New Addition Though I originally published this post in July, this title is out today, October 22, 2024. Absolution is a surprise 4th volume to the Southern Reach series. Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile […]
Read MoreWeird Fiction
Sylvan Dread, Richard Gavin
As a meditation on the forces of predation and parasitism, monstrous fecundity and decay, and those hidden folk who occupy the spaces between the branches, Sylvan Dread evokes the primeval wood—the place where all dreams and nightmares begin. In this isolate copse we witness the excavation of abominations long earthbound, […]
Read MoreNever Whistle at Night, Shane Hawk, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., et al.
Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends […]
Read MoreHeavy Weather, Kevan Manwaring et al.
Heavy Weather: Tempestuous Tales of Stranger Climes: Since Odysseus’ curious crew first unleashed the bag of winds gifted him by Aeolus, the God of Winds, literature has been awash with tales of bad or strange weather. From the flood myths of Babylon, the Mahabharata and the Bible, to 20th century […]
Read MoreThe House of Drought, Dennis Mombauer
I’m eagerly awaiting The House of Drought, which comes this summer of 2022 from one of my favorite publishing houses, Stelliform Press: The House of Drought is a weird horror novella which Mombauer pitched during December 2020’s #PitMad Twitter pitch contest. The story delves deep into the destabilizations of climate […]
Read MoreThe Doloriad, Missouri Williams
In the wake of a mysterious environmental cataclysm that has wiped out the rest of humankind, the Matriarch, her brother, and the family descended from their incest cling to existence on the edges of a deserted city. The Matriarch, ruling with fear and force, dreams of starting humanity over again, […]
Read MoreRevelations: Horror Writers for Climate Action, Seán O’Connor
Anticipation…anticipation is makin’ me late, is keepin’ me waitin’. When I saw the gorgeous book cover of this April 2022 (hard cover) anthology, with a forward by Sadie Hartman, I guess anticipation is a good word for how I feel. How could I not be, with authors like Gemma Amor, […]
Read MoreA Voice in the Night, William Hope Hodgson
In my new quest to add more fungi fiction to the database, here’s a short story by William Hope Hodgson, which I read a few years ago when I began to read more ecologically weird fiction. You can read the story online here. Two men are sailing in the northern […]
Read MoreFungi, Orrin Grey and Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A collection of fungal wonders…and terrors. In this new anthology, writers reach into the rich territory first explored by William Hope Hodgson a century ago: the land of the fungi. Stories range from noir to dark fantasy, from steampunk to body horror. Join authors such as Jeff VanderMeer, Laird Barron, […]
Read MoreAmbergris, Jeff VanderMeer
Ambergis is the hardcover volume including the three books in his cult series that includes City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch. The new volume came out in 2020, even though its books were published before the Southern Reach trilogy and Borne. “Ambergris is also the New […]
Read MoreDreamtime, Venetia Welby
Venetia Welby’s exquisite and hallucinogenic Dreamtime (Quartet, April) is set in a near future in which we have lost the battle against climate change. –The Guardian To mend their broken past Sol and her lovelorn friend Kit must journey across poisoned oceans to the furthest reaches of the Japanese archipelago, […]
Read MoreRabbit Island, Elvira Navarro
Combining the gritty surrealism of David Lynch with the explosive interior meditations of Clarice Lispector, the stories in Elvira Navarro’s Rabbit Island traverse the fickle, often terrifying terrain between madness and freedom. In the title story, a so-called “non-inventor” conducts an experiment on an island inhabited exclusively by birds and […]
Read MoreRuthie Fear, Maxim Loskutoff
In Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, young Ruthie Fear sees an apparition: a strange, headless creature near a canyon creek. Raised in a trailer by her stubborn, bowhunting father, Ruthie develops a powerful connection with the natural world but struggles to find her place in a society shaped by men. As she […]
Read MoreThe Swimmers, Marian Womack
A claustrophobic, literary dystopia set in the hot, luscious landscape of Andalusia from the author of The Golden Key. After the ravages of global warming, this is place of deep jungles, strange animals, and new taxonomies. Social inequality has ravaged society, now divided into surface dwellers and people who live […]
Read MoreFungoid, William Meikle
When the end came, it wasn’t zombies, asteroids, global warming or nuclear winter. It was something that escaped from a lab. Something small, and very hungry. It starts with deadly rain that delivers death where it falls, but soon the whole planet is under threat as the infection spreads, consuming […]
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