It's been a long, strange road for this volume of blood-chilling tales to see the light of day. A few years back, director Guillermo del Toro was all set to make a big-screen adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's acclaimed short novel, At the Mountains of Madness. To coincide with the film's release, writer, editor, and high priest of the Cthulhu Mythos, Dr. Robert M. Price, compiled an anthology of stories — including one of mine, titled "The Danforth Project" — that took the theme of Lovecraft's story of horror in the Antarctic and ran with it. At the last minute, however, del Toro's project fell through, and the anthology went into limbo. After several fits and starts with various publishers, Dark Quest Books picked up the project, and now... finally... it's here. Well, my contributor copies have not yet arrived, but several other authors whose works are included in the book have verified the book is, in fact, a reality. Other contributors include Ken Asamatsu; Glynn Owen Barrass; Pierre Comtois; Laurence J. Cornford; Cody Goodfellow; C. J. Henderson; Edward Morris; Will Murray; Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.; Pete Rawlik; and Brian Sammons. Fine company indeed for paying tribute to one of Lovecraft's best stories and one of my favorite works of dark literature.
Publisher's description: "The frozen continent of Antarctica still harbors mysteries, slowly being revealed by intrepid scientists and by melting ice caps. The stories in this new collection offer more revelations still, as our frostbitten authors chip away at the legacy bequeathed by H. P. Lovecraft in his historic novella, At the Mountains of Madness. Lovecraft's epic is itself a continent teeming with lurking fears and horrors unknown. What mysterious entities did his star-headed crinoids serve? What genetic secrets gestated within the shifting masses of the unholy shoggoths? Can a mere human fathom or describe the thought patterns of such creatures? If the Elder Things survived, what further nefarious mischief might they have spread? Had there been other, earlier or later expeditions to the Lovecraftian tundra? Did the cyclopean metropolis of the Old Ones exist in this or some other dimension? Could there be unsuspected links between the Miskatonic Expedition and characters or events in other Lovecraft tales? What if The Twilight Zone had adapted At the Mountains of Madness for television?"
The Mountains of Madness is now available as a trade paperback, available from Dark Quest Books for $14.95.
