9/2/26
Yesterday was spent dealing with guns, comic books, and Scares That Care stuff.
The guns — only twenty of them now, as I’ve been downsizing the past few years — needed general cleaning, oiling, and a maintenance check-up, same as an automobile. Could have done it myself, but I just don’t have the time right now. So I drove them to the gunsmith, and the mischievous part of me was kind of hoping I’d get pulled over so that when the cop asked, “Are there any weapons in the vehicle” I could grin and wink and say “Check the back.” Sadly, that didn’t happen.
I swung by Comix Connection and made my weekly purchases, including a box of coverless Bronze Age Marvel and DC stuff that Mary can use for crafting.
Lot happening behind the scenes with Scares That Care’s AuthorCon VII. Flurry of Guest of Honor announcements this week and next. Yesterday we added Victor LaValle and Linda Addison to the dais. You can keep up to date here.
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Speaking of signings and events, I’m happy to announce the first (hopefully annual) Fright Writers Festival, taking place Saturday October 17 from 12pm to 6pm at 2nd & Charles, 3000 Whiteford Rd, York, PA 17402. On hand will be myself, Mary SanGiovanni, Todd Keisling, Somer Canon, Amanda Headlee, Stephen Kozeniewski, Wesley Southard, Mike Lombardo, and Mike Slater. More details to come.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 116
Salvation Spring by T. C. Parker
She doesn’t know where she’s been, these last few years, or how she came by the scars that mark her body. She can barely remember who she is, a lot of the time.
But Sasha knows Salvation Spring, the tiny nowhere town out in the middle of the desert that calls to her in dreams and haunts her waking life.
Getting there is hard. But what she’ll find there - and what the place will ask of her - will be much, much harder.
Because the Spring isn’t what it seems - far from it. And neither, for that matter, is Sasha.
Not by a long way.
I raved last year (and again more recently for Women In Horror Year) about T. C. Parker’s Tradwife, and made a mental note to myself that I wanted to read more by her. And I’m glad that I did, because Salvation Spring is another absolute banger of a book. A proudly queer weird western novella that veers more toward Clive Barker and Poppy Z. Brite than it does Joe R. Lansdale or WIle E. Young, Salvation Spring is a perfect weekend read that incorporates visceral body horror, beautiful descriptions, WTF-surrealism, unflinching violence, and deep, layered characterization in what is essentially a quest story, all transposed into an Old West setting. Everything in this novella feels alive — even the dead things. From the protagonist (Sasha) the the desert setting to the microscopic narrative descriptions of tufts of hair leftover in a hangman’s noose, this story breathes as you breathe. Plan accordingly, because it is impossible to put down. This would have been right at home as part of Dead Sky’s Splatter Western line, but I’m kind of glad it’s not, because it’s nice to see that mindset and subgenre expanding beyond just one publisher or stable of writers. Always a good