Mr. Cannyharme: A Novel of Lovecraftian Terror

Mr. Cannyharme: A Novel of Lovecraftian Terror PDF Author: Michael Shea
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614983248
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Early in his career, Michael Shea wrote the Lovecraftian novel The Color out of Time (1984). He subsequently wrote some of the most scintillating and gripping tales of the Cthulhu Mythos in contemporary weird fiction, including "Fat Face" and "Copping Squid." These tales mingled Lovecraftian themes with the gritty realism of urban horror, and they often featured drug addicts, prostitutes, and others whom conventional society treats with scorn and marginalization. Shea wrote the novel Mr. Cannyharme in the late 1970s, and it constitutes a remarkable adaptation of Lovecraft's early story "The Hound" (1922), about the depredations of an ancient Dutch vampire. In Shea's novel, Mr. Cannyharme stalks the seedy Mission District of San Francisco in the aftermath of the hippie movement of the 1960s. Holed up in a rundown hotel, the seemingly harmless Cannyharme-aged, feeble, bent almost double with a crippling disease-is the focus of the supernatural terror in the novel. Jack Hale, who manages the hotel, is one of the few who sense the danger to society and the world that Cannyharme represents. With a motley band of young whores and drug dealers, he takes on the challenge to counteract the horrors that Mr. Cannyharme seeks to release upon an unsuspecting world. Mr. Cannyharme, written in a vibrant prose that brings to life the multitude of characters that populate the book, is a triumph of Lovecraftian terror, but also speaks of the way in which those who are regarded as the refuse of society can assert their dignity and self-worth in a grim environment. In this sense, it proves to be a novel affirming the triumph of the human spirit over the horrors facing it.

Mr. Cannyharme: A Novel of Lovecraftian Terror

Mr. Cannyharme: A Novel of Lovecraftian Terror PDF Author: Michael Shea
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614983248
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
Early in his career, Michael Shea wrote the Lovecraftian novel The Color out of Time (1984). He subsequently wrote some of the most scintillating and gripping tales of the Cthulhu Mythos in contemporary weird fiction, including "Fat Face" and "Copping Squid." These tales mingled Lovecraftian themes with the gritty realism of urban horror, and they often featured drug addicts, prostitutes, and others whom conventional society treats with scorn and marginalization. Shea wrote the novel Mr. Cannyharme in the late 1970s, and it constitutes a remarkable adaptation of Lovecraft's early story "The Hound" (1922), about the depredations of an ancient Dutch vampire. In Shea's novel, Mr. Cannyharme stalks the seedy Mission District of San Francisco in the aftermath of the hippie movement of the 1960s. Holed up in a rundown hotel, the seemingly harmless Cannyharme-aged, feeble, bent almost double with a crippling disease-is the focus of the supernatural terror in the novel. Jack Hale, who manages the hotel, is one of the few who sense the danger to society and the world that Cannyharme represents. With a motley band of young whores and drug dealers, he takes on the challenge to counteract the horrors that Mr. Cannyharme seeks to release upon an unsuspecting world. Mr. Cannyharme, written in a vibrant prose that brings to life the multitude of characters that populate the book, is a triumph of Lovecraftian terror, but also speaks of the way in which those who are regarded as the refuse of society can assert their dignity and self-worth in a grim environment. In this sense, it proves to be a novel affirming the triumph of the human spirit over the horrors facing it.

Polyphemus

Polyphemus PDF Author: Michael Shea
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780586208489
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description


The Assaults of Chaos

The Assaults of Chaos PDF Author: S. T. Joshi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614980568
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
In the summer of 1914, H. P. Lovecraft, a few months before his twenty-fourth birthday, receives a strange letter from his father, Winfield Scott Lovecraft—a father he thought had died sixteen years before—speaking cryptically of an urgent task that must be performed to save the world from a nameless fate. Meeting his father in Quinsnicket Park, Lovecraft is engulfed in an adventure that takes him across the water to his beloved England, where he encounters some of the titans of weird fiction. With this unusual but stalwart band of comrades, Lovecraft does indeed find himself facing a cosmic menace too horrible to contemplate . . .In this supernatural novel by leading Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, the young Lovecraft is brought vividly to life. The shy, retiring, inward-looking recluse is brought out of his shell and brought into contact with such of his literary idols as Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, and Algernon Blackwood. Together, they must deal with a horror from beyond the stars with the only weapons at their disposal—their minds and imaginations.

The Extra

The Extra PDF Author: Michael Shea
Publisher: Tor Books
ISBN: 1429955422
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Books and films have skewered Hollywood's excesses, but none has ever portrayed one man's crazy vision of the future of big action/adventure films as Michael Shea's The Extra does. As over-the-top as Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, as savagely dark as Robert Altman's The Player, and more violent than Rollerball, this is the story of the ultimate, so-insane-it-could-only-happen-in-Hollywood formula for success, a brave new way to bring the ultimate in excitement to the silver screen. Producer Val Margolian has found the motherlode of box-office gold with his new "live-death" films whose villains are extremely sophisticated, electronically controlled mechanical monsters. To give these live-action disaster films greater realism, he employs huge casts of extras, in addition to the stars. The large number of extras is important, because very few of them will survive the shoot. It's all perfectly legal, with training for the extras and long, detailed contracts indemnifying the film company against liability for the extras' injury or death. But why would anyone be crazy enough to risk his or her life to be an extra in such a potentially deadly situation? The extras do it because if they survive they'll be paid handsomely, and they can make even more if they destroy any of the animatronic monsters trying to stomp, chew, fry, or otherwise kill them. If they earn enough, they can move out of the Zoo--the vast slum that most of L.A. has become. They're fighting for a chance at a reasonable life. But first, they have to survive . . . At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Demiurge

