featured works
Copping Squid and other Mythos Tales
by admin on Jan.19, 2010, under featured works
Lovecraft Unbound
Now available exclusively from PERILOUS PRESS
COPPING SQUID, an astonishing new collection of Cthulhu Mythos fiction by World Fantasy Award winner MICHAEL SHEA, is up for ORDER NOW in a linen-jacketed, signed, limited edition of 250 copies.
Edited by renowned Lovecraftian critic S.T. JOSHI and illustrated by STEVEN GILBERTS, COPPING SQUID represents the inaugural cornerstone of
Perilous Press’s New Millennium Mythos Library, an ambitious plot to revive high-quality small press genre literature for the bibliophilic cultist on a budget.
COPPING SQUID will be available in an affordable, illustrated trade hardcover edition, wherever eldritch vistas of unfathomable transmogrification are sold.
Michael Shea and S.T. Joshi will both attend the World Fantasy Convention on Halloween weekend in San Jose, CA to celebrate the book’s release.
All WFC who purchase the book at the convention will be entered in a drawing to win a signed original Steve Gilberts illustration from Copping Squid.
“The light-crowned bridges, the long, dazzling shorelines––these seemed for all their expansiveness a trivial, weightless decoration, a constellation of fireflies hanging between the abyss of night above, and the oceanic gulf below. And that gulf breathed, as the sea always breathes, but this respiration thrummed with an added presence almost as titanic as the waters themselves, filling those waters with a darker, mightier will than their own, a lurking purpose, the waiting hunger of Something that wore the ocean like a garment.”
––from “Dagoniad” by Michael Shea
Rocked by the gentle sea, the City sleeps; but its dreams are not its own…
With eight psychotropic visions of damnation and transformation in the urban coral reef of San Francisco, COPPING SQUID forms a mosaic of otherworldly menace shot through with glimpses of awe-inspiring majesty: of invisible outsiders and self-medicating seekers whose desperate prayers and hidden rituals lead them to behold their alien reflections in the all-seeing eyes of the secret masters of creation.
With the deceptive ease and streetwise enlightenment of a weird storytelling master, Michael Shea fearlessly sounds the unplumbed depths of the Cthulhu Mythos to witness visions from which traditional cosmic horror has always averted its dark-adapted gaze.
Contents:
Now available in quality illustrated hardcover and a signed, limited edition with distinctive jacket art. |
The Autopsy and Other Tales
by admin on Jan.19, 2010, under Books, featured works
The Autopsy and Other Tales
Collectors can now own a 563 page single author collection – a massive tome packed with superb stories by Michael Shea, an introduction by Laird Barron.
This collection of his finest fantasy, science fiction, horror and Cthulhu Mythos tales includes the two short novels “I Said the Fly” and “The Color Out of Time” as well as “Fat Face,” “Grunt 12 Test Drive,” “The Rebuke” and may others.
ONLY 500 limited edition cloth copies are available from Centipede Press!
Chimera – An Anthology of Fiction, Film Essays, and Art
by admin on Jan.19, 2010, under Books, featured works
Chimera
A cross between Nyctalops, Whispers, and Famous Monsters!
Originally published Halloween 2005, the goal of Chimera is to publish some fiction, literary essays, film criticism and publishing memoirs in a single package.
Contents include: Dave Curtis on James Turner’s Arkham House ; Stuart Galbraith IV on War of the Gargantuas; a 30-page John Stewart portfolio; an artist’s portfolio by German psychedelic artist Helmut Wenske; Stuart David Schiff on the Origins of Whispers; a small artist portfolio from Mark Tansey; plus: Sigmund Freud, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Flannery O’Connor, Patrick McGrath, Henri Fuseli, Max Ernst, and others. Oh yeah, there’s a lot of essays on film noirs Mildred Pierce, Woman in the Dunes, Detour, and Double Idemnity. Did we mention Michael Shea’s “The Autopsy” in a bizarre typographic treatment?
Featured Books
by admin on Jan.15, 2010, under Books, featured works
The Incompleat Nifft
Order Here
A DOUBLE WHAMMYon Baen Books! Nifft the Lean & The Mines of Behemoth
Nifft Trilogy Books I and II together!
Discuss it here!
Fantasy & Science Fiction review
Translation:
Nifft is available in Russian
THE A’Rak
Order Here
Nifft the Lean Trilogy
THE FINAL CHAPTER! Shea swears,
“It is my best Nifft yet!”
“Afire with lilting verse,
acrawl with grotesqueries!”
The A’Rak is also available in Russian!
A DOUBLE WHAMMY
on Baen Books! Nifft the Lean &
The Mines of Behemoth
Nifft Trilogy
Books I and II together!
Discuss it here!
Fantasy & Science Fiction review
Translation:
Nifft is available in Russian
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Welcome to Michael Shea!
This is the official website of Michael Shea, Author and World Fantasy Award Winner. Stay updated by subscribing to the RSS feed.
Free Stuff from Author Michael Shea
In Memory Drive Slow
“In Memory Drive Slow” is a weird tale inspired by a handwritten sign the author once saw on a Sonoma Country back road.
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Year: 2017
Publisher: Hippocampus PressMichael Shea (1946–2014) was one of the most distinguished, respected, and beloved figures in the fields of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He won two World Fantasy Awards, and his <i>Nifft the Lean</i> series of fantasy adventure novels attracted a wide audience. He also wrote powerful tales of supernatural horror, including several tales elaborating upon H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.
This first major volume of writings and tributes to appear after his untimely death contains an array of fiction, poetry, and other writings that demonstrate Shea’s effortless skill in different genres and styles. Four substantial tales–including the unpublished novella “Credit Card” and the award-winning “The Growlimb”–are included, together with an intriguing assortment of weird and fantastic poetry, published and unpublished, including verses that appeared at key moments in his novels and stories.
