New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird (77 page)

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. “You had no choice.”

“Yes I did! I didn’t have to come here.” He pauses. “I didn’t have to do anything,” he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. “It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.”

“—Evitable,” echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F117 hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. “Your family could still be alive, you know.”

He looks up. “They could?” Andrea? Jason? “Alive?”

The void laughs again, unfriendly: “There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.”

Roger looks at his cigarette disbelievingly: throws it far out into the night sky above the plain. He watches it fall until its ember is no longer visible. Then he gets up. For a long moment he stands poised on the edge of the cliff nerving himself, and thinking. Then he takes a step back, turns, and slowly makes his way back up the trail towards the redoubt on the plateau. If his analysis of the situation is wrong, at least he is still alive. And if he is right, dying would be no escape.

He wonders why Hell is so cold at this time of year.

• ABOUT THE AUTHORS •

Dale Bailey
lives in North Carolina with his family and has published three novels,
The Fallen
,
House of Bones
, and
Sleeping Policemen
(with Jack Slay, Jr.). A fourth novel,
The Clearing
, is in the works. His short fiction, available in
The Resurrection Man’s Legacy and Other Stories
, won the International Horror Guild Award, and has been twice nominated for the Nebula Award.

Nathan Ballingrud
lives with his daughter in Asheville, NC. His stories have appeared in several places, including
Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural
,
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy
, and a number of year’s best anthologies. He won the Shirley Jackson Award for his short story “The Monsters of Heaven.”

Laird Barron
’s most recent story collection,
Occultation,
and novella
Mysterium Tremendum
both received Shirley Jackson Awards in 2011. An earlier collection,
The Imago Sequence,
was also a Jackson award winner. His fiction has appeared in
Sci Fiction
,
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, and numerous anthologies and is frequently reprinted in various “year’s best” anthologies. He is now at work on his first novel,
The Croning
.

Elizabeth Bear
was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo and Sturgeon Award-winning author of over a dozen novels and fifty short stories. She lives in Connecticut with a ridiculous dog and a cat who is an internet celebrity.

Steve Duffy
’s third collection of short supernatural fiction,
Tragic Life Storie
s, was published in 2010. A fourth collection,
The Moment of Panic
, is due out soon, and will include the International Horror Guild award-winning short story, “The Rag-and-Bone Men.” Duffy lives in North Wales.

Neil Gaiman
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of novels
Neverwhere
,
Stardust
,
American Gods
,
Coraline
,
Anansi Boys
,
The Graveyard Book
, and (with Terry Pratchett)
Good Omens
; the Sandman series of graphic novels; and the story collections
Smoke and Mirrors
and
Fragile Things
. He has won numerous literary awards including the Hugo, the Nebula, the World Fantasy, and the Stoker Awards, as well as the Newbery medal.

Cody Goodfellow
is the author of the Lovecraftian novels
Radiant Dawn
and
Ravenous Dusk
, as well as novel
Perfect Union
. He co-wrote novels
Jake’s Wake
and
The Day Before
with John Skipp. His best short fiction is collected in
Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.

Caitlín R. Kiernan
is the author of several novels, including
Low Red Moon
,
Daughter of Hounds
, and
The Red Tree
, which was nominated for both the Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy awards. Her next novel,
The Drowning Girl: A Memoir
, will be released in 2012. Since 2000, her shorter tales of the weird, fantastic, and macabre have been collected in several volumes, including
Tales of Pain and Wonder
;
From Weird and Distant Shores
;
To Charles Fort, With Love
;
Alabaster
;
A is for Alien
; and
The Ammonite Violin & Others
. A retrospective of her early writing,
Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One)
will be published in 2012. She lives in H.P. Lovecraft’s beloved Providence, RI, with her partner Kathryn.

David Barr Kirtley
’s short fiction appears in books such as
New Voices in Science Fiction
,
Fantasy: The Best of the Year
, and
The Living Dead
; in magazines such as
Realms of Fantasy
,
Weird Tales
,
Intergalactic Medicine Show
, and
Lightspeed
; and on podcasts such as Escape Pod and Pseudopod. He’s also the co-host, along with John Joseph Adams, of the
Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy
podcast on io9.com, an interview and talk show devoted to science fiction and related topics.

