The Orphan Palace by Joseph S Pulver

Following closely on the heels of Joseph S. Pulver's unsettling short story collection, Sin & Ashes, his latest effort has appeared in the form of The Orphan Palace. This new Chomu Press novel melds the nightmarish fantasies originated by authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers with Pulver's unmistakeable mind tripping. Fire, terror, and fringe characters come together maniacally in this genre bending storm.

Horror is exactly what most Pulver fans are after, and rightfully so, since he is a trustworthy master of it. His latest novel gives his devotees exactly what they are looking for – whether they know it or not. Like a blood stained Santa Clause, he knows how to gift words that are concealed knives, balancing a multi-verse of hells for maximum impact.

This book brings together otherworldly threats with the all too real underworlds of seedy orphanages, arson, and murder. Pulver makes us question realities, and wonder whether a parcel of our non-fiction world bears a resemblance to his madhouse built on pillars of untarnished horrors.

The Orphan Palace is a strong and swift descent into jarring lunacy, with hell spawned characters who are guaranteed to haunt the mind long after the pages go untouched. Pick up a copy, if you want to surrender to the entanglements of dark illusion and visceral frights.

-Grim Blogger

The Orphan Palace by Joseph S Pulver

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Joseph S Pulver Announces New Book: The Orphan Palace

No sooner than I reviewed his most recent collection, Sin & Ashes, Joseph S. Pulver announced a new book. The Orphan Palace is set to be released by Chomu Press sometime later this year. The new book is a novel, rather than a short story collection like Sin & Ashes. Pulver, along with Reggie Oliver and Wilum H. Pugmire, has a real knack for churning out prolific quantities of strange fiction.

Actually, the image above is a rare sighting of weird fiction's machine guns together at the grave of Robert W. Chambers. Pulver, Pugmire, and S.T. Joshi, the hardest working scholar in horror. Undoubtedly, Chambers' King in Yellow was there in spirit too.

-Grim Blogger

Joseph S Pulver Announces New Book: The Orphan Palace

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Review: Sin & Ashes by Joseph S Pulver

There are few weird horror collections that can vacillate between subtle terrors and visceral apocalypses without becoming wildly unbalanced. Now, though, the horror community is joined by Joseph S. Pulver's latest collection, Sin & Ashes, a sizable nightmare gallery published by Hippocampus Press that accomplishes this rare feat. By some indeterminate black magic, Pulver successfully dishes out the grotesque, the chilling, and intellectual dreads by short story and poetry, without losing his foothold on readers' unsettled reptile brains.

The book's real power lays in its ability to stitch seemingly disconnected horrors together, resulting in a Frankenstein collection capable of getting off the table and roaring like the legendary monster. But Jospeh S. Pulver's creation attacks all the unguarded senses, unlike Mary Shelley's fiend. Tales like “Love Her Madly” depict grisly crimes orchestrated by violent psychotics. Others, such as “Last Year in Carcosa” and “Long-Stemmed Ghost Words” carry the same tinge of ultra-violence, but introduce otherworldly incursions by Robert W. Chambers' infamous King in Yellow. Amid stories that read like murder cases and the more familiar weird yarns are unimagined hybrids, linking grim earthly happenings to the oddly supernatural.

Although Pulver's stylistic powers contribute much to the musty, haunted flavor of Sin & Ashes, it also owes a debt to atmosphere. The author's chosen scenery and settings for many tales provide a thoroughly hellish backdrop to demonic happenings. Run down hotels, blinding deserts, fallen cities, and re-imagined weird outposts from Carcosa and Lovecraft's Arkham are all displayed. As a result, a shadow land somewhere between the gritty and the ethereal prevails, animated by the music of the Doors. Pulver's haunts are dark, broken places that almost seem like they are waiting to be fed on blood, and this lends a mighty uniqueness to the collection.

