The Ideal Candidate

I'm excited and honored to announce that I have a new book out on Occult Press. The Ideal Candidate collects a previously unpublished novella (the title story) and two previously uncollected short stories. The contents are as follows: 

The Ideal Candidate

The Embassy at Fontainebleau

A Token Derangement of the Senses

The book can be ordered in three editions: A fine thread-stitched paperback book, limited to 100 copies, a lettered hardcover edition bound in sumptuous copper cloth with silver foiling on cover and spine, limited to 26 copies, and a deluxe brown leather edition with gold foiling on cover and spine, limited to 20 copies. Images of the hardcover and leather editions coming soon. 

https://occultpress.net/the-ideal-candidate/

A new full collection, Saint Severina's Fire, is still pending publication. A lot is going into this book, so the printing is taking a little longer than expected. From what I've seen so far, the wait will be well worth it.

*

     Precisely in the center of the sizable door, beneath a wilting, white hibiscus that had been affixed to the surface with a single, blackened nail, was found a curling scrap of yellowed paper with a typewritten word in smudged, blue ink. The word, Remit, appeared perfectly intractable, as if etched into the soul of the house itself. What’s more, no matter how hard he tried, Sylvester was unable to remember its meaning. He was certain he’d heard it in passing before and had probably used it himself on occasion, yet it hung in his mind like a half-remembered melody that refused to coalesce.
     Above the door was a wooden sign that read Hotel Noturno in dark red letters. While it didn’t look anything like a hotel, Sylvester was relieved that he’d at least come to the right place. He stepped inside to find a room so dim that he was scarcely able to see. An overhead bulb shed a listless glow, its deficiency blooming like a radiant flower, just barely revealing a console table and the beginning of a corridor. The latter proceeded into stifling darkness. Just as he was looking for a notice or a sign, anything at all that might inform him where to go or what to do, he was startled by the sound of a woman’s voice. It was a little bit distant and slightly muffled, but the words were clear enough: “Oh, good LORD!” 

The Onyx Book of Occult Fiction

The Onyx Book of Occult Fiction, which I had the honor to edit, is now available to purchase in two editions, paperback and hardcover, from the Snuggly Books website. 

"The young man I was was the only one not writing. He merely watched, detachedly, while the others all came suddenly alive with spontaneous, convulsive scribbling. Spirit-written pages—covered predominantly with numbers, though some bore pictures, symbols, or sentences of doubtful legibility—began to spill from the table, were strewn about the floor, proliferating unstoppably from the single tiny pile with which we started, like bread in Bethsaida. There were only the sounds of writing, and breathing, and the rain outside. The frenzy continued, as if our company were a desperate printing house run by hydrophobics, and when blank paper was suddenly not to be found, they turned to the walls, to the ceiling, to even each other." 
—From "Under Different Stars" by Avalon Brantley 

The contents are as follows:
Introduction / 7
Justin Isis: The Underground Room / 13
Thomas Phillips: Alyssa / 26
Benjamin Tweddell: The Dance of Abraxas / 49
Thomas Strømsholt: In Search of the Hidden City / 88
Reggie Oliver: The Children of Monte Rosa / 105
Avalon Brantley: Under Different Stars / 126
Farah Rose Smith: The Witch is the Body / 134
Colin Insole: Flower of the Sun / 141
Adam S. Cantwell: Moonpaths of the Departed / 163
Brendan Connell: The Chymical Wedding of Des Esseintes / 195
Mark Valentine: A Walled Garden on the Bosphorus / 206
Ron Weighell: The Four Strengths of Shadow / 217
R. Ostermeier: The Bearing / 242
Damian Murphy: St. Severina’s Fire / 263
Martin Locker: The Dreaming Plateau / 295
About the Authors / 317

https://www.snugglybooks.co.uk/the-onyx-book-of-occult-fiction/

You can also find the book on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.com/Onyx-Book-Occult-Fiction/dp/1645251659

The Explosion of a Chandelier

I'm extremely pleased to announce that my new short novel, The Explosion of a Chandelier, is available to order from Occult Press, a new imprint of Snuggly Books specializing in finely printed limited editions of occult fiction and non-fiction. 

The Explosion of a Chandelier is a labyrinthine story of anarchists, bombs, impetuous youth, scandalous rites and extravagant visions, mutinous angels, intricate games, and the ritual seduction of an old hotel, all of which revolve around The House of Amaryllis, a place of gnostic exaltation and luxuriant delirium in the Spain of Alfonso XIII. 

Chapter headings:

The Strangling of the Sentinels

The Explosion of a Chandelier

The House of Amaryllis

The Bomb

The Secret Axis

The Hotel Delicias

Behemoth

Her Majesty The Queen

The book can be ordered in both standard hardcover and leather-bound editions directly from the publisher: https://www.snugglybooks.co.uk/occult-press/

Night Lamp Lotus

My fourth occult retro-electronic-gaming story, "Night Lamp Lotus (An Attempt at a Strategic Guide)", is included in the lighthouse-themed Eibonvale Press anthology, "At the Lighthouse", which is now available to order in both paperback and hardback. The story is suffused with the aesthetic of the golden age of 16-bit RPG console games. 

