6/8/26
Back home from StokerCon. It was a weird vibe this year — a vibe that I know was shared by Chris Golden, Sephera Giron, Sarah Langan, John Langan, Michael Cisco, Tim Waggoner, and Ron Malfi because they all told me they felt variations of the same vibe. A sense of looking around and not seeing hardly any of the old guard, and then getting hit with the creeping, uncomfortable realization that we’re the old guard now, and the sort of strange voluntary sidelining that comes with that — because you see the folks whom you’ve mentored now have their own peer groups and social bonds, and are mentoring other folks — and you feel weird approaching or hanging out for too long because you want to let them experience the same joys and friendship and camaraderie with each other that you once experienced with your friends and peer group — half of whom are now gone.
Or, to paraphrase how Chris’s wife so beautifully put it, StokerCon is the prom, and they’re the kids, and we’re the teachers, and while the teachers may be cool, if they linger too long, it gets weird, because it’s not cool to hang with the teachers.
I guess maybe we’re just figuring out the social rules for this new phase — a phase we probably shouldn’t have been surprised by, and yet here we are.
I may write a lengthier thought piece about this for Patreon or next Sunday’s newsletter, or I may not. Depends on time — I have an enormous workload this week.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 52
House of Pain by Sephera Giron
The house looks so normal. Just a charming home in a small town–perfect for a young couple starting out together. But this house was built on the site of an unspeakable series of murders, butchery so savage that the brick walls of the basement seemed to flow with blood. Tony was just a boy then, but he stood and watched as the notorious house was demolished. Now he's a man, and he's brought his beautiful young wife with him to live in the new house built on the site, without telling her of its hideous secret. Still the nightmares come to her, visions of horror, suffering and perversion, drawing her down to the basement, to a dank tunnel that lies beyond a wall. What calls to her from inside the tunnel? What waits in the darkness to be unleashed?
I’ve known Sephera a long time. Since 1999, in fact. She mentioned this past weekend that she assumes when she shows up here for Women In Horror Year, that I will tell the story of the time we spread chaos and discontent at 3am in a Seattle Dennys back in 2001.
But no, because I’m saving that story for my autobiography, Seph. ;-)
And because I had the rest of this (below) already written. So double ;) ;)
If we take a look at the books from the classic era Leisure Books 2000 - 2010 horror line, House of Pain is indicative and a fine example of what all of us then-youngsters were trying to do. I was trying to put a new spin on zombies. Jesus and Wrath were trying to put a new spin on serial killers. Bryan Smith was trying to put a new spin on that gritty sort of high weirdness typified by Ray Garton. And Sephera put a new spin on the traditional Gothics from which Horror sprung. The framework of House of Pain is very much that of the Gothic, but now transplanted in suburbia and loaded with supernatural and cosmic horror overtones. (And before anyone decides to argue with me, I mean cosmic horror in the sense of “Lovecraftian”, and I’m not wrong, so maybe go argue with someone else on Threads or whichever social media algorithm you use now, post The Great Splintering). I mean, there’s cults, serial killers, a haunted house, an ancient feathered demon goddess — Sephera went for broke with this novel, and that enthusiasm and her love of the genre shines through.
Much has been said over the decades of Sephera’s prose style and authorial voice (a reviewer for Horror World called it “smooth as silk” and that’s on point). And when it comes to erotic horror, she’s one of the all-time greats. But I’ve always thought she doesn’t get enough credit for the humor that creeps into her work. Not blatant humor, like that of Jeff Strand or Bitter Karella. It’s more subtle — a lone, hard to define spot between Edward Lee’s nudge-nudge wink-wink and Grady Hendrix’s charm. I also suspect it plays better for women than it does men. An example: there’s a moment in this book when the protagonist is chained up and in peril, and she wonders to herself why the evil men always seem to be gorgeous. I’ve seen men say that sort of sly comment takes them out of the story, but I’ve seen women say it made them grin and nod.
House of Pain is available in eBook from Crossroads Press. There does not currently appear to be a print edition, however, vintage paperback copies are readily available on the secondary market, varying in price from $5 to $50, depending on the condition, so if you absolutely won’t read an eBook, it should be easy to track down.
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On sale today in Italy is NEMESAI — a short dark fantasy novel by myself and John Urbancik, published by Plutonia Publications.
It starts with the red dreams. Everyone has them every night. But they’re just a precursor, because something deep within the bowels of the earth has awakened—something we defeated and sent back thousands of years ago. First, there are scouts which decimate cities, and the armies of humanity find their weapons impotent.Enter Atiya Destine, professional adventurer and mercenary. She and her team will venture deep into the middle of China to follow the scouts back to where they came from: a hole in earth once protected by thousands of warriors awaiting the return of humanity’s Nemesai.Enter Jane, a survivor of the destruction of Shanghai. Enter Stefan, trying to put down the unstoppable Nemesai with his fists.They’ll enter the tomb of China’s first emperor, untouched for thousands of years, with rivers of mercury and pearls as stars in its sky hiding an underground city. Somewhere in that tomb, Atiya Destine hopes to find a way of driving back the rising army before it’s too late.Enter the Nemesai. They cannot be stopped.
English Language Paperback: Amazon - B&N - BAM - Waterstones
English Language eBook: Kindle
Italian Language Paperback: Amazon US - Amazon Italy
Italian Language eBook: Kindle US - Kindle Italy
