by Jeffrey Thomas
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Terror and Honey, in Digital
Delirium Books has created a new line of digital books, under the banner DARKSIDE DIGITAL and available at the Horror Mall web site. Adding to an already impressive number of titles from John Everson and others, they’ve now put up digital versions of my Delirium Books horror collection TERROR INCOGNITA (from 2000) and my erotic horror collection HONEY IS SWEETER THAN BLOOD (2004). Please go check them out at the Darkside Digital shop. TERROR INCOGNITA can be downloaded here:
https://www.horror-mall.com/darksidedigital/product.php?productid=20556&cat=0&page=1&featured
And HONEY IS SWEETER THAN BLOOD, here:
https://www.horror-mall.com/darksidedigital/product.php?productid=20555&cat=0&page=1&featured
The books are available in PDF, MOBI or EPUB format. Just think, you can now read these collections for a fraction of their original cost, instead of going to Ebay to pay for a rare limited edition!

I was very lucky getting the cover artists I did for the originals of these books — two of my favorite artists of the fantastic, Jamie Oberschlake (TERROR INCOGNITA) and Alan M. Clark (HONEY IS SWEETER THAN BLOOD). I picked Jamie’s picture from some stuff he’d already done (and actually this is the paperback rerelease version of TERROR INCOGNITA, since the original was a hardcover with no dustjacket), but Alan called me up on the phone to get some input from me for HONEY. It was great to be part of the process in that way, and exciting that it was someone as respected as Alan! We did the same thing when it was time for him to do the cover for UGLY HEAVEN/BEAUTIFUL HELL. In fact, for that cover I sent him a nude photo of my wife on which to (loosely) base the cover’s red-skinned demon. And since that book also consisted of a novella by Carlton Mellick III, and Alan called him up, too, it turned out to be a four-way collaboration that time!
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Monolithic Black Fungi From Yuggoth
Today while shopping at the Asian market here in my hometown (among other things, my wife Hong bought ten one-pound bags of MSG…mmm!) I picked up and examined a product which in translation read “Monolithic Black Fungus.” Yikes — does that sound ominous or what? Like something out of either an H. P. Lovecraft or Jeff VanderMeer story. A quick online search lead me only to “toxic black mold,” which is scary too but not the same. I didn’t buy the Monolithic Black Fungus…though I suppose it couldn’t be any worse than ten pounds of MSG.
(And here’s a bonus for you…an f–ing trippy corporate video about black fungus…or maybe eating magic mushrooms, or something:
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Oh Hi, Trailer for “Darkness on the Edge”
Oh hi, blog reader.
Previously I’ve mentioned the anthology DARKNESS ON THE EDGE (due out very soon from PS Publishing), which consists of stories inspired by the songs of Bruce Springsteen (oh hi, Bruce). Well, one of the contributors, John Palisano (oh hi, John) — whose own story, “Wings for Wheels,” was inspired by the song “Thunder Road” — has created a video trailer to promote the book. Its music and images very nicely create a haunting evocation of Springsteen’s work (I’m especially put in mind of the album “Nebraska” — oh hi, Nebraska). Check out the video, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9VXT4wTGDo
My own story in the anthology is “The Room,” inspired by the song “Candy’s Room.” It’s a short thing that I manage to set in Punktown and make Lovecraftian (oh hi, Lovecraft) in addition to being Springsteeny. My “The Room” is NOT inspired by Tommy Wiseau’s (oh hi, Tommy) movie, THE ROOM. If you wonder what all the “oh hi’s” are about, well, you haven’t seen THE ROOM. Here’s an overview, again from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uCZkq6Rs2k&feature=PlayList&p=123801CAA4C89BD7&index=8
THE ROOM is not to be missed, trust me – nor is DARKNESS ON THE EDGE. Pre-order it here:
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Interview with Horror Writer JOHN EVERSON
JET: As an artist, how much input do you like to have — and how much are you allowed — with publishers like Leisure Books?
