Photography: Elemental Magic, Calling Down the Power – Lightning over Romania

Elemental Magic

Elemental Magic, Calling Down the Power – Lazar Dinu – all rights reserved

Part of a series of images from the shadowy fringes of the Internet.  Visuals that stir my sense for the eerie and macabre.

Fantastic photographic image. Kudos to Lazar for capturing Mother Nature in one of her provocative and evocative moods.  For me it conjures up the idea of a Road Mage (Yellow Dawn) or a dedicated disciple of the elemental arts, striding out in the wilderness to perform a magickal operation. The boundaries of mundane reality and the metaphysical planes buckle, shift and slide over each other to create a lens-like effect on our perception of a normally clear horizon. Potent energies are unleashed in a crackle and boom. The air turns chilly, freshens, damp with moisture and laced with the tang of ozone. As an observer you shudder in the abrupt shift in pressures. And then you jut your head forward, eyes-narrowed, squinting, as you try to perceive more clearly what you think you can see: a figure, a tiny black dot amongst the lush green expanse of this open landscape, moving arms and gesticulating wildly as the forces swirl and coalesce above his or her head.  And you wonder is the figure even human? Strange things have been witnessed now in these new deserted lands (Yellow Dawn) – not all with limbs or with hands or feet, and some without heads. Strange creatures that “tune in” to perception.  These are but rumours. But you’ve heard them often enough around the campfire to suspect there must be some grain of truth in these survivor tales from nearby corners.

Lazar Dinu lives in Bucharest, Romania. You should check out more of his work at:

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  http://www.facebook.com/lazar.dinu
  
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  http://fotografu.ro/
  

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Available in paperback or Kindle

Paperback : from LULU & kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro)

DOG EAT DOG { novel } Ten years after the Earth has been devastated by a viral pathogen seventy per cent of the population is dead and only a handful of cities survive intact. The majority of urban spaces have been abandoned to the Infected, creatures that were once human. Whilst above, the orbital colonies spin within their artificial gravity wells, helpless observers to the shocking events below. Mikhail Drobná and Carlos Revira. Two survivors, both hungry for money and power, and fuelled by a desire to carve their names onto this new world. One provides services of violence and protection for powerful corporate criminals in New York; the other is a renegade intelligence agent forever running from the demons of his past. Strangers, until events conspire to bring them together. There’s a complex and deadly political power play in progress. Private armies. Corruption and murder on a massive scale. Both men seek to seize their opportunity at whatever personal cost. But a cosmic Evil has infiltrated the remote corners of these brutalised lands and it has its own plans. Will these men work as one to defeat it or will their bitter rivalry bring about their destruction. In the end, who will devour who? David J Rodger delivers a novel of epic vision, character depth and nerve-popping tension.

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Win a Refuse Tyranny Obey Cthulhu T-shirt

By Retro Review

Click image – scroll down Facebook page and look for ***SHIRT COMPETITION***

To celebrate my first design going to print on Qwertee next Tuesday I am going to give away a shirt to one lucky winner. See the photo for instructions on how to Enter!

I will announce the winner on Monday; the day before it goes on sale, so the winner doesn’t end up with 2 of them Good Luck to everyone who enters! — with Hipster Cthulhu, Cthulhu, CTHULHU FOR PRESIDENT and Cthulhu.

- From Retro Review Facebook Page

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Cthulhu Mythos Art: Shadows of the Game

1920s female investigator plays Call of Cthulhu

Pintureiro

1920s female investigator plays Call of Cthulhu by Pintureiro – click full size

Part of a series of images from the shadowy fringes of the Internet.  Visuals that stir my sense for the eerie and macabre.  Or in this case, the fun-filled tongue-in-cheek twist on a classic Mythos concept.

This is a lovely piece of art by the super-talented Pintureiro. One of the foundation stones of the Cthulhu Mythos is the notion that dabbling with it in any way is an invitation to madness. Simple fact. We – humans – do not have the emotional integrity to cope with the Cyclopean shifts in comprehension that can come from exposure to cosmic truths of our – human – position in the teeming universe. Step beyond the Quantisphere into the squirming fury of the Outer Chaos and everything you hold dear, those cornerstones of education and knowledge, just don’t look quite right.  If they fit at all.  It’s all a question of perspective. A concept that tends to break down within the mind-warping heat of Mythos energies. In this image a female investigator is playing the game.  The shadow on the wall conveys the forewarning of what will be the result of this.

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Available in paperback or kindle

Paperback : LULU & Amazon Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro)
BUY > iBook : from iTunes Store

EDGE { novel } Ethan Carmichael, technical wizard and prolific inventor is close to burn out. Taking time out at a luxury snowboarding resort in New Zealand seems like the perfect opportunity to refresh his mind and spirit. But the mountain is a gateway to something much older than humankind, a malign and alien force that even now is oozing back into our reality, hungry for flesh and fear. On the other side of the world, Halo Santana, an unscrupulous concept scout scrambles onto the trail of a new technology that has vanished from a corporate R&D lab. Quickly out of his depth, he enters a frantic race to track down the missing components to save his life. Both men find their fates tangled in a deadly web of lies, treachery and a cosmic horror that comes from beyond the stars. David J Rodger delivers relentless narrative pace in a tense action-packed novel.

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Invitation to join: Tatters of the King – Online RPG – Starting 3rd July

Horror Stalks Back to London 1928

The King in Yellow slithers through time to take on the minds that attempt to deny its dominion over this reality.

The King in Yellow may clasp your oblivion yet – click to take part

When Simon Brake isn’t writing blood-drenched scenarios for Call of Cthulhu (see Roots in “The Things We Leave Behind“, collection), or being spotted as a zombie “extra” in a certain movie, he’s giving up his Wednesday evenings July onwards to run an online RPG session called Tatters of the King.

THIS IS AN INVITATION FOR YOU TO TAKE PART:

Just CLICK HERE or go to Facebook to get involved.

Introduction

This game is aimed at fans of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, Robert W Chambers’ The King In Yellow, or anyone who’d like to role-play a horror campaign starting in 1920s London, and spreading further afield and through the decades that follow.

It takes its name from the Tatters of the King campaign for Call of Cthulhu, but will hopefully develop beyond the confines of the one campaign and the one system. I’m hoping to use a much streamlined set of ‘rules’ that will mean the game places out more like interactive fiction (no dice!), whilst still being under the control of the ‘Keeper’ (the games master or, in this case, Admin).

You’re not stupid, so you’ll probably realise that there are spoilers out there on the internet. You’re welcome to look for them, but I’d rather you didn’t. It’ll take some of the edge off the events that will occur.

The game will hopefully be played, as group sessions, on Wednesday evenings, starting at about 7.30/8.00. Players will read and reply to the same thread, although when split up (or, in the case of the opening session, when the Characters will sit quietly to watch a play and filter it through their own past experiences) they’ll be directed to threads where just the individual Character and the Admin can chat privately.

