The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack (40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Tales) (123 page)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Robert Bloch

Robert Bloch (1917–1994) was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of the novel
Psycho
, the basis for the film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote that “Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk,” (a quote borrowed by Stephen King and often misattributed to him). His fondness for a pun is evident in the titles of his story collections such as
Tales in a Jugular Vein
,
Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of
and
Out of the Mouths of Graves
. Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 20 novels. He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle. H. P. Lovecraft was Bloch’s mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while Bloch started his career by emulating Lovecraft and his brand of cosmic horror, he later specialized in crime and horror stories dealing with the inner workings of the human mind.

Lin Carter

Linwood Vrooman Carter (1930–1988) was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor, poet, and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft (for an H. P. Lovecraft parody) and Grail Undwin. Many of his novels and short stories are in print from Wildside Press.

Adrian Cole

Adrian Cole lives in Solomon Kane country in Devonshire, England, and has had some 25 books published as well as numerous short stories. “Dark Destroyer” is part of the Voidal Saga, a trilogy of very weird fantasy books (available from Wildside Press).

Michael R. Collings

Michael R. Collings is the author of nine novels (science fiction, Horror, and Mystery) as well as multiple volumes of short fiction, poetry, criticism, and literary studies. An Emeritus Professor of English at Pepperdine University, he is an authority on the works of Stephen King and Orson Scott Card. He currently lives with his wife in southeastern Idaho.

John Glasby

John Stephen Glasby (1928–2011) was a prolific British author whose work spanned a range of popular genres. A professional research chemist and mathematician, he produced over 300 novels and short stories during the 1950s and 1960s, most of which were published pseudonymously under the Badger Books imprint. Wildside Press is reprinting the best of his work. We are delighted to present two
original
Mythos stories in this collection.

Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He is probably best known for his character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.

He was a member of the Lovecraft circle and contributed several notable elements to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos of horror stories (beginning with “The Black Stone,” his Mythos stories also included “The Cairn on the Headland,” “The Children of the Night” and “The Fire of Asshurbanipal”).

T.E.D. Klein

T.E.D. Klein is the former editor of
Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine
, but before he took over that role, he was an accomplished—if far too infrequent for his fans—writer. Critic S. T. Joshi wrote of his work: “In close to 25 years of writing Klein has only two books and a handful of scattered tales to his credit, and yet his achievement towers gigantically over that of his more prolific contemporaries.”

“The Events at Poroth Farm” originally appeared in 1972 in a fan magazine, and it immediately gained Klein a rabid following. It’s easy to see why. The version included in
The Cthulhu Megapack
has been especially—and subtly—revised for this publication.

Henry Kuttner

Henry Kuttner (1915–1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Kuttner was known for his literary prose and worked in close collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. They met through their association with the “Lovecraft Circle,” a group of writers and fans who corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft.

Frank Belknap Long

Frank Belknap Long (1901–1994) was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (at the 1978 World Fantasy Convention), the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement (in 1987, from the Horror Writers Association), and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).

H.P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction. If you aren’t familiar with his work, well…this is a good place to start!

John McCann

An Emmy winning TV animation writer, John P. McCann enjoys the freedom of prose and the absence of budget constraints on the imagination. In addition to blogging at www.writeenough.blogspot.com, John is currently crafting a humorous book on New Age practices entitled “The Little Book of Big Enlightenment.”

Mark McLaughlin

Mark McLaughlin’s fiction, poetry, andarticles have appeared in hundreds of magazines, anthologies and websites. His most recent story collection is
Partners in Slime
, co-authored by Michael McCarty, from Damnation Books. His first novel,
Monster Behind the Wheel
(also coauthored by McCarty), is being re-released by Medallion Press.

Visit him at www.Facebook.com/MarkMcLaughlinMedia

Brian McNaughton

Brian McNaughton (1935–2004) was an American writer of horror and fantasy fiction who mixed sex, satire, and black humour. He won a World Fantasy Award for his collection of linked short stories,
The Throne of Bones
(1997, available from Wildside Press).

Thomas Kent Miller

Thos. Kent Miller is the author of
Allan Quatermain at the Crucible of Life
and
Sherlock Holmes on the Roof of the World
. He’s been published in
Faunus: The Journal of The Friends of Arthur Machen
,
Ghosts & Scholars: M.R. James Newsletter
, and
The Weird Tales Collector
. He names his cats after Victorian authors.

Robert M. Price

Robert M. Price is an American theologian and writer. He teaches philosophy and religion at the Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary, is professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute, and the author of a number of books on theology and the historicity of Jesus. As editor of the journal
Crypt of Cthulhu
and of a series of Cthulhu Mythos anthologies, Price has been a major figure in H. P. Lovecraft scholarship and fandom for many years. In essays that introduce the anthologies and the individual stories, Price traces the origins of Lovecraft’s entities, motifs, and literary style. Price’s religious background often informs his Mythos criticism, seeing gnostic themes in Lovecraft’s fictional god Azathoth and interpreting “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” as a kind of initiation ritual.

Stephen Mark Rainey

Stephen Mark Rainey is an author of novels, short stories, and various works of nonfiction. From 1987 to 1997, he edited
Deathrealm
, a magazine of horror and dark fantasy fiction, for which he won several awards for Best Editor.

Darrell Schweitzer

Darrell Schweitzer is an American writer, editor, and essayist in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy. Schweitzer is also a prolific writer of literary criticism and editor of collections of essays on various writers within his preferred genres, many of which are available from Wildside Press.

Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith (1893–1961) was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter, and author of fantasy, horror, and science fiction short stories. As a member of the Lovecraft circle, Smith remains second only to Lovecraft in general esteem and importance amongst contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales, where some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions. (It has been said of him that “Nobody since Poe has so loved a well-rotted corpse.”) His work is marked chiefly by an extraordinarily wide and ornate vocabulary, a cosmic perspective, and a vein of sardonic (and sometimes ribald) humor.

Brian Stableford

Brian Stableford is no stranger to weird fiction. He is the author of more than 100 books, covering pretty much every aspect of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields, from novels and short story collections to critical essays and author studies. About his story in this volume, he writes:

“
‘The Innsmouth Heritage’ is a sequel to ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth,’ by H. P. Lovecraft. It was commissioned for use in an anthology called
Shadows Over Innsmouth
, edited by Stephen Jones, but when the anthology initially failed to sell, I redirected it to a specialist publisher of Lovecraftiana, Necronomicon Press, who issued it as a chapbook in 1992. The anthology eventually sold to Fedogan & Bremer, who published it in 1994.”

Brian has two volumes of short stories now available which will without doubt be of interest to fans of the Cthulhu Mythos:
The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Descents
(Wildside Press, 2009) and
The Legacy of Erich Zann and Other Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
(Wildside Press, 2012).

Jason Van Hollander

Jason Van Hollander is an award-winning illustrator, book designer, and far too infrenquent author. His stories and collaborations with Darrell Schweitzer earned a World Fantasy Award nomination. His work has appeared in
Weird Tales
,
Interzone
,
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, and many other places.

Lawrence Watt-Evans

Lawrence Watt-Evans is the author of about fifty novels and over a hundred short stories, mostly in the SF, fantasy, and horror fields. He won the Hugo award in 1988 for his short story, “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers,” and was president of the Horror Writers Association for two years. His most recent book is
Tales of Ethshar
, a collection of short stories set in the same universe as
The Misenchanted Sword
and many of his finest fantasy novels.