January 02, 2018
To celebrate the new year we've launched an ultra-temporary new 33% off sale!
For DarkRegions.com orders of $200 USD or more (after disconts/credits) use coupon code HAPPYNEWYEAR to save 33% off your entire order!
Thanks to all for your continued support of Dark Regions Press and watch for exciting news on the year ahead soon!
December 28, 2017
December 18, 2017
Collectors interested in a copy of the deluxe lettered traycased hardcover of Off Season 35th Anniversary Edition by Jack Ketchum, we have good news: after shipping all preorders we still have four deluxe lettered copies remaining that are now for sale on the Off Season page!
Check out the photos below, these deluxe hardcover editions of Jack Ketchum's debut novel are shipping now!
December 15, 2017
Now all DarkRegions.com customers from any country in the world can enjoy a new benefit:
Use coupon code FREESHIP for any order of $500 USD or more (after discounts/credit) on DarkRegions.com during checkout to get free shipping on your entire order to any country in the world!
Customers in Australia, United Kingdom and other countries are encouraged to use this special to get free shipping on their orders!
NOTE: if the FREESHIP code is used all items in a single order will be shipped at the same time.
December 14, 2017
Pirates of the Old World is a color illustrated weird fiction anthology of horror, adventure and plunder edited by Chris Morey (I AM THE ABYSS, Black Labyrinth). The book features wraparound color dust jacket artwork by Richard Luong (Cthulhu Wars) and will include multiple color interior illustrations. Pirates of the Old World will be published in ebook, trade hardcover and deluxe signed hardcover formats. Set to contain more color artwork than any other Dark Regions Press publication and will be printed in an oversized format.
Customers interested in preordering Pirates of the Old World will only have one place to do it: the 2018 Dark Regions Press Collectors Club on Patreon. This exclusive preorder will feature variant covers for the book, immortalizing preorder customers as pirates in the illustrations/prose, preorder-exclusive coins and much more. We encourage Dark Regions Press customers interested in preordering Pirates of the Old World to join the 2018 Collectors Club on Patreon today before the preorder campaign starts in the 2nd half of 2018. The book will be offered for sale again in 2019 when in stock and shipping.
Attention Collectors: there is a strong possibility that the deluxe signed hardcover edition of Pirates of the Old World will sell out in the 2018 preorder campaign, one-time printing only!
Thank you to all of our Collectors Club members for your continued patronage!
December 11, 2017
December 08, 2017
Independent specialty publisher Dark Regions Press has released the 2nd volume of Christmas Horror, an anthology of six new holiday tales of terror including Richard Chizmar, Jeff Strand, William F. Nolan, Elizabeth Massie, Gene O'Neill and Steve Rasnic Tem.
Christmas and a birthday collide, criminals get a holiday surprise, a man drifts through a life he once knew and Santa gets hungrier with each passing year. These are just some of the tales of terror found in Christmas Horror Volume 2, featuring all original fiction from Jeff Strand, Elizabeth Massie, Richard Chizmar, Gene O'Neill, Steve Rasnic Tem and William F. Nolan.
Read More About Christmas Horror Volume 2: https://darkregions.com/products/christmas-horror-volume-2
December 04, 2017
December 04, 2017
Steve Rasnic Tem's long-lasting writing career has spawned over 200 tales and his work has been favorably compared to the likes of Franz Kafka and Ray Bradbury for his mix of horror and wonder. His writing has earned him a British Fantasy Award and a World Fantasy Award among others. He was nice enough to take some time away from his busy schedule to talk to me about writing and his new story in the upcoming anthology I AM THE ABYSS from Dark Regions Press.
BMS - Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, Steve. Now before authors began to write, they were readers, so what were some of your earliest literary loves? Who inspired you and made you want to keep on reading?
I grew up with very few books, but the ones I could get my hands on I loved: mostly folklore, fairytales, the stories of King Arthur, the stories of Robin Hood, some Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. When our county finally got a public library I devoured the science fiction collection. I remember particularly liking Arthur C. Clarke, and read everything by him I could find.
BMS – What is your favorite book or story and why?