The first session is likely to be on the 3rd July – although it’ll be mid October in game, at which point the Characters will meet up to go see a play…

ROOTS

Roots is a scenario written by Simon Brake for the RPG, Call of Cthulhu.  I gratefully received a beta version to play test. It led to two epic Saturday sessions with my regular game crew and an extreme mortality / character-ending effect. Also demonstrated again how flexible the Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur universe is to accommodate the storylines’ from other RPG systems.

About Simon Brake

Graphic designer. Writer. Father. Happy go lucky. Trying to get more writing done nowadays, but it’s hard to find the time. Still, the words are trickling out into the world and people are liking what they read. This year’s goal: a novel?

Graphic designery person. There’s more info (and graphic designery stuff) on my MySpace page – www.myspace.com/breakerspace – but to be honest I’ve probably got more up to date stuff here nowadays. MySpace is self advertising. Facebook is for reconnecting with real life people. And Twitter… Twitter is where the real party is.

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Available in paperback or Kindle

Paperback : from LULU & kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro)

DOG EAT DOG { novel } Ten years after the Earth has been devastated by a viral pathogen seventy per cent of the population is dead and only a handful of cities survive intact. The majority of urban spaces have been abandoned to the Infected, creatures that were once human.  Whilst above, the orbital colonies spin within their artificial gravity wells, helpless observers to the shocking events below.  Mikhail Drobná and Carlos Revira.  Two survivors, both hungry for money and power, and fuelled by a desire to carve their names onto this new world.  One provides services of violence and protection for powerful corporate criminals in New York; the other is a renegade intelligence agent forever running from the demons of his past. Strangers, until events conspire to bring them together. There’s a complex and deadly political power play in progress. Private armies. Corruption and murder on a massive scale.  Both men seek to seize their opportunity at whatever personal cost.  But a cosmic Evil has infiltrated the remote corners of these brutalised lands and it has its own plans. Will these men work as one to defeat it or will their bitter rivalry bring about their destruction. In the end, who will devour who?  David J Rodger delivers a novel of epic vision, character depth and nerve-popping tension.

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Dark Art: Evil Spirit by Danielle Tunstall

Evil Spirit

Evil Spirit: image by Danielle Tunstall – All Rights Reserved – Click full size

Part of a series of images from the shadowy fringes of the Internet.  Visuals that stir my sense for the eerie and macabre.

Blessed are the damned for they walk in wake of the divine light, robbed of forgiveness and healing they remain to roam the mortal lands until the end of all things.  Danielle Tunstall delivers another visual impact.  This is a particularly haunting blend of photography and digital manipulation.  Is this the fresh host of a demonic possession?  Or is it something more outre, a direct attack by some cosmic horror that exists within the pantheon of psychological and physical nightmares known collectively as the Cthulhu Mythos.  Or is it a new hybrid of Infected and Changed (Orc) spinning out a new vector from the cocktail of organic and military-designed compounds that came together in the apocalyptic event known as Yellow Dawn?

Danielle Tunstall has a vast repository of images she’s created and showcasing on her website, definitely worth a look if you’re into the darker side of Cyberpunk, verging on horror, smeared in blood and corrupted tissue.

• Danielle Tunstall website.

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Available in paperback or Amazon Kindle

Paperback: LULU & Amazon Kindle US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro), FR (Euro)

THE BLACK LAKE: The Earth has been ravaged by an event known as Yellow Dawn. Ten years later, survivors are putting lives back together and probing the frontiers of a new Wilderness; whilst overhead the orbital colonies slide across the sky, removed and unaffected. Five men leave the fortress island of Malta on an expedition to the sub-Arctic waters above Scotland. They intend to undertake scientific observations of an alien meteorological phenomenon that has followed the apocalyptic event. What they find is a cosmic horror that seethes amongst the shadows of a shattered Earth. It is a story of escape and wonder, of madness and terror. David J Rodger’s trademark unforgiving rendering of harsh reality, and relentless narrative pace, are here in palm-sweating abundance, delivered in a novel that tears open a rent in the boundary of reality, providing a nerve-jarring glimpse of the Outer Chaos and the horrors that lurk just beyond the threshold of our fragile, human existence.

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Video: Dancing with the Devil

Underground Bristol

Somewhere in the undergrounds of Bristol (England) lurk corridors and chambers filled with music and characters of strange breed.

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LIVING IN FLAMES

Available in paperback or kindle

Paperback: from LULU

Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro), FR (Euro)

Living in Flames { novel } Bristol, UK, the near future, the lives of three people collide in a gruesome twist of fate. A former marine turned to crime, and two enigmatic figures concealing their true identities, skimming the city’s underworld of drug-cartels and shadowy tendrils of old merchant families. A carved African idol is discovered clutched in the hands of a dead man who is barely human. Greed unlocks a centuries-tarnished mystery about the origins of the idol, and brings back to Bristol a banished bloodline hell-bent on vengeance and diabolical glory. A carrion God lying dormant for three hundred years risks being returned to the world of Man.

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Other times, other Expresses II

Reblogged from Orient Express Writers:

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We're looking here at more brave, insane or intrepid individuals who have lovingly recorded their experience of running or playing Horror on the Orient Express.

Clicking any of the links below will reveal spoilers.

Bret Kramer's blog post Memories of the Orient Express  on his blog, Tomes in Progress,  is indeed just that. He reminiscences about running the campaign through a nostalgic haze of 20-odd years, and casts a dispassionate eye over the foibles of players, Keepers and writers alike.  

Read more… 341 more words

If you're a fan of Horror on the Orient Express (Chaosium) or just dangerously curious, here's a collection of related items gathered together by Penelope Love and Mark Morrison - who are, rather excitingly - editing and rewriting a new version of HotOE due for a relaunch this year.

Art: Chaos in Motion – Levi van Veluw captures the essence of the sinister and the sublime in self-ordering icosahedrons

Levi van Veluw

Charcoal on paper – image by Levi van Veluw – all rights reserved – click full size

Perfectly symmetric geometric shapes drift through a shadowy space (representation of van Veluw’s childhood bedroom).  It could be the moment a cluster of nanomech slips over the event horizon and makes the leap of intelligence to combine and work together in a swarm.  It could be something more weird and outre, elements of a cosmic entity From Beyond the Quantisphere, rendered into human reality by a fool reading from a forbidden book or a random freak of meta-nature; it arrives, sentient and malevolent, probing the boundaries of this weird, fleshly and organic Universe.  Or it could be a 150 dice for Dungeons & Dragons thrown across the air by a petulant teenager.

Certainly an eye-catching piece of artwork. And reminds me vividly of a recurring dream / night terror I used to suffer from when I was a child.

You should visit the website of the artist Levi van Veluw.

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Free Audio Book (short story): Masters of Chaos

MASTERS OF CHAOS

A Short Slab of Speculative Fiction written by British Sci-Fi Dark Fantasy Author David J Rodger
Audio Book narration by American Voice Talent Cody J Johnson

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-BLURB-
MASTERS OF CHAOS: {Speculative fiction} A man contemplates the world around him, taking seemingly meticulous notes of certain random but repeating events. Can he influence the world through such observations? And to what end? When unseen things are scratching at the doors of perception.

