cobb’s education came to an end and he started work, first on the Paducah Daily News, then the Louisville Evening Post. By 1904 Cobb’s career in journalism was doing so well that he moved to New York, where he would go on to spend the rest of his life, starting work at the Evening Sun, though it wasn’t long before an assignment to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire so impressed Joseph Pulitzer that he offered Cobb a job at the New York World, where he became the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States. In 1911 Cobb moved to the Saturday Evening Post. Three years later he was asked to cover the Great War. Amongst the many stories he wrote while there were the exploits of the Harlem Hellfighters, a unit of black American soldiers who had gone on to earn distinction for their courage and discipline, which Cobb celebrated in his book The Glory of the Coming.  Besides his prolific work as a journalist, Cobb’s fame largely came from his humorous stories, which were published in the leading magazines of his day, and collected in numerous books during his lifetime. But, though he was best known as a humourist, he did have a darker side, exemplified by the tales collected in this volume. Two of the most famous succeeded in catching the attention of H. P. Lovecraft. It is claimed that Fishhead influenced Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. And there is certainly no doubt that Lovecraft was favourably impressed with this tale. In his groundbreaking essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft wrote: “Fishhead, an early achievement, is banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake…” The Unbroken Chain gave Lovecraft the key idea behind The Rats in the Walls, though in all other respects the two tales are totally different. Besides writing and journalism, Cobb’s career extended to Hollywood, where legendary director, John Ford, made two films based on his books: Judge Priest (1934) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953). Other films included Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), starring Jackie Coogan, and The Woman Accused (1933), with a young Cary Grant. Cobb also did a stint at acting himself, appearing in ten movies altogether, including Pepper, Everybody’s Old Man (1936), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) and Hawaii Calls (1938). It’s a sign of the prominence he had achieved that in 1935 he was invited to host the 7th Academy Awards. Other than the tales that inspired Lovecraft, Cobb also wrote some brilliantly dark stories that culminate in a kind of sadistic irony. They are some of the finest conte cruel ever written. Amongst the best of these is the final story in this collection: Faith, Hope, and Charity, whose protagonists, as is often the case in Cobb’s stories, struggle against fates that are not only pre-ordained but are horrendously appropriate! It must be added his hapless victims are far from blameless. What fates await them under Cobb’s pen have most definitely been brought upon them by themselves! Through most of the tales there is a wry sense of humour, so wry, in fact, that it never detracts from the impact at the end; indeed, it often adds to and embellishes it!  I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did and share with me the conviction that it is high time they were revived.

Humor & Satire

Benjamin Blake was born in the July of 1985, and grew up in the small town of Eltham, New Zealand. He is the author of the poetry and prose collections A Prayer for Late October, Southpaw Nights, and Reciting Shakespeare with the Dead. His debut novel, The Devil's Children, was published in October of 2016.  Find more of his work at www.benjaminblake.com Praise for Standing on the Threshold of Madness and Benjamin Blake  “Benjamin Blake relishes funereal lyricism with a spice of surrealism.” - Ramsey Campbell "I was most impressed with Standing on the Threshold of Madness. These dark, brooding vignettes do far more than send a shudder up one's spine (although they do that again and again, with elegance and panache). Benjamin Blake has found a way to infuse into his horrific lyrics a keen sensitivity to human emotions, an understanding of the fragility of life, and a bleak portrayal of the evanescence of all existence. This is a volume that aficionados of weird poetry will want to read over and over." - S. T. Joshi.  "Language and imagery rule in this collection of dark visions. Blake has a distinctive voice, rich in surrealism, and he uses it to considerable effect." - Bruce Boston, SFPA Grandmaster Poet “A plethora of dark and haunting poems that could be likened to a bone chilling symphony overall!  Mood enhancing language that will curdle the blood, and excellent, original imagery!” - Marge Simon, Bram Stoker Award winning poet

Standing on the Threshold of Madness

Blake, Benjamin

Poetry

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