Talking Sin, Blood, and Hammers

I received a shout-out in the Amazon review of Anthology II: Inner Demons Out. It's a great review of an excellent anthology. I reccommend it.



My own story is called "A Poor Sinner's Hands," and this blog entry is about the background of this story.

To begin with, there aren't a lot of protagonists of color in horror. Especially in Lovecraftian horror. The image of the tweedy professor of anthropology or folklore is almost inevitable of a white guy. Elizabeth Bear's Shoggoths in Bloom is a rare outlier. And I like treadiny my own path, but I also want diversity in what I read. A single perspective is boring and repetitive. What would be a working-class perspective on the Cthulhu Mythos? What would they find in it? Lovecraft posits a lot of lower-class people being part of the Cthulhu Cult in "The Call of Cthulhu." But he did so for reasons of racism, implying that anyone would worship Cthulhu had to be in some way subhuman. But I look at people's motivations more than Lovecraft did. So my cultists need a reason to rebel, a reason to go against established social order.

I originally wrote this for a fifties themed Mythos anthology. I wanted to make a paralell between the very human cruelty of racism and the very unworldly horror of the Mythos. Others have done so before, specifically David Drake's "Than Curse the Darkness" (available in the Book of Cthulhu, which I love. But one idea doesn't make a story. But when two bounce off each other, the engine starts to warm up. So I had the idea for a black character, in the fifties, encountering the Mythos. But how?

You know those Facebook memes with "Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and savior Cthulhu?" Thinking about that, there are problems. The Cthulhu Cult is necessarily secretive, but they have to be in some way evengelical. How do they recruit? And what if they ran into someone who was exactly the wrong person? A murderer perhaps?



But I didn't want to make someone who was just a psycho. "Just a psycho" is boring. Why does a person need to kill? That's more interesting. Someone who doesn't want to kill, but has to anyway? That's interesting. How do they maintain a semblance of a life when they commit murders? How do they think about it? This idea combined with the racism to come up with a very interesting character, Eli Taff. Taff is a veteran of World War II who came home to farm in Louisiana. With a lot of discussion coming up recently about PTSD in veterans, I thought this would make for an interesting psychological stew for a character.

With these elements, the story practically wrote itself. And I'm pretty happy with it. It's a smaller, more intensely human story than most stories that borrow Lovecraft's ideas. But my tack has has been to be more human than Lovecraft was, to explore the way otherworldly horrors erode and distort a person. Someone that could be us.

Sale!

I'm proud to announce that my mad airships, steam biplanes, and a world without royalty story "Pain Wears No Mask" as been accepted into Glynn Barass and Brian Sammons' Steampunk Cthulhu.  I'm in some pretty awesome company here: 

Those Above – Jeffrey Thomas

Blackwold Horror – Adam Bolivar
No Hand to Turn the Key – Carrie Cuinn
The Reverend Mr. Goodworks and the Yeggs of Yig – Ed Erdelac
Carnacki – The Island of D. Munroe – William Meikle
Pain Wears No Mask – John Goodrich
Before the Least of These Stars – Lee Clark Zumpe
The Promised Messiah – DJ Tyrer
Unfathomable – Christine Morgan
The Flower – Chris Geeson
Tentacular Spectacular - Thana Niveau
Fall of an Empire – Glynn Owen Barrass & Brian M. Sammons
The Baying of the Hounds - Leigh Kimmel
Mr Brass and the City of Devils – Josh Reynolds
The Source – DL Snell
Happy Birthday, Dear Cthulu - Robert Neilson
The Strange Company – Peter Rawlik
Steel and Bones – Lois Gresh

 

Cover coming soon.  

Hurrah for Good Reviews!

You know, there's very little that brings up my mood better than a good review. That ininimitable web resource, Horror World, has just published a very positive review of Nightmare Cities: Urban Cthulhu, and that's a wonderful thing. Congratulations to everyone who plkaced in this anthology, and definite thanks to Brian Sammons for telling everyone how much he liked it.

I've also met my writing goal for this morning, so I think it may be time for a trip to the comic book store.

Have I Told You to Buy My Stuff Lately?

I always feel funny telling people to buy my work. What I prefer is that other people do it for me.

