Black Wings of Cthulhu: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Related Posts
The Cthulhu Casebooks – Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows

It is the autumn of 1880, and Dr John Watson has just returned from Afghanistan. Badly injured and desperate to forget a nightmarish expedition that left him doubting his sanity, Watson is close to destitution when he meets the extraordinary Read more

Wrath of N’kai: (Arkham Horror)

The first in a new range of novels of eldritch adventure from the wildly popular Arkham Horror; an international thief of esoteric artifacts stumbles onto a nightmarish cult in 1920s New England. Countess Alessandra Zorzi, international adventurer and thief, arrives in  Read more

From the depths of R’lyeh come twenty-one brand-new, utterly terrifying, and thoroughly entertaining tales of Lovecraftian horror and the macabre

Taking their inspiration from works by Lovecraft himself, prominent writers such as Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Stableford, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Shea, Darrell Schweitzer, Donald R. Burleson, and David J. Schow delve deep into the psyche, expanding on concepts H.P. Lovecraft created and taking them in new directions.

The result is stories that are wholly original, some even featuring Lovecraft himself as a character. Black Wings editor S.T. Joshi is the recognized authority on all things Lovecraftian, and is famous for his restorations of Lovecraft’s original works. He has assembled a star-studded line-up in a book that is essential for every horror library.

The Autopsy: Best Weird Stories of Michael Shea by S.T. Joshi

From as early as the 1970s, Michael Shea (1946–2014) distinguished himself as one of the most compelling writers of weird fiction of his generation. Now that his classic story “The Autopsy” has been adapted for television for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, the time is right for a full-scale assessment of Shea’s work as a writer of tales of terror and the supernatural.

“The Autopsy” is one of several tales that mingles gruesomeness and science fiction. Others include “Polyphemus,” where the members of a spaceship encounter the titanic eye of some unthinkably vast and hostile entity. “The Angel of Death” exhibits the battle of two alien entities as they successively inhabit hapless human beings in their quest for supremacy.

Shea’s sensitivity to the downtrodden is exhibited in such tales as “The Horror on the #33,” “Water of Life,” and “Tollbooth,” populated by homeless people, prostitutes, drug dealers, and other disdained members of society. Shea’s affinity for California is shown in “Fill it with Regular,” “Upscale,” and other tales that bring his native state to life. As a bonus, two unpublished stories are included: “Feeding Spiders,” evoking the work of a writer who adopted California as his home—Ray Bradbury; and “Ghost,” where a vengeful ghost stalks the tough streets of South Boston.

Michael Shea was the author of dozens of novels and tales of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. This volume shows why his vibrant work deserves to live in the hearts and minds of weird fiction devotees.