The volume features tributes to Shea’s unique personal and literary gifts by such figures as Laird Barron, Cody Goodfellow, Marc Laidlaw, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and Jason V Brock, as well as a portfolio of artwork illustrating Shea’s writings by such artists as Michael Whelan, Alan Clark, John Stewart, Allen Koszowski, and Steve Gilbert. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography of Shea’s writings.
This book is a poignant testimonial to the imperishable imprint that Michael Shea left upon the domain of imaginative fiction, and upon the individuals whose lives he touched.
Linda Shea, writer and artist, was married to Michael Shea for more than thirty years. S. T. Joshi is a leading author, critic, and editor in the realm of weird fiction and included Shea’s writings in several of
his anthologies, including the acclaimed <i>Black Wings</i> series.Price: $20.00
Purchase NowDemiurge – The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales of Michael Shea
Year: 2018
Publisher: Dark RenaissanceFor 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.The much-reprinted “Fat Face” takes us into the seedy underworld of prostitutes and drug dealers in San Francisco, while other tales such as “Dagoniad,” “Copping Squid,” and “Tsathoggua” vividly meld Lovecraftian cosmic horror with the contemporary world of California, with its swimming pools and beachcombers. Shea was also fascinated with Lovecraft’s novel of Antarctic horror, At the Mountains of Madness, and his stories “Under the Shelf” and “Beneath the Beardmore” take us to that frozen land of death and terror.
The title story, “Demiurge,” is a previously unpublished novella that draws upon Lovecraft’s tales of psychic possession in its chilling portrayal of a nameless monster who may be the harbinger of the overthrow of the entire human race. Michael Shea (1946–2014) was the award-winning author of The Color out of Time, the Nifft the Lean series of fantasy novels, and the classic tales “Polyphemus” and “The Autopsy.” This volume of his complete Cthulhu Mythos tales has been assembled by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on Lovecraft and the Mythos.This volume features wraparound cover artwork and five interior illustrations by renowned artist Aeron Alfrey (MADHOUSE)
Price: $23.94
A Quest For Simbilis
Year: 2020
Publisher: SpatterlightBy dint of a mispronounced spell, Cugel the Clever finds himself once again unceremoniously dumped by a winged demon onto the bleak far northern shores of the Sea of Cutz — the location of a fierce battle aeons past between the archmagician Simbilis and the hordes of the subworlds league. Vowing to exact comprehensive revenge from Iucounu, the Laughing Magician, Cugel sets forth on the long journey back to Almery.
Expecting potent magical gifts in recompense, Cugel swears fealty to Mumber Sull, the exiled Thane of Icthyll. Under the guttering blood-red sun, the two set off across the lands of the Dying Earth to obtain the aid of the legendary Simbilis. They must face cannibals, sorcery, demons, and all the other deadly and sinister creatures that populate the Earth in its final days…
In this — his first published novel — World Fantasy Award winner Michael Shea recounts the further adventures of Cugel the Clever with the permission of Jack Vance, author of The Eyes of the Overworld. Shea subsequently wrote his seminal Nifft the Lean stories, which are foreshadowed, in many ways, in the present work. Dan Temianka, author of The Jack Vance Lexicon, provides an introduction for this new edition, which sheds light upon Shea, Vance, and Temianka’s lifelong friendship with Michael Shea.
On the Paladins of Vance label, Spatterlight publishes original works by authors who have given their own imagination free rein in the many wonderful worlds of the Grandmaster of fantasy & sci-fi.
Price: $13.95
Mr Cannyharme, A Novel of Lovecraftian Terror
Year: 2021
Publisher: Hippocampus PressMichael Shea wrote the previously unpublished novel Mr. Cannyharme in 1981, and it constitutes a remarkable adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s early story “The Hound” (1922), about the depredations of an ancient Dutch vampire. In Shea’s novel, Mr. Cannyharme stalks the seedy Mission District of San Francisco in the aftermath of the hippie movement of the 1960s. Holed up in a rundown hotel, the seemingly harmless Cannyharme—aged, feeble, bent almost double with a crippling disease—is the focus of the supernatural terror in the novel.
Mr. Cannyharme, written in a vibrant prose that brings to life the multitude of characters that populate the book, is a triumph of Lovecraftian terror, but also speaks of the way in which those who are regarded as the refuse of society can assert their dignity and self-worth in a grim environment. In this sense, it proves to be a novel affirming the triumph of the human spirit over the horrors facing it.
Price: $20.00
Purchase now
Note: PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED
The Autopsy / Best Weird Stories of Michael Shea
Year: 2022
Publisher: Hippocampus PressA new 2022 Collection of Michael Shea Stories by Hippocampus Press and a great way to read his classic story “The Autopsy” which has been adapted for TV for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. “The Autopsy” is one of several tales that mingles gruesomeness and science fiction. Others include “Polyphemus,” where the members of a spaceship encounter the titanic eye of some unthinkably vast and hostile entity. “The Angel of Death” exhibits the battle of two alien entities as they successively inhabit hapless human beings in their quest for supremacy.
Shea’s sensitivity to the downtrodden is exhibited in such tales as “The Horror on the #33,” “Water of Life,” and “Tollbooth,” populated by homeless people, prostitutes, drug dealers, and other disdained members of society. Shea’s affinity for California is shown in “Fill it with Regular,” “Upscale,” and other tales that bring his native state to life. As a bonus, two unpublished stories are included: “Feeding Spiders,” evoking the work of a writer who adopted California as his home-Ray Bradbury; and “Ghost,” where a vengeful ghost stalks the tough streets of South Boston.
Price: $20.00
Purchase now