Spooky and Weird: A Collection of Weird Fiction and Poetry

by Gary Hill (Editor, Contributor), Heath D. Alberts (Contributor), Elizabeth Lynn Blackson (Contributor)

This is a collection of "weird fiction," but what does that mean? According to Wikipedia, "Weird fiction either skews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction." Author and critic John Clute says that the term is "used loosely to describe fantasy, supernatural fiction and horror tales embodying transgressive material."
Did that narrow it right down for you? Not for me, either. I think, like many things, it is a subjective term. So, your idea of what is and isn't weird fiction might be different than mine. I would say that everything here qualifies as weird fiction to me, but your mileage may vary.
So, what things await you in this book? Well, for starters, I have created five haikus based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Those probably require some familiarity with the source material in order to make sense, but I hope I have done something clever with them. I also have two stories in this volume, "The Halloween Intervention or Halloween, Cthulhu and Blood Drinkers, Oh My" and "The Debut Tour." Both of those are tied directly into the Lovecraft mythos, and both are reprints.
We have three stories here for you from Elizabeth Lynn Blackson. The tales range from more fantasy oriented to horror of different kinds. Her contributions for this volume are "On Account of Murder," "Kenopsia," "The Huscarls of Njordr" and "The Dreams In Which I’m Dying."
Two tales here tackle the threat of ancient books with supernatural power, clearly a theme common to fans of weird fiction. The first of those is "Exponential" by Heath D. Alberts, which I have published in a previous collection. The second is "Source of Ignition: Unknown" by frequent Tales of Wonder and Dread contributor R. C. Mulhare.
The remaining two stories both bring new twists and angles to older story types. The first is "The Dragonslayer" from M. K. Davis. It's a story that really turns that trope on its head, and does so in a humorous way. The second is "Not Quite Dead" from Dan Klefstad. While it's a vampire story and ties into his novel Fiona's Guardians, it definitely brings some new wrinkles to the whole vampiric legend.
I really hope you enjoy this book. I think it has an interesting mix of tones, themes and styles. I also think that, although it can get quite dark, it's full of stories that are fun overall.

Gary Hill

146 pages, Paperback

Published September 4, 2023

About the author

Gary Hill has been publishing Music Street Journal (musicstreetjournal.com) since 1998. Since 2018 Hill has published MSJ simultaneously on-line and in book form. He also published all the archives in book form. In 2019 Hill began a series of books under the Music Street Journal banner focused on the Rockford, Illinois music scene titled, "Music Street Journal Local: Rockford Area Music Makers." In August of 2006 his first book The Strange Sound of Cthulhu: Music Inspired by the Writings of H.P. Lovecraft was published. Since then several other books (The Concert Photography of Gary Hill, the original edition of Strange Realities: Collected Short Stories and More by Gary Hill Expanded and Revised Edition, Poetry of the Air: A Collection of Love Letters from Musicians to Music and The Suite Music World of Gary Hill and a series of three books The Dark Starr Files) have been released. Wizard Song, his first book length science-fiction piece was released on March 31st, 2020. Hill has also written for cable television (Cops 2.0 on G4), All Music Guide, Demand Media Studios and more. He launched Tale of Wonder and Dread Publishing to release science fiction and horror books in 2018, but published a collection of those types of stories in 2017 titled "Dark Dreams and Worlds." Under the Tales of Wonder and Dread nameplate, Hill has published more than a dozen books including a series on Rockford Illinois cemeteries (Rockford's Final Resting Places), Spooky Rockford and Spooky Rockford Two and Spooky Berwyn. Hill launched Spooky Ventures in 2019 and has been doing video interviews, Spooky News segments and more for the Spooky Ventures YouTube Channel since then.