Madness on the Orient Express: 16 Lovecraftian Tales of an Unforgettable Journey
Page 31
ROBIN D. LAWS is the author of the recent fantasy novel Blood of the City and New Tales of the Yellow Sign, a collection of weird works. Other novels include Pierced Heart and The Worldwound Gambit. As creative director for Stone Skin Press, he has edited such anthologies as Shotguns v. Cthulhu and The Lion and the Aardvark. He is best known for his groundbreaking roleplaying game design work, as seen in The Esoterrorists, HeroQuest, Feng Shui, and, most recently, Hillfolk. He comprises one-half of the Golden Geek Award-winning podcast Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, and can be found online at robindlaws.com.
PENELOPE LOVE was one of the original contributors to 1991’s Horror on the Orient Express roleplaying campaign and has returned for the revised edition. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies including Cthulhu’s Dark Cults, Made in Goatswood, and The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror. In 2009 she and Mark Morrison retraced the Orient Express route, traveling from London to Istanbul by train, although not, alas, on the Simplon-Venice Orient Express. She used her experience of the train ride on the delightful, but aging Bosphorus Express through Turkey as background for her story in this collection, which focuses on the last days of the original Orient Express. The real train is far more charming than the one depicted here.
JAMES LOWDER has worked extensively on both sides of the editorial blotter. He has directed book lines or series for both large and small houses, and has helmed more than twenty critically acclaimed anthologies, including Curse of the Full Moon, Hobby Games: The 100 Best, Beyond the Wall, and the Books of Flesh trilogy. As an author, his publications include the bestselling, widely translated dark fantasy novels Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose; short fiction for such anthologies as Shadows Over Baker Street and Sojourn: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction; and comic book scripts for DC, Image, and Moonstone. His work has received five Origins Awards and an ENnie Award, and been nominated for the International Horror Guild Award and the Stoker Award. He can be found online at jameslowder.com.
ARI MARMELL would love to tell you all about the various esoteric jobs he held and the wacky adventures he had on the way to becoming an author, since that’s what other authors seem to do in these sections. Unfortunately, he doesn’t actually have any, as the most exciting thing about his professional life, besides his novel writing, is the work he’s done for Dungeons & Dragons and other roleplaying games. His published fiction consists of both fully original works and licensed/tie-in projects—including works for the Darksiders and Magic: the Gathering lines—for publishers such as Del Rey, Pyr Books, Titan Books, and Wizards of the Coast. Ari currently lives in an apartment that’s almost as cluttered as his subconscious, which he shares (the apartment, not the subconscious, though sometimes it seems like it) with George—his wife—and a cat who really, really thinks it’s dinnertime. You can find Ari online at mouseferatu.com and on Twitter @mouseferatu.
LISA MORTON is an award-winning author, screenwriter, and Halloween expert whose work was described by the American Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.” Her short fiction has most recently been seen in The Mammoth Book of Psycho-Mania, Dark Fusion, Shadow Masters, Danse Macabre, and Zombie Apocalypse: Fightback, and her acclaimed non-fiction study Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween was released in trade paperback in 2013. Other recent and forthcoming books include the novellas “Smog” (part of Double Down #2) and “Summer’s End,” the novels Malediction and Netherworld, and the tie-in novel Zombie Apocalypse: Washington Deceased. She lives in North Hollywood, California, and online at lisamorton.com.
DARRELL SCHWEIZTER is the former co-editor of Weird Tales (for nineteen years), a four-time World Fantasy Award nominee (and one-time winner, for Weird Tales), and the author of three novels: The White Isle, The Shattered Goddess, and The Mask of the Sorcerer. His novella “Living with the Dead” was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award. His over three hundred stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and have been gathered in eight collections so far, the most recent of which is The Emperor of the Ancient Word. He has published books about H.P. Lovecraft and Lord Dunsany, and is a critic, reviewer, poet, and one of the few people ever to rhyme Cthulhu in a limerick. He has edited anthologies, including two in the Cthulhu Mythos, Cthulhu’s Reign and That is Not Dead. A collection of his own Mythos stories is forthcoming.
