"The Eldritch Force" in Lovecraft eZine

I've recently appeared in "The Eldritch Force" A Cthulhu Mythos Round Robin with Peter Rawlik, Glynn Owen Barrass, Brian M. Sammons, Bruce L. Priddy, Robert M. Price, Rick Lai and myself. This one features superheros in a Post World War Two setting.

This is my second publication with Lovecraft eZine, and I'm proud to have teamed up with such a talented bunch of authors.

Read the story here.

Two Honourable Mentions for "The R'lyeh Singularity"

"The R'lyeh Singularity" which appeared in Permuted Press's Cthulhu Unbound 3 has gathered numerous positive reviews has now received honour mentions in two Year's Best collections.

The first is in Best Horror of the Year Vol. 5 edited Ellen Datlow and the second in The Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror, 2012 edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene.

Some reviews on "The R'lyeh Singularity" on Amazon.com:

"Conyers has an elegant grasp on quantum physics, while Sammons knows how to get all the "big military toys" in the sandbox. They both fuse together to create some kind of mad orchestrator that doles out awesomeness by the handfuls."

"For those interested in seeing how the American government might handle national security threats of the Cthulhu-kind, I would say this one is worth the price of admission on its own."

"I devoured "The R'lyeh Singularity" in a single sitting, turned back to the opening page and did it again. This is a big budget Hollywood summer movie in novella form, though far smarter than anything Michael Bay would bring to theaters."

"The story was high energy spy thriller that integrates the horror of the Cthulhu mythos effortlessly."

Undead & Unbound on the Shelves

My latest anthology edited with Brian M. Sammons, Undead & Unbound, has just been released on Amazon.com.

 



 

 

Undead & Unbound  celebrates those who have returned from the grave — in all their glory and in whatever form they take. You will find the famous blood-drinkers and flesh eaters here, but also ghosts, patched-together reanimates, fiends of myth and folklore, and some not-so-easily-identifiable creatures from beyond the grave.

Nineteen tales take the undead to their limits. From the distant past to the far-flung future, and to all corners of the Earth, the undead are eternal and everywhere: symbiotes, parasites, monster mash-ups and ghoulish grins, bleak tales of inescapable dread, an ancient evil from a far-away land with unspeakable dietary needs, a boy and his…well, it’s not a dog. History is brought to (un)life. Ghosts, specters, phantoms and haunts of every sort. Not-so-easily-classifiable stories that do new things with the basic premise of what’s alive, what’s dead, and what’s neither.

And yes, you lovers of all things zombie—fear-not, for your favorite flesh eaters are here but, thankfully, not exactly as you would expect them.

Undead & Unbound celebrates all things from beyond the grave, the different, and no matter how old the bones, new life can always be found.

Selected and edited by Brian M. Sammons and David Conyers. Cover art by Paul Mudie. 288 pages. Trade Paperback.

The Tales Included:

• Blind Item by Cody Goodfellow
• Dead Baby Keychain Blues by Gary McMahon
• A Personal Apocalypse by Mercedes M. Yardley
• The Unexpectedby Mark Allan Gunnells
• Incarnate by David Dunwoody
• Marionettes by Robert Neilson
• Undead Night of the Undeadest Undead by C.J. Henderson
• I Am Legion by Robert M. Price
• When Dark Things Sleep by Damien Walters Grintalis
• Descanse En Paz by William Meikle
• Thunder in Old Kilpatrick by Gustavo Bondoni
• Phallus Incarnate by Glynn Owen Barrass
• Wreckers by Tom Lynch
• Scavenger by Oscar Rios
• In the House of Millions of Years by John Goodrich
• Romero 2.0 by Brian M. Sammons and David Conyers
• Mother Blood by Scott David Aniolowski
• The Unforgiving Court by David Schembri
• North of the Arctic Circle by Peter Rawlik

Cthulhu Unbound 3 Australian Shadows Finalist

I am pleased to announce that Brian M Sammons and I have made the finalist list for Australia's top horror fiction award, the Australian Shadows in the Edited Publication category. This is the fourth time I've been nominated for the award, and maybe this year I might win, but I'm up against some strong competition with Surviving to the End by Craig Bezant and The Year's Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2011 by LizGrzyb and Talie Helene, so I don't think it is likely.

