Books

Michael Shea’s short story, “Uncle Tuggs” now out in Patton Oswalt’s collection, The Ghost Box.

by on Jan.28, 2019, under Books, news, Stories

“Uncle Tuggs” was first published in 1986 in F&SF Magazine. Since then, it has been anthologized over and again. In this collection, Uncle Tuggs makes his most recent appearance in Hingston and Olsen’s collection, The Ghost Box.
The Ghost Box is just that: a diminutive box full of individually bound scary stories including not only Shea’s work, but also that of Robert Hugh Benson, Stephen King, and Harlan Ellison. Chosen by the editor, Patton Oswalt, “Uncle Tuggs” settles nicely in the box as Shea effortlessly melds horror and humor in this story of a land possessed by a vengeful demon.

Set in the Sonoma County California hills of the 80’s when marijuana was still illegal, “Uncle Tuggs” is a horrific frolic in which the tools come alive to wreak bodily destruction. Shea’s narrative uses his own familiarity with the time, the place, and the life of an honest man working hard labor. At the story’s center is a red-neck hero, the tongue in cheek witness to the destruction of some no-good good ole boys. Laird Barron once graced the humor of the story with it’s own name: Tuggsian. This blend of supernatural revenge and pure backwoods bumbling definitely lives up to that name.

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Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales

by on Jan.19, 2018, under Books, news

Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos TalesFor more than thirty years, Michael Shea has been making his own distinctive contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos devised by H. P. Lovecraft—an entire universe of gods and monsters that hundreds of writers have imitated. But Shea has done a lot more than merely mimic Lovecraft’s prose or add a new god or “forbidden book” to the Mythos. In his Mythos tales, Shea has infused his own unique vision and perspective. (continue reading…)

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REVIEW: And Death Shall Have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea

by on Jan.26, 2017, under Books, news, reviews

BOOK from HIPPOCAMPUS PRESS “And Death Shall Have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea”

NEW BOOK from HIPPOCAMPUS PRESS “And Death Shall Have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea”

Devotees of World Fantasy Award–winner Michael Shea’s work will welcome this tribute volume, a labor of love put together by his widow, Linda, and weird fiction expert Joshi. The entries range from poems to excerpts from his longer fiction, including the epic fantasy series Nifft the Lean.

There are enough glimpses of Shea’s impressive imagination to make newcomers seek out more of his writings. One highlight is an unpublished novella, the moving “Credit Card,” in which the lead, Ricky Deuce, journeys to see his cancer-stricken wife, Angie, who has to impersonate her sister to get insurance coverage.

A number of talented writers, including Laird Barron and Jessica Amanda Salmonson, share their memories of Shea. The last word, appropriately, belongs to the author himself, in the form of a short meditation about horror in which he lyrically describes humankind as “spinning inside a discus of dust and fire flung out by the first heartbeat of time.”

Review from Publishers Weekly.

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NEW BOOK from HIPPOCAMPUS PRESS “And Death Shall Have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea”

by on Jul.31, 2016, under Books, Tributes

This new volume contains 120 pages of Michael‘s Epic Verse taken from novels and stories, both published and not yet published.  Contained within are also four tales:  one new novella,  two new short stories and the World Fantasy Award Winner, in the novella category, The Growlimb.

Michael Whelan, Alan Clark, Alan Kozlowski, Steve Gilbert and John Stewart’s illustrations of Shea work are also in the books as well as tributes and remembrances written by people in the field:  Laird Barron, Sam Hamm, Jessica Salmonsen, Wilum Pugmire, just to name a few.

Michael first came to writing, intending to be a poet and one can always hear his love of meter and song in all of his prose.

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NIFFT THE LEAN RETURNS

by on Aug.27, 2013, under Books, news

nift the lean2To the delight of many long time readers, Michael is currently having a good time working on a new Nifft the Lean story.

From this we present a small section of verse:

A MEDITATION ON MAN AND DEMON

Man for the million million years
He’s shared the earth with demonkind,
Has asked why they, in their ageless lairs,
So lust for his frail soul and mind.

Whatever hands set the clock of stars
Wheeling and wheeling down through time
Also sundered those empires
With barriers both now over-climb.

That men should go down to those sunless moors
Where Horror and Harm breed deathless forms,
Or to the Demon Sea’s littered shores,
Or its depths, where riches breed like worms:

That men do this (as the Privateer
Gildmirth of Sordon did in his pride)
Is no surprise, save that they dare
To sail that shape-tormented tide.

But why are netherworld nets flung here,
And men snagged out of their mortal terms–
Trawled kicking down from life in the air
To immortal drowning in monstrous arms?

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