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That writer, the man he thought of as the Author, had found second-hand bookshops everywhere, it seemed. Even his characters had, too.
“When he first discovered the work of the Author, it had intrigued the teenaged Adrian Darnell to find, as he read his way through the stories, that he shared the surname of one of the characters. The connection went no further, although the story of that other Darnell was his favourite, and remained so. Over the succeeding decades and after numerous readings of the story, Adrian Darnell had never felt the sense of being haunted by an emerging heritage that would, in time, slowly and completely change his life. He would confess to himself that he had never been truly on the threshold of a transforming adventure. He wished it could be otherwise – but grew to assume that it was not the way his life was to unfold. Yet a formless hope never quite deserted him.”
“When he first discovered the work of the Author, it had intrigued the teenaged Adrian Darnell to find, as he read his way through the stories, that he shared the surname of one of the characters. The connection went no further, although the story of that other Darnell was his favourite, and remained so. Over the succeeding decades and after numerous readings of the story, Adrian Darnell had never felt the sense of being haunted by an emerging heritage that would, in time, slowly and completely change his life. He would confess to himself that he had never been truly on the threshold of a transforming adventure. He wished it could be otherwise – but grew to assume that it was not the way his life was to unfold. Yet a formless hope never quite deserted him.”
12 pages, Chapbook
Published April 1, 2023
2 people want to read
About the author
John Howard
97 books83 followersJohn Howard was born in London. His fiction has appeared in several anthologies and the collections The Silver Voices (2010), Written by Daylight (2013), and Cities and Thrones and Powers (2013). The majority of his stories have central and eastern European settings; many are set in the fictional Romanian town of Steaua de Munte. The Defeat of Grief (2010) is a novella set in Steaua de Munte and the real Black Sea resort of Balcic; Numbered as Sand or the Stars (2012) attempts a 'secret history' of Hungary between the World Wars.
Between 2003 and 2007 John Howard collaborated on eight short stories with Mark Valentine, six of which featured Valentine’s long-running series character The Connoisseur, an occult detective whose real name is never revealed. All 23 tales of The Connoisseur, including the collaborations, were reprinted in The Collected Connoisseur (2010).
Secret Europe (2012) is a collection jointly written with Mark Valentine comprising 25 short stories set in a variety of real and fictional European locations. Ten of the stories are by Howard and fifteen by Valentine.
John Howard has written articles for numerous magazines including Book and Magazine Collector, Supernatural Tales, Wormwood, Studies in Australian Weird Fiction, and All Hallows. He contributed essays to the Fritz Leiber special issue of Fantasy Commentator (No. 57/58, 2004) and to the books Black Prometheus: A Critical Study of Karl Edward Wagner (2007), Fritz Leiber: Critical Essays (2008), and The Man Who Collected Psychos: Critical Essays on Robert Bloch (2009), all edited by Benjamin Szumskyj.
John Howard also wrote the introduction to the Ash-Tree Press edition of Francis Brett Young’s classic 1924 horror novel Cold Harbour (2007).
Between 2003 and 2007 John Howard collaborated on eight short stories with Mark Valentine, six of which featured Valentine’s long-running series character The Connoisseur, an occult detective whose real name is never revealed. All 23 tales of The Connoisseur, including the collaborations, were reprinted in The Collected Connoisseur (2010).
Secret Europe (2012) is a collection jointly written with Mark Valentine comprising 25 short stories set in a variety of real and fictional European locations. Ten of the stories are by Howard and fifteen by Valentine.
John Howard has written articles for numerous magazines including Book and Magazine Collector, Supernatural Tales, Wormwood, Studies in Australian Weird Fiction, and All Hallows. He contributed essays to the Fritz Leiber special issue of Fantasy Commentator (No. 57/58, 2004) and to the books Black Prometheus: A Critical Study of Karl Edward Wagner (2007), Fritz Leiber: Critical Essays (2008), and The Man Who Collected Psychos: Critical Essays on Robert Bloch (2009), all edited by Benjamin Szumskyj.
John Howard also wrote the introduction to the Ash-Tree Press edition of Francis Brett Young’s classic 1924 horror novel Cold Harbour (2007).
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