It occurs to me that I haven’t yet shared the final TOC for Dark Awakenings, even though, as I mentioned earlier today, the book is on schedule for publication this November or December.
So here it is:
TABLE OF CONTENTS for DARK AWAKENINGS
Apologia Pro Libro Suo
FICTIONS:
Teeth
The Stars Shine Without Me
Desert Places
Blackbrain Dwarf
Nightmares, Imported and Domestic (written with Mark McLaughlin)
The Devil and One Lump
The God of Foulness
OTHER FICTIONS:
Icons of Supernatural Horror: A Brief History of the Angel and the Demon
I. Introduction: The prevalence of the Angel and the Demon
II. The prehistory of the Demon
III. The prehistory of the Angel
IV. The Demon from the first century to modern times
V. The Angel from the first century to modern times
VI. Understanding the Angel and the Demon in supernatural literature and film
VII. Conclusion: The daimonic zeitgeist, 1971-2001
Sources and suggestions for further reading
Loathsome Objects: George Romero’s Living Dead Films as Contemplative Tools
Introduction: Night of the sociocultural critics
I. Flesh becomes meat: The perishable body
II. The dead walk
III. The dead eat
IV. “He visited a curse on us”: The spiritual angle
V. The missing rainbow: Theism’s inadequacy
VI. Leaning Eastward: The contemplation of foulness
Works Cited
Works Consulted
Gods and Monsters, Worms and Fire: A Horrific Reading of Isaiah
Introduction: Troubling questions and taxonomic schemes
I. Distorted cosmology in Isaiah: The return to chaos
II. Yahweh, King of the Monsters
III. Cosmic inversion and closure in corpses
Some concluding thoughts on closure, anticlosure, and cognitive dissonance
That’s about 117,000 words of material. “Blackbrain Dwarf” is previously unpublished, as are “Loathsome Objects” and “Gods and Monsters.” The Angel and Demon essay is radically reworked and expanded from the version that appeared in Icons of Horror and the Supernatural. And “Teeth” and “The Devil and One Lump” are so thoroughly reworked and expanded that they stand as essentially new stories.
Here’s Jason Van Hollander’s preliminary cover art again, for those who missed it before:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is the best year for supernatural horror I’ve ever witnessed. The strength of books coming out this year is astonishing. Dark Awakenings is just one of many I’m immensely looking forward to.
Really looking forward to this. (I love how you refer to your scholarly writings as “other fictions.”)
Can’t wait for it!
This looks quite fascinating. The section on angels and demons is the type of subject matter that interests me. But I must admit the title “Yahweh, King of the Monsters” particularly caught my attention.
Allo Matt,
Whilst I do not want to disregard the surfeit of riches you are offering, I am most curious about the absence of “Snapshots from a Feast, Unfinished Nightmare,” and “A Cherished Place in the Center of His Plans.” Additionally, previously on this blog — and during The Lost and the Damned Chat — you mentioned working on a number of new works that may possible work in an inter-linked fashion: is “Blackbrain Dwarf” one of these works or are we yet to see these works? And then there was the excerpt from a story on Halloween of 2006 (http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/2006/10/31/excerpt-from-a-horror-story-my-halloween-gift-to-you/) . . .
Whilst “Teeth” and “The Devil and One Lump” are essentially wholly rewritten, have the other stories been revised as well?
And divergent from the previous: a few years previous on Shocklines there was a thread about favourite Lovecraftian authors and you and Loki mentioned an author that I was unfamiliar with, but whom sounded most interesting. Unfortunately, the thread is now gone and I have lost the author’s name. Can you recall any lesser-known authors of Lovecraftian fiction that you enjoy? Thank you.
-Cloudhurler-
fantastic, matt!
i can’t wait to get a copy of it.
oh! and to cloudhurler- i completely forgot to reply to you about your author question.
it wasn’t pugmire, was it?
because, honestly, he’s just about the best i can think of with laird barron, michael cisco, our host, and john langan tied for second.
Totally looking forward to this MC! I need new reading material! This one sounds like it will capture my interest just as good as your last one did.
Please let me know the very moment I can put my order in.
Thank you for the interest and enthusiasm, all.
Cloudhurler, in response to your questions:
“Snapshots from a Feast” and “Unfinished Nightmare” don’t appear because, when I went to relive and revise them as I did a couple of the other stories, the spirit simply wasn’t moving. I’m not really happy with them in their current form, and apparently the stars were not right for allowing them to be transmogrified into something better. I took this to mean that they weren’t “meant” to appear in this volume. Maybe they’ll show up in the next one.
“A Cherished Place in the Center of His Plans” appeared in Mark McLaughlin’s HELL IS WHERE THE HEART IS, and, for me, that is its home. I may or may not include it in a future collection of myh own.
“Blackbrain Dwarf” is not necessary part of that interlinked fiction series I talked about a few years ago. Or maybe it is. The story excerpt I made available here at the blog a few Halloweens ago probably is — but the vagaries of my life as a fiction writer make many judgments about these things subject to change. The upshot for DARK AWAKENINGS is that the story from which the excerpt came is still in development. Recently I have been learning to work more systematically and regularly with that part of my creative process, so perhaps something in the way of a next book will come of that without another delay of seven years.
And yes, the other stories in the volume have been revised, or rather touched up, but not at anything approaching the level of “Teeth” or “The Devil and One Lump.” The changes to these others were merely cosmetic, and involved smoothing out the language, making a few passages sound more like the current voice I hear in my head, and so on. As I’ve said, “Teeth” and “The Devil…” are entirely reimagined, but they’re the only ones. (“Snapshot” and “Unfinished Nightmare” would have received the same treatment, though, and probably will at some future point.)