- BACKGROUND -
It’s 3,800 words, fairly meaty for a short story and uses an unusual style that, in my head at least, is based on the awesome narrative monologue method used in the film Pi by Darren Aronofsky. It charts the terrible fate hanging over the Earth during the esoteric experimentation by somebody who has stumbled onto (or been led into) the loathsome, diabolical and reality shattering concepts practiced by adepts of the Cthulhu Mythos (H.P.Lovecraft).

-COPY-
I’m in my apartment. It’s morning. I’m standing by the window looking down; dressed in a crumpled shirt, tie and suit trousers. In one hand is a bottle of expensive mineral water. In the other hand is an old-fashioned Dictaphone with a cable running up to an ear-piece and throat microphone.
My point of view: I’m looking out of the window down on a busy city street.
Picture it, a montage of ordinary people on their way to work.
Some years ago, in Argentina, an old woman decided to withdraw a little more money from her bank than usual. There was a small delay as she got her pesos. A minor cash flow problem for the bank. No harm done. Except, word of this problem got around, it echoed, and caused a run on the banks that led to the economic collapse of an entire country.
One little old lady.
One grain of sand bringing down a mountain.
It was the day I discovered I had a talent. But as with all of nature’s gifts there is need for a mentor, to nurture and guide.
I lift the Dictaphone a little even though there is no need:
8.10 – Look out apartment window.
I see a smartly dressed business woman stopping to cross a busy intersection. Her face shows she is a burns victim. She’s wearing red gloves and is holding a Starbucks.
I lick my lips and thumb record again:
8.12 – Girl A arrives on street corner, gloves, Starbucks coffee in her hand. She waits 43 seconds to cross road.
A few moments elapse and then I focus on a male student in a scuffed leather jacket, carrying a paperback novel.
8.13 – Man B appears on street corner. He is carrying a book in his hand.
I turn from the window, pull on a jacket, pocket the Dictaphone, and head outside.
Picture it. My journey to work. A sequence of images: waiting at bus stop, sitting on bus, walking through downtown city streets, walking into modern office building. A finance company.
Through all of this I appear detached and deep in thought.
8.15 – Left for work. It takes 45 minutes to get to there.

-MAKE A SMALL CONTRIBUTION-
Like the story? Share some wonga.  Make a small financial contribution (link takes you to my website, then PayPal).

-GET THE STORY AS A PDF-
Click this link for a free PDF copy of the short story Masters of Chaos.

Click to grab the PDF. Personal use only.

- LINKS -

WRITER
David J Rodger official website: http://www.davidjrodger.com
David J Rodger Twitter: @davidjrodger
David J Rodger Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-J-Rodger/10090348898

VOICE TALENT
Cody J Johnson on Voices (Talent Website):
http://www.voices.com/people/codyjohnsonaudio

Cody J Johnson on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cody-Johnson/44537397887

SONGS OF SPHERES
Anthology of short sci-fi dark fantasy stories: Cyberpunk and Cthulhu Mythos.
The short story Masters of Chaos comes from an anthology of 15 shorts, available in paperback from LULU and from Amazon for Kindle.
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Available in paperback or Amazon Kindle

Paperback: LULU & Amazon Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro), FR (Euro)

SONGS OF SPHERES: {short story collection} 15 short stories hand-picked by the author as his personal favourites and presented with a brief introduction to each story. There are monsters that squirm and slither through the dark spaces beneath our feet, our dead are like carrion to them; and us, the living, are often victims of their hunger for violence and their taste in blood and terror. There are men and women who prey on the predators – a rough justice or karma in action. Technology carries information beyond the wires but what else can ride the electromagnetic waves? Demonic forces that infiltrate the mind through the new technology implants of the cyberpunk era. In dream-like realms, brave souls adventure deep into the strange worlds conjured by far flung minds. What mysteries do they discover and what secrets do they bring back with them into physical flesh and the reality of Humankind? The King in Yellow regards Earth from behind a pallid mask of silk; reposed on a throne of madness, corruption and decay within the black tower that stands beyond Carcosa. Hastur – the Great Old One that must not be named – the bearer of the Yellow Sign, has been brought forth. In tales of Yellow Dawn the consequences are here for those who dare to see. WARNING: some of these stories contain scenes of a disturbing and sexual nature.

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David J Rodger – DATA

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The King in Yellow: an event in May threatens to see this monster stalk ever deeper into our world and human consciousness

May 17th to 19th 2013

An event that promises to change your world…

The King in Yellow – a book – a play – a corruptive memetic infection

It all started in 1891 with Ambrose Bierce and his short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa”.  Then in 1893 Bierce released “Haïta the Shepherd”. Another two years later, Robert W. Chambers pulled Hastur and Carcosa together, amongst other iconic memes, with his collection of short stories called, aptly enough, The King in Yellow.  Perhaps this malign entity has always been with us – festering in the  oral traditions of storytelling passed down through generations? Or maybe, this terrible phenomenon was somehow invoked within the Victorian period?  Were Bierce and Chamers ever associated with Orbis Tertius and the legend of Tlön?

Regardless of the beginnings, the King in Yellow is now riding the wireless carrier signals, streaming through space (and time) on satellite feeds and gradually, incessantly, corrupting the ideas and thought-patterns of every single mind it touches.

Enter stage left: the folks of Wicked Faire. Builders of unique and unusual shows for unique and unusual people. They are attending this year’s “The Steampunk World’s Fair” and hosting an event within it called the Goblin Market.

Goblin Market – photo John De Cristofaro – all rights reserved

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The Goblin Market presents The King in Yellow: the darker side of Victoriana

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Goblin Market – photo John De Cristofaro – all rights reserved

Seek the darkness and ye shall find a light that burns and blinds until all that is left is the blackness of a world bereft of stars and a Sun that fills the sky with boiling shadows.
- Unknown prophecy quoted by Augustus Northcutt.

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If you wish to hurl yourself from the cliff of sanity, clawing at the smoke-like tendrils of madness on your downward plunge in the mistaken belief that chaos will bring about your salvation, then get yourself along to Piscataway, in New Jersey. The rather innocuous sounding Radisson Hotel Piscataway. But then the Dealey Plaza in Dallas was just an innocuous sounding  place until the assassination of John F Kennedy shifted the tilt of the world and flung our Fates in a new direction.

The Goblin Market is an interactive, exhibition and theatre event that deals with a darker and fictional interpretation of what we refer to as Victoriana (1830-1900)  blending surrealistic themes within a historical context.

Within this niche, tucked away in the blinding stage lamps of an unfolding performance, you’ll find a festering boil of corruption waiting to burst upon your senses.

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There is a play spoken of behind bookshelves, in hissed whispers, against grainy tapestries, and always behind closed doors. They say it is rumored to be cursed with the very truths of both tragedy and devastation. One might even promise that you will find yourself mad by the second act while others will promise that a few of you may never yet return from whence you came. The play beckons you in ways we dare not describe as … not even we can understand it.

But do not fear, gentle patrons, and those with spirits both curious and in need of our delicate mending in offering our wares, curios, and mysteries at the Goblin Market stalls… the first act promises to excite your minds and tantalize your natures all while narrated by the delicate Camilla and Cassilda, our loveliest performers. You will be delighted and you will be entertained, of that we are certain.

