Raw Dog Screaming Press is publishing my new book While The Black Stars Burn this weekend! I’m very excited. This is the follow-up to my previous RDSP collection, Soft Apocalypses, which won the Bram Stoker Award.
The publication date is technically tomorrow, but I’ve been hearing reports that people who pre-ordered it have already received copies from Amazon and other online vendors.
It’s got a gorgeous cover from Italian artist Daniele Serra; he’s been creating covers for a whole lot of Lovecraftian and weird fiction books lately, and it’s easy to see why! He’s an amazing talent, and I’m thrilled that the folks at Raw Dog commissioned his work for my book. This is hands-down one of the best covers my books have ever had, and it’s even prettier on the trade paperback than it is on screen.
Most of the stories in this collection are tales I’ve written in the past eighteen months. The collection is a mix of horror, dark science fiction, and dark fantasy. Several of the stories have Lovecraftian and King in Yellow mythos themes, and the stories all feature female protagonists, most of whom are struggling against terrifying family situations.
Here’s the Table of Contents with a quick description of the stories:
- “Mostly Monsters” – A literary short story about a woman attempting to cope with a recent PTSD diagnosis.
- “Spinwebs” – A medieval fantasy story about a family in a mutualistic relationship with giant spiders.
- “The Strange Architecture of the Heart” – A near-future science fiction story about a woman with an intrusively helpful android.
- “Approaching Lavender” – A horror story about a woman artist whose family is destroying her identity.
- “Dura Mater” – A science fiction horror story about a woman who encounters a malevolent force during a faster-than-light space journey.
- “The Still-Life Drama of Passing Cars” – A horror story about a desperate woman who has decided to kill her children and herself; things don’t go the way she planned.
- “Through Thy Bounty” – A science fiction horror story about a female chef who’s forced to cook humans for her alien captors.
- “Cthylla” – A Lovecraftian story about the daughter of a cult movie star.
- “While the Black Stars Burn” – A horror story about a young violinist; this ties in with the King in Yellow mythos.
- “The Abomination of Fensmere” – A story about a girl detective named Penny Farrell who goes to visit her Southern relatives and quickly finds herself ensnared in a plot to summon Lovecraftian horrors.
- “The Girl With the Star-Stained Soul” – The continuing adventures of girl detective Penny Farrell as she finds herself transported to Carcosa and trapped in The King in Yellow’s sinister plans.
- “Jessie Shimmer Goes to Hell” – A Jessie Shimmer adventure story; features Lovecraftian monsters.
- “Fable Fusion” – A Doctor Who story that originally appeared in Doctor Who Short Trips: Destination Prague. Features the Seventh Doctor and his companion Ace.
Publishers Weekly had this to say about the collection: “Malevolent lineages and emotionally fraught familial relationships propel the plots of most of the 13 genre-spanning stories in Snyder’s strong collection. … Snyder (Soft Apocalypses) excels in her depictions of characters struggling desperately—and often futilely—to extricate themselves from terrifying snares set by loved ones. Readers will find her stories a cut above most other tales of interpersonal and supernatural horror.”