On related news, Cthulhu Unound 3 is now available in paperback from Amazon. If you are looking for a reason to buy this book, here is a recent review from Hellnotes:

"All in all, I highly recommend CTHULHU UNBOUND 3: it’s a great collection of recent novellas that blend traditional Lovecraftian themes with other genres."

Cthulhu Unbound 3 and "The R'lyeh Singularity" Reviews

Cthulhu Unbound 3, and my Brian M. Sammons co-authored novella in the anthology "The R'lyeh Singularity", has been receiving some positive reviews of late and its sales figures on Amazon.com are rocketing up the sales list. Here are excerpts some of them that I thought I might share if you are thinking about purchasing this anthology and are undecided:

CTHULHU UNBOUND 3

Cthulhu Unbound 3 is a collection of four novellas, marrying Lovecraft’s vision to another genre. Beyond the connections to the Cthulhu Mythos, there is no other underlying theme, excepting that each story seems to climax in feces-against-rotating-blades insanity. Each story is penned by great talents in the weird-fiction realm and it shows. - Bruce Priddy, Horror Novel Reviews

These guys form into the "Avengerspendables" and deal out quite a bit of "literary punishment" through the course of the four novellas on display here. - David Anderson, Amazon.com

THE R'LYEH SINGULARITY

I devoured “The R’lyeh Singularity” in a single sitting, turned back to the opening page and did it again. This is a big budget Hollywood summer movie in novella form, though far smarter than anything Michael Bay would bring to theaters. Lovecraft’s most famous creation makes an appearance here; as told by Conyers and Sammons, the Great Old One warps reality by Its very presence. How they handle this in the story is brilliant. To say more would ruin it for you. I would love to see this translated to the big screen. - Bruce Priddy, Horror Novel Reviews

Conyers has an elegant grasp on quantum physics, while Sammons knows how to get all the "big military toys" in the sandbox. They both fuse together to create some kind of mad orchestrator that doles out awesomeness by the handfuls. - David Anderson, Amazon.com

The pace is excellent. For those interested in seeing how the American government might handle national security threats of the Cthulhu-kind, I would say this one is worth the price of admission on its own - Historicool, Amazon.com

Amazon Review of "The R'lyeh Singularity"

Very cool review of Cthulhu Unbound 3 and "The R'lyeh Singularity" by David Anderson has recently turned up on Amazon:

In "The R'lyeh Singularity", it seems like David Conyers normal knowledge of the military and spy agencies is enhanced, and I can only guess this is due to the involvement of Brian M. Sammons, who clearly has a love for this kind of thing. That is a staple of the series, the military action, but here it is just cranked to the max, and as a result we get a very harrowing and realistic Naval battle sequence, complete with aircraft. Conyers has an elegant grasp on quantum physics, while Sammons knows how to get all the "big military toys" in the sandbox. They both fuse together to create some kind of mad orchestrator that doles out awesomeness by the handfuls.

I feel very accomplished.

Cthulhu Unbound 3

The third volume of Cthulhu Unbound has just been released by Permuted Press as an e-book, and was edited by Brian M. Sammons and myself.

Here is the blurb:

The third volume of the Cthulhu Unbound series plunges deeper than ever into daring new visions of H.P. Lovecraft’s universe in four all-new novellas by five masters of the new weird tale.

This is cosmic horror as you've never seen it before. This is the Mythos in many colors, many guises. This is Cthulhu Unbound!

UNSEEN EMPIRE (Cody Goodfellow): A half-Comanche bounty hunter tracks his diabolical superhuman quarry across the Wild West and into a lost subterranean city of madness and living death beneath the Oklahoma badlands.

MIRRORRORRIM (D.L. Snell): A desperate patient seeking answers in therapy sessions for self-mutilators discovers he is incomplete in ways he never could have imagined.

NEMESIS THEORY (Tim Curran): A convict locked away in a maximum security prison has nothing left to fear, except the newest inmate: the man he murdered three years ago.