But there yet remains the second act… and with it, dear patrons, the evening will go on… but we promise nothing of who you were as an audience member will be the same as it was before.

Your curiosity is our boon and with it, in our deepest inclinations, we bring to you…

The King in Yellow.

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The event is taking place within the Goblin Market, part of The Steampunk World’s Fair being held May 17th to 19th 2013, at the Radisson Hotel Piscataway, 21 Kingsbridge Rd, Piscataway, NJ 08854-3920

You can purchase tickets here:

http://steampunkworldsfair.com/?cat=21

Steampunk Girl – photo John De Cristofaro – all rights reserved

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YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:

•  Yellow Dawn – The Age of Hastur: an RPG that takes the fictional universe of British author David J Rodger and twists it through a “Hasturian Apocalypse”
• Dog Eat Dog: first novel placed within the setting of Yellow Dawn
• The Black Lake: second novel from the Yellow Dawn setting, a post-apocalyptic haunting
• Shadows of the Quantinex: a major globe-spanning (and beyond) campaign that reveals what caused Yellow Dawn to happen

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Work in progress: Audio Book of Short Story: Masters of Chaos

MASTERS OF CHAOS

A Short Slab of Speculative Fiction written by British Sci-Fi Dark Fantasy Author David J Rodger
Audio Book narration by American Voice Talent Cody J Johnson

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This is work in progress of an audio book of the short story Masters of Chaos.

-BLURB-
MASTERS OF CHAOS: {Speculative fiction} A man contemplates the world around him, taking seemingly meticulous notes of certain random but repeating events. Can he influence the world through such observations? And to what end? When unseen things are scratching at the doors of perception.

- BACKGROUND -
It’s 3,800 words, fairly meaty for a short story and uses an unusual style that, in my head at least, is based on  the awesome narrative monologue method used in the film Pi by Darren Aronofsky. It charts the terrible fate hanging over the Earth during the esoteric experimentation by somebody who has stumbled onto (or been led into) the loathsome, diabolical and reality shattering concepts practiced by adepts of the Cthulhu Mythos (H.P.Lovecraft).

David J Rodger and Cody J Johnson are collaborating to produce a complete audio book version of the short story.  Rodger is intending to seek submissions from illustrators and graphic artists who want to win a commission to provide visuals (static or otherwise) to accompany the finished product on YouTube.  Follow David J Rodger’s blog or Twitter – links below – to keep informed of this when the invitation goes out.

-COPY-
I’m in my apartment.  It’s morning.  I’m standing by the window looking down; dressed in a crumpled shirt, tie and suit trousers. In one hand is a bottle of expensive mineral water. In the other hand is an old-fashioned Dictaphone with a cable running up to an ear-piece and throat microphone.
My point of view: I’m looking out of the window down on a busy city street.
Picture it, a montage of ordinary people on their way to work.
Some years ago, in Argentina, an old woman decided to withdraw a little more money from her bank than usual. There was a small delay as she got her pesos. A minor cash flow problem for the bank. No harm done. Except, word of this problem got around, it echoed, and caused a run on the banks that led to the economic collapse of an entire country.
One little old lady.
One grain of sand bringing down a mountain.
It was the day I discovered I had a talent.  But as with all of nature’s gifts there is need for a mentor, to nurture and guide.
I lift the Dictaphone a little even though there is no need:
8.10 – Look out apartment window.
I see a smartly dressed business woman stopping to cross a busy intersection.  Her face shows she is a burns victim. She’s wearing red gloves and is holding a Starbucks.
I lick my lips and thumb record again:
8.12 – Girl A arrives on street corner, gloves, Starbucks coffee in her hand.  She waits 43 seconds to cross road.
A few moments elapse and then I focus on a male student in a scuffed leather jacket, carrying a paperback novel.
8.13 – Man B appears on street corner.  He is carrying a book in his hand.
I turn from the window, pull on a jacket, pocket the Dictaphone, and head outside.
Picture it.  My journey to work. A sequence of images: waiting at bus stop, sitting on bus, walking through downtown city streets, walking into modern office building. A finance company.
Through all of this I appear detached and deep in thought.
8.15 – Left for work.  It takes 45 minutes to get to there.

-GET THE WHOLE STORY-
A PDF version is available free.

http://davidjrodger.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/free-short-story-sci-fi-dark-fantasy-tale-masters-of-chaos-retweet-or-share-and-its-yours/

Click here and share the link to get a free copy of the complete short story (PDF)

- LINKS -

WRITER
David J Rodger official website: http://www.davidjrodger.com
David J Rodger Twitter: @davidjrodger
David J Rodger Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/David-J-Rodger/10090348898

VOICE TALENT
Cody J Johnson on Voices (Talent Website):
http://www.voices.com/people/codyjohnsonaudio

Cody J Johnson on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cody-Johnson/44537397887

SONGS OF SPHERES
Anthology of short sci-fi dark fantasy stories: Cyberpunk and Cthulhu Mythos.
The short story Masters of Chaos comes from an anthology of 15 shorts, available in paperback from LULU and from Amazon for Kindle.
.

Available in paperback or Amazon Kindle

Paperback: LULU & Amazon Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro), FR (Euro)

SONGS OF SPHERES: {short story collection} 15 short stories hand-picked by the author as his personal favourites and presented with a brief introduction to each story. There are monsters that squirm and slither through the dark spaces beneath our feet, our dead are like carrion to them; and us, the living, are often victims of their hunger for violence and their taste in blood and terror. There are men and women who prey on the predators – a rough justice or karma in action. Technology carries information beyond the wires but what else can ride the electromagnetic waves? Demonic forces that infiltrate the mind through the new technology implants of the cyberpunk era. In dream-like realms, brave souls adventure deep into the strange worlds conjured by far flung minds. What mysteries do they discover and what secrets do they bring back with them into physical flesh and the reality of Humankind? The King in Yellow regards Earth from behind a pallid mask of silk; reposed on a throne of madness, corruption and decay within the black tower that stands beyond Carcosa. Hastur – the Great Old One that must not be named – the bearer of the Yellow Sign, has been brought forth. In tales of Yellow Dawn the consequences are here for those who dare to see. WARNING: some of these stories contain scenes of a disturbing and sexual nature.

.

See more posts like this – click

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Photography: Ethereal Being – angel, demon or the mythos in disguise – Kristian Schuller

Ethereal Being

Photography Ethereal Being: Image by Kristian Schuller – All Rights Reserved – Click Full Size

Ghostly light and shimmering golden skin, this apparition of a human male form could be mistaken for an Angel or the seductive beauty of the creature, Lucifer.

Romanian born fashion photographer Kristian Schuller has crafted this shot with a more sombre hand, angling away from his usual flare for vibrant colours and dramatic form.  It’s a stunningly simple effect. A male face, in thoughtful repose or slumbering.  But the concept leaps towards the super-human… or non-human in a bipedal, mammalian guise.

