Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Just spotted a review over at Fantasy Magazine of this new anthology from S. T. Joshi. Paula Guran had this to say about my contribution:

"The small town (and surrounding world) of Norman Partridge's 'Lesser Demons' goes seriously amok one day, but a no-nonsense sheriff and a wet-behind-the-ears deputy manage to survive the mayhem zombie-like demons bring to their parts. The deputy starts reading a bunch of damned books -- since this is Lovecraft territory you can take that literally -- and thinks he can fix things. After all, you can't just 'shotgun the whole damn universe.' Or can you?"

Well... maybe you can try.

I haven't received a copy of Black Wings from PS Publishing yet, but I'm hoping it will make the trip to my mailbox soon. With stories by David J Schow and Laird Barron, I'm really looking forward to cracking the covers on this one. And I certainly had a blast writing "Lesser Demons." Never thought I'd type "The End" to a piece where I'd site H. P. Lovecraft and Jim Thompson as the two biggest influences, but here it is. Hope you enjoy it.

Three the Hard Way

Forget Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, and Jim Kelly, because there's a new interview over at Dark Scribe Magazine with me, Tom Piccirilli, and Gary Braunbeck. Warning: in the day of the easily digestible Twitter-bite, this particular chat-fest is a six-course meal. So bring your teeth and bring your attitude, and dig down deep with three guys who've seen the dark side of the street. Enjoy!

Occultation in my Mailbox

I love swag, especially when it comes from a guy like Laird Barron. Which is another way of saying that talented inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest just sent me a copy of his new collection from Night Shade Books: Occultation and Other Stories. Even better, the book contains two stories that weren't in the manuscript version I had the pleasure of reading: "Mysterium Tremendum" and "Six Six Six." Just like Laird to toss in two original pieces for a collection. That's a great bonus, and I look forward to reading them soon.

Of the rest of the collection, here's my blurbish assessment: "Laird Barron is one of those writers who makes other writers want to break their pencils. I'm serious. His work is that good. Worse than that, he's an original (damn him!), and the finest writer to join the ranks of the dark fantastic in a long, long time."

Anyway, you'll find that out for yourself if you pick up this collection. My tip is to grab it while the grabbing's good, because I'll bet Occultation will find a slot on most of the award ballots next year. And, hey, while I'm at it: if you missed my American Frankenstein interview with Laird, you can check it out here.

Great Openings #3

"Where he walked, the trees had all dried up and died, a long time before. Cooper took big strides, the scuffed-up workboots he'd been given crunching through the dusty top layer of leaves. Underneath, the ground had stayed wet, the older leaves rotting into a damp pulp knitted with twigs. He'd been told, and believed, that spiders lived under the leaves, big brown and grey tarantulas come up out of the dry riverbeds. A plank shelf in one of the farm's sheds held a row of rust-lidded Mason jars, each one's glass clouded over with silk, a dead thing curled up in the nest of its own legs at the bottom. Old Man Vandervelde's son Bonnie had caught them when he was a kid and had left them there, a little collection arranged beside the papery snakeskins nailed to the wood, curling like unspooled flypapers, with little clicking rattles at the ends. The snakes supposedly crawled around under the leaf muck, too. And rats -- Cooper had spotted the paired sparks of their eyes before, the rats watching as he passed by, then scurrying back to their warrens in the orange trees' roots. This goddamn place -- Cooper felt his boot slide from beneath him, and barely caught himself from falling. Nothing but a bad idea...."

--In the Land of the Dead by K. W. Jeter

Demons in the House

Spotted another review for Lesser Demons over at Sacramento Book Review. Check 'er out.

As a writer, it's always interesting to track developing reaction to a new book. Sometimes critics agree, and sometimes they don't. With short story collections, following comments about particular stories can be interesting, too. It's always fun when a hand's down favorite appears, which is another way of saying that unanimous praise is always great. But the flip side of that definite pleasure is that reviewers will often split over one particular story in a collection, too. Some will love it...others, not so much.

Looks like the splitter in Lesser Demons is "The House Inside," my tale of sentient toys, a mutant spider, and an unforgiving sun. This reviewer pegs it as a don't-miss piece of work, but others seem to be looking for more answers in "House" than the story contains. What it's really about for me is questions. In other words, I don't believe that answers always can be found -- in life or in fiction. That's the way that "House" is built...from the writer's side of the page, anyway. Ditto the title story, "Lesser Demons."

Of course, as Patrick Swayze once said in a movie called Road House: "Opinions vary." Writing is a two-way street. I've always believed that. That's one reason I pay attention to reviews and readers' comments. I'll be following the feedback on "The House Inside" as Lesser Demons hits, so keep the comments coming.

Lesser Demons Update

SubPress honcho Bill Schafer checked in with word that Lesser Demons is now at the printers. The bluelines have been approved, and pages are rolling off the presses. Subterranean should be shipping the finished product by the end of the month, so odds are that I'll have a nice birthday present come 5/28. Here's hoping, anyway. Can't wait to hold the finished product in my hands.

Advance reviews have been great, and fellow writers such as Jeffrey Ford and Laird Barron have been generous with their praise. Lesser Demons consists of ten tales, including the first appearance of a brand new 17k retro-pulp novella. "The Iron Dead" features a Depression-era monster hunter by the name of Chaney, owner of a mechanical hand built in hell. Reaction to that piece has been fantastic, and more than a few advance readers have pegged "The Iron Dead" as their favorite tale in the collection. Since one of the stories I've got on the burner is a new Chaney tale, that's what you might call fuel for the fire.

Thanks to all of you who have already pre-ordered the book. If you queued up your copy over at Amazon or another online bookseller, don't worry if you get an email saying that Lesser Demons is out of stock or they're having trouble getting it. Copies aren't out quite yet. If you haven't pre-ordered, you can fix that up with the handy SubPress link right here.

Grab that sucker, and hold on tight.

Ving Rhames...in the Mall...with a Shotgun...

Finally kicked off that flu bug-- mostly, anyway. Ugh. It was a bucketful of no fun. I hate being sick. For one thing, it's so damned unproductive. Mostly I just sit there and think of all the things I should be doing, but can't.

And while I'm at it: when you've got the flu, it's probably not the best idea to queue up the Dawn of the Dead remake for repeated viewings. I did that, and I found it's just a little too easy to start identifying with those shambling gutbuckets. Fact is, after awhile you begin to expect that Ving Rhames is going to come around a corner, kick the Kleenex box out of your hands, and point a shotgun in your face.

Anyway: Dawn of the Dead is boxed up and back on the DVD shelf. I am off the couch and at the keyboard. Tune in tomorrow for a Lesser Demons update as I kick this blog back into gear.