10p040: THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE ALGORITHM: Preorders open, release date announced!
The machine is now alive To wreak havoc in your lives There's no use to hold me back I am ready to attack
November 21st, 2023. The Day the Machines…Fell?
OK, that’s a little aspirational. And it’s not what we want anyway; despite what A.I. lovin’ art thieves would have you believe, we are not some anti-technology luddites.
We just believe—scratch that, we know—that A.I. doesn’t have any place muddying up our artistic waters.
And if you’ve been following along with us this long, then odds are that you think the same. So good news!
THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE ALGORITHM has a release date—November 21st—and is available to preorder now!
Print copies—as well as eBooks—are available from our webstore now:
About THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE ALGORITHM:
DEATH TO THE ROBOTS!
The Zero Issue of Tenebrous' upcoming quarterly magazine has arrived to wrest the controls of artistic endeavor from the clutches of A.I. thieves and restore it to the rightful hands of human creators.
This collection of Sci-Horror short fiction, comics, poems, and art celebrates the connection between humanity and creativity in the face of ever-increasing pressure to submit to the inevitability of algorithmic dominion.
**Profits from sales of THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE ALGORITHM go to the Algorithmic Justice League and the European Guild of Artificial Intelligence Regulation.**
Table of Contents:
SHORT FICTION:
“The Android & Esmel” by Marcy Arlin
“Chimera” by Edward Barnfield
“TELL ME ABOUT YOUR SYMPTOMS” by Caleb Bethea
“Please Rate Your Experience From 1-10” by Michael Boulerice
“Filtered” by Koji A. Dae
”The Grid” by Beth Dawkins
“Philanderer” by Monica Joyce Evans
“Wound Together” by gaast
“The Grin of the Ministry” by Colin Hinckley
“Schroedinger's Head” by Joe Koch
“The Price of Pancakes” by Michael A. Reed
“Iago v2.0” by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez
“I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” by Jill Tew
“Requiem Shark” by Kay Vaindal
“The Bodiless” by Carson Winter
POETRY & WEIRD FORMS:
“Rent-A-Baby: Content Without the Commitment” by Lyndsey Croal
“do not trust the poet what has the poet ever done for you” by luna rey hall
“CyberBerry” by Eva Papasoulioti
“A Face-Eating Oracle Envisions Your Future” by Simo Srinivas
COMICS:
“I’m not a robot” by Aster Fialla
“Spare Parts” by Caitlin Marceau
ADDITIONAL ART:
Janice Blaine
Jonathan La Mantia
Samir Sirk Morató
Helen Whistberry
Plus a LOGIC PUZZLE created by Arkylie Killingstad.
Cover art by Becca Snow.
Edited by Cameron Howard.
Editor in Chief: Alex Woodroe.
And here are the links again for the two organizations we’ll be donating proceeds to:
European Guild of Artificial Intelligence Regulation.
SPLIT SCREAM Volume Four arrives one spoooooooky week from now
We asked SPLIT SCREAM creator and editor—and newest 10p member!—Alex Ebenstein to say a few words about this latest iteration of his horrible wonderful mutant baby:
ALEX EBENSTEIN SPEAKS
Did y’all hear that scream? It’s that next volume of SPLIT SCREAM making its way to your bookshelves, and for the first time it’ll be published by Tenebrous Press. Shall I say that again? Tenebrous Press Presents SPLIT SCREAM: A Novelette Double Feature. A statement four months in the making. A statement that would have, just over four months ago, made me laugh and drift daydreamily into a chuckling, wistful what if…
There are no “what ifs” now, though. It’s happening, and I am overflowing with excitement and relief. SPLIT SCREAM means so much to me, as much as any of my own works, and it’s so damn cool that I get to keep the series alive.
I’ve had some people ask why and/or how it found a new home. Most of that was covered in the newsletter announcement a couple months back, but at some point when I have enough time I’ll write up a more thorough farewell essay to Dread Stone Press. I’ll give everything I’ve got, because it deserves to be said. For me, for closure. But also for everyone else who has supported Dread Stone Press, and in particular, SPLIT SCREAM. I’m a firm believer in transparency of process and intent—something the publishing industry desperately needs more of—and now, at the end of DSP, it’s still important. Readers and writers and publishers alike could benefit from such a piece, I should think. But, before I go believing my words have actual importance, let’s just say this about DSP’s end:
What happens when you need to do more, but have no more to give?
That was me. I could tell there for a bit that I wasn’t doing enough for my authors, yet I had no more to offer them. Time, energy, knowledge, money. Any and all. I could see that writing plainly on the wall, and it scared me. It made me sad, too. I didn’t want SPLIT SCREAM to end. But I knew I couldn’t go on as I was, and had started looking for a graceful way out without leaving my authors completely in the lurch. Thankfully, I didn’t have to follow through with that. Matt & Alex came to the rescue instead.