LUCIEN SOULBAN, a veteran of the games industry for both tabletop games and videogames, with over twenty-one years of collective experience. Or as he puts it: he’s a professional geek who loves making a living at being a nerd. Lucien is a BAFTA-nominated videogame scriptwriter and lead scriptwriter at Ubisoft Montreal, who has worked on Far Cry 4, Far Cry 3, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War. That’s not counting the dozen-plus handheld games he’s written, including adaptations of The Golden Compass, Enchanted, and Kung Fu Panda. He’s contributed to numerous anthologies including HWA’s comedy-horror anthologies: Blood Lite I, II, and III. He’s also written five novels, including Warhammer 40K: Desert Raiders and Dragonlance: Renegade Wizards, and worked on over ninety roleplaying books as writer and editor. All this he does from Montreal, Quebec, the city he loves.
C.A. SULEIMAN has contributed scores of books for some of publishing’s top properties, including Dungeons & Dragons and the World of Darkness. Along with being the creator and developer of the award-winning occult horror RPG Mummy: The Curse, he is the creator of the Hamunaptra fantasy setting, co-creator and editor of The Lost Citadel shared world, and the co-author of Vampire: The Requiem. He is especially proud to have shepherded development of the world’s first fantasy campaign setting—Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor—until its storied creator’s passing in 2009. C.A. lives in the Washington area, where his band, Toll Carom, has either just released or is busy toiling away at its latest concept album. Despite the many and varied protestations of his better judgment, he finds himself a regular contributor to the Facebook.
JAMES L. SUTTER is a co-creator of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the managing editor for Paizo Publishing. He is the author of the novels Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine, the former of which was ranked #3 on Barnes & Noble’s list of the Best Fantasy Releases of 2011, as well as a finalist for both the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel and a 2013 Origins Award. James has written numerous short stories for such publications as Escape Pod, Apex Magazine, Shattered Shields, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Geek Love, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death. His anthology Before They Were Giants pairs the first published short stories of science fiction and fantasy luminaries with new interviews and writing advice from the authors themselves. In addition, he’s published a wealth of gaming material for both Dungeons & Dragons and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. For more information, visit jameslsutter.com or follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter. The Simplon Tunnel and the problems described in its construction are real. What may reside at the mountain’s heart remains unknown.
SELECTED CHAOSIUM FICTION
ARKHAM TALES
#6038
ISBN 1-56882-185-9
$15.95
STORIES OF THE LEGEND-HAUNTED CITY: Nestled along the Massachusetts coast is the small town of Arkham. For centuries it has been the source of countless rumor and legend. Those who return whisper tales of Arkham, each telling a different and remarkable account. Reports of impossible occurrences, peculiar happenings and bizarre events, tales that test sanity are found here. Magic, mysteries, monsters, mayhem, and ancient malignancies form the foundation of this unforgettable, centuries-old town. 288 pages.
CTHULHU’S DARK CULTS
#6044
ISBN 1-56882-235-9
$14.95
CHAOSIUM’S CALL OF CTHULHU® IS AN ENDLESS SOURCE of imagination of all things dark and mysterious. Here we journey across the globe to witness the numerous and diverse cults that worship Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones. Lead
by powerful sorcerers and fanatical necromancers, their followers are mad and deranged slaves, and the ancient and alien gods whom they willingly devote themselves are truly terrifying. These cults control real power, for they are the real secret masters of our world.
ELDRITCH CHROME
#6052
ISBN 9781568823898
$17.95
UNQUIET TALES OF A MYTHOS-HAUNTED FUTURE: during the decades since H.P. Lovecraft first wrote of the Cthulhu Mythos, many authors have crossed his themes into other genres, enhancing his original vision with stories taking place in the distant past, in the far-flung future, and in myriad places in-between.
