Michael Shea began writing Momma Durtt in 1986. Momma Durtt has lain unpublished ever since.

Hippocampus Press is proud to present this novel of cosmic eco-horror from the pen of one of the masters of contemporary weird fiction. With vibrant characters, racy language, and a spectacular denouement, Momma Durtt is uniquely suited to our own times.

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Michael Shea deftly blends the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.

In the title story, an exploration team on a desert planet encounters a terrifying alien monstrosity. In “The Angel of Death,” a serial killer hunting innocent women turns out to be a visitor from another world. In “Uncle Tuggs,” a more traditional horror story infused with a dose of black humor, a series of grisly and bizarre deaths ensues that may be connected to the mysterious disappearance of old Uncle Tuggs, and in “The Horror on the #33” a wino witnesses a horrific murder committed by a strange wasp-headed monster on a city bus.

The classic story “The Autopsy,” which Algis Budrys called “one of the most successful meldings of science fiction with horror that I have ever encountered” and which was filmed for Guillermo Del Toro’s Netflix series Cabinet of Curiosities, tells of an aging pathologist called in to perform an autopsy — but what he discovers during his examination is chilling and unthinkable.

This beautiful new edition features a new introduction by Laird Barron. Available in hardcover or paperback from Valancourt Books and featuring the classic story THE AUTOPSY.

This Centipede Press special edition book is printed in four colors and two colors throughout, bound in black cloth, with printed endpapers, a stunning dustjacket, top-edge stain, and ribbon marker.

A “Sword and Sorcery” thriller as only Michael Shea could write them. This signed edition is limited to 300 copies, so order this collector’s item now from Centipede Press.

Michael Shea has made his own distinctive contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos devised by H. P. Lovecraft. In his Mythos tales, Shea has infused his own unique vision and perspective.

Originally released in 2017, the collection “Demiurge: The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales of Michael Shea” contains 13 of Lovecraftian tales that were translated by Manfred Sanders and are now available in German for the first time. Here’s a reading sample with excerpts if you’d like to have a look.

“Fat Face” (Fettbirne) 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. 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.

Festa Verlag has released a limited edition hardbound version entitled Demiurg (LOVECRAFTS BIBLIOTHEK DES SCHRECKENS – LIMITED BAND 6).

Upon being handpicked to direct an episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, director David Prior was offered a choice between del Toro’s menu of delectably spooky treats. Prior selected “The Autopsy,” based on the iconic Michael Shea short story of the same name.

Learn more about The Autopsy’s behind the scenes.

Oscar-winner Guillermo Del Toro has selected 10 stories by different writers for this omnibus series and Michael Shea’s “The Autopsy” is included in the series. Written by David S. Goyer (The Sandman; Dark City; The Dark Knight; Batman Begins) and directed by David Prior (The Empty Man; AM1200) this episode stars Academy Award Winner F. Murray Abraham (Mythic Quest; Homeland; Amadeus), Glynn Turman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; Fargo; The Wire), and Luke Roberts (Ransom; Black Sails). 

Coming to Netflix this Halloween!

Netflix will debut Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on October 25, 2022, they will be launching a special four-day, double-episode Netflix & Chills Halloween event.

“With Cabinet of Curiosities, we set out to showcase the realities existing outside of our normal world: the anomalies and curiosities,” shared Del Toro. “We hand-picked and curated a group of stories and storytellers to deliver these tales, whether they come from outer space, supernatural lore, or simply within our minds,” said Guillermo del Toro. “Just in time for Halloween, each of these eight tales is a fantastical peek inside the cabinet of delights existing underneath the reality we live in.”

Watch the first look below.

Netflix has announced the new and upcoming, Cabinet of Curiosities, originally slated to be titled 10 After Midnight. Oscar winner Guillermo Del Toro has selected 10 stories by different writers for this omnibus series.

Michael Shea’s World Fantasy Award winning novella, THE AUTOPSY, is planned to be the second story aired. Details released below:

“Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham (Mythic Quest), Glynn Turman (Fargo), and Luke Roberts (Black Sails) will appear in an episode written by David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight; Batman Begins) and based on a short story by Michael Shea, and directed by David Prior (The Empty Man; AM1200)”.

Early in his career, Michael Shea wrote the Lovecraftian novel The Color out of Time (1984). He subsequently wrote some of the most scintillating and gripping tales of the Cthulhu Mythos in contemporary weird fiction, including “Fat Face” and “Copping Squid.” These tales mingled Lovecraftian themes with the gritty realism of urban horror, and they often featured drug addicts, prostitutes, and others whom conventional society treats with scorn and marginalization.

Shea wrote the novel Mr. Cannyharme in 1981, and it constitutes a remarkable adaptation of 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.

Jack Hale, who manages the hotel, is one of the few who sense the danger to society and the world that Cannyharme represents. With a motley band of young whores and drug dealers, he takes on the challenge to counteract the horrors that Mr. Cannyharme seeks to release upon an unsuspecting world.

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.

Mr. Cannyharme, in its limited hardcover edition, features Smyth-sewn signatures and an illustrated dust wrapper. Each copy is individually shrink-wrapped. All Hippocampus Press limited editions are printed on 60# white offset paper, acid free and elemental chlorine free.

Order Limited Cloth Edition

• Limited cloth $45.00 $30.00 pre-publication discount!
• Edited by S. T. Joshi, with a foreword by Linda Shea.
• Cover artwork by Tom Brown. Cover design by Daniel V. Sauer.
• Publication date: October 2021 (limited cloth)
• Publication date: August 2021 (paperback and ebook)
• 296 pages
• Limited hardcover: 500 copies only
• Paperback and eBook are also available at all major booksellers.

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