And here we are. At the precipice of Volume Four’s release. But what, exactly, is SPLIT SCREAM? Let’s recap.
It’s a series of books featuring paired Weird Horror novelettes. A story longer than a short but shorter than a novella. In this case, anything between 10k and 20k words. So: two authors, two stories. One book. Simple, right?
When I had the thought to do SPLIT SCREAM a couple years back, I was honestly surprised to find it wasn’t really being done elsewhere. I’ve likened it to the split EPs the music industry used to do. Readers may know both authors, but it’s a format that also encourages readers to check it out for the one author they do know and as a bonus get to discover another great author. The format also let’s the novelette form shine. It’s rare to see them outside an author collection, or maybe an anthology of longer stories, and I wanted them, and their authors, to get more of the spotlight.
The goal from the start was to find two great stories that can stand alone, but have some manner of connective tissue that allows them to be paired together, double feature style. That connection is a bit ambiguous, and I’d never try to define it. Sometimes it’s settings, sometimes specific plot pieces, other times simply vibes. I see the connection in each of the volumes because I’ve made them, and my hope is that you do, too. Regardless, I believe the stories work well together, and each book in the series offers a unique experience, not unlike watching a movie double feature.
Which leads me back to Volume Four, featuring Nonsense Words by D. Matthew Urban and Bone Light by Holly Lyn Walrath. Nonsense Words places us in the dark halls of ancient history academia. There’s a mythic, imaginative cult, and the undecipherable worlds of the cosmos. Trying to imagine what those words and worlds mean spells disaster.
Bone Light takes us back in time to a haunted lighthouse on a cursed rock in the 19th century New England seas. It’s queer and gothic, and if you can see past the ghosts, you just might find a love story.
I’d read a handful of stories by Urban prior to the submission period for this volume, and he was quickly becoming one of my absolute favorite weird horror writers. And, of course, he did not let me down with his novelette. It’s not that he simply creates weird stories full of dread. He creates worlds that are off-putting and ever-so-slightly wrong, yet entrancing. You can’t stop reading until the veil slips, revealing the full-on, capital-W, Weirdness hiding beneath.
“Bone Light” was the first of Walrath’s works that I had read, but I instantly felt at home in her prose. I’m not usually drawn to either epistolary or gothic stories, yet I fell easily into Walrath’s world. It’s a ghost story and a love story. It’ll make you feel the isolation these women felt while tending the lighthouse, haunted by the innumerable ghosts of the small island, surrounded by the punishing, icy waters of the angry sea.
Both stories skew quieter than we’ve had with SPLIT SCREAM in the past. Perhaps that’s the reason I love these stories so much, because of how different they are from the six preceding stories. They’re a complete change of pace. They’re the slow burn like that candle I hope you light to read by as you settle in for these longer autumnal nights.
I’ve drawn this out too long already, but I want to say one more thing, if only so I can get it out and allow myself to stop worrying (if you know me you’re laughing right now, and that’s fair). I stand by every story published in SPLIT SCREAM. 100%. However, early on, I struggled with this fear and anxiety over my decisions and whether or not I was curating books that readers would love. That’s silly, though. You know why? Because that’s uncontrollable. I can’t dictate reader response any more than I can prevent my dog from begging for my food (trust me, I’ve tried). What I can control is choosing stories that I love. And putting all of my editing abilities into helping each author create the best version of their stories. I’ve done that. We’ve done that. It’s out of our hands now, and into yours, dear readers. I may still worry about people liking the book or not (because I am me), but the hope now is that the authors’ talent, my love for these stories, and our effort as a team (authors, editor, publisher) shines through.
It’s been a real scream so far. Let’s make sure it doesn’t end anytime soon.
SPLIT SCREAM Volume Four is out Halloween Day.
LUMBERJACK COVER REVEAL COMING NOVEMBER 6th
After the next volume of SPLIT SCREAM…
After THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE ALGORITHM…
We still have one more release for you before 2023 waves goodbye, and it’s a good’un. A great’un, even. Anthony Engebretson’s LUMBERJACK came across our submissions pile over a year ago—back when we weren’t open 24/7—and it was the very first one from that reading period that I knew I wanted.
I sound like a broken record with the “it’s impossible to categorize this book” spiel, but seriously…this one doesn’t fit into any particular box that I’ve encountered before. The best I can compare it to is the crime-leaning films of the Coen Brothers, meets the Historical Eco Noir Weird vibes of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic.
Much much more about LUMBERJACK in the weeks ahead, but the fabulous folks at Dread Central will have an exclusive cover reveal on November 6th. The art is by Jonathan LaMantia, who broke all your brains with his insane work on CROM CRUACH.
Here’s a sneakity peek:
Don’t stare for too long.
More soon, y’all.
Hail Indie Horror.
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
Hail the Algorithm.
Alex & Matt