A Night in the Lonesome October —
All is not what it seems…
In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff – gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.
Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut.
And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.
Author: Roger Zelazny
Illustrator: Gahan Wilson
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Gaslamp
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: September 1, 1994
Pages: 280
October 5th
Snuff does his rounds again. He tries to keep track in his mind of all the places where the players are gathering, but his inner map is proving increasingly hard to organize. He meets Greymalk who informs him that a man was torn apart in the city the night before, as if by a giant hound. Snuff pleads innocence, for both himself and his master. Together the two familiars go in search of a snake who may have more information.
With the snake’s help they begin to piece together more of the players. From the snake’s masters, a pair of occultists, to the mad monk, to the druid, from the witch to Jack, from the Count to a new arrival. This newcomer was first detected by the presence of a hump-backed familiar bringing ‘materials’ to a doctor in a strange house that appears to have a lightning storm on the inside. Mad laughter is heard in the air and Snuff adds the place to his mental map. It will bear watching.
I’m really enjoying the interplay between Snuff and the other familiars. Friends are being made and foes identified, and although we are still no closer to knowing what it’s all about, the cast is gathering fast now. And at the end of the day, when Snuff returns home, he finds a strange paw print. Has someone else joined the game?
Boo-graphy:
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries.
He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines.
He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company.
When he’s not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.
The Green & the Black —
A small group of industrial archaeologists head into the center of Newfoundland, investigating a rumor of a lost prospecting team of Irish miners in the late Nineteenth century.
They find the remains of a mining operation, and a journal and papers detailing the extent of the miners’ activities. But there is something else on the site, something older than the miners, as old as the rock itself.
Soon the archaeologists are coming under assault, from a strange infection that spreads like wildfire through mind and body, one that doctors seem powerless to define let alone control.
The survivors only have one option. They must return to the mine, and face what waits for them, down in the deep dark places, where the green meets the black.
Meghan's House of Books 