My favorite book for a very long time was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, mostly because I was obsessed with the subject matter—transformation, people changing into other beings. I found that theme both hopeful and terrifying. My favorite short story came later—Kafka’s “A Country Doctor.” I love the way it moves from the real to a dream-like reality which still feels intensely truthful.
BMS - Do you recall when you first thought about writing your own stories? Was it a sudden epiphany, a gradual thing, or something else entirely?
The idea of telling stories always appealed to me, but I only became driven to do so when I found my subject matter: secret realities. For me, secret realities included the world of dreams and folklore—alternative ways at looking at the world which found truths that were beyond the obvious. But it also included “under-reported” realities such as congenital malformations, hydrocephalic wards, the results of Hiroshima, the realities of the concentration camps, the details of what was done to Jack the Ripper’s victims, etc. These were ugly truths which in the intensity of our need to suppress them achieved the level of myth in my mind.
BMS - What was your first sale and to what market?
My first professional sale was the story “City Fishing” to Ramsey Campbell’s New Terrors. There were poems and short prose pieces published before then, but they only paid in copies.
BMS - What is the best thing about being a writer?
You have the opportunity to provide public testimony as to how you felt and what you saw during your time on the planet. That’s a rare privilege.
BMS - What’s the worst thing about being a writer?
It has become increasingly difficult for most of us to make a reasonable living at it. Most of us have to supplement it with other money-making activities, or write things we don’t particularly want to write.
BMS - If I had no idea who you were and asked you the dreaded question: “So what kind of stories do you write?” how would you answer that?
Next spring Valancourt Books will be bringing out my collection Figures Unseen, Selected Stories. It includes stories chosen from each of my collections. Simon Stranzas is writing the introduction. I would tell them “Read that. That’s what I do.”
BMS - If I asked you for three stories or books that would give a reader who is unfamiliar with your work the best representation of you as an author, what would those three be?
The novel Deadfall Hotel, and the short stories “Wheatfield With Crows” and “Red Rabbit.”
BMS - Now on to I AM THE ABYSS. What first attracted you to the book, to do something for it?
I loved the concept. A personal vision of Hell. A chance to be Dante. That’s a rare opportunity indeed.
BMS - What can you tell me about your story in the book, “Torn”? Give me the “elevator pitch” on it.
A young man drives his car off a cliff. When he hits ground he enters the nightmare world of his childhood, overshadowed by the devil his father truly was.
BMS - Do you see yourself revisiting the characters, locations, or themes of this story in later work?
I don’t think so. It’s so self-contained, and so final, any other use of it would be a dilution.
BMS - Any words of advice, or even warnings, you would like to give to beginning authors?
Read as much as possible, and analyze what you read. If you want to be a short story writer read at least 1000 short stories—all genres, all types. Think about how the story began and how it ended. How is the middle structured? What are the storytelling strategies involved? That’ll give you a tool set for going forward.
BMS - What is the best way for people to learn more about you and your work?
Read A Primer to Steve Rasnic Tem. It’s a book edited by Eric Guignard. Also read Yours to Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Writing. That’s a writing guide I wrote with my late wife Melanie. We lay out pretty much everything we know about writing in that book. You might also try my latest novel Ubo, from Solaris. It’s a book about violence and its origins with such viewpoint characters as Stalin, Himmler, and Jack the Ripper. It’s the darkest thing I’ve ever written.
BMS - Thanks again for your time today and for all the wonderful stories you’ve given us over the years.
Thank you, Brian.
Steve Rasnic Tem has a novella entitled Torn in the new Dark Regions Press anthology I AM THE ABYSS shipping in 2018.
Steve Rasnic Tem was born in Lee County Virginia in the heart of Appalachia. He is the author of over 350 published short stories and is a past winner of the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy Awards. His story collections include City Fishing, The Far Side of the Lake, and In Concert (with wife Melanie Tem). Forthcoming collections include Ugly Behavior (crime) and Celestial Inventories (contemporary fantasy). An audio collection, Invisible, is also available. His novels include Excavation, The Book of Days, Daughters, The Man In The Ceiling (with Melanie Tem), and the recent Deadfall Hotel. In this Edward Gorey-esque, Mervyn Peak-esque novel a widower takes the job of manager at a remote hotel where the guests are not quite like you and me, accompanied by his daughter and the ghost of his wife--"a literary exploration of the roots of horror in the collective unconscious."