Let's take Rod MacDonald's review of Andromeda Spaceways InFlight Magazine for SFcrowsnest.com. If you're too lazy to click the link, I've copied and pasted the important bit below:

David Conyers and John Goodrich are the joint authors of ‘The Masked Messenger’ which features Harrison Peel in another Cthulhu Mythos story. The agent is in Morocco to investigate strange deaths where people end up being cut into thousands of pieces. Is this a conventional terrorist act or is it an act of a cult belonging to the Masked Messenger? There is a strange book, centuries old, which contains deadly secrets and there is also a portal in the Sahara Desert which leads on to another world completely different from our own. An excellent tale full of suspense and action, it's worth purchasing the magazine for this alone.

Rod seems like an excellent fellow. I think it's entirely worthwhile to follow his advice and purchase a PDF copy. I mean, I wouldn't want to be accused of ignoring Rod's advice.

Inspiring...

I've recently read and reviewed Ross Lockhart's The Book of Cthulhu. It's a really good anthology, and more than that, an inspiring one. There are so many extraordinary, well-crafted stories in it that I wanted to make my next story to be good enough to warrant inclusion. Could I write a story that could follow "The Oram County Whoosit" and not embarrass myself?

I don't know. I don't think so... yet. But I'm revising the story that I've said that about, and I think it's better than anything I've yet written. According to my initial review group, it shares the strengths of the majority of my work; strong characterization, and a good fight scene. I think it has more description and atmosphere that my work up to now.

It's been a long, hard slog. Between classes and work, I've had to assemble the story bit by bit, and that often makes scenes and events inconsistent. And writing style can vary from day to day, depending on mood and the events of the day. The protagonist is also a huge variation from my usual, as well as being set in the near future of a city I've never been to. In early writing classes, they say you should write what you know, but there comes a time when you run out of parts of your life to mine. And I can either continue to dig up my life's shallow grave, or I can strike out and try someone who has very little in common with me. Let's hope this character comes out as strong as I hope she does.

There's also a lack of exposition in this story, which may not be the best approach because it's set in the near future, and there's a lot of technology out there that isn't familiar to the reader. But the characters in the story wouldn't talk about that technology any more than you or I would talk about how our cell phones work. We use them when they work, curse at them when they don't.

I think it's a step up in terms of the quality of my writing. I'll ask what you as readers think if it gets sold and if you read it.

Apologies, people. There was a hurricane, and then a class that is eating my brain. It's a good class, but I'm spending some fifteen hours a week on a three-credit course. It's a good coruse, field expereince an all that, but sometimes I wish that it took up less of my time.

I need to update this blog. Since I last posted, two stories have been published: 'The Masked Messenger" by David Conyers and myself, in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #52. It's a good story of terrorism, violence, hatred, arrogance, and horrible things from outside of time and space. Pretty much everything you've come to expect out of a story I'm part of.

Second, on the 12th, which is to say Saturday, I will be at Anthocon because I placed a story in the New England Horror Writers Association's anthology Epitaphs. "Not an Ulcer" has been around the block a few times, and I will provide a little insight into this story later.

I've also sold a story to Undead and Unbound, a Brian Sammons anthology. I''ve been invited to contribute to a couple other anthologies, also. One story is taking shape nicely. So yeah, I've been busy, and not just with playing Fallout: New Vegas.

Although it was a lot of fun.

Some notes on "N is for Neville"

Dead but Dreaming 2 is out, and it contains my story "N is for Neville." You should go buy it from Miskatonic River Press. The cover is slightly different from the one previously posted, but the contents are pretty darn good.



For those of you who like your metatext fresh, here are my story notes on "N is for Neville."

All my stories are special. They’re all pretty personal pieces, expressions of myself, my heart and sweat on the page. And hey, if someone pays me money to print it, that's extra gravy.

“N is for Neville” is its own kind of special. I worked it for a while before it came out in its current form, including a month-long period in which I was stuck. I couldn’t get the tone right, the characters didn’t speak to me, and the words just hung on the page, lifeless.

What got me through it was Wilum Pugmire. I was reading his Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts, followed by The Fungal Stain and Other Dreams and I realized what I was missing decadence. The characters needed to be arty, wealthy, and bored. And Wilum’s writing showed me how to get that across. Which is why he appears in the story, and why the story is dedicated to him.

What I didn’t expect was for Wilum to write a story that Tuckerized me, and to sell it to the same anthology. And that’s something that warms my blackened walnut of a heart. One of the reasons I write is so that I can consider these smart, eloquent people who love words as my peers. Because I love the conversations writers have. To listen to people throwing out idea after idea and pass them around, building on each others concepts until you have this grand, hypothetical castle in the clouds; that’s magic. Ideas are magic.