Cyberpunk tales are written in dark, gritty, film-noir styles. Their protagonists live and die at the bottom echelon of an electronic society gone awry. They may be seedier, poorer, and less inclined to make moral judgements than stoic Lovecraftian New Englanders, but in Cyberpunk-Cthulhu tales they encounter the same horrors as their more-genteel predecessors.
Confronting monstrous entities and fiends from beyond space and time, the Cyberpunk-Cthulhu hero may wield high-tech weapons and have other advances at his or her disposal. To beings where time has no meaning and whose technologically is so advanced that their actions seem supernatural or powered by magic, no human finds an advantage.
This is the Cyberpunk-Cthulhu world—mythos horrors lurk at the edge of society, mythos-altered technology infects human beings, dark gods lurk in cyberspace, and huge corporations rule society while bowing to entities inimical to humankind. 272 pages.
ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS
#6048
ISBN 1-56882-349-5
$15.95
ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS is the first collection of short stories by Lois H. Gresh, one of the most talented writers working these days in the realms of imagination.
These tales of weird fiction blend elements wrung from science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror. Some stories are bent toward bizarre science, others are Lovecraftian Mythos tales, and yet others are just twisted. They all share an underlying darkness, pushing Lovecraftian science and themes in new directions. While H.P. Lovecraft incorporated the astronomy and physics ideas of his day (e.g., cosmos-within-cosmos and other dimensions), these stories speculate about modern science: quantum optics, particle physics, chaos theory, string theory, and so forth. Full of unique ideas, bizarre plot twists, and fascinating characters, these tales show a feel for pacing and structure, and a wild sense of humor. They always surprise and delight.
FRONTIER CTHULHU
#6041
ISBN 1-56882-219-7
$14.95
AS EXPLORERS CONQUERED THE FRONTIERS of North America, they disturbed sleeping terrors and things long forgotten by humanity. Journey into the undiscovered country where fierce Vikings struggle against monstrous abominations. Travel with European colonists as they learn of buried secrets and the creatures guarding ancient knowledge. Go west across the plains, into the territories were sorcerers dwell in demon-haunted lands, and cowboys confront cosmic horrors.
MYSTERIES OF THE WORM
#6047
ISBN 1-56882-176-X
$15.95
Robert Bloch has become one with his fictional counterpart Ludvig Prinn: future generations of readers will know him as an eldritch name hovering over a body of nightmare texts. To know them will be to know him. And thus we have decided to release a new and expanded third edition of Robert Bloch’s Mysteries of the Worm. This collection contains four more Mythos tales–”The Opener of the Way”, “The Eyes of the Mummy”, “Black Bargain”, and “Philtre Tip”–not included in the first two editions.
By Robert Bloch, edited and prefaced by Robert M. Price; Cover by Steven Gilberts. 300 pages, illustrated. Trade Paperback.
NECRONOMICON
#6034
ISBN 1-56882-162-X
$19.95
EXPANDED AND REVISED—Although skeptics claim that the Necronomicon is a fantastic tome created by H. P. Lovecraft, true seekers into the esoteric mysteries of the world know the truth: the Necronomicon is the blasphemous tome of forbidden knowledge written by the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred. Even today, after attempts over the centuries to destroy any and all copies in any language, some few copies still exist, secreted away.
Within this book you will find stories about the Necronomicon, different versions of the Necronomicon, and two essays on this blasphemous tome. Now you too may learn the true lore of Abdul Alhazred.
STEAMPUNK CTHULHU
#6054
ISBN 9781568823942
$18.95
“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
So said H.P. Lovecraft in the first chapter of his most famous story, “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926). This is also the perfect introduction to Steampunk Cthulhu, for within these stories mankind has indeed voyaged too far, and scientific innovations have opened terrifying vistas of reality, with insanity and worse as the only reward.