"If you unleash the wolves around the confessional booth in Saint Estukio’s Cathedral, timing their deployment to coincide with the setting of the sun, you’ll attract the presence of a disconsolate widow whose confession will make your hair stand on end. Her diabolical misdeeds provide a valuable clue to the location of an ivory mantel clock which, in turn, is instrumental to the infiltration of the night watch. Do this at any other time and you’ll merely agitate the priest." 

Also, I've recently finished my 5th occult retro-electronic-gaming story. It's titled "Magnetic North" and, if all goes according to plan, will be included in a secret project released sometime in 2024. 

Order here: https://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_Lighthouse.htm

A Veritable Feast

The last year or so has been relatively quiet, but a lot has been taking shape behind the scenes. A number of fairly major releases are coming up. Aside from the new collection, Saint Severina's Fire, which will be released on Snuggly Books sometime in the next year, there are two short-novel-length standalone releases in the works, one of them to be announced fairly soon. In addition, there will be a second collection, a secret project which will hopefully be released next year. 

The contents of Saint Severina's Fire will be as follows: 

Abyssinia
Psalms of the Magistrate
Night's Faithful Forgery
Caterina's Mistress
Saint Severina's Fire

"Night's Faithful Forgery" and "Caterina's Mistress" are previously unpublished, the latter being nearly novel-length itself. These two stories comprise a little over half of the book. This book will be longer than my previous collections. 

In addition, my fourth occult retro-electronic-gaming story, "Night Lamp Lotus", will be featured in Eibonvale Press's anthology At the Lighthouse, which will be available for order any day now. 

I've also written the introduction to a previously unpublished book by the late Ron Weighell, Child of the Dawn, available from Zagava Books. 

A Conversation With an Errant God

I'm very pleased to announce that my story A Conversation With an Errant God: Distorted Reflections on the Kerker-Kreis has been released as a book on Mount Abraxas Press in Bucharest. The book has been printed in a gorgeous hardcover edition, complete with illustrated end-papers and silk ribbon. Limited to 100 copies. 

Copies will be available in the US at Ziesing Books. If you inquire by email, they'll reserve a copy for you. The story is a very perverse response to the German poet Stefan George and his circle of poets, the George-Kries. 

Taken from the pages of Die Nachtigal, issue 77, September 1973, “A Conversation with an Errant God: Distorted Reflections on the Kerker-Kreis”, directly transcribed from tape by the author. Text translated by C.K. Weber. Introduction excised. 

Die Nachtigal: How did you come to be involved with the Kerker-Kreis? I understand you were not a founding member. 

F. Keiner: It started when I was a boy. It was me and my brother, Kaspar. I must have been eleven, so he would have been twelve or thirteen. We’d sneak into our parent’s bedroom while they were in another part of the house and take off all our clothes. It was far more than merely a game between us. We treated it all with the utmost gravity. It would simply be unthinkable that our parents would find us behaving in such an unacceptable way. What, exactly, it was that we were doing, we didn’t really know. Whatever it was, we were genuinely inspired. 

I’m afraid I’m a little confused, Herr Keiner. Are you saying that this is what led to your involvement with the group? 

Excuse me?   

The Kerker-Kreis, Herr Keiner. The poets’ collective. The subject of this interview is your history with them. 

I’m coming to that. Some background details will be necessary. It all happened so long ago, I hardly remember. What I distinctly recall are the routines we acted out, my brother and I—the blindfolds, the punishments, the mock interrogations, the escalating dares and all the complicated dances. It all had very real consequences. 
     The worst was when we took the mantle clock apart. We’d always been fascinated by the faded Roman numerals that circumscribed its face. The curved, walnut casing, the ornate dials—they all came apart like lotus petals. We put it back together, but it was never the same. It didn’t keep time the way it was supposed to. What’s more, it did something to the house. 

A Token Derangement of the Senses

The Language of the Storm: A Tribute to Ernst Jünger is now available to order from Raphus Press in Brazil. Ziesing books in California should have copies available within a few weeks as well. 

My story "A Token Derangement of the Senses" is included in the book, along with stories and poetry by Adam S. Cantwell, Jonathan Wood, Alcebiades Diniz Miguel, and Brian Evanson, among others. 

http://raphuspress.weebly.com/the-language-of-the-storm.html

"So we marched with a limp that eluded detection, one foot in the forest and the other in the underworld. If we seemed to move in circles, it was only to propitiate the ambition of the night itself, which demanded, as if in compensation for its treasures, a token derangement of the senses."