The Cthulhu Mythos is riddled with non-human species that have adopted the human form. British science fiction and dark fantasy author, David J Rodger has added to this pantheon with several of his own creations.  Things that walk shoulder to shoulder alongside the creaking, arthritic, nefarious and polymorphic creations of H.P.Lovecraft.

Most hideous of these new additions are the Grom crabs.  Parasites, a little smaller than a human fist, they resemble a translucent grey crab, with horribly long spider-like legs, a segmented carapace with hard black chitinous pincers.  They wield a Nerve Sting attack, effected by a set of “semi-visible” tendrils that can lash out up to 6 metres; made of an alien matter that can slice through flesh, bone, clothing and armour to reach into the nervous system of any living thing and deliver a crippling, paralysing attack. Any living organism can be affected. And the effects are instant; the target becomes paralysed, all muscles cease to function. The primary use of this attack is to allow the Grom crab to crawl into any cavity near the brain (usually the mouth), and burrow into a suitable resting place, from which to occupy and control the host. Highly intelligent, the Grom roam different worlds, taking control of hosts – including human victims – and building empires.

Upon arriving in a suitable location, they construct hive-like temples, dedicated to their god, Murg, incorporating the flakes of crystal they excrete through their appendage from time to time (Resonators). Grom themselves are
rarely encountered outside of a larger “host” creature; they are often accompanied and served by mutated-beings known as Groth.

In the post-apocalyptic “Mythos fiction” novel, Dog Eat Dog, the Grom are encountered by the main protagonists.  The encounter, sinister, brutal, and shocking in its climax reveals the silent incursion of alien horrors into the abandoned spaces of an Earth left ravaged by the event known as Yellow Dawn.

The photo by Kristian Schuller is more akin to the sublime and mysterious creatures known by erudite scholars as the “The Great Magi”. Formidable sorcerers from a time on Earth predating the evolution of Modern Man.  They are anthropomorphic, walking upright, with a humanoid head that resembles a cross between a chimpanzee and a cheetah.  However, they are renowned for their use of potent illusionary magick to walk amongst humans as if one of them. Often mesmerizing with the physical beauty and charm.

Skeletons of The Greta Magi have occasionally been discovered by scientists and mistaken as the “missing link”, these people are normally silenced and the evidence removed (by the Order of the Amber Eye) before the truth ever comes close to the surface. The Great Magi came to Earth after the Elder Things had retreated beneath the oceans and for a while came to dominate the proto-human savages that had evolved from the Elder Thing experiments. In their ancient culture they wore ceremonial robes and carried weapons (typically daggers). The Great Magi warred heavily with the far older race of Serpent People. Because of this war, only a few remain in existence at this time on Earth. The Order of the Amber Eye is based in a sandstone city on a remote planet, a temple held up by vast ape-like statues, surrounded by alien jungle; any Great Magi will have access to this place via a magical gateway.

Kristian Schuller has an incredible portfolio of imagery from his career in photography and fashion. You should certainly take a peek at his work on his website:

• Kristian Schuller website

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YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:

• More creations for the RPG Yellow Dawn in a free download called Monsters of the Mythos
• The Ninth Gate: occult and tarot-like symbolism in the engravings by Aristide Torchia and Lucifer, plus wider meanings of the movie

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Available in paperback or Amazon Kindle

Paperback: LULU & Amazon Kindle US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro), FR (Euro)

“Atmospheric and creepy” – The Guardian

THE BLACK LAKE: The Earth has been ravaged by an event known as Yellow Dawn. Ten years later, survivors are putting lives back together and probing the frontiers of a new Wilderness; whilst overhead the orbital colonies slide across the sky, removed and unaffected. Five men leave the fortress island of Malta on an expedition to the sub-Arctic waters above Scotland. They intend to undertake scientific observations of an alien meteorological phenomenon that has followed the apocalyptic event. What they find is a cosmic horror that seethes amongst the shadows of a shattered Earth. It is a story of escape and wonder, of madness and terror. David J Rodger’s trademark unforgiving rendering of harsh reality, and relentless narrative pace, are here in palm-sweating abundance, delivered in a novel that tears open a rent in the boundary of reality, providing a nerve-jarring glimpse of the Outer Chaos and the horrors that lurk just beyond the threshold of our fragile, human existence.

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Horror Animation: UK TV Show – Countdown – reveals the gruesome, flesh shredding face of H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos with a quivering nod to Carpenter’s The Thing

Mythos Horror Meets Countdown

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Short and delightfully “on the money” in regards to Carpenter’s The Thing – a concept that blends seamlessly like thrashing tentacles into the nightmare polymorphic forms of H.P.Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

Movie poster for John Carpenter The Thing (1982) – click full size wallpaper

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When the Cthulhu Mythos meets Cyberpunk:

Available in paperback or kindle

Paperback : LULU & Amazon Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro)
BUY > iBook : from iTunes Store

Recently given 5 star review: Brilliant piece of Sci-Fi literature

EDGE { novel } In the near future, a prolific inventor is close to burn out. Desperate for a break he grabs an opportunity to go snowboarding in New Zealand, thinking it will refresh his mind and spirit. But a malign and alien force is oozing back into our reality, older than humankind and growing strong as it emerges after centuries of absence. Zen Dow snowboarding and ski resort, perched in the foothills of the volcanic mountain Ruapehu, is about to experience mind-shredding consequences as one of the Great Old Ones returns. On the other side of the world, an unscrupulous concept scout scrambles onto the trail of a new technology that has vanished from the corporate R&D labs. Quickly out of his depth, it becomes a race to track down the missing components before competing corporate agents kill him. David J Rodger’s trademark relentless narrative pace is here in palm-sweating abundance, delivered in a tense action-packed novel that blends corporate espionage, with a creeping, spine-chilling horror.

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YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:

• Tracking down the Fog, John Carpenter movie (1980)

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Black and White Horror Classic: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

House on Haunted Hill

La mansion de los horrores – House on Haunted Hill (1959) – click for full size

Strange how it can take decades to discover things you would ordinarily consider central to your tastes and passions. I adore black and white horror flicks.  Fond memories of being in my early teens, late at night, watching Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi as Frankenstein’s Monster / Ardath Bey and Dracula / Bela the gypsy.  Around the same time that I got into the cosmic horror and weird psychological twists of H.P.Lovecraft – and the Cthulhu Mythos.

So I’ve only just discovered House on Haunted Hill. I watched it last night via YouTube, camped out in our master bedroom – girlfriend away the night – with a laptop and headphones.  And I bloody loved it.  There’s flavours of the comical CLUE and the over-stylised Thir13en Ghosts (the William Castle remake).

Vincent Price narrates the start of the story

The sinister aspect of Frederick Loren (Vincent Price), with his sardonic smiles and aggressive jealousy plays brilliantly into the plot’s final twist.  The femme fatale is cunning as the damsel in distress. And the real malefactor bubbles up like a poisonous draft. Stepping out of shot as a potential hero and oozing back into frame with a gun and the cold eyes of death in his face.  These aren’t spoilers by the way – there are a number of characters who could fit these descriptions. That’s what I really enjoyed about the movie: the characters work seamlessly with the plot and its unfolding sting in the tail. The special effects are OK for the period. I think much more could have been made of the house itself, and the suggestion of a network of secret passageways and interconnecting doors – and the actual haunting(s) that predated the current story – but that’s me being over zealous and wanting more from this fragment of classic horror.