December 01, 2017
We wanted to let our customers know that today, December 1st is the final day to save up to 50% off products on DarkRegions.com in our Black Friday / Cyber Week sale... and we have an incentive for customers who already shopped in the sale to do so again:
These Halloween Grab Bags will ship within 14 business days of your order being placed!
November 27, 2017
Michael Marshall Smith is an author from the UK who has penned short stories, novels, and screenplays. He started things of right with his first published story, "The Man Who Drew Cats", winning the British Fantasy Award in 1991 for "Best Short Story" and from there he was off and running. He is just one of the great authors contributing to Dark Regions Press’ new anthology, I Am The Abyss. He took a few moments out of his day to answer some of my questions about his story for that book, his background, writing, and more.
BMS - Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, Michael. Now before authors began to write, they were readers, so what were some of your earliest literary loves? Who inspired you and made you want to keep on reading?
The earliest writer who really sucked me in was Enid Blyton, the English children’s book author. She’s not fashionable these days, but god she could pump them out — and she had a firm grip on how to tell a story and engage the imagination (as I discovered anew when reading some of her books for even younger readers to my son, a few years ago). In my mid-teens I discovered genre fiction, people like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick, and a few horror short stories, and Douglas Adams, but also P. G. Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler — both of whom I loved, and was later surprised to learn had actually been at the same school in England at the same time. In my late teens I became a huge fan of Kingsley Amis, and then in my final year at college a friend turned me on to Stephen King, who was the gateway drug into “horror” — people like Peter Straub, Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell. A few years later I swerved into reading mystery — people like James Lee Burke, Jim Thompson and James Ellroy. Then somehow I sidestepped into more “literary” writers like Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff.
The story of my life (when it comes to reading and writing) is a fundamental inability or unwillingness to pick a lane and stick to it. In real life I tend to be far more dogged. It may not look like a path to anybody else, but it feels like one to me.
BMS – What is your favorite book or story and why?
That's SO hard to answer. Impossible, in fact. It varies over time and depending what mood I’m in, and which life currents I’m surrounded by. There are books or stories that I hold up for years as a firm favorite, then I revisit and discover I can’t find what I used to there; conversely, sometimes I retry something I didn’t really get and realize that I just needed to be in a different place. Good books hit you on a very personal level, and who you are changes over time. It ought to, at least. If you twist my arm I’m going to say LUCKY JIM by Kingsley Amis, even though I haven’t read it in a long time.
BMS - Do you recall when you first thought about writing your own stories? Was it a sudden epiphany, a gradual thing, or something else entirely?
There were two epiphanies, I think. The first was when I was pretty young, very taken with Enid Blyton’s “… of Adventure” series, her books for slightly older kids. I guess I would have been around twelve. I started writing something similar, got it up to twenty pages or so, then drifted from it. Nearly ten years later I discovered Stephen King when that friend made me read THE TALISMAN, and it was his books that really made me think: "This. I want to do something like this". I wrote my first short story a few weeks later.
BMS - What was your first sale and to what market?
The first story I ever sold was called THE DARK LAND, which went to a good friend of mine, Nicholas Royle, who was self-publishing an anthology (long before indie publishing even really existed). Though the second story I sold was the very first I’d ever written, and actually came out first — THE MAN WHO DREW CATS. Stephen Jones published that and it was lucky enough to win the British Fantasy Award, which was a very important early piece of encouragement for me.
BMS - What is the best thing about being a writer?
When it goes well, I can’t imagine why you’d do anything else. You get to sit at home, hang out with the cats, smoke and drink coffee and create worlds and people and both sculpt what happens to them but also — and this is far more fun and exciting — watch while some part of your mind does the work for you without conscious intervention. Those moments are the best part, for me: the days where you’re not even really doing it, just spectating. When you go to Safeway to get groceries and ideas or whole scenes just drop into your head, as if you’ve plucked them off the shelves.
