The Cthulhu Unbound Series Soon to Turn 3

In 2009 Permuted Press published the first two volumes in in their series of Cthulhu Mythos anthologies, Cthulhu Unbound 1 and Cthulhu Unbound 2, edited by Thomas Brannan and John Sunseri. The series featuerd noted authors such as C.J. Henderson, Willie Meikle, John Goodrich, Tim Curran. D.L. Snell and others. The second volume also featured a collaboration between myself and Brain M. Sammons. Both volumes have been best sellers on Amazon.com and have received praise from both the Cthulhu Mythos and horror community.

Further information on the first two Cthulhu Unbound anthologies, the collected stories and the contributors can be found here.

The series has done so well in fact that Brian M. Sammons and I have had the honour of teaming up again to edit Cthulhu Unbound 3.

This second collection will be a little different to the first two in that we didn't collect lots of short stories, but focused instead on four Cthulhu Mythos novellas penned by some of the better known indie press horror authors active today.

Cthulhu Unbound 3 was inspired by Ramsey Campbell’s classic anthology, New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, which featured Lovecraftian tales that did not use the traditional tropes or plotlines, and produced some spectacular results from David Drake, A.A. Attanasio, Stephen King, T.E.D. Klein, and Campbell himself.

Brian and I are collaborating on one of the tales in the anthology, a new Harrison Peel adventure (the hero from my Lovecraftian novel, The Spiraling Worm) concerning his visit to a rather unusual island mysteriously appearing in the middle of the South Pacific . . .

Right now Brian and I are editing the novellas which are nearing completion. As things develop, I'll post more on who our mysterious authors are (although a bit of googling will solve the mystery) and snippets on the novellas they have written.

Three New Reviews

Found some new reviews for three of my short stories.

For “Stomach Acid” which appeared in Cthulhu Unbound 2, Matthew T Carpenter said: “Once again we and Australia's finest, Major Peel, have been asked to do the impossible, given no choice but to risk life and limb (or other organ) and sanity at the intersection between humanity and the unknowable cosmos ... I'm a big fan of both Conyers and Sammons and I have to be grateful for what we have (feel free to expand it for the next collection, guys). Stomach Acid was a fine edition to their ongoing story arc.” Read the rest of the review here.

I found this review for “Homo Canis” from 2008 Award Winning Australian Writing in an unlikely publication, the Bellarine Times. Written by Mark Farrugia he lists my story as one of his favorites. “"Homo Canis" by David Conyers, which takes a less than conventional look at corporal punishment. This story won the Australian Horror Writers Association's Flash Fiction Competition in 2007 and is an excellent example of how an abstract idea can be entertainingly expressed under 1,000 words.” Read the rest of the review here.

The Fix gave “Black Water” from Jupiter #24 an overall positvie review with: “Conyers is pretty good at evoking his future, in particular by dropping in telling little details that hint at broader goings-on outside the frame of the narrative.” Read the rest of the review here.

I’m proud to have been published in Jupiter, as I’m find its stories to be rather good compared to other magazines that are unable to pay for stories. To its credit Jupiter gets consistently good reviews from SFRevu, SFSite, SFCrowsnest and other places. I just hope that the editor, Ian Redman, makes enough in the long run to be able to transform the magazine into a professional status publication and become the next Interzone or Albedo One.

Stomach Acid: An Extract

An extract from Brian M. Sammons and my short story in Cthulhu Unbound 2 follows:

Harrison Peel woke awkwardly, worried that he sensed ripples of déjà vu. The dirty hotel room with giant bugs scampering on the ceiling remained familiar, and the air sweating like an exerted fat man in this tropical heat was as oppressive as the moment before he drifted into sleep. It was his body clock was worried him. He felt as if it were late afternoon even though his watch said early morning. Had his watch failed? Had he slept all day and not noticed?

Sitting up brought stomach acid to his throat. Then he gagged. The nausea so bad he hoped only to vomit. Several moments of retching brought up nothing, and still the nausea would not abate. To counter the acid, he drank sterile water from his canteen. He choked on that too, vomited it up as he did.

Out of bed, peering into the broken mirror, Peel saw a haggard man. He saw himself as if he were a terminally ill cancer patient. Not the self-image he had witnessed in the same mirror yesterday when he had felt good and fighting fit. What had happened to him? It terrified him that he did not know.

It was then glancing over his shoulder that he noticed the tall gangly man.

Without hesitation Peel spun his whole body, pinned the intruder against a wall. One hand locked an arm so it would be a painful exercise to resist, the other pressed against the windpipe so he could kill without effort.

"If I die, Major," the stranger gasped, "so do you."

Cthulhu Unbound 2: Harrison Peel is Back

Cthulhu Unbound 2 edited by Thomas Brannan my good friend John Sunseri has just been released by Permuted Press and you can purchase it here. This is a series of genre-blending tales with the Cthulhu Mythos as the central link between all stories. The first volume has been very successful and well received. I'm glad to have been part of the second volume.

My story in this book is written with another good friend Brian M. Sammons and it is called "Stomach Acid". This tale features former Australian Army Intelligence officer Major Harrison Peel from The Spiraling Worm, a collection/novel which I incidentally penned with John Sunseri.

In the heart of the Amazonian rainforests, Major Peel is blackmailed, when a human agent of an alien species compromises his life expectancy. The only way that Peel can live beyond a single day is to turn against the American agent, code-named Jordan, who hired him to act again the very menace that now controls Peel.

First Publication for 2009: "Six-Legged Shadows"

Just got news today from Permuted Press that Monstrous: 20 Tales of Giant Creature Terror will be in bookstores in the coming weeks, and it includes my first published short story for 2009. My contribution is “Six-Legged Shadows” co-authored with Brian M. Sammons is a space opera tale set in the far future. Humans have returned to Earth after an absence of tens of thousands of years to find no traces of their ancestors, and in their place giant creatures rule the world.

The Monstrous anthology is edited by Ryan C. Thomas and features a story by another writer I respect and who I have worked with many times in the past, Cody Goodfellow. If you enjoy your giant monster stories, then I highly recommend this collection.

On related news I recently learnt that the other Permuted Press anthology that I’m appearing in this year, Cthulhu Unbound 2, will go to print soon. Purely by coincidence this short story “Stomach Acid” is another collaboration with Brian M. Sammons. Set in the Amazon jungle, this is a new Harrison Peel tale and his first encounter with Lovecraft’s aliens from “The Whisperer in Darkness”.