I met Wilum at the 2007 World Fantasy convention. Like most writers I’ve met, he is enormously pleasant to talk with; intelligent and a fascinating conversationalist. More than most, Wilum has brought a great deal to my life and my writing. This story is dedicated to him because I would not be where I am today without his generosity and fascinating stories. Thank you, Brother Wilum.

Sale!

I'm pleased to announce another sale, this one to Henrik Harkesn's Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities. Editor Harksen's his first anthology, Eldritch Horrors, Dark Tales was a solid read, and I wrote “The Neighbors Upstairs” specifically for the follow-up. I'm quite tickled that he liked it.

Thus far, the table of contents includes:

• “the guilt of each… at the end…” by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
• “Dancer of the Dying” by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
• “The Neighbors Upstairs” by John Goodrich
• “Carcosapunk” by Glynn Owen Barrass
• “Architect Eyes” by Thomas Strømsholt
• “Slou” by Robert Tangiers
• “Ozeelah’s Lake” by Morten Carlsen
• “The Statement of Frank Elwood” by Pete Rawlik
• “Night Life” by Henrik Sandbeck Harksen

Mmmm. Urban Cthulhu.

It's looking at YOU!

Yes, I'm "and others." And it's available for pre-order.

Dead But Dreaming 2 Lineup

The table of contents for Dead but Dreaming 2 has been posted to Yog-Sothoth.com. It looks like an excellent line-up, and I'm very pleased to be included, especially since I loved the first Dead but Dreaming, and also because my words gets to appear with Wilum Pugmire's.

"Foreword: Messrs. Cthulhu and Lovecraft Have Arrived", Kevin Ross
"Taggers", Walt Jarvis
"The Unfinished Basement", William Meikle
"Plush Cthulhu", Don Webb
"Class Reunion", Darrell Schweitzer
"First Nation", Scott David Aniolowski
"Your Ivory Hollow", Wilum Pugmire
"The Spell of the Eastern Sea", Michael Tice
"Dark Heart", Kevin Ross
"Transmission", Ted E. Grau
"N is for Neville", John Goodrich
"The Timucuan Portal", Daniel W. Powell
"No Healing Prayers", Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
"The Dissipation Club", Adrian Tchaikovsky
"Lure", David Annandale
"The Call", Rick Hautala
"Christmas Carrion", Donald R. Burleson
"The Depopulation Syndrome", Erik T. Johnson
"Uncle Sid’s Collection", Cody Goodfellow
"Father’s Day", Brian Sammons
"Innsmouth Idyll", Darrell Schweitzer
"The Hour of Our Triumph", Will Murray
"Here Be Monsters", Pete Rawlik

Twice the Good News

The good news is that I've sold another story. This one to Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine. Some time ago, David Conyers and I wrote a Harrison Peel story named “The Masked Messenger,” now it has found a home.

The other good news is that I have sold “N is for Neville” to Miskatonic River Press's Dead But Dreaming 2. David Conyers, Erik T. Johnson and Wilum Pugmire have also sold stories to this anthology, so I will be in excellent good company.

Hide Your Women and Lock up the Fried Chicken!

Cthulhu's Dark Cults is finally out. You should totally order it.

If you want to know about my story, "Captains of Industry" then head over to editor David Conyers' blog in which he hand gives each author a little time to discuss their story (I'm at the bottom) and a little snippet from each story. The inestimable Stephen Gilberts provides the delightful cover.

I'm really fascinated by the human side of horror. Monsters are interesting, but their relationship to the people in the story is what will really pull the audience in. David was surprised when I turned in a story without any of Lovecraft's brilliantly detailed alien horrors. But with the title Cthulhu's Dark Cults I figured that the human cultists should be the focus of the stories.

HP Lovecraft and the Non-Euclidian Plot

I like a Cthulhu Mythos pastiche as much as anyone. Probably more, I've got shelves full of Chaosium anthologies, as well as four volumes of Japanese stories in honor of Lovecraft, as well as various small press books of stories in imitation of Lovecraft. Hell, I've even got a couple books of August Derleth's imitations of Lovecraft.