JET: A skull…in the back of a junked car. Ahh, OK. Sounds like the real human skull my brother Scott has, which he “found” as a kid in a crumbling tomb in the old cemetery down the street from where we lived. And Stoker the Spider looks like the giant scorpion I just picked up for Scott while on vacation in Vietnam (yes, and it cost me a whopping 83,000 Vietnam dong!):
Siren is about my biggest fear as a father — losing a child. More than that, it’s about losing your center… the lead character of Siren has lost his son to a drowning accident when he himself is an aquaphobe; due to the paralysis of his fear, he couldn’t save his boy and he’s haunted by that. He’s lived a kind of “living death” ever since. He and his wife are growing farther apart as they exist in their own isolated hells. But when he is entranced by the song of a beautiful nude woman on the beach he walks every night… his world begins to shift. And soon he puts everything he holds dear in the balance as he walks the tightrope between lust and love… and discovers where the true depth of his fear lies. It is going to be out in a limited hardcover edition from Bad Moon Books this spring and from Leisure in paperback this summer.
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Covers for My Books in Germany and Poland
Recently I posted that a German-language collection of my Lovecraftian stories would be published by Festa Verlag (who have previously released a translation of my novel MONSTROCITY, and both hardcover and paperback editions of PUNKTOWN with slightly different contents). Well, here you see the proposed cover design for this forthcoming collection. Kind of Necroscopic! I like it!
(My recent post about this announcement: http://punktalk.punktowner.com/?p=438)
Also, last week I accidentally (can Googling yourself be considered accidental?) stumbled upon the cover for a Polish-language book that combines my novel LETTERS FROM HADES and collection PUNKTOWN (that’s the ultimate Jeffrey Thomas one-two punch!). I hadn’t been aware it was out, and has been out for some months now. What, and no copies yet for me? NOT cool. I mean, I’m grateful it’s been published and all — and I was already paid an advance some time ago — but I hope the publisher will rectify this copies situation soon. I can’t read Polish (nor German), but I treasure my foreign translations, as they’re always beautiful. I don’t know quite what the cover of my Polish book represents — a spooky statue, in front of a wall of leaky holes? — but it’s cool in its own weird way.
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Paul in Wonderland
Hard to believe, but the follow-up to Paul Tremblay’s wonderful first novel, THE LITTLE SLEEP (Holt), has already hit the shelves. Seems like only yesterday that THE LITTLE SLEEP came out, but here it is a year later already and I was delighted to find NO SLEEP TILL WONDERLAND, featuring the first novel’s narcoleptic detective Mark Genevich, in my local bookstore (and further delighted to find myself in the acknowledgements). Another eye-catching, dizzying cover design, too (though it’s hard to top that first one). I’m anxious to dive into this. I loved the first book’s wisecrack-a-second narrative, and Genevich is a memorable character indeed (complex, self-doubting, a very human fuck-up – not at all your cocky, confident, gun-blazin’ pulp fiction private eye).
THE LITTLE SLEEP is a finalist for this year’s Bram Stoker Award for best first novel, by the way…but then, so is SOLOMON”s GRAVE by another good friend of mine, Daniel G. Keohane. Ack! Well, I guess a tie would be the best outcome.
Order NO SLEEP TILL WONDERLAND at Amazon, here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805088504/?tag=jeffreythomas-20
And do check out Daniel G. Keohane’s SOLOMON’S GRAVE, too!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/189694499X/?tag=jeffreythomas-20
And you know what — if you like Tremblay then you must, MUST read his brilliant novella THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN, published by myself and Nick Curtis (also thanked in Paul’s acknowledgements) through our Necropolitan Press. Just look at Nick’s fantastic cover design, below (read the book and you’ll understand it):
So, please do order Paul Tremblay’s THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN at Amazon, here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0981832008/?tag=jeffreythomas-20
Can’t wait to see what next year holds for this exciting author.
by Jeffrey Thomas
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OK, OK, Read Me for Free, Then!
Since I haven’t made the millions I had anticipated when I started this writing thing, I might as well just give away my work for free. There are other of my stories floating around out there in the cybervoid, but at the Dark Regions Press web site they have a number of sample stories from the books of mine they’ve published.
