4/9/26
Chris Golden said to me yesterday that he hoped, should we ever be given a Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award, that they give it to us on the same year, so we can be on stage together. I said, “well, they give those out once you hit sixty, so in four years—” And then Chris interuptted and said, “You mean two years. We’re 58, Brian.” (Our birthdays are a month apart). And I argued that we are 56. And then I realized that I’ve been walking around this year thinking I’m 56, when I am, in fact, 58 years old.
Fifty fucking eight.
See, the problem is, I forget about that. When I think of myself, I still think of the kid jumping his bike off ramps and over barbed wire fences. I still think of the twenty-something who could drink and fuck until dawn and absolutely would not back down from a fight. The thirty-something who could work 16-hour days if he needed to, in order to provide. The problem with forgetting you are no longer any of those versions of yourself is, of course, doom. Were I to jump my BMX Mongoose over a barbed wire fence now, I’d be in traction. Were I to drink and fuck and fight like I did in my twenties, I’d die. Were I to spend 15 hours writing non-stop, or back driving truck or working in the foundry or even on the air at a station, I’d keel over.
I don’t feel old, and to be fair, 58 isn’t old. But it ain’t young, either. It’s a weird sort of halfway zone, and I should probably be more mindful of it, lest I end up accidentally killing myself through some misadventure I wouldn’t have thought twice about in the decades before.
~
Women In Horror Year: Day 8
The Safety of Unknown Cities by Lucy Taylor
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel from the Horror Writers Association! Exclusive Introduction for The Overlook Connection Press edition by Lucy Taylor. "Lucy Taylor's The Safety of Unknown Cities is one of the most impressive debut novels centered around relationship-driven fiction catalyzed by horrific events mostly realistic, sometimes supernatural. The Safety of Unknown Cities is very much a supernatural horror novel. Indeed its sexual, its graphically written, but its also an affecting and powerful novel about heartbreak and the untimely destruction of childhood. If reading the book strikes familiar chords, the resonances might be with either Clive Barker for an unflinching approach to highly charged subject matter, or with Poppy Z. Brite for sheer candor...an adventurous novel of a quality that absolutely demands an audience." -- Edward Bryant, Locus Magazine
I had intended this morning to talk about Lucy’s novel Dancing With Demons, but it is apparently out of print, so instead I’m talking about The Safety of Unknown Cities, which I’d originally planned on talking about later this year, closer to the Splatterpunk Awards. Why did I originally plan to talk about it then? Because this is a foundational bedrock cornerstone, right here. First published in 1995 via John Pelan’s Darkside Press, The Safety of Unknown Cities arrived with the force of ten nukes. It won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel, and was voted Best Novel by Deathrealm. (Many of my younger readers are probably asking “What was Deathrealm? What was the IHG?” Well, Deathrealm was one of the best horror magazines of the time, right up there with The Horror Show and The Twilight Zone. And the IHG were an organization devoted to horror fiction — sort of an alternative to the HWA, because even back in the 1990s, people had problems and quibbles with the HWA).
Splatterpunk had carved out a firm place for itself in the genre by 1995, and its cousin, Extreme Horror, was having a moment, as well. But it was a weird moment. While you could find Jack Ketchum, Rex Miller, or James Herbert on the shelves here in America, Richard Laymon had pretty much been consigned to overseas markets, Edward Lee was going underground, and women such as Charlee Jacob were consigned to the small press and the zines (which were very prevalent back then).
So, along comes this debut novel by Lucy, published with the cachet of an endorsement by John Pelan (sort of the S.T. Joshi of Extreme Horror — and I mean that as a comparison to Joshi’s deep and admirable academic and historical knowledge rather than the shitty things Joshi has said to and about people) — The Safety of Unknown Cities. And it does something that only Jack Ketchum had been able to do before — the melding of Extreme Horror’s visceral content with the socio-political heart of Splatterpunk. And indeed, I’d argue it did it better. (Something I said to both Lucy and Dallas over the years, so I’m not talking out of class here). The erotic component should be noted, as well. Before this novel, 95% of the sex in any work of Extreme Horror was offered solely for titillation or for shock value, and almost always from the male perspective (the exception perhaps being Clive Barker). With this novel, Lucy married Clive’s Body Horror with the Erotic Horror found in works by Karen Taylor and some of Poppy Z. Brite’s bibliography — and thus contributed an absolute sea change moment for Extreme Horror.
The Safty of Unknown Cities is a graphic, boundary-breaking work of art that goes beyond genre labels, incorporating grief, sex, perversion, gore, and above all else, heart in its examination of the human condition. It is a required read for anyone who is a fan of horror fiction or a writer of horror fiction. There is a direct thruline from this seminal work to today’s writers such as V. Castro, Eric LaRocca, the Sisters of Slaughter, and CJ Leede. Currently available in paperback and eBook from Overlook Connection Press.