I do have a crap limit. Lovecraft shows up in strange and unexpected places... including children's television. The animated superhero show Justice League broadcast a two-parter "The Terror Beyond" on November 15, 2003. I Netflicked the disk, and watched it.

It's terrible.

The plot revolves around Dr. Fate and Aquaman joining forces with Solomon Grundy in order to seal a breach between out dimension and that of Icthultu, a noxious horror that has a mysterious link to Hawkwoman's homeworld of Thanageria. There's some fighting, because the Justice League aren't just going to ask Fate and Aquaman what they're doing. Once that's cleared up, they take a trip (in the second half-hour) to Icthultu's dimension to kick his ass.

Now I'm going to start with the pictures. Some of Icthultu's defenders are gray, headless creatures with screaming mouths in their hands. Ramsey Campbell, are you paying attention?

With the gray IP violations defeated, the team separates, Fate, Grundy and Hawkgirl going to face Icthultu. We are treated to a good reveal of the tentacled face of Icthultu glowering down on our heroes. Atheist Hawkgirl tells us that her Thanagarian people used to worship Icthultu, which gave them philosophy and agriculture in exchange for their souls. But the price was too high, and they stopped believing. They beat up some star-spawn (look at the right hand of the picture, that's practically Cthulhu in silhouette) , and get right up to in Icthultu's grill.

In a G-rated nod to hard-core pseudo-Lovecraftian Japanese porn, Hawkgirl is grabbed by tentacles. Golly, who saw that coming? She's held spread-eagle (haw haw!) before the burning eyes of Icthultu, and banter is exchanged.

As the great Old One is distracted, Solomon Grundy gets into its head, and runs down icky corridors fighting off weird alien antibodies. I think he's in Icthultu's brain, the landscape looks like the neurons from the episode of Futurama when Fry does the same thing. But it turns out that there's something living inside Icthultu's brain... a giant monster!
Rawr!

Fortunately, Icthultu (as voiced by Rob Zombie) is a enormous wimp. Grundy snaps off its claw, stabs it a few times, and that does the trick.
He probably stabs two feet of claw into a creature that's taller than a three-story building. But that seems to do it for Icthultu, and down it goes.

Grundy having done the mighty deed, is dying, and Hawkgirl comforts him. When Grundy asks if he is going to meet his soul, Hawkgirl chokes back the reply that she doesn't believe in them. THEN WHAT WAS THE BIG PRICE ICTHULTU EXTRACTED FROM YOUR PEOPLE, LADY? She believed in her ancestors' souls enough to build up a big mad-on at Icthultu for stealing them.

The non-Euclidian arc of this story, serving mainly to give us fights (some do feature some pretty smooth moves), drives me nuts. Superman and Wonder Woman are too hasty to ask Dr. Fate and Aquaman for explanations, and barrel right into a ritual that's keeping the Icthultu out of our dimension. But if they'd asked, the episode would have been over in fifteen minutes. Hawkgirl's comforting of Solomon is touching, but the moment is ruined because she's reversed her stance on souls in the last ten minutes.

Not all Lovecraft references are interesting, and not all are worth dissecting.

Validation!

Ellen Datlow's annual Year's Best Horror list is out, and "The Patriot" is in the list! Take a look, there I am, sandwiched between Cody Goodfellow and Theodora Goss.

I'm dancing the happy dance now!

Revision, revision, revision: The writer's life for me.

Yeah, in addition to blowing the faces off super-mutants, ghouls, raiders, and Enclave soldiers, I'm also doing the glorious grind on "N is for Neville." I've gotten good feedback on it (workshopped it on Tuesday), have done major revisions on it twice. The story continues to improve, mostly as I remove superfluous prepositional phrases on each pass. Fortunately, it can rest until I get some more feedback on it.

Oh, and the proofs came in for Tales Out of Miskatonic University. Proofs can be a bit humbling. While it shows how much I have learned in the past year, it depresses me to find so much that I would change in a story.

Blew Him Away

Two positive reviews for Cthulhu Unbound were added to Amazon on May 13^th. One with four stars, and a five-star review by Matt Carpenter, reviewer of scores of Cthulhu Mythos collections.