Marc Laidlaw
is the author of six novels, including the International Horror Guild Award winner,
The 37th Mandala
. His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies since the 1970s. In 1997, he joined Valve Software as a writer and creator of
Half-Life
, which has become one of the most popular videogame series of all time. He lives in Washington State with his wife and two daughters, and continues to writes occasional short fiction between playing too many videogames.

John Langan
is the author of a novel,
House of Windows
, and a collection of stories,
Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters
. He recently co-edited
Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters
with Paul Tremblay. Langan lives in upstate New York with his wife, son, dog, and a trio of mutually-suspicious cats.

Before becoming a full-time writer,
Paul McAuley
earned a Ph.D. in botany, worked as a researcher in biology in various universities (including Oxford and UCLA) and as a lecturer in botany at St. Andrews University. His first novel,
Four Hundred Billion Stars
, won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award;
Fairyland
won Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Awards. Novel
Pasquale’s Angel
was honored with the Sidewise Award, and short story “The Temptation of Dr Stein” earned the British Fantasy Award. He lives in London most of the time.

Nick Mamatas
is the author of a few Lovecraftian pieces, including the novels
Move Under Ground
and, with Brian Keene,
The Damned Highway
. His Lovecraftian short pieces have appeared in
Lovecraft Unbound
,
Dark Wings II
, and
Shotguns vs Cthulhu
. With Ellen Datlow, Nick co-edited an anthology of “true” regional ghost stories,
Haunted Legends,
and currently he edits an imprint of Japanese science fiction and fantasy in translation, Haikasoru. His fiction and editorial work have been nominated for the Bram Stoker award four times, the Hugo award twice, and the World Fantasy, International Horror Guild, and Shirley Jackson awards.

China Miéville
is the author of
King Rat
;
Perdido Street Station,
winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award;
The Scar
, winner of the Locus and British Fantasy Awards;
Iron Council
, winner of the Locus and Arthur C. Clarke Awards;
Looking for Jake
, a collection of short stories;
Un Lun Dun
, his
New York Times
bestselling book for younger readers;
The City & The City
, winner of Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, BSFA, and World Fantasy Awards; his most recent novel is
Kraken
.
Railsea
, another novel for younger readers, is slated for 2012. He lives and works in London. He wrote the introduction to Lovecraft’s
At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition
.

Sarah Monette
lives in a 105-year-old house in the Upper Midwest with a great many books, two cats, and one husband. Her Ph.D. diploma in English Literature hangs in the kitchen. Her first four novels constituted The Doctrine of Labyrinths series. Themed short story collection
The Bone Key,
first published in 2007, was recently republished in a new edition. The newly published
Somewhere Beneath Those Waves
collects other short fiction
.
She has written two novels (
A Companion to Wolves
and
The Tempering of Men
) and three short stories with Elizabeth Bear. Her novel,
The Goblin Emperor
, will come out under the name Katherine Addison. Visit her online at sarahmonette.com.

Kim Newman
is a novelist, critic and broadcaster. His fiction includes
The Night Mayor
,
Bad Dreams
,
Jago,
The Quorum
,
The Original Dr Shade and Other Stories
,
Life’s Lottery
,
Back in the USSA
(with Eugene Byrne) and
The Man From the Diogenes Club
under his own name and
The Vampire Genevieve
and
Orgy of the Blood Parasites
as Jack Yeovil. His nonfiction books include
Ghastly Beyond Belief
(with Neil Gaiman),
Horror: 100 Best Books
(with Stephen Jones),
Wild West Movies
,
The BFI Companion to Horror
,
Millennium Movies,
and BFI Classics studies of
Cat People
and
Doctor Who
. Newman’s current publications are expanded reissues of the Anno Dracula series and
The Hound of the d’Urbervilles
and a much-expanded edition of
Nightmare Movies
. His website is johnnyalucard.com.