From my collection DOOMSDAYS there’s the creepy Halloween story Post #153 — of which I’m very fond because the characters Bob and Wally Thompson are based on my late father, Bob, and my late uncle, Wally, in all their cantakerous glory:
http://www.darkregions.com/samples/doomsdays_sample.pdf
Then, from my collection VOICES FROM HADES, there’s the story Sweet Oblivion. Like all the stories in this beautifully illustrated (by Travis Anthony Soumis) collection, the story is set in the Hades of my novel LETTERS FROM HADES and the upcoming THE FALL OF HADES:
http://www.darkregions.com/samples/voices_from_hades_sample.pdf
The Dance of Ugghiutu, from my collection VOICES FROM PUNKTOWN — set of course in my nasty future city of Punktown — involves the Kalian race and their evil god, Ugghiutu, that feature prominently in my novel MONSTROCITY:
http://www.darkregions.com/samples/voices_from_punktown_sample.pdf
Hell, while I’m at it I might as well give away my brother Scott’s stories for free, too (I’m an older brother and I can do that, by law). Scott has a new collection forthcoming from Dark Regions soon, called QUILL AND CANDLE, but from a collection Ellen Datlow has called “charming” in “Best Horror of the Year #1″ — THE GARDEN OF GHOSTS — comes the story Pressed Flowers:
http://www.darkregions.com/samples/garden_of_ghosts_sample.pdf
Scott Thomas also has the wonderful collection OVER THE DARKENING FIELDS from Dark Regions, and from that collection you can sample his eerie tale (all his tales are eerie — and charming!) Halloween Tea:
http://www.darkregions.com/samples/over_the_darkening_fields_sample.pdf
There. Maybe if you like any of that, next time you’ll even pay for it, ya dang moocher!
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Graven Images
Hey, here’s something new for the blog…let me share some of my gravestone photos with you. “You’ve taken photos of gravestones, Jeff? How unique for a horror writer!” Yes, but mine are from the Old Burying Point (the Charter Street Cemetery) in ye olde haunted Salem, Massachusetts — and have eerie enhancements, to boot. To start out, that’s me above, glowering at my ex-wife Rose at said cemetery, a few years back. Brrr! I’ll try to post more graveyard pics in the future.
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Scraping the Innards of Humanity
…Ouch! This post’s title comes from the following quote, describing my short story collection PUNKTOWN:
“…festering short stories that scrape at the innards of humanity.”
I like that. That should have been on the back cover.
You would have thought that Googling myself as much as I do (let’s be honest about these things), I’d have stumbled upon this critical overview of PUNKTOWN and my Punktown-based novels MONSTROCITY and EVERYBODY SCREAM! before, especially since the date given is 2005, but I only just found it today. It was part of the web site Silver Links Photography, called The Crawford List of 97 All-Time Best SF & Fantasy Works (I’m liking it already, but why not 100?). What I like about this literate, nicely written overview is that it isn’t entirely favorable (the reviewer prefers my short stories to the novels discussed), so the favorable comments have all the more weight for me..
“Punktown exhibits a talent in melding conceptualization to metaphor, thereby creating ingeniously creepy yet poignant visions of the human predicament. Furthermore, these considerations are depth charges of emotional impact ticking away inside the characters, and the fun is anticipating which way they’ll explode.”
I hope you’ll check out the article on PUNKTOWN, MONSTROCITY and EVERYBODY SCREAM! in its entirety, here:
http://www.silverlinksphotography.com/CrawfordList/BestSF_Fwebpage/BookReviews/PunktownReview.htm
And do peruse the list of 96 other “Best of” books (and an intriguing list of work it is), here:
http://www.silverlinksphotography.com/CrawfordList/BestSF_Fwebpage/FantasistListPage.htm#perdido
I can’t help but wonder what this reviewer would think of the Punktown books released since this article was written: the collections PUNKTOWN: SHADES OF GREY and VOICES FROM PUNKTOWN, and the novels DEADSTOCK, BLUE WAR and HEALTH AGENT.
by Jeffrey Thomas
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Critical Mass reviews THOUGHT FORMS
At talented author and rabid book collector Don D’Ammassa’s review site Critical Mass, he has this to say about my new horror novel THOUGHT FORMS (Dark Regions Press):
Here’s an unusual horror novel. There are two separate stories, the protagonists of which are cousins, and which eventually converges into a single narrative. Ray has never gotten over the unsolved murder of his parents when he was a child and is fascinated with handguns. Paul works at a business which seems to collect ghost stories and strange sightings faster than it does customers. Ray is troubled by weird dreams and is living in the house where his parents died; Paul seems less affected even though he himself has seen something that couldn’t have been real. Ray begins to encounter odd people who may be connected with the murders while Paul finds himself trapped by deadly and possibly inhuman creatures. This one is likely to keep you guessing for a while, and then hit you when you’re not looking. Thomas is one of the few authors who never seems to run out of new twists and turns.
Check out Critical Mass for loads of reviews of horror, fantasy and SF books, here:
http://www.dondammassa.com/index.htm
(And one can order my novel THOUGHT FORMS from the publisher, here: http://www.darkregions.com/thought_forms.html)






















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