Matt gives the anthology five stars, and, as is his wont, reviews each story individually. In the beginning of the review, Mr. Carpenter states that I pushed Permuted Press to send him a reviewer's copy. I did, but they weren't that difficult to convince. Mr. Carpenter likes Cthulhu anthologies, and he seldom gets much thanks for posting his extensive reviews. I thought it was time to give a little back. Anyway, here's the important part of his review:

“The Patriot” by John Goodrich - Mr. Goodrich has a story in the upcoming Cthulhu’s Dark Cults from Chaosium but otherwise I am uncertain about his publication history. This is a ghoulish yarn set in WWI, reminding me a little bit of Curran’s “The Chattering of Tiny Teeth” from the book Warfear. On its own merits this was a very creepy and well written piece that I enjoyed until the end...and the denouement just blew me away, it was so good!

*swoons*


There's also this story-by-story review by Episkopses Vulpine the XXIII which is fairly positive overall ("The collection was alright, while there wasn't any one story that made me go all squamous with glee, neither were there too many clunkers."). Here's what he had to say about mine:

'THe Patriot' by John Goodrich set the stage in WW I and No Man's Land. Why France has been very good to the ghoulishly inclined. Another rather good story.

I'll take that.

Latest Click on the Ratchet

On Easter Sunday, I received word that I had been accepted into the Cthulhu 2012 anthology from Mythos books. This is a professional-level anthology which pays five cents a word.

Fame, fortune, and young nubile fanbase, here I come!

Unbound Unleashed

I have copies of the first volume of Cthulhu Unbound in my hands. It should be available at your local bookstore on March 30^th, but if you want copies early, there's a book party tomorrow, Saturday the 21^st at Bennington's South Street Cafe, 5-7PM.



Contents are as follows:
"Noir-Lathotep" by Linda Donahue
"The Invasion Out of Time" by Trent Roman
"James and the Dark Grimoire" by Kevin Lauderdale
"Hellstone and Brimfire" by Doug Goodman
"Star-Crossed" by Bennet Reilly
"The Convenant" by Kim Paffenroth
"The Hindenburg Manifesto" by Lee Clarke Zumpe
"In Our Darkest Hour" by Steven Michael Graham
"Blood Bags and Tentacles" by D.L. Snell
"Bubba Cthulhu's Last Stand" by Lisa Hilton
"Turf" by Rick Moore
"The Menagerie" by Ben Thomas
"The Patriot" by John Goodrich
"The Shadow over Las Vegas" by John Claude Smith
"Locked Room" by CJ Henderson

"The Patriot" is about a man who gets a macabre history lesson while dying in the muddy No Man's Land of World War One. I think it's got the best ending of anything I've written.

For a quick preview, I present you with another Wordle of the story. I like this the composition and atmosphere of this one better. Click on it to see a larger version.



My next project is to make up some "Signed by local author" tags to stick in the books I put on the counter of the Gamers Grotto.

Most Eldritch

This awesome lady and her sign were seen at a Chicago counter-protest of the Westboro Baptist Church:



Today is full of win.

Why I live in Vermont

Mood: Hanging in there

Despite the mood I wanted to once again show you why I live where I do:


That said, Cthulhu's Dark Cults is available for pre-order on Amazon


Cthulhu's Dark Cults
Schemes of the Secret Masters
Edited by David Conyers

Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu® is an endless source of imagination of all things dark and mysterious. Here we journey across the globe to witness the numerous and diverse cults that worship Cthulhu and the Great Old One. Lead by powerful sorcerers and fanatical necromancers, their followers are mad and deranged slaves, and the ancient and alien gods whom they willingly devote themselves are truly terrifying. These cults control real power, for they are the real secret masters of our world.

"Introduction" by David Conyers
"The Eternal Chinaman" by John Sunseri
"Captains of Industry" by John Goodrich
"Perfect Skin" by David Witteveen
"Covenant of Darkness" by William Jones
"The Whisper of Ancient Secrets" by Penelope Love
"Old Ghost" by Peter A. Worthy
"The Nature of Faith" by Oscar Rios
"The Devil's Diamonds" by Cody Goodfellow
"Requiem for the Burning God" by Shane Jiraiya Cummings
"Sister of the Sands" by David Conyers

This book is one in an expanding collection of Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction and related topics. Call of Cthulhu® fiction focuses on single entities, concepts or authors significant to readers and fans of H.P. Lovecraft. This collection of ten stories features the cults which first appeared in classic Call of Cthulhu gaming supplements such as The Masks of Nyarlathotep, The Day of the Beast, Horror on the Orient Express, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and others.

Published by Chaosium Inc. 2008