Today is the official publication date for What the Daemon Said. John Shirley calls it “a fine, wide-ranging exploration of the deepest wellsprings of nightmare and chthonic revelation.” Laird Barron calls it “a treasure trove for fans and scholars of weird fiction.” Brian Keene calls it “a crucial deep dive into some of the darkest,…
Tag: horror literature
Dreams and Demons in Modern Horror Fiction
The quoted text below appears in the 2002 book Demons of the Modern World by Malcolm McGrath, who was a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at Oxford University when he wrote it. The publisher’s marketing copy lays out the book’s thrust: This fascinating discussion of modern demonology focuses on our ability to differentiate the physical…
Horror Fiction and the Awakening and Evolution of Consciousness
In the introduction to The Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult — an anthology of classic horror stories that deal in one way or another with the named subjects — Lon Milo DuQuette, who also edited the book, relates his boyhood experience of awakening for the first time to both a love of richly…
Booklist names ‘Horror Literature through History’ a Top 10 Reference Book
Booklist has named my horror encyclopedia one of the top ten reference works it reviewed between May 2017 and May 2018, saying that all the books on the list “represent useful resources for libraries of all sizes.” You can also read Booklist‘s full starred review of Horror Literature through History, where the upshot is this:…
This Is Horror, Episode 193: Jon Padgett and Matt Cardin on “Vastarien” and More
In this just-published episode of the This Is Horror Podcast, Jon Padgett and I talk with hosts Michael David Wilson and Bob Pastorella about our new project Vastarien: A Literary Journal, along with other matters of interest. Click to listen or download. Note that at the time of this writing, our Vastarien Kickstarter campaign, to…
Horror encyclopedia updates: An interview at Rue Morgue, a positive review from Kirkus
Today Rue Morgue magazine published an interview with me at their website. It basically serves as an online supplement to their recent feature story about Horror Literature through History in the print magazine. Here’s a taste: What is the primary aim and purpose of this book? To quote from the publisher’s description, which is of…
“Horror Literature through History” an unexpected Amazon bestseller
Much to my surprise, a two-volume encyclopedia priced for institutional purchase by academic and public libraries has become a bestseller at Amazon. I don’t know the actual sales figures, and I’m sure they’re pretty small in terms of absolute numbers, since the book’s category (the history and criticism of horror and supernatural literature) is a…