Words In: Furnace by Livia Llewellyn

One thing I stopped doing last year and would like to start again is posting reviews, or at least brief comments, about the books I’ve recently read. I’ll start with posting a few of the books I recently finished and already reviews on Goodreads and/or Amazon.

First off, then…

Earlier this year, one of my favorite writers released her second collection. That writer is Livia Llewellyn, and her book is Furnace.

liviallewellyn-furnace

On Goodreads I wrote:
“Darkly wonderful, powerful and lushly poetic writing. Livia Llewellyn creates her own genre merging the erotic, the dreamlike fantastic, and the blackly horrific. In only her second book, she’s working at such an amazingly high level, and has already become a powerful magicians of the word. Livia Llewellyn ranks among my very favorite writers.”

Also, I discuss my reaction to Furnace at greater length on Scott Nicolay’s The Outer Dark podcast, in episode 33. I talk about Furnace and other “News of the Weird” in between the two interviews, so somewhere in the middle. Link HERE.

Furnace on Word Horde:
http://wordhorde.com/books/furnace/

Furnace on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28815195-furnace

Furnace on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Furnace-Livia-Llewellyn/dp/1939905176

Overview of Every Little Thing

Once in a while, in the middle of all the specific updates, it’s good to slow down and give a broad overview of everything that’s happened recently, and all that’s coming up soon.

The biggest things that have happened so far this year include the April 30th release of my first collection, The Lure of Devouring Light, published by Word Horde. The book has been received well so far, with highlights including very positive reviews from Publishers Weekly and This is Horror. I’m delighted with how the book turned out, and plan to keep working to spread the word, hoping to get it into the hands of more readers.

lure-1

Another 2016 publishing event is Autumn Cthulhu, published by Lovecraft eZine Press and edited by Mike Davis, in which my story “The Smoke Lodge” appears along with a lot of truly great work by some of the best writers in the fields of Horror and Weird Fiction. I’m proud to have a slot in this book, which I’m guessing will be considered by many to be one of the can’t-miss anthologies of the year.

autumncthulhus

That’s all I’ve published so far in 2016, though an entire book plus one story in a nice, high-profile anthology is pretty good for a start. The second half of the year looks to be very busy in terms of publishing output.

My novella An Ideal Retreat has been handed in to Sam Cowan and should be published by Dim Shores in a limited edition in September. Sam has been doing so much really impressive work, and I’m very pleased to have a Dim Shores edition of my own coming up! Cover art and interior illustrations will be provided by Mikio Murakami.

Also in September, my story “The Insomniac Who Slept Forever” will appear in The Madness of Dr. Caligari, edited by Joe Pulver and published by Fedogan & Bremer.

October should see the release of Nightscript 2, edited by CM Muller, which will contain my story “The Carnival Arrives in Darkness.”

And also in October, Word Horde will publish Eternal Frankenstein, edited by Ross E. Lockhart, which will contain my novelette “The Human Alchemy.”

A few more items are coming up with less exact release dates, but I expect all three to appear before the end of the year.

Darker Companions: Celebrating 50 Years of Ramsey Campbell, edited by Scott David Aniolowski & Joseph S. Pulver Sr., is planned by PS Publishing for Autumn.

My story “Endure Within a Dying Frame” is planned for the next issue of Lovecraft eZine, but I don’t know when that will be out. Late summer, maybe?

Lastly, Chaosium should probably be ready to release Leaves of a Necronomicon later this year, edited by Joe Pulver. It will include my story “Miles and Kathrine at the Crimson.”

That’s all the publishing news, for now.

My writing activity in 2016 can be summarized pretty simply. In January I wrote “The Human Alchemy,” then I spent the next three-plus months writing An Ideal Retreat, which ended up being about 28,000 words. Since then I’ve been working on a couple of short stories for anthology invites, and as soon as those are done I’m going to focus on a full-length novel for the second half of the year.

Lastly, convention appearances. Last month I attended H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in San Pedro, which coincided with the release date of my collection. In July I’ll be at ReaderCon outside of Boston, then later in the year, here in Portland, we have H.P. Lovecraft Film Fest in October and BizarroCon in November.

That’s all the news that fits, as thing stand today.

Real-Time Review of Autumn Cthulhu

Not long ago, Des Lewis finished one of his real-time reviews of my collection The Lure of Devouring Light — you can see where I talked about that HERE.

Now Des is in the middle of a real-time review of Autumn Cthulhu, the cosmic horror recently published by Lovecraft eZine Press. Scroll down to the comments at the bottom HERE, where each comment discusses one of the stories. As I post this, he’s about halfway through the book, and hasn’t yet reached my favorite, “Anchor” by John Langan. He did seem to like my story “The Smoke Lodge,” which is nice to see.

Word Horde Summer Solstice Goodreads Giveaways

Word Horde is doing Goodreads Giveaways starting May 25 for a number of recent releases. Here are links:

The Lure of Devouring Light
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/188116-the-lure-of-devouring-light

Furnace by Livia Llewellyn
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/188120-furnace

Painted Monsters by Orrin Grey
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/188124-painted-monsters-other-strange-beasts

Cthulhu Fhtagn! edited by Ross E. Lockhart
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/188123-cthulhu-fhtagn

It’s rumored that John Langan’s wonderful upcoming novel The Fisherman will be included, once publication details are finalized. That’s a book you won’t want to miss.

People Keep Buying My Book

It pleases me that people keep buying my book, and showing off their own copy! Here are a few more.

Gus Butler (note, Greener Pastures is also very much worth reading):

Lure-Gus-Butler

Jeffrey Thomas (whose endorsement appears on the cover of the book — and as above, the other book in this picture is most definitely worth reading):

Lure-Jeffrey-Thomas

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy:

Lure-Jayaprakash-Satyamurthy

My thanks to everyone who has picked up a copy of The Lure of Devouring Light, and especially those who took the time to share a picture!

 

The Complete Des Lewis Real-Time Review

Des Lewis has completed his real-time review of The Lure of Devouring Light. You can read all the installments HERE. Scroll down to the comments to see his coverage of each individual story.

On Facebook, he also described the book as “near-perfect,” which is pretty great.

Thank you, Des, for all the time and effort you put into this! It’s my great pleasure to have my own real-time review, after enjoying many of your previous efforts.