Too Much Horror Fiction Updates...

Hola amigos, long time since I rapped at ya! Got some horror (all good) news you can use...

I've written two introductions for two new horror anthologies: one was published at the end of 2024, The Rack: Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks, edited by Stoker Award-winning author Tom Deady, from Greymore Publishing; order here. Also, the brand-new Claw Machine, compiled by an old East Coast pal of mine who now also resides in Portland. You can order it from Little Key Press here. Both feature horror/science fiction/speculative lit stories that I think will appeal to TMHF and Paperbacks from Hell fans. It was definitely an honor to have been asked to write for these books!

And yet another intro I wrote is for a vintage paperback novel that will be reprinted by Fathom Press later this summer. Like Valancourt, they are putting back into print paperback horror under their Savage Harvest line. This one is Bad Ronald, the 1973 book by giant SF scribe Jack Vance, the basis for the infamous TV movie of yore (which I still have not seen!). The fresh new cover art, by Steve Andrade, is pretty spectacular (he's done all of the Savage Harvest reprints, I believe, and they are nothing short of wonderful). You can preorder it here. 

Last but certainly not least: Grady Hendrix and I, along with Valancourt Books, have decided to wrap up the Paperbacks from Hell reprint series with three more titles, thus ending the line with an even two dozen works. But the titles have not been finalized yet! We're discussing a few books, but as you know, tracking down publication rights, and then convincing people to have their books republished, is tricky business; the stars have to align just so. 

The moving parts are: books we all three like; the book is entirely out of print (no ebook/audiobook either); the original paperback is somewhat rare/expensive in the secondhand market; the author/estate is willing to have the book reprinted; and the promise of potential sales. As the years have gone on, checking off all those boxes is incredibly difficult. We've reached complete dead ends on several titles we've wanted. So we've all agreed, unfortunately, the end is here. I'll say we are looking at some "classicks" that a lot of people want to get their grubby mitts on, but that's all I will say for now. 

Alas, we cannot reprint several notorious works that people have been asking about over the years: Eat Them Alive, The Voice of the Clown, and The Little People. For various and sundry reasons, the rights to these three remain completely unavailable to us. Frustrating and disappointing, I know, but I think the other titles were hoping to reprint will be quite well received! I will announce as soon as we've decided and gotten the rights signed off on.

Okay, back to reading, and hopefully getting some reviews back up on here...