The Steampunk genre has always incorporated elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror and alternative history, and certainly the Cthulhu Mythos has not been a stranger to Steampunk. But until now there has never been a Steampunk Cthulhu collection, so here are 18 tales unbound from the tethers of mere airships, goggles, clockwork, and tightly bound corsets; stories of horror, sci-fi, fantasy and alternative realities tainted with the Lovecraftian and the Cthulhu Mythos. Here you will discover Victorian Britain, the Wild West era United States, and many other varied locations filled with anachronistic and sometimes alien technology, airships, submersibles and Bab-bage engines. But the Victorian era here is not only one of innovation and exploration, but of destruction and dread. 310 pages.
TALES OUT OF INNSMOUTH
#6024
ISBN 1-56882-201-4
$16.95
A shadow hangs over Innsmouth, home of the mysterious deep ones, and the secretive Esoteric Order of Dagon. An air of mystery and fear looms… waiting. Now you can return to Innsmouth in this second collection of short stories about the children of Dagon. Visit the undersea city of Y’ha-nthlei and discover the secrets of Father Dagon in this collection of stories. This anthology includes 10 new tales and three classic reprints concerning the shunned town of Innsmouth.
THE THREE IMPOSTORS
#6030
ISBN 1-56882-132-8
$14.95
SOME OF THE FINEST HORROR STORIES ever written. Arthur Machen had a profound impact upon H. P. Lovecraft and the group of stories that would later become known as the Cthulhu Mythos.
H. P. Lovecraft declared Arthur Machen (1863–1947) to be a modern master who could create “cosmic fear raised to it’s most artistic pitch.” In these eerie and once-shocking stories, supernatural horror is a transmuting force powered by the core of life. To resist it requires great will from the living, for civilization is only a new way to behave, and not one instinctive to life. Decency prevents discussion about such pressures, so each person must face such things alone. The comforts and hopes of civilization are threatened and undermined by these ecstatic nightmares that haunt the living. This is nowhere more deftly suggested than through Machen’s extraordinary prose, where the textures and dreams of the Old Ways are never far removed.
THE WHITE PEOPLE & OTHER STORIES
#6035
ISBN 1-56882-147-6
$14.95
THE BEST WEIRD TALES OF ARTHUR MACHEN, VOL 2.—Born in Wales in 1863, Machen was a London journalist for much of his life. Among his fiction, he may be best known for the allusive, haunting title story of this book, “The White People”, which H. P. Lovecraft thought to be the secon
d greatest horror story ever written (after Blackwood’s “The Willows”). This wide ranging collection also includes the crystalline novelette “A Fragment of Life”, the “Angel of Mons” (a story so coolly reported that it was imagined true by millions in the grim initial days of the Great War), and “The Great Return”, telling of the stately visions which graced the Welsh village of Llantristant for a time. Four more tales and the poetical “Ornaments in Jade” are all finely told. This is the second of three Machen volumes to be edited by S. T. Joshi and published by Chaosium; the first volume is The Three Impostors. 294 pages.
EXTREME PLANETS
#6055
ISBN 1-56882-393-2
$18.95
Introduced by Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author David Brin. Featuring stories from David Brin and Gregory Benford, Brian Stableford, Peter Watts, G. David Nordley, Jay Caselberg and many more.
“A stellar line-up of writers presenting the most exotic worlds imaginable—prepare to have your mind blown!”—Sean Williams, Author of Saturn Returns and Twinmaker
TWO DECADES AGO ASTRONOMERS CONFIRMED the existence of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. Today more than 800 such worlds have been identified, and scientists now estimate that at least 160 billion star-bound planets are to be found in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. But more surprising is just how diverse and bizarre those worlds are.
Extreme Planets is a science fiction anthology of stories set on alien worlds that push the limits of what we once believed possible in a planetary environment. Visit the bizarre moons, dwarf planets and asteroids of our own Solar Systems, and in the deeper reaches of space encounter super-Earths with extreme gravity fields, carbon planets featuring mountain ranges of pure diamond, and ocean worlds shrouded by seas hundreds of kilometers thick. The challenges these environments present to the humans that explore and colonise them are many, and are the subject matter of these tales.