BMS - What’s the worst thing about being a writer?
All the other parts. The times when the creative part of your mind is silent, when the muse is absent, when nothing you do seems to work and you’re convinced you’ve written your last and that everything you did before was crap anyway. The insecurity that comes from laying yourself and your imagination on the line time after time, knowing that you may be rebuffed. The very strong sense that instead of lurking at home making shit up, you should be out there in the world doing real things. Writing as a career asks a lot of a person when it comes to resilience, self-discipline, and the ability to hope... against what may sometimes seem like insuperable odds. You’re going to take some very hard knocks, even long after you assumed you’d got somewhere.
BMS - If I had no idea who you were and asked you the dreaded question: “So what kind of stories do you write?” how would you answer that?
By turning round and walking out and going into the nearest pub. That’s the question all writers dread, as you know. Or perhaps some don’t: I guess some have a good, easily-communicable pitch about themselves and their wares. I should probably have one, but I don’t. Partly because I’ve written a lot of different types of stuff — “horror”, science fiction, thrillers, semi-supernatural, offbeat “literary”. To me they’ve all been part of the same thing… attempts to entertain, while I explore what it’s like to be human and experience life (both good and bad), usually framed by events in which the “real” world is intruded upon by something strange. But before I got halfway through saying all that, I suspect the person who asked the question would have turned around and walked away to the nearest pub...
BMS - If I asked you for three stories or books that would give a reader who is unfamiliar with your work the best representation of you as an author, what would those three be?
That’s tricky. There’s a lot of variety, as noted. It’s hard for me to pick amongst the short stories, as there’s nearly a hundred of them and some of the better-known were written quite a long time ago now. But a good range of novels would include my most recent (HANNAH GREEN AND HER UNFEASIBLY MUNDANE EXISTENCE), THE INTRUDERS or THE STRAW MEN from the thriller and semi-supernatural side, and maybe ONLY FORWARD — my first, and still a lot of people’s favorite, it would appear. If you don’t like *any* of those then you’re probably just not going to like my books!
BMS - Now on to I Am The Abyss. What first attracted you to the book, to do something for it?
Chris the publisher made a great pitch for the book, and both the idea behind it — and the fact that each story would be illustrated by someone who’s both a great artist and an old friend of mine — made it impossible to resist.
BMS - Your story, “The Burning Woods” what can you tell me about it? Give me the “elevator pitch” on it.
It’d be hard to describe without spoilers, and I don’t really have a pitch on it — except that I think it’s one of the better stories that I’ve written in a long time. I hope that’s good enough. It’s about a man who turns up at an out-of-season resort in the mountains, and what happens next.
BMS - Do you see yourself revisiting the characters, locations, or themes of this story in later work?
Not sure. The location, the environment, the atmosphere, the main character — all of those things arrived in my head without me consciously reaching for them. I could certainly see wanting to go back there, though I’m not sure there story as it came out really lends itself to that. I suspect this story stands alone.
BMS - Any words of advice, or even warnings, you would like to give to beginning authors and for first time editors?
Well, they’re very different jobs, and I’ve never really done much editing. For writers it’s pretty simple: read a lot, and write a lot. And then, when you’re ready, seek out some people who read and write the same kind of thing, and start sharing. It’s scary, but you won’t get anywhere without it. For editing… I think the first thing to realize is that editing is a very real job, and a unique set of skills, and meet and talk to some people who’ve done it for a while, and done it well. Just banging some stories together isn’t editing, and the result won’t serve either you or the writers. Luckily Chris Morey *does* know what he’s doing, and I AM THE ABYSS is looking fantastic.
BMS - What is the best way for people to learn more about you and your work?
My Web site… www.michaelmarshallsmith.com
BMS - Thanks again for your time today, and for all the wonderful stories you’ve given us over the years.
A pleasure — nice talking to you!
Michael Marshall Smith has a new novella entitled The Burning Woods in the new Dark Regions Press title I AM THE ABYSS.
November 20, 2017