Now Featured at Dark Regions

I am, for the moment, the featured author at Dark Regions Press, publisher of my short fiction collections Other Gods (2008) and The Gaki (2012) as well as the anthologies Christmas Horror, World War Cthulhu, and Discoveries: Best of Horror and Dark Fantasy, which feature my stories "Red Rage," "The Game Changers," and "Megan," respectively. All are available in trade paperback editions, some as hardbacks and e-books. Look at those covers right there. Just look at them! I'm telling you, hie thee over yonder to Dark Regions right now, take a look, and treat yourself to a perfectly frightful smorgasbord. I know you need one. Don't we all?

Visit here: Stephen Mark Rainey at Dark Regions Press

"I finished the book feeling as if I had been processed through the kaleidoscopic imagination of a born storyteller. Other Gods is a superb example of what this sort of long-term collection is good for: It plainly highlights the author's long-running thematic obsessions and shows him circling back to revisit and reshape the concepts, tropes, and emotions that inspire him."

—Matt Cardin, Dead Reckonings #4

The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits

For four days — until October 23 — you can get the Kindle edition of my short story collection, The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits, at Amazon.com for 99¢. It features 17 of my original short stories, including several that have never appeared elsewhere. My story "Abroyel," for example. A hard-boiled detective tale that also offers you a tantalizing glimpse of something from "other" regions. Dark regions, you might say. You may get a shudder — and a decent chuckle — out of "The Spiders of Galley Cove," a story about a peculiar young man, a peculiar town, and a peculiar horror that comes down from the stars during a science experiment gone awry. Or journey back to the Middle Ages in "Iron Heart," for a taste of life in a village that eats its children.

The Gaki offers you a fair sampling of my work over a span of nearly thirty years, and it's every bit scary. I know this because coming up with these tales scared the pants off me. In fact, if you see my pants, I'd kind of appreciate their return. There's no reward, I fear, but you'll be doing the public a service, for which they'll thank you, since most people don't seem to want me walking around sans pants.

Original cover art is by M. Wayne Miller.

You can read the story, "The Gaki," for free at my website, right here: "The Gaki (html, pdf, or Kindle file)

Check out my collection The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits by Stephen Mark Rainey — for your Kindle from Amazon.com, only 99¢ for a limited time. From Dark Regions. Note: If you prefer the trade paperback, you can also get it from Amazon.com, for $13.49. It's a beautiful book, all full up with excitement, terror, intrigue, even a little romance, all for about the price of a decent bottle of wine. Partake of both, and I guarantee you'll be one happy, happy reader.

Another Dark Regions Special: THE GAKI

Okay, please do pardon this bit of follow-up promo, but I mean, damn! This is deeply serious, scary stuff! Dark Regions is offering the trade paperback edition of my fiction collection, The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits, for just $12.95 (regular price $18.95). It's another beautifully produced Dark Regions release, featuring 17 of my most chilling short stories, along with some pretty disturbing cover art by M. Wayne Miller. (And if you're partial to signed, limited edition hardcovers, this one is only $23.45.)

You can read a free sample tale — the title story, "The Gaki" — at my website. You can read it online or download it as a PDF or for your Kindle. Go here to check it out: "The Gaki" by Stephen Mark Rainey.

"The sheer variety of settings and Rainey's remarkable command of appropriate styles of and voices deserves amazed respect. The flat-out monster story, the ooze-slime-blob invasion, and others rise with new and eerie life from Dr. Rainey's lab table." — Robert M. Price; editor of Crypt of Cthulhu magazine, Chaosium's Cthulhu Cycle line of anthologies, and more

Get The Gaki from Dark Regions here: The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits by Stephen Mark Rainey

A New Freebie — The Gaki

I figured it was time to offer a new piece of free fiction on my website, so... tis here. It's "The Gaki," the headliner of my short fiction collection, The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits from Dark Regions Press. I rarely look back at my older works of fiction unless I have reason to re-edit them for new publication or some such — or if I consider making them available on my website. After all these years, I still have the dickens of a time looking at my stories and novels with any sort of objectivity; more often than not, the best I can say about them is that they bring back vivid memories of the times that inspired the tales — sometimes good, sometimes bad. When I recently gave "The Gaki" a look-see, I actually rather liked it, above and beyond the years-old memories it conjured up.

Dark Regions is running all kinds of specials on their products, and both The Gaki and Other Gods may be found amongst them. I cordially invite you to check out the short story, and if you enjoy it, please venture over to Dark Regions, or Amazon, or what have you, and pick up the book. It's available in trade paperback and e-book formats — and Dark Regions may have a few signed hardback copies left.

Check out "The Gaki" at my website here. You can read it free online, or download a PDF or MOBI file for your Kindle. Enjoy (or run away in mindless terror, whichever best suits you).

Happy All-Hallow's Eve

I was out hunting caches yesterday at Cedarock Park, not far from Burlington, and this little dude came round trick-or-treating. I had no treats for him because he was a day early—alas—and he wasn't much help finding the cache, but at least he was clearly full of Halloween spirit, which made me chuckle. I did manage to find the nearby cache all on my own, thank you very much.

Halloween, ever my favorite holiday, calls for taking a day off work, so I did. But since I greatly appreciate our traditional office festivities, which include trick-or-treating, costume and pumpkin-carving contests, and me reading a scary tale, I went in at 10:00 AM to partake of the celebration and regale the crowd with three of my short-short tales from The Gaki & Other Hungry Spirits: "Black Tom," "Megan," and "Field Dressing." These seemed to go over quite well, and I got a passel of chocolate in the bargain.

Then it was off to the Laurel Bluff trail to hunt...get this..."Out on the Laurel Bluff" (GC36A4G), a new cache that was published yesterday. An absolutely beautiful morning for hiking, and, happily, the cache was a fairly quick find.

This evening, some more Halloween festivities with Kimberly B., Jenny Chapman, and Doug Cox. Who knows who...er, what...we'll cook up for a treat.

Happy Halloween to the lot of ye.