Black and White Horror: House on Haunted Hill 1959 – a classic cast of characters – click full size

It would also make a fantastic short scenario for many roleplaying game – of many genres. From the middle-earth fantasy of D&D (a strange medieval Lord has his men cajole people to his castle for the night) through to the classic 1920′s investigations of Call of Cthulhu or  the more brutal post-apocalyptic survival horror of Yellow Dawn.

You can watch it now on YouTube thanks to CinemaVintage:

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If you enjoy haunting horror:

Available in paperback or Amazon Kindle

Paperback: LULU & Amazon Kindle US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro), FR (Euro)

“Atmospheric and creepy” – The Guardian

THE BLACK LAKE: The Earth has been ravaged by an event known as Yellow Dawn. Ten years later, survivors are putting lives back together and probing the frontiers of a new Wilderness; whilst overhead the orbital colonies slide across the sky, removed and unaffected. Five men leave the fortress island of Malta on an expedition to the sub-Arctic waters above Scotland. They intend to undertake scientific observations of an alien meteorological phenomenon that has followed the apocalyptic event. What they find is a cosmic horror that seethes amongst the shadows of a shattered Earth. It is a story of escape and wonder, of madness and terror. David J Rodger’s trademark unforgiving rendering of harsh reality, and relentless narrative pace, are here in palm-sweating abundance, delivered in a novel that tears open a rent in the boundary of reality, providing a nerve-jarring glimpse of the Outer Chaos and the horrors that lurk just beyond the threshold of our fragile, human existence.

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See more posts like this – click

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Fungi from Yuggoth: 36 strange sonnets by cosmic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft

Containing hidden keys to locked dimensions

Fungi from Yuggoth – art by Jason Eckhart, from the Necronomicon Press edition of the sonnet cycle.

First Exposure

I’ve been aware of this piece of work since I first got into H.P.Lovecraft. But that was back in the mid 1980′s and I was a teenager and not appreciative of the subtle magick woven into these words. Back then I wanted pure narrative flow, the creeping, doom-laden, macabre psychological horror of Lovecraft’s short stories and novellas. And the thrills and chills of playing the classic investigative horror role-playing game: The Call of Cthulhu.  And that’s what I got.

Polyphasic Sleep and a New Dawn

Skip to 2007 and I’m working on putting together my own RPG setting – Yellow Dawn: the Age of Hastur -  based on the shared universe of my novels (Cthulhu Mythos horror and cyberpunk science-fiction).  That was an intense year. My dad had recently died and I was in the middle of a 2 year hiatus from employed work – living on savings to focus on writing – so I was throwing myself body mind and soul into this endeavour, keen to finish before my money ran out.

One of the techniques I use to maximise creative output is polyphasic sleep – or what I call my Da Vinci Method. Every 45 minutes I stop work (alarm goes off), then go lie down with a pillow and blanket near my desk and drift off into a light doze.  Another alarm goes off after 15 minutes, making sure I don’t actually fall into a deep sleep. The trick is to fight through any feeling of nausea or disorientation and get up, make a cup of tea or coffee, and get back to it. 45 minutes on. 15 minutes off.  You can go for most of the day and night doing that, reducing the need for proper sleep for a few days at a time. Eventually it catches up with you and you crash for a bit, but overall you’re much more productive.

I have a stack of audio recordings of H.P.Lovecraft stories that I often put on to play in the background whilst I doze off.  One of these was a fantastic array of broken narrative pieces – over an hour long with eerie and haunting musical sounds punctuating the narrator.  And because I was listening to it 15 minutes at a time, rarely in sequence, the whole thing became a dizzying jumble of brilliant morsels of Lovecraftian lore, concepts and raw Mythos atmosphere.  It was only when I stopped to check – what am I actually listening to? – that I discovered it was The Fungi from Yuggoth.  Written by H.P.Lovecraft in late 1929.

Keys & Windows

Some people call “The Fungi from Yuggoth” a sequence of poems – which is quite right, considering they’re numbered as such. But when you listen  to the work (or simply read it), you experience the sleight of hand that Lovecraft employs; leaving you slipping through gaps of narrative blocks, non-linear structures that take you outside of the “Gutenberg Galaxy” – where information can only be processed by following the logical flow – and propelling you instead into the non-Euclidian universe – where shape and matter have no sense – that Lovecraft always did so well to reveal.

So although structured for print, each sonnet is in itself a disparate self-contained gem that when peered into provides overlapping, and at times contradictory glimpses of the universe that Lovecraft is painting.

Yet linked with all the laws of time and space.
A faint, veiled sign of continuities
That outward eyes can never quite descry;
Of locked dimensions harbouring years gone by,
And out of reach except for hidden keys.

Sonnet XXXVI. Continuity – The Fungi from Yuggoth – H.P.Lovecraft

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Lovecraft has crystallised the raw essence of his imagination in these sonnets.  Plunge through them, losing yourself in their sequence or pick them apart, piece by piece to extract the underlying meanings and references – leading you to discover new gates of discovery.

In the first three sonnets: “The Book“; “Pursuit“; and “The Key” – the chief narrator seems to be a person who acquires a book of infernal lore, almost by chance – or by stealth; a book that enables him to access distant and dramatic realms of cosmic wonder – and later of abject anxiety and monstrous horror.  Whether these places and scenes are of “this universe” or are from some parallel dimension beyond time and space is unclear.   But the suggestion is that the book unlocks (or unleashes) a stream of visions – or consensual journeys – upon the man who has stolen the book away.

Much in the same way that the Influence of Hastur (referenced in Yellow Dawn RPG; and short stories House of Heavenly Light; Corrupt Moon; Tainted Moor, all three of which are contained within the anthology of short stories Songs of Spheres) is able to warp, twist, mutate and rapidly change the local reality surrounding an individual who has been “infected” by exposure to… it.

The rest of the sonnets swing and carousel between scenes of brooding horror and looming insanity, as if the narrator has been injected at random into the sensorium of a succession of nameless victims of Mythos mayhem.

And like a bad drug that finally loosens its grip on the conscious mind, with the fragmented narcotic trip in the wane, the chief narrator’s sense of reality begins to return, forever changed – and possibly damaged by the nervous experience.   The sonnet “Expectancy” and those that follow it serve to document the narrator’s estrangement with what was once familiar reality – and normality.

Many of Lovecraft’s “pillar brand” concepts are given genesis and exploration here. The boldly nightmarish tale of Mi-go infestation and manipulation in “The Whisperer in the Darkness”; the Machiavellian mind-games of the Crawling Chaos – Messenger of the Outer Gods – Nyarlathotep.

Audio Renditions

The one I’d really love to share – with the wonderful atmospheric musical accompaniment seems really hard to get a hold of.  But here’s a reasonably well-narrated version by CulainRuledByVenus.

