Tenebrous085: THE BLACK LORD, now for your earballs!
Hey Ho, Tenebrous Cult!
From this vantage point, I can see the end of an ambitious publishing year on the horizon, but I can also look back and see what has led to this point; and my first instinct is to type some insanity like, “This year has whizzed by…”
It has not. This year has not whizzed; nor has it performed in any other roller-coastery fashion, except maybe that part where your stomach occasionally climbs up into your throat.
Not to imply it’s been a slog; in fact I’d say this year has been pretty damn exhilarating, from a publishing standpoint! But it’s also the year where we began to develop and apply a methodology that works well for a press our size; one that we can continue to refine and improve upon. It has involved lots of squinting at the map of a continent we haven’t actually seen before, working to land a plane we’ve never actually been trained to fly, upon a runway that no one can seem to confirm actually exists. And occasionally juggling hissing cats.
(We landed the plane. The cats are still up in the air.)
Like I said: exhilarating! What do you want, we’re Weird.
In the end, this year has moved precisely as it was supposed to. As we needed it to. No helping hand has descended from the skies to beckon us to Distribution Nirvana (damn!), but we also didn’t drop any balls of real significance (hoo-haw!). In an industry of seemingly endless turmoil and turnover, we are stable, growing and well-positioned to kick the future’s ass for a long time.
We’re right where we’re supposed to be. Bring on 2025…
…soon. We still have some business to take care of first.
In Two Weeks, ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE
M. Shaw’s upcoming story collection has plenty of tangible, fearful threats to sate your horror yearnings: vengeful tree gods, hyper-violent supervillains, alien conquerors.
But the true horrors within the pages of ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE are a little harder to pin down, and they cut all the deeper for it. It’s difficult, for example, putting into words the emotions I felt while reading “The Motorist” for the first time: nausea (is that an emotion?), car-wreck fascination (or that?), stupefied delight, hilarity, and a soul-shattering melancholy more exponentially draining than a short work of fiction should be able to have on jaded ol’ me.
And that’s just one of the thirteen stories on offer here.
This is a brainy, brawny, lyrical collection of stories. It’s utterly Weird, compulsively readable, and it sits comfortably alongside the Horror and Bizarro genres. But it’s, uh-
…
Should I use the L word here? I should, I really should.
It’s Literary. ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE is New Weird Lit™.
There are few things darker than what our brains get up to when we suspect that this cruel world is only growing crueler; when we fear that we’re truly alone. But if we’re lucky, there’s a spark of pleasure buried in there as well: a glint of joyful absurdity that, sometimes, we can’t help but smile at. And a big, bloody, beating heart.
ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE HERE has that—all of that—and more.
Cover art and interior illustrations by Echo Echo.
“Dark elegies of loneliness and dissolution set in a world left dangling at the end of history. As an enquirer into the question of what it means to be human, M. Shaw is second to none.”
Nadia Bulkin, She Said Destroy
“Wonderfully Weird, bizarro horror with a deeply resonant, poetic sensibility and an itch-under-your-skin vibe that just won't quit.”
Michael Allen Rose, Jurassichrist
"There is not a story in this collection that doesn’t hit like a heroic dose of acid straight to your cerebellum. Unhinged in the best possible way."
Danger Slater, Starlet and House of Rot
“Trippy and gross and sexy and disturbing and funny. No matter the bizarre places this book took me, I felt deeply for these humans whose struggles and desires, at their core, are universal.”
‘Pemi Aguda, Ghostroots
Our First Audiobook is Here!
Backers of THE SKULL & LAUREL crowdfunder earlier this year got first crack at this, but now it’s on sale to everyone. Eventually (soon) it’ll be available through Audible and everywhere else you buy audiobooks, but for the moment it is a webstore exclusive. In case you didn’t get BLACK LORD fever the first time around (one of The Line-Up’s Top 12 Indie Horror Books of 2023!), then this is the perfect time.
About THE BLACK LORD:
Eddie’s parents may be arguing about the disappearance of his infant brother Danny, but Eddie’s facing a terror all of his own. There’s a strange figure outside that claims it has Danny safe and sound—all Eddie needs to do to get his brother back is open that window.
Eddie’s father is filled with guilt over his relationship with his own lost brother. His mother has been abandoned to navigate her grief and terror alone. And his grandmother carries a disturbing, all-too-relevant truth about their shared family history.
As minutes tick by and hope for Danny grows ever smaller, the very fabric of their world disintegrates, welcoming eldritch terrors of unspeakable provenance to their doorstep. The family is losing a decades-long struggle against an entity that is not of this world, and its hunger threatens to swallow them whole.
“Combine Shirley Jackson’s haunted claustrophobia, Stephen King’s nail-biting plots, and the cosmic otherworld-horror of Stranger Things, and you get one wholly original Colin Hinckley. Spend a few hours in [his] mind, and I guarantee you’ll be drawing the curtains tight for weeks.”
GennaRose Nethercott, author of Thistlefoot
“A deeply moving, horrifying fairytale, woven from grief, sorrow, and monsters. Full of characters you will relate to—even when you wish you didn't—The Black Lord will leave you broken.”
Jessica Leonard, author of Conjuring the Witch
We’ve been deliberate in getting Tenebrous audiobooks rolling; this is just the first. Next year you’ll see at least a couple-few more, as we slowly seek to achieve total cvlt avdio dominance.
HOW ABOUT FREE STUFF? EVERYBODY LOVES FREE STUFF
The Tene-versary Celebration rolls onward! We’ve got three brand new pieces from our 2023 authors this week, and it seems only fitting that Colin “THE BLACK LORD” Hinckley kicks things off:
No idea who he’s referring to here, but that Colin sure is a dynamite fella, yeah?
Jolie Toomajan, co-author of experimental-haunted-house-what-the-f&%kery POSTHASTE MANOR, ain’t no slouch though:
Jolie edited the Shirley Jackson Award-winning anthology, Aseptic & Faintly Sadistic, and co-wrote POSTHASTE MANOR alongside Carson Winter, as mentioned above.
Finally, DEHISCENT author Ashley Deng has unearthed a truly unsettling piece of lost correspondence:
**CW/TW: Child Endangerment/Possible Death**
Ashley’s DEHISCENT tells the story of a near-future China ravaged by abominable climate collapse and scarce resources. Strangely enough, one house always seems to have just enough to get by, and young Yi has never wondered why that is…until now.
We’re outta room, so I’m outta here. Next week we’ve got more celebratory offerings from the Tenebrous Cult, and some details on this:
Hail Indie Publishing.
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
“The Crowned Dead”, Matt + Alex