Tenebrous097: Your Package Has Been Non-Existed
Ah yes, this is it, this will be the night, let your force field drop, sensors out, and try to communicate, your x-ray ears are shattering the walls in your home
Hey Ho, Tenebrous Cult!
Shipping between Romania and Oregon has had a mixed success rate. For the most part, things get where they’re supposed to get…eventually. But there are Tenebrous prints, bookplates and paperbacks sitting in dead letter offices around the globe, or at least they’re sitting somewhere that wasn’t their intended destination.
So when Alex really needs to get tactile with the goods, we try to time it with one of her stateside visits; the next of which is next week. Which works out perfectly, because just as we did for Volumes One and Two of our BRAVE NEW WEIRD Best-of anthologies, we’re printing a limited hardcover run with bookplates signed by both Alex and myself (editor-in-chief and cover artist/resident dingleberry, respectively.)
These will be limited to 50 copies, and you can preorder yours right here.
COUPLE NOTES:
If you’re a 2025 Tenebrous Book Club print subscriber, you automatically get the bookplate with your copy of BRAVE NEW WEIRD! You’ll also have the option to upgrade your standard copy to a hardcover; a separate email with that info will be going out shortly.
If you just want to preorder the standard edition of BRAVE NEW WEIRD Volume Three, those preorders will open once the Table of Contents is finalized. Which also means:
This year’s Table of Contents is not yet finalized! We anticipate having our selections made later this month, and the Weirdos notified shortly after. What we can tell you is that, much like the previous two volumes, this one’ll land around the same sweet spot of 20-25 stories, from authors around the world, and we all-but-guarantee that a great number of these voices will be new to you. BRAVE NEW WEIRD remains one of the best places to find your favorite new writers. Story over star power, as always.
But we CAN tell you THIS Table of Contents:
Everything happens at once around here. Issue 002 of THE SKULL & LAUREL, our New Weird Fiction magazine, is still making waves and finding readers, but the next one is gettin’ ready to launch!
I can’t take any credit for it: Alex and Cam and their badass kill-crew of associate editors have pulled together another incredible issue.
Whether through subliminal tomfoolery or sheer coincidence, it’s shaped itself into a rather eco-horror/cli-fi-centric one, at that:
Table of Contents:
This Flesh’ll Run Free - Jes Malitoris
Auntie Linda’s Farm - Chris Kuriata
From the Furrows - Aggie Novak
Mandrake Experiment - Toshiya Kamei
Foxtails - EC Dorgan
An Inordinate Amount of Interest - Ayida Shonibar
Water Bodies - Jangar Tokpa
The Flesh-Eating Gulls of Hanover Park - Mia Xuan
Witches in Cold Mountain Halls - Josh Pearce
And check out that gorgeous cover art by Mx Morgan G Robles.
THE SKULL & LAUREL issue 003 is out April 15th, and is also open for preorders now.
Next Month, Follow Us OFF THE MAP
One month to the day, in fact.
The novelette format is something that just historically screams Weird Horror, y’know? Hell, it’s right there on the cover of the very first issue of Weird Tales:
SPLIT SCREAM/Dread Stone Press founder Alex Ebenstein knew what he was doing when he welded a New Weird Horror chassis onto the frame of vintage Ace Doubles paperbacks.
About SPLIT SCREAM: OFF THE MAP
Volume Seven of our ongoing series of paired New Weird Horror novelettes takes readers on nightmare excursions to lonely locales!
Íde Hennessy - Sequoia Point
California's rugged “Lost Coast" has long been a treacherous place where dreams—and people—go to die. Meg's adrenaline junkie husband had been so drawn to Sequoia Point’s beaches that he'd requested his ashes be scattered on their black sands. Reeling after his death and a miscarriage, Meg decides to put down new roots in this strange place.
What she finds is a van-life conspiracy theorist seeking refuge from 5G radiation; mysterious packs of roving dogs; cryptic talismans on doors; and a mute woman who looks exactly like her. When a mudslide cuts the town off from civilization, Meg must overcome her debilitating fears to unravel the mysteries of Sequoia Point.
John K. Peck & L. Mahler - Evergreen
Wrapping up the loose ends of her mother's death, Deirdre makes a startling discovery: a tree growing in the closet of her childhood home, and a bizarre collection of knick-knacks buried in its soil. She soon learns that her mother had a hand in her hometown’s long history of odd disappearances and misfortune, and that this ominous tree is her legacy.
Nurturing the tree's soil with filched mementos, Deirdre learns that she can control the vast system of roots thriving beneath the town to a terrifying degree, and she soon finds herself fighting her darkest desires to wreak terrible vengeance on the town that wronged her.
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
For four years, Haven Speculative has been one of the most reliable sources of top-notch fantasy and sci-fi fiction in indie publishing. They’re $1,500 away from funding their next year, with a little over a week to go, and we wanna help them get there!
Haven Spec is also a rare pro-paying market in a shrinking speculative fiction marketplace; backing this campaign helps to ensure that doors remain open for more and newer voices to be heard from, and that they’re compensated fairly to boot.
Hell, you can subscribe to Haven Spec’s upcoming year for just 20 bucks!
Take heart, Cult: Asteroid 2024 YR4 is no longer gonna cream us! Seven years from now is already looking a helluva lot better…now we just need to make it that long.
Keep your people safe. Stage your own revolution, whether it’s in the streets or in your heart. The world is a weird place right now. We’re gonna do what we can to make it the good kind of Weird. Join us.
Hail Indie Publishing.
Hail New Weird Horror.
Hail the Tenebrous Cult.
Matt + Alex