THE R'LYEH SINGULARITY (David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons): An Australian spy and a CIA operative join forces to uncover a global corporation plotting the new frontier of bio-weaponry research, using alien blood extracted from something lurking underneath the Pacific Ocean. "The R'lyeh Singularity" continues the saga of NSA consultant Harrison Peel (The Spiraling Worm and The Eye of Infinity).

The House of R'lyeh Announced

Chaosium have just announced their next book, which I co-edited with Glyn White and contributed one and a half gaming scenarios. Out in Winter 2012 (or Summer 2012 if you live on the opposite side of the world to me).

THE HOUSE OF R'LYEH

Five Scenarios Based on H.P. Lovecraft Tales

Cover Art by Scott Purdy

The House of R’lyeh contains five scenarios that closely follow the events of H.P. Lovecraft stories. They are set in Boston, Providence, the British Isles, continental Europe and the Middle East. None of the scenarios need to be played at set dates or in a set order, but they could be run in the order presented to form a loose campaign using optional links between scenarios to draw investigators from one to the other.

Alternatively, the scenarios may be used to supplement classic Call of Cthulhu campaigns such as The Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and The Fungi from Yuggoth, the latter currently in print as The Day of the Beast, both of which suggest their component scenarios should be interspersed with others.

The first scenario in this book, “The Art of Madness” (Brian Courtemanche) follows on from the events of the Lovecraft tale “Pickman’s Model”. Artist of the macabre, Richard Upton Pickman, is now a ghoul living a subterranean netherworld beneath Boston creating a new school of art. There are several ways that player characters might be drawn into investigating his macabre activities and, while dangerous, Pickman’s intent is not particularly lethal. The difficulty for investigators will be to resolve the situation without becoming compromised.

While in New England, the investigators discover “The Crystal of Chaos” (Peter Gilham with David Conyers), a retelling of the events of Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark”. Hired by professors of Miskatonic University, the investigator seek out a fabled crystal with origins in Ancient Egypt, but they soon find a far greater evil lurks in an abandoned church in Providence. This scenario originally appeared in Different Worlds issue 34, May/June 1984, and has been expanded and revised in this publication.

“The Return of the Hound” (Glyn White) draws investigators an auction in Yorkshire, in England, where a rare edition of the Necronomicon is going to be sold. The previous owners, the decadent occultists from Lovecraft’s “The Hound”, are dead, as that tale recounts, but what they unearthed in ‘a Holland churchyard’ has grown strong, and has schemes of its own to fulfill. The amount of danger the investigators face is dependent on how determined they are not to let this Necronomicon fall into the wrong hands.

“The Jermyn Horror” (David Conyers) takes place in Britain, beginning in London and then moving to Huntingdon with the investigators seeking a rare edition of Regnum Congo, reputedly to be found in the crumbling estate of the deceased Jermyn family as described in Lovecraft’s “Arthur Jermyn”. The search is imperiled by a creature that a Jermyn brought back from the Congo some three hundred years ago that haunts the mansion seeking a human vessel for its escape.

“Nameless City, Nameless Terrors” (Brian M. Sammons) concludes this collection with an expedition into the heart of Arabia’s Empty Quarter in search of Irem as described in Lovecraft’s “The Nameless City”. This scenario requires investigators to risk their bodies and their minds as, in the midst of the desolate ruins of Irem, the investigators learn something of the nature of the Great Old Ones, and perhaps forestall the rising of Cthulhu from his watery grave.

Undead & Unbound Cover Art by Paul Mudie

Here is the cover art for the anthology Undead & Unbound by the very talented UK artist Paul Mudie.
   

The anthology, edited by Brian M. Sammons and myself shall be released by Chaosium Inc. later this year. The illustration features elements from the included stories "I Am Legion", "Thunder in Old Kilpatrick", "Descanse En Paz", "Mother Blood" and "In the House of a Million Years".

