“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.

Written with Shea’s vibrant originality, humor, wit and street sense, the story is set in contemporary San Francisco. It pays homage to H.P. Lovecraft’s “Whisperers in Darkness” in which Tsathoggua (1930) first appeared, and to Clark Ashton Smith’s, “Tales of the Satampra Zeiros” (1931).

Michael’s “Tsathoggua” was originally published by Centipede Press, in the Shea collection “The Autopsy and Other Tales” (2008). PS Publishing reprinted the story in “Copping Squid” (2009), a collection of Shea Mythos. And, in 2017, Dark Regions Press re-released the tale along with the never before published novella “Demiurge”, in the collection of the same name “Demiurge:The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales of Michael Shea”. It also appeared in Prime Book’s “The New Cthulthu, The Recent Weird” (2011).

Enjoy this FREE hour-long episode which you can listed to online or download as an mp3 from the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast.

This podcast includes the vocal stylings of Andrew Leman, a founding members of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society.