5/27/26
I’m currently reading Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson — a nonfiction account of the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, the history of TSR, and the relationship between Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. As disheartening and dispiriting as the history of Marvel Comics and the relationship between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko was, I think the history of D&D might actually be worse. At least in the case of the former, the lines were clear. Marvel and Lee came out the winners but Kirby and Ditko were clearly the “good guys”. In the case of D&D, Arneson is the equivalent of Kirby, but everyone involved just comes off (at least in Peterson’s telling) as unlikeable and annoying. I’ve exhaustively read every published history of comics. I suspect I’ll have to do the same for RPGs and D&D, if only to get the full story.
My favorite RPG was always Gamma World. While Peterson’s book does touch on it very lightly, I wish he’d have dug more into the fact that Richard Snider’s Mutant was probably reverse engineered into James Ward’s Metamorphosis Alpha, which of course later on was mutated into Gamma World. (And to be clear, Ward most likely did so unknowingly, and was working on concepts suggested to him by Gygax, who was clearly the Stan Lee of TSR and in need of a good punching).
(And I’m only halfway through, so maybe Peterson does indeed dig into that later in the book).
It’s something to be absorbing all of this history before Mary and I are guests at GenCon later this summer. At least, we are told that we are guests. We don’t yet seem to be listed on the website or any posted scheduled programming, but we keep being assured that we will be. I dunno. I figure worst case scenario I’ll just wander the dealer’s room in search of vintage Gamma World stuff all weekend.
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Today is me and Mary’s wedding anniversary, so in celebration of that…
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Women In Horror Year: Day 44
Strange Stones by Mary SanGiovanni and Edward Lee
Paperback - eBook - Signed Paperback
Cult authors Edward Lee and Mary SanGiovanni’s novel follows an insufferable horror-con lurker as he spurns the wrong woman and is cursed to a monstrous dimension full of Lovecraftian creations.
Professor Everard, weird fiction scholar and proclaimed critic of H.P Lovecraft's works, is no stranger to making people mad. Giving convention presentations on the triteness and melodrama of Lovecraft's work pays the bills, though. Sometimes he even gets laid.
When he angers a beautiful but dangerous witch and devotee of Lovecraft's work, she casts a spell on him, sending him to a dimension where Lovecraft's works are very real—and very deadly. Everard must find a way through this alternate dimension to get home, before the worst of Lovecraft's horrors prove what a master of monstrosities he really was.
Edward Lee’s humorous transgressive style meets Mary SanGiovanni’s literary touch to carve out the Lovecraftian dimensions that is Strange Stones.
I’ve been friends with Ed Lee since around 1999. (He, Ray Garton, Richard Laymon, and John pelan were among the pros hanging out with us newbies on the Horrornet boards and chat room back in the late 1990s). And I’ve been friends with Mary since 2002. (She was the Vice President of the Garden State Horror Writers, and invited me to come speak to their group). And while Mary and Lee knew each other, and respected each other’s work, his collaboration probably wouldn’t have come about unless Mary and I got married.
Which we did. Three years ago today.
When Mary and I were dating, she told me how in awe she was of his Lovecraft pastiches, which she felt — rightfully so — were among the best in this business. She was also in awe of Lee’s appreciation and respect for the works of Arthur Machen. Indeed, when it comes to Machen scholarship, I’ll put Lee up against S.T. Joshi, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Lisa Kroger and Melanie Anderson, S.J. Bagley, Nick Mamatas, Jack haringa, or any of the other really smart folks in our genre. About the only person I wouldn’t put up against Lee in that triva contest would be Mary. It’s possible they might tie, but I bet they’d just defer to each other the whole time.
When Mary and I got engaged, Lee called me with congratulations, and gushed effusively about how much he respected Mary’s knowledge and scholarship of not just Lovecraft, but cosmic horror in its entirety. Turned out he was a listener of her (now defunct) podcast Cosmic Shenanigans (which you can still listen to on Brian Keene Radio). And when I shared with Mary that Lee had been singing her praises, she was delighted.
And then I said, “It would be something if you two collaborated on a novel.”
And then I said the same thing to Lee.
And then I texted Christoph Paul at Clash Books and said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Lee and Mary wrote a book together and you published it?” And he exploded with glee.
You’re welcome.
Strange Stones is a celebration of cosmic horror, written by two of the most knowledgeable living people in the industry today. But it’s so much more than that. The book was an opportunity for both Mary and Lee to step outside the safety of what they are known for (Lee’s firmly wink-nod-chuckle gross out and Mary’s beautiful, literary descriptions) and try their hands at something different. It was a chance for each of them to write what they’d always wanted to write, without fear of what their readership or publisher might say. The sickest, most depraved, most extreme horror scene in this novel that everyone is gleefully grossed out by? That wasn’t written by Lee. It was written by Mary. And that achingly beautiful passage that drips like poetry and that everyone gushed about? That wasn’t written by Mary. It was written by Lee.
Strange Stones was a chance for them to say everything they ever wanted to say about Lovecraft, cosmic horror, fandom, convention creepers, and their own muses and styles. It is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. I’d say that even if I wasn’t married to one of them and dear friends with them both. Available in paperback and eBook from Clash Books. Signed paperbacks available from Vortex Books.