Eldritch Chrome featuring "Playgrounds of Angolaland"

Every now and then editors come up with fantastic ideas for anthologies that resonate with the tones of ‘why hasn’t someone done this before’, so when Brian M Sammons and Glynn Barrass came up with the idea for a cross-genre of Cyberpunk and Cthulhu Mythos stories, Eldritch Chrome, I had to submit something. Thankfully my story, “Playgrounds of Angolaland” was accepted. Set in Antarctica, my tale involves a cyberteam out to scam a corporation that has made one too many unwholesome deals with elder alien beings. Oh, and it is kind of a Harrison Peel tale.
Here is the table of contents, in no particular order:
 
Eldritch Chrome

• “Playgrounds of Angolaland” by David Conyers
• “The Blowfly Manifesto” by Tim Curran
• “SymbiOS” by William Meikle
• “Obsolete, Absolute” by Robert M. Price
• “Open Minded” by Jeffrey Thomas
• “The Battle of Arkham” by Peter Rawlik
• “The Wurms in the Grid” by Nickolas Cook
• “Of Fractals, Fantomes, Frederic and Filrodj” by John Shirley
• “The Gauntlet” by Glynn Barrass and Brian M. Sammons
• “Indifference” by CJ Henderson
• “Dreams of Death” by Lois Gresh
• “Inlibration” by Michael Tice
• “Immune” by Terrie Leigh Relf
• “Hope Abandoned” by Tom Lynch
• “Sonar City” by Sam Stone
• “The Place that Cannot Be” by D.L. Snell
• “Flesh and Scales” by Ran Cartwright
• “Real Gone” by David Dunwoody
• “CL3ANS3” by Carrie Cuinn

To be published by Chaosium some time in 2012. More details as they occur.

Coming Soon: Undead & Unbound

A new anthology edited by Brian M. Sammons and myself, hopefully out later this year. Here is the (unofficial) blurb and author list:

Undead & Unbound

 

Undead: from ancient mummies to shrunken heads and floating vampire heads, from medieval warrior wights to conquistador skeletons and resurrected faeries, the undead haunt in many and unexpected guises.

Unbound: from the jungles of South America to the gold fields of the Wild West, in occupied Europe and along the banks of the Nile, to the ice fields of the North Pole and the wastelands of Mars, nowhere is safe from undead infestation.

Undead & Unbound: A collection of nineteen new horror stories by twenty leading horror authors from across the globe.

• “Blind Item” by Cody Goodfellow
• “Dead Baby Keychain Blues” by Gary McMahon
• “A Personal Apocalypse” by Mercedes M. Yardley
• “The Unexpected” by Mark Allan Gunnells
• “Incarnate” by David Dunwoody
• “Marionettes” by Robert Neilson
• “Undead Night of the Undeadest Undead” by C.J. Henderson
• “I Am Legion” by Robert M. Price
• “When Dark Things Sleep” by Damien Walters Grintalis
• “Descanse En Paz” by William Meikle
• “Thunder in Old Kilpatrick” by Gustavo Bondoni
• “Phallus Incarnate” by Glynn Owen Barrass
• “Wreckers” by Tom Lynch
• “Scavenger” by Oscar Rios
• “In the House of Millions of Years” by John Goodrich
• “Romero 2.0” by Brian M. Sammons and David Conyers
• “Mother Blood” by Scott David Aniolowski
• “The Unforgiving Court” by David Schembri
• “North of the Arctic Circle” by Peter Rawlik

Published by Chaosium.

New Anthology Submission Guidelines from Chaosium

Chaosium is making a big push into the speculative fiction anthology market at the moment. Here are some of the anthologies looking for submissions, one of which I'm co-editing:

• Extreme Planets edited by David Conyers, David Kernot and Jeff Harris (science fiction)
• The Edge of Sundown edited by Brian M. Sammons and Kevin Ross (western horror)
• Mark of the Beast edited by Scott David Aniolowski (werewolf horror)

Undead and Unbound

Now that all rejections have been sent and acceptances have been made, the news is out. In our follow up to Cthulhu Unbound 3, Brian M. Sammons and I have teamed up again for a new anthology, Undead and Unbound.

In this horror anthology you will find animated shrunken heads, warrior wights, conquistador skeletons, undead faeries, zombies on Mars, mummifed pharoahs, Malaysian floating head vampires and plenty of other unusual undead.