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Related Links

• Dark Art: Farmer Seth Atwood, from The Well, in Fungi from Yuggoth by HP Lovecraft
• Reasons to like Lovecraft: Mi-go (Fungi from Yuggoth)

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The Fungi from Yuggoth – Full Version

I. The Book

The place was dark and dusty and half-lost
In tangles of old alleys near the quays,
Reeking of strange things brought in from the seas,
And with queer curls of fog that west winds tossed.
Small lozenge panes, obscured by smoke and frost,
Just shewed the books, in piles like twisted trees,
Rotting from floor to roof—congeries
Of crumbling elder lore at little cost.

I entered, charmed, and from a cobwebbed heap
Took up the nearest tome and thumbed it through,
Trembling at curious words that seemed to keep
Some secret, monstrous if one only knew.
Then, looking for some seller old in craft,
I could find nothing but a voice that laughed.

II. Pursuit

I held the book beneath my coat, at pains
To hide the thing from sight in such a place;
Hurrying through the ancient harbor lanes
With often-turning head and nervous pace.
Dull, furtive windows in old tottering brick
Peered at me oddly as I hastened by,
And thinking what they sheltered, I grew sick
For a redeeming glimpse of clean blue sky.

No one had seen me take the thing—but still
A blank laugh echoed in my whirling head,
And I could guess what nighted worlds of ill
Lurked in that volume I had coveted.
The way grew strange—the walls alike and madding—
And far behind me, unseen feet were padding.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) – finally got round to watching this early innovative masterpiece of creeping psychological horror and murder

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Mythos-like madness

German Expressionism distilled through a cinematic lens to create an experience that is captivating and wonderfully unsettling

1920 – Werner Krauss and sleepwalking Cesare – Conrad Veidt – click for full size

The deranged Dr. Caligari and his faithful sleepwalking Cesare are connected to a series of murders in a German mountain village, Holstenwall.

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I’ve known of this movie for years but for some reason or another, never got round to hunting it down to watch it.

Then I recently saw the incredibly informative and engaging BBC documentary by Mark Gatiss: Horror Europa.

Amongst the range of unheard of gems of European horror films that he discusses, is a detailed foray into the genesis and production of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  Gatiss talks about how the horrors of WWI influenced the writers and artists involved in the making of the movie – and the stance of German Expressionism at that time. Plus a fantastic glimpse of miniatures that have been made of the original sets used during the making of the movie.

I was so inspired by Gatiss’ documentary that I’ve found / reserved many of the movies he covered.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari I found on YouTube.

It’s a gripping story, and despite the fact it’s 94 years old, it is immensely watchable. And it’s easy to see why “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” is deemed to be one of the most influential movies of its era; an influence that stretches through decades of movie making and story telling, through the shadows and harsh lit angles of film noir, into the glossy fabrications of modern horror in the 21st century. Despite its age, it still punches its weight. And the ending, expertly shifting the focus through a maelstrom of madness, genuinely caught me by surprise and injected macabre delight.

It’s a movie that introduced the idea of a “twist” into cinema.

Cesare creeps through the German mountain village Holstenwall – click for full size

Werner Krauss plays the title character, shifty, unsettling, he is a shabby hypnotist who travels the carnival circuit displaying a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt).

The movie’s hero protagonist is Francis (Friedrich Fehér).  And when he and his friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) visit the  carnival that has come to their town, they see Dr. Caligari and the somnambulist Cesare. Caligari declares that Cesare can answer any question he is asked. When Alan asks Cesare how long he has to live, Cesare tells Alan that he will die before dawn tomorrow. A prophecy which is brutally fulfilled.  Francis suspects the good doctor Caligari, but the local authorities – although interested in helping  – fail to stop the murders, and are themselves bogged down by a series of simple but effective red-herrings that make for good story evolution.

Friedrich Fehér as Francis takes the investigation of the murders into his own hands – click for full size

Taking the investigating on his own hands, Francis makes a startling and genuinely chilling discovery about Dr. Caligari – and what is really happening.

The stage sets are something right out of a Lovecraftian nightmare – and probably inspired some in the 1920s American writer of weird, cosmic horror.

And I wonder if there was ever any cross-pollination between Lovecraft and the two writers behind the movie: Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – like a Lovecraftian nightmare

Meeting in Germany after World War I, neither Janowitz or Mayer had any film making associations. But they were enthuisastic about their idea – and persevered. Erich Pommer, the producer who finally bought into the idea of making it nearly had them thrown out of his studio – but they grabbed a valuable chance to explain their idea and Pommer was profoundly impressed.

The now iconic sets were the work of designer Hermann Warm and painters Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig; who Pommer had met as a solider – and they were directly responsible for convincing Pommer that it would be effective to paint lights and shadows DIRECTLY on set walls, floors, background canvases, and to place flat sets behind the actors.  All of this adding to the weave of disconcerting angles and damaged reality threaded through the story.

Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was best remembered for his roles in this movie, and others such as The Man Who Laughs (1928) – - inspiration for the iconic Batman villain The Joker ; and Casablanca (1942) – another massive favourite movie of mine, Veidt plays the hauntingly good looking Major Heinrich Strasser. Veidt left Germany in 1933 to live in the United Kingdom before settling in the United States in 1941.

Events close to the climax of the movie involve disparate characters working together, probing the secrets contained within ancient manuscripts, and this conjures up numerous Cthulhu Mythos scenarios where people desperately try to gain a grasp on what might be happening, through the seemingly chaotic ramblings of long-deceased madmen.  There’s also a hint of The Dumas Club, a book written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte – used as the basis for Roman Polanski’s remarkable cryptic and metaphorical movie: The Ninth Gate.

• Related Link: The Ninth Gate: occult and tarot-like symbolism in the engravings by Aristide Torchia and Lucifer, plus wider meanings of the movie

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is like Lesser-Mythos tale: where reality has warped around an infectious and corruptive meme – something the arrival of Dr. Caligari has set in motion. Or otherwise… AVOIDING SPOILERS.

At the core of its black and jaggedly highlighted heart, the movie is about a journey into madness. Grist for the Mythos (Lovecraft / Cthulhu) Mill.

It’s fuzzy and jerky, it’s old and it’s strange – and it’s a treat.

Find yourself a copy and take 90 minutes out to enjoy. (Try Bloody Cinema channel on YouTube)

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Cinema Lobby Card for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) – click full size

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Available in paperback or Amazon Kindle

Paperback: LULU & Amazon Kindle US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro), FR (Euro)

THE BLACK LAKE: The Earth has been ravaged by an event known as Yellow Dawn. Ten years later, survivors are putting lives back together and probing the frontiers of a new Wilderness; whilst overhead the orbital colonies slide across the sky, removed and unaffected. Five men leave the fortress island of Malta on an expedition to the sub-Arctic waters above Scotland. They intend to undertake scientific observations of an alien meteorological phenomenon that has followed the apocalyptic event. What they find is a cosmic horror that seethes amongst the shadows of a shattered Earth. It is a story of escape and wonder, of madness and terror. David J Rodger’s trademark unforgiving rendering of harsh reality, and relentless narrative pace, are here in palm-sweating abundance, delivered in a novel that tears open a rent in the boundary of reality, providing a nerve-jarring glimpse of the Outer Chaos and the horrors that lurk just beyond the threshold of our fragile, human existence.

