Trilobite: The Writing Of Threshold

by Caitlín R. Kiernan

As in Poppy Z. Brite's The Seed of Lost Souls, and David Morrell's the Unpublished Prologues, this huge (nearly 30,000 words!) limited edition (only 500 copies!) chapbook contains rare glimpses into CaitlÌn R. Kiernan's new novel, Threshold. Inside you'll find alternate openings, deleted chapters, nonfiction related to the novel, and short stories about the same characters, most of it unpublished. the Writing of Threshold 1. Author's Foreword -- An essay on the writing of the book; 2. Original Unused Prologue -- "... the dead and the moonstruck..."; 3. Second Unused Prologue -- untitled; 4. Original Chapter 4 -- "Dane" (completely excised from final ms.); 5. Excerpt from Original Chapter 1 -- untitled; 6. Related Short Stories -- "The Well of Stars and Shadow" -- A prequel, with Dancy as a small child in the Florida swamps (previously published only online) and "In The Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)" -- Essentially, a pro-prologue to Threshold, in which Chance Matthews' great-grandfather discovers the thing under the mountain; and 7. Author's Afterword -- An essay on the geology and paleontology of the area where Threshold is set -- Birmingham and Red Mountain.

Genres: Horror, Dark Fantasy

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan is an Irish-born American published paleontologist and author of science fiction and dark fantasy works, including ten novels, series of comic books, and more than two hundred and fifty published short stories, novellas, and vignettes.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contains alternate openings, deleted chapters, nonfiction information related to the novel, and short stories about the characters within Threshold.

This chapbook is copy 262 of 500 signed and numbered copies signed by Caitlin R. Kiernan.

[Sjgomzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Even the cutting room floor stuff, culled together from notes for what eventually became the novel Threshold and collected here in this lovely little chapbook, are better than ninety percent of everything out there. I’ll scream it to the heavens for as long as I stay above ground, Caitlin R. Kiernan is brilliant and deserves all the accolades.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Threshold and it scared the bejeezus outta me, but I’m not sure that I completely got it. It’s a bit of a puzzle box. It’s not the sort of book where one version of “objective reality” is an applicable concept, and it’s about the unknowable more than about the unknown. But throughout I had the sense that author knew more than she was telling about what was (or wasn’t) under Red Mountain. And so when I learned about “Trilobite: The Writing of Threshold” I was extraordinarily eager to read it. I have a long-standing fascination with insights into the creative process but I was also hoping for a peek behind the curtain of the plot. “Trilobite” offers a little glimpse, perhaps, but the glimpse is of something murky and ill-lit. On reflection that seems like the right artistic choice; Threshold keeps its compelling mystery intact.

“Trilobite” includes several alternate prologues, and excised chapters and chapter fragments. Kiernan’s depiction of a supernaturally powered neo-Nazi cult is gripping and intense, but on the whole, the deleted bits suggest that Threshold started as a substantially more prosaic novel. There are two prequel stories, one which was also reprinted in Alabaster and one a more overtly Lovecraftian vignette set a century before the events of Threshold.

But for me, the most rewarding elements of “Trilobite” were its nonfiction components: Kiernan’s essay on Threshold’s somewhat tortuous path from conception to execution, her context-setting introductions to the rethought bits of Threshold and the related stories, an essay on the actual geology of Birmingham and Red Mountain, and, most tantalizing, hard-to-read reproductions of several pages of hand-written notes on the structure of Threshold. And the package is sweetened by several photographs of real-world locales significant to Threshold.

I’m certainly not sorry I went through the effort required to find and read a copy of “Trilobite.”