He is the table of contents, in no particular order, featuring some very talented authors from across the globe:

• Mother Blood by Scott David Aniolowski
• Phallus Incarnate by Glynn Owen Barrass
• Thunder in Old Kilpatrick by Gustavo Bondoni
• Incarnate by David Dunwoody
• Blind Item by Cody Goodfellow
• In the House of a Million Years by John Goodrich
• When Dark Things Sleep by Damien Walters Grintalis
• The Unexpected by Mark Allan Gunnells
• Undead Night of the Undeadest Undead by C.J. Henderson
• The Wreckers by Tom Lynch
• Dead Baby Keychain Blues by Gary McMahon
• Descanse En Paz by William Meikle
• Marionettes by Robert Neilson
• I am Legion by Robert M. Price
• North of the Arctic Circle by Pete Rawlik
• Scavengers by Oscar Rios
• Romero 2.0 by Brian M. Sammons & David Conyers
• The Unforgiving Court by David Schembri
• A Personal Apocalypse by Mercedes Murdock Yardley

I must say I'm really impressed with the talent we managed to secure. There are some familiar names (to me) in the list, authors whom I've worked with before and am pleased to work with them again, but there were also some fantastic contributions from authors I wasn't aware of, towards whom I have now come to realise how good and how prolific they are.

 

Undead and Unbound will be published by Chaosium in 2012.

 

Stay tuned, more when I can say more...

Announcement: Cthulhu Unbound 3

Forthcoming from Permuted Press, Cthulhu Unbound 3.

In a successful series started by John Sunseri and Thom Brannan, Cthulhu Unbound 3 presents four novellas of Lovecraftian horror. Cody Goodfellow's "Unseen Empire" returns to the wild west in an exploration of a cavernous city under the American Plains. D.L. Snell's "MirrorrorriM" shows us just how weird the Cthulhu Mythos can be when truly embraced. Tim Curran's "Nemisis Theory" investigates what a man would do if he was trapped in a maximum security prison with horrors from beyond. David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons' "The R'lyeh Singularity" continues the saga of NSA consultant Harrison Peel and CIA agent Jordan on a globe espionage adventure to halt the return of the greatest of the Great Old Ones.

Edited by Brian M. Sammons and David Conyers. Cover illustration by Peter C. Fussey. Published by Permuted Press. Anticipated 2012 release.

 

The Eye of Infinity Reviewed on Horrorscope

The Eye of Infinity has just been reviewed by Shane Jiraiya Cummings on Horrorscope.com.au, the first review for my new Major Harrison Peel release, which should be back from the printers any day now:

The Eye of Infinity is a standalone novella and the latest in a series of Cthulhu Mythos-style adventures featuring protagonist Major Harrison Peel. In the novella, Peel has retired from the Australian armed forces (following the catastrophic events in The Spiraling Worm) and now works as a consultant for the USA's National Security Agency (NSA). He struggles to balance his home life with long-term girlfriend Nicola and his duties as a 'spook' on the frontline protecting mankind from alien incursions.

But The Eye of Infinity is no Men in Black pastiche, with cute aliens to befriend and singular enemies to defeat. David Conyers dredges up all the dark creations of cosmic dread spawned from H. P. Lovecraft's imagination and gives them a modern twist. Men and women like Harrison, Nicola, and NSA agent Jack Dixon fight the almost futile fight to keep shoggoths and star spawn from our door, and unfortunately for them, their victories are always Pyrrhic.


Central to The Eye of Infinity is the concept of subjective reality. Can we believe what we see in the deep, dark reaches of space? To a less indoctrinated mind, the vast expanse of stars and galaxies could be celestial dragons or roiling, living chaos. In the multi-dimensional adventure of The Eye of Infinity, this is exactly how reality is portrayed. Knowing that reality hinges on the fragility of the human mind - and that the horrors experienced by protagonist Harrison Peel could be wrought by his own mind - is a terrifying concept. What if malevolent alien wills were shaping the human race into their own dark image ... and we were convinced this was in our best interest? This is the question posed by Conyers - and it is a compelling one.