Demiurge PDF Author: Michael Shea
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781727595758
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
For more than thirty years, Michael Shea has been making his own distinctive contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos devised by H. P. Lovecraft-an entire universe of gods and monsters that hundreds of writers have imitated. But Shea has done a lot more than merely mimic Lovecraft's prose or add a new god or "forbidden book" to the Mythos. In his Mythos tales, Shea has infused his own unique vision and perspective. The much-reprinted "Fat Face" takes us into the seedy underworld of prostitutes and drug dealers in San Francisco, while other tales such as "Dagoniad," "Copping Squid," and "Tsathoggua" vividly meld Lovecraftian cosmic horror with the contemporary world of California, with its swimming pools and beachcombers. Shea was also fascinated with Lovecraft's novel of Antarctic horror, At the Mountains of Madness, and his stories "Under the Shelf" and "Beneath the Beardmore" take us to that frozen land of death and terror. The title story, "Demiurge," is a previously unpublished novella that draws upon Lovecraft's tales of psychic possession in its chilling portrayal of a nameless monster who may be the harbinger of the overthrow of the entire human race. Michael Shea (1946-2014) was the award-winning author of The Color out of Time, the Nifft the Lean series of fantasy novels, and the classic tales "Polyphemus" and "The Autopsy." This volume of his complete Cthulhu Mythos tales has been assembled by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Lovecraft and the Mythos. This volume features wraparound cover artwork and five interior illustrations by renowned artist Aeron Alfrey (MADHOUSE)

What Is Anything?

What Is Anything? PDF Author: S. T. Joshi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614982210
Category : Critics
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"Autobiography of a literary critic, whose main focus has been the study of 20th century horror author H. P. Lovecraft. Includes details of his publications." --

Ghouljaw and Other Stories

Ghouljaw and Other Stories PDF Author: Clint Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614980650
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
"These smart, unsettling stories give us, with vivid detail, both the squalidly ordinary and the terrifyingly extraordinary-and make clear how closely the two are linked."-Ben H. Winters, Edgar-Award-Winning author of "The Last Policeman" "Clint Smith's "Ghouljaw" stories use vivid imagery to build intense close-ups that connect reader with character, then adds psychologies corrupted by sex, loss, betrayal, guilt, cowardice, denial, and that fatal flaw pomposity. With sprightly literate language he twists old motifs into new shapes of the rural gothic, often embodied in some of the spookiest "monsters from the id" yet imagined-creatures gory, squishy, bloody, witchy, wild. Not to forget a demonic "dog" that scared the bejesus out of me! The monsters of humanity, too, find new life here, as blood cults, avenging mystics, violent poachers, PTSD, and repressed memories incarnate. Clint Smith's "Ghouljaw" releases into the reader's world a darkness that teaches, shakes, and warns. Read and after a night of tossing sleep you'll awaken changed. For the better? Well, as it is with Smith's characters, that matter's up to you."-Jim Powell, MFA, Senior Lecturer, IUPUI Over the past several years, Clint Smith has established himself as a powerfully imaginative writer of weird fiction. In this first collection of short stories, Smith demonstrates the multifaceted talents that will establish him as one of the notable weird writers of his generation. What distinguishes Smith's work is both the originality of its weird conceptions and its careful delineation of human character. One of his earliest tales, "Benthos," features both these qualities, telling a grim tale of alienated youth and drug-taking that veers into the grotesquely supernatural. In "The Tell-Tale Offal," Smith cleverly updates Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" in a grisly story of physical horror. In "What Happens in Hell Stays in Hell," Smith uses the war in Afghanistan as a chilling backdrop to unthinkable horrors unleashed in the parched sands of the Middle East. "I have no doubt that Clint Smith will be heard from in the future as a leading practitioner of the modern weird tale. The stories in this collection testify not only to his literary potential but to his already significant accomplishments."-From S. T. Joshi's foreword

Nifft the Lean

Nifft the Lean PDF Author: Michael Shea
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780586064993
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description


Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales

Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales PDF Author: Michael Shea
Publisher: Perilous Press
ISBN: 9780970400024
Category : Fantasy fiction, American
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description


The Harbor-Master

The Harbor-Master PDF Author: Robert W. Chambers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614983279
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
This volume presents the best weird fiction of the American writer Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933). Chambers attained celebrity for the enigmatic volume The King in Yellow (1895), and this book reprints several of the most notable tales from that collection, as well as such later volumes as The Maker of Moons (1896), The Mystery of Choice (1897), and In Search of the Unknown (1904), among others. These stories display the power and strangeness of Chambers's weird conceptions, making it understandable why his work has exercised so profound an influence on such later writers as H. P. Lovecraft, Karl Edward Wagner, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., and many other leading figures in the field. The Classics of Gothic Horror series seeks to reprint novels and stories from the leading writers of weird fiction over the past two centuries or more. Ever since the Gothic novels of the late 18th century, weird fiction has been a slender but provocative contribution to weird fiction. Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, the Victorian ghost story writers, the "titans" of the early twentieth century (Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, H. P. Lovecraft), the Weird Tales writers, and many others contributed to the development and enrichment of weird fiction as a literary genre, and their work deserves to be enshrined in comprehensive, textually accurate editions.