Norman Partridge
’s fiction includes horror, suspense, and the fantastic— “sometimes all in one story” according to Joe Lansdale. Partridge’s novel
Dark Harvest
was chosen by
Publishers Weekly
as one of the 100 Best Books of 2006, and two short story collections were published in 2010—
Lesser Demons
and
Johnny Halloween
. Other work includes the Jack Baddalach mysteries
Saguaro Riptide
and
The Ten-Ounce Siesta
, plus
The Crow: Wicked Prayer
, which was adapted for film. Partridge’s work has received multiple Bram Stoker awards. He can be found online at NormanPartridge.com and americanfrankenstein.blogspot.com.

Holly Phillips
lives in a small city on a large island off the west coast of Canada. She is the author of the award-winning collection
In the Palace of Repose
and novels
The Burning Girl
and
The Engine’s Child
. You can visit her website site at hollyphillips.com.

Lon Prater
is a retired Navy officer by day, writer of odd little tales by night. His short fiction has appeared in the Stoker-winning anthology
Borderlands 5,
Writers of the Future XXI
, and Origins Award finalist
Frontier Cthulhu
. Prater has written two novels. He is an avid Texas Hold’em player, occasional stunt kite flyer, and connoisseur of history, theme parks and haunted hayrides. To find out more, see lonprater.com.

Tim Pratt
’s fiction has appeared in
The Best American Short Stories
,
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror
, and other nice places. His most recent collection is
Hart & Boot & Other Storie
s. His work has won a Hugo Award and been nominated for World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Stoker, Mythopoeic, and Nebula Awards. He blogs intermittently at timpratt.org, where you can also find links to many of his stories. Pratt is a senior editor at
Locus
, the magazine of the science fiction and fantasy field, and he lives in Berkeley CA with his wife—writer Heather Shaw—and their son.

Cherie Priest
is the author of ten novels including
Ganymeade
,
Dreadnought
, and
Boneshaker
—which was nominated for a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award, and won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel—plus
Bloodshot
, the Eden Moore series,
Clementine
, and
Fathom
.

W.H. Pugmire
has been writing Lovecraftian weird fiction since the 1970s, striving to write tales that echo the golden age of
Weird Tales
, yet also revealing his neoteric decadence as outrageous punk rock queer. His books include
The Tangled Muse
,
Some Unknown Gulf of Night
,
The Strange Dark One: Tales of Nyarlathotep
, and
Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts
. He is the Queen of Eldritch Horror.

Michael Shea
learned to love the “genres” from the great Jack Vance’s
Eyes of the Overworld
, chance-discovered in a flophouse in Juneau when Shea was twenty-one. He tilled the field of sword-and-sorcery for more than a decade (
Quest for Simbilis
,
In Yana the Touch of Undyine
,
Nifft the Lean)
. Concurrently he wallowed in the delights of supernatural/extraterrestrial horror, primarily in the novella form, and this remains his genre of choice (as can be seen in the collections
Polyphemus
and
The Autopsy and Other Tales
). In the last decade or so he has added
hommages
to H.P. Lovecraft to his novella work (as in collection
Copping Squid
.) Currently he is writing a trilogy of near-future thrillers. The first,
The Extra
was published last year; its sequel,
Assault on Sunrise
is slated for 2012.

John Shirley
’s influential novel
Wetbones
blended Lovecraftian supernatural horror with razor-sharp, outlaw street savvy; novel
City Come A-Walkin’
and the A Song Called Youth trilogy (
Eclipse
,
Eclipse Corona
,
Eclipse Penumbra
) were seminal to cyberpunk. Among his many novels are
Demons
,
Bleak History
, and the forthcoming
Everything Is Broken
. His numerous short stories have been collected in eight volumes including the Stoker and International Horror Guild Award-winning
Black Butterflies
and
In Extremis: The Most Extreme Short Stories
of John Shirley. He was co-screenwriter of the film
The Crow
, and has written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult. His website is john-shirley.com.