David Conyers has grappled with the true, terrifying nature of evil in his previous Mythos stories - most notably, The Spiraling Worm, his collaboration with John Sunseri - but in The Eye of Infinity, he has succeeded in showing the reader just how insignificant humanity is in the grand scheme of the universe. At the same time, Conyers' hero Harrison Peel has to contend with rogue elements in his own (adopted) government, which when contrasted with the scale of the forces threatening to engulf humanity, highlights the petty nature of humanity.


Conyers' interpretation of the Outer God Azathoth is revolutionary. In keeping with Lovecraftian tradition, Conyers manages to evoke cosmic horror on a grand scale, and yet, he simultaneously applies scientific principles by describing the god in terms of quantum physics as a force above and beyond nature.


While not the rollicking adventure of The Spiraling Worm, The Eye of Infinity is a well-crafted tale of espionage and counter-terrorism (of the alien, reality-warping kind) that is permeated by a sense of loneliness. Peel struggles against the threat of unimaginable forces, and he can't even open up to his girlfriend or accept the happiness of a mundane life.


Although the relationship between Peel and Nicola is critical to the story and Peel's motivations, the dialogue and emotions expressed felt stilted in places. While Conyers excels at making impossible dread possible, he needs to flex his authorial muscles more when it comes to romance and the nuances of relationships. Much of the interaction was good, but there were a few discordant notes in the dialogue and characters' actions that portrayed them as somewhat wooden.


However, the sense of loneliness came through strongest when Peel was travelling the cyclopean wastes of other worlds. It was fantastic to see the development of Harrison Peel's human side. Over the course of The Spiraling Worm, Conyers gave Peel a compelling character arc from naive but tough military man to a dying martyr filled with regret. Miraculously cured of his fatal disease at the end of The Spiraling Worm, Peel has become a more three dimensional character in The Eye of Infinity. Peel's inner struggles with his life's direction, his doubts, and more importantly, his fears (based on previous near-death experiences with shoggoths and other creatures) are the threads upon which the plot hangs, and as such, Conyers has moved beyond Lovecraftian tropes to ascend to the highest - and most captivating - form of storytelling: creating a character that the reader will genuinely care about.


The other downside, perhaps because of the use of recurring characters: much of the protagonist's backstory is filled in with chunks of exposition. While necessary in parts, this bogged the story's pace down somewhat.


Niggles aside, The Eye of Infinity is the epitome of modern Cthulhu Mythos fiction: tough, probing characters facing unfathomable beings and making impossible decisions. It's round two in the biggest fight we'll ever face - humanity vs. cosmic horror - and this time, no one is going to escape unscathed. David Conyers is the reigning king of the Cthulhu Mythos Down Under. With Conyers at the helm, you won't be disappointed by your journey.

This review was originally published here.

I've also included a reading list of Harrison Peel stoires in chronological story order, and where each story can be most easily found. Hopefully, there will be a second collection that captures these tales (fom "The Eye of Infinity" onwards):

• "Made of Meat" by David Conyers (The Spiraling Worm, Chaosium Inc. 2007)
• "To What Green Altar" by John Sunseri (The Spiraling Worm)
• "Impossible Object" by David Conyers (The Spiraling Worm)
• "False Containment" by David Conyers (Horrors Beyond, Elder Signs Press, 2005 and The Spiraling Worm)
• "Resurgence" by John Sunseri (The Spiraling Worm)
• "Weapon Grade" by David Conyers (The Spiraling Worm)
• "The Spiraling Worm" by David Conyers & John Sunseri (The Spiraling Worm)
• "The Eye of Infinity" by David Conyers (The Eye of Infinity, Perilous Press, 2011)
• "Not What One Does" by John Sunseri and C.J. Henderson (Lai Wan: The Dreamwalker, Mythos Books, 2007)
• "Stomach Acid" by David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons (Cthulhu Unbound 3, Permuted Press, 2008)
• "The Masked Messenger" by David Conyers and John Goodrich (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 52, forthcoming)
• "The R'lyeh Singularity" by David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons (Cthulhu Unbound 3, Permuted Press, forthcoming)

I'm working on several more Harrison Peel tales, which will fill in many of the gaps between "The Spiraling Worm" and "The R'lyeh Singularity".