This banquet of blood, ash, and ghostly shards is overshadowed by Joseph Pulver's style, which mostly spurns traditional narrative structures. Instead, he opts for idea rich prose that hits the mind like fiery bullets. Unconventional punctuation and sentence structure are paired with rich imagery and visionary moments that seem like incantations rather than prose. The effect isn't a universal hit in each of the dozens of pieces within Sin & Ashes. However, this experimental approach frequently yields a lyrical harvest that's applause inducing in its strangeness and literary strength.

Just as Pulver's bad dreams come flailing out of the pages in imaginative forms that are gore covered and elegant, he flicks his staff and contorts his monstrous beings and concepts again as the collection progresses from short story to poetry. His experimental scripts, which are reminiscent of William S. Burroughs and other masters, appear in force in both poems and stories. When digesting the collection as a whole, this makes for a pleasing mental texture. Just when it seems certain poetry pieces are mere desserts to soul blackening stories, they turn out to be gateway drugs to new echelons of Pulver's special hell instead.

Overall, Sin & Ashes is a black collection sure to appeal to sensibilities that reach deeper than many readers initially think. Pulver's enchantments are murderous and strange, calling to a literate love of the macabre many readers are familiar with, but also reaching down to the psyche's less acknowledged, primal basement. Although old symbols from the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers appear, they serve as phantasmal introductions to Joseph Pulver's original voice. And it's a shrieking sound likely to resonate with many in the coming years.

-Grim Blogger

Review: Sin & Ashes by Joseph S Pulver

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Miskatonic River Press to Release Ligotti, King in Yellow Anthologies in 2012

Last week, weird horror writer-turned-editor Joseph S. Pulver made a tantalizing announcement. He's begun work piecing together two new tribute anthologies due to be published by Miskatonic River Press in 2012. The Grimscribe's Puppets will feature a selection of stories that are a homage to Thomas Ligotti. It will be the first book by multiple authors dedicated to the Ligottian aesthetic, and will join only a handful of others that pay respect to a living writer of weird fiction.

A Season in Carcosa will collect new tales inspired by Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow. Tributes to Carcosa's mad sovereign have been done before, but only on an extremely limited basis (see Rehearsals for Oblivion by Elder Signs Press for a recent example). There's more than enough untapped horror to help build up a Yellow universe - possibly even an incipient Mythos based around the blasphemous play.

Since its earnest resurrection over a year ago, Miskatonic River Press has rolled out several new works. Their new Lovecraftian anthology, Dead But Dreaming II, can be expected later this year as well. The book is a follow up to the hyper-rare and well received Dead But Dreaming, which I previously reviewed here.

-Grim Blogger

Miskatonic River Press to Release Ligotti, King in Yellow Anthologies in 2012

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The Rise of Double Feature Press

Another intriguing player has recently entered the arena of small press horror publishing. Double Feature Press is hoping to resurrect the two tale horror package which haunted the screens of America's theaters in a bygone age, but this time in print rather than film. Or as the publisher states in its self-portrait:

Welcome to Double Feature Press. We are a small press formed by Sarah L. Covert in October of 2010. Sarah grew up on drive-in movies. That is where her love for Science Fiction, Strange Tales, and Horror was born. Double Feature Press has an interesting concept, based around the old double feature drive-in flicks. Each book has two authors. Each author contributes either short stories, poems, or novellas to make up their half of the book. The books will all be in the genres Sarah loved as a child and loves even more now. They will be limited edition runs. Our first book is due out in 2011.

Their debut book suggests that a decidedly weird horror course has been set for the press. The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom by Robin Spriggs and Night Begets by Joseph S. Pulver are set to be the first nightmarish duo paired together. Anyone familiar with Spriggs and Pulver will instantly recognize the dark, weirdly supernatural, and sometimes Lovecraftian flavor coursing through both these writers' works. Hopefully, this development will also serve as an atmospheric omen for further releases by Double Feature.

-Grim Blogger

The Rise of Double Feature Press

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