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Horror News: trailer released for the H.P.Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos inspired short film – Beyond the Basement Door

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Beyond the Basement Door

A short film by Jason Huls and Ten Wing Films

H.P.Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos gets a fresh lease of undeath

Written and directed by Jason Huls the short film is inspired by the psychological, sci-fi horror of H.P.Lovecraft, and features Steve Christopher, Daniel Roebuck (LOST, The Fugitive, Halloween 2), Brenna Lee Roth (The Road), and Richard Pryor Jr.

The full film will be released shortly but right now their drumming up interest and publicity; so here’s the trailer.

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PLOT OUTLINE:

Alistair, a genetic researcher, saves his own life from cancer by making a pact with some dark and dangerous people. The secret lies with whatever is making the odd sounds in Alistair’s basement. The deal he made forbids him to go down there for three days…no matter what he sees or hears. His sanity, his life, depends on it.

As the line between reality and delusion fades, Alistair struggles with nosy neighbors (Richard Pryor Jr.), a rival ex-boss (Daniel Roebuck, LOST) and haunting images of a lady in blue. Getting out of the house only makes his anxiety worse. With each passing hour, an urge to open the door slowly chips away at him…

Will he be able to resist? What’s making all that noise beneath the floorboards? How is Alistair connected to the lady in blue and what is beyond the basement door?

RELEVANT LINKS:

• Official Facebook Page for Beyond the Basement Door
• Link to END CREDITS for Beyond the Basement Door

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Cast and crew on set of the H P Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos short film Beyond the Basement Door

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Available in Paperback or Kindle

Paperback : from LULU & Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro)

GOD SEED { novel } In the near future, a documentary film-maker is covering mercenaries engaged in corporate espionage. A nervous executive wants to smuggle stolen data to Cairo. Yet events rapidly and frighteningly escalate out of control. The film-maker finds himself battling for his life and his sanity as a new and dramatic story unfolds, dragging him across the globe…and beyond. Fascist extremists, Islamic terrorists, corrupt government officials and a religious sect that worships a nefarious avatar of a many-faced God of the Outer Void, become fused into a gruesome knot of lies, treachery and mass-murder. David J Rodger’s trademark gut-wrenching rendering of a dark and edgy reality, and relentless narrative pace, are here in palm-sweating abundance, delivered in a tense action-packed novel that plunges you uncomfortably deep into crawling chaos festering and feeding on the membrane of human existence.

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Dark Art: porthole with giant tentacle – fabulous #Cthulhu #Mythos horror ornamentation for any room

From ArtAkimbo

Dark Art porthole with giant tentacle by ArtAkimbo – click full size

Part of a series of images from the shadowy fringes of the Internet.  Visuals that stir my sense for the eerie and macabre.

This is a great piece of visual horror ornamentation, perfect for your writing / gaming den – or more utilitarian areas of your abode if you can get away with it (if the partner shares your macabre taste in decor).

This is a simple but really well put together ensemble that should make a bold (and chilling) impression and anybody who understands the accursed place-name: R’lyeh

Or knows the meaning of the dreaded phrase:

That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die.

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The construction is as follows:
A wooden support structure is built. To this, styrofoam is added and carved into the basic tentacle shape. It is then closely covered in aluminum wire mesh.
In the meantime, newsprint is boiled, then whipped into a mush. The mush is allowed to dry over a period of several days, then it is ground into a fine powder. This is combined with sawdust, glue, starch, linseed oil and a bit of bleach and applied to the mesh by it pushing into the mesh to form a very solid base coat. After this coat dries, it is refined with rasps, and a finer mixture of pulped tissue paper,glue and gypsum is applied and allowed to dry. This makes a very nice finish coat. After it dries, the whole piece is sanded and further refined. Each sucker is built in a 3 stage process over a period of several days.
Once the piece is thoroughly dry, it is painted in many thin layers with an airbrush. The depth of the color is further enhanced by a finish coating of highly glossy shellac.
The end product is both lightweight and quite durable.

The porthole is made of plywood and medium density fiberboard, coated with copper paint and chemically patinated to it’s lovely blue green hue.
It can also be made in a rusted iron, a blackened iron or a weathered brass finish.

Vital Stats:

The porthole is 14 3/4″(38cm) in diameter.
The tentacle reaches approximately 36″(79cm) into the room.

Purchasing:

Made-to-order versions available from artist, visit the ArtAkimbo website or Etsy for details.

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Find tentacles and other horrors that stalk the darkness between the stars…

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Available in paperback or kindle

Paperback : LULU & Amazon Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro)
BUY > iBook : from iTunes Store

EDGE { novel } In the near future, a prolific inventor is close to burn out. Desperate for a break he grabs an opportunity to go snowboarding in New Zealand, thinking it will refresh his mind and spirit. But a malign and alien force is oozing back into our reality, older than humankind and growing strong as it emerges after centuries of absence. Zen Dow snowboarding and ski resort, perched in the foothills of the volcanic mountain Ruapehu, is about to experience mind-shredding consequences as one of the Great Old Ones returns. On the other side of the world, an unscrupulous concept scout scrambles onto the trail of a new technology that has vanished from the corporate R&D labs. Quickly out of his depth, it becomes a race to track down the missing components before competing corporate agents kill him. David J Rodger’s trademark relentless narrative pace is here in palm-sweating abundance, delivered in a tense action-packed novel that blends corporate espionage, with a creeping, spine-chilling horror.

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Wonderful photograph of H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long sparring in Brooklyn on July 11th 1931

H.P.Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long

H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Belknap Long sparring in Brooklyn 7/11/1931

This is a charming photograph of my favourite author of weird and cosmic horror – H.P.Lovecraft. Taken in Brooklyn in 1931, it’s a unique image of a man who has so few photographs publically available of him in life. What’s even more unique is the fact he looks to be positively enjoying himself, first time I’ve ever seen such an image.

Huge thanks to H.P.Lovecraft (Facebook Fan Page) for sharing this gem.

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YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:

• Hunting down H.P.Lovecraft – outside 169 Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York, location of the Horror at Red Hook

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David J Rodger – DATA

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Digital Photography ¦ Cosmic Fungus by Mark Mawson – alien #wallpaper

Surreal Universe

Cosmic Fungus by Mark Mawson – All Rights Reserved – Click for Wallpaper size

Part of a series of images from the shadowy fringes of the Internet.  Visuals that stir my sense for the eerie and macabre.

This is a great image from London / Sydney based photographer, Mark Mawson.  He’s a master of underwater photography – check out his portfolio of humans striking poses beneath the mirrored surface- but he’s also has a profound talent for making coloured dyes and smoke behave in interesting ways – and then photographing the results.  This image struck me as something from a dream – a protrusion within an astral plane – or the cosmic fungus of some surreal corner of the universe.   At the very least, it’s pure eye-candy and makes a nice background on my high res computer monitor.

• Mark Mawson – website

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Available in Paperback or Kindle

Paperback : from LULU & Kindle: US ($), UK (£), DE (Euro)

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David J Rodger – DATA