Cthulhu Unbound 3 - The Authors, The Stories

News is out there about Cthulhu Unbound 3, to be published by Permuted Press. I thought I'd confirm a few things about the book, but not much, because there is no official release info about the book yet, or when it will be published. Anyway, here are the authors and their stories:

• Unseen Empire -  Cody Goodfellow
• MirrororriM - D.L. Snell
• Nemesis Theory - Tim Curran
• The R'lyeh Singularity - David Conyers & Brian M Sammons

Four novellas edited by myself and Brian M Sammons. The last story is a Harrison Peel tale (aka The Spiraling Worm and The Eye of Infinity).

Best New Tales of the Apocalypse Nearly Here

It's almost here, Best New Tales of the Apocalypse, from Permuted Press and edited by D.L. Snell and Bobbie Metevier. It features my story "Subtle Invasion" and makes this the third 'best of' that I've appeared in, so exciting stuff.

Meanwhile, on a related note, Cthulhu Unbound 3 is getting close to completion and it too will be published by Permuted Press. The stories on their last edits. I should, hopefully soon, be able to post who the three remaining of the five unannounced authors are, as one story is a collaboration I've penned with Brian M. Sammons.

Introduction to Cthulhu's Dark Cults Online

Chaosium have posted the Introduction to Cthulhu's Dark Cults online on their website, if you wish to know more about this book than you might already. They have also included Author Biographies.

Meanwhile, if you are on the Chaoium site, you should check out Brian M. Sammons' latest and very cool Call of Cthulhu Role-playing Game book, Strange Aeons II.

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.

The 2009 Scorecard

I've decided at the end of each year I will summarise what I have achieved in writing, as a record as much for myself as to share with those who read my blog. I did the same last year, and comparing the two my output in 2009 was slightly better than last year, although no novel yet.

All of my new short stories this year were published overseas, and included:

• "Six-Legged Shadows" with Brian M. Sammons in Monstrous (Permuted Press)
• "Black Water" in Jupiter 24
• "The Octagon" in Jupiter 26
• "The Garden Fortress" in Thrilling Tales #4 (Rainfall Books)
• "The Lord of the Law" in The Fourth Black Book of Horror.

Reprints include:

• "Subtle Invasion" in Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror Vol 3 (Brimstone Press)
• "Homo Canis" in Midnight Echo #2 (Australian Horror Writers Association) also received an honourable mention in Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year Vol 1
• "Stomach Acid" with Brian M. Sammons in Cthulhu Unbound 2 (Permuted Press).

Other publications include:

• "Virtual Worlds and Imagined Futures" an interview with Greg Egan in Albedo One 37
• "The Burning Stars" Call of Cthulhu scenario in Terrors from Beyond (Chaosium) which is gaining incredibly positive reviews and feedback from gamers everywhere
• Several reviews for Albedo One.

Other achievements include a Ditmar nomination for my science fiction tale "Soft Viscosity" in 2012 (Twelfth Planet Press), I attended GenConOz as a guest, and I sold several stories to various magazines and anthologies, one of which is a science fiction tale appearing in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. I'm also editing a new anthology of Cthulhu Mythos tales with Brian M. Sammons that will be published by Permuted Press, and I'm editing a collection of Call of Cthulhu gaming scenarios for a yet to be named publisher.

Several books with my stories which didn't come out this year but might in 2010 included:

• "Emergency Rebuild" in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 43
• "Sister of the Sands" in Cthulhu's Dark Cults (Chaosium) (which I incidentally edited way back in 2007)
• “Subtle Invasion” in Best New Tales of the Apocalypse (Permuted Press)
• "Dream Machine" in Scenes from the Second Storey (Morrigan Books)
• "The Hag of Zais" in Eldritch Steel (Elder Signs Press)
• "Sweet as Decay" with David Witteveen in Macabre (Brimstone Press)
• "The Swelling" reprinted at Innsmouth Free Press
• A new Harrison Peel tale has also been sold, but I've been asked to keep closed lipped about this one until the publisher makes an announcement.

I had hoped to output more this year, but a redundancy and now having to change states for financial/work reasons, I guess has affected my output. Hopefully once I'm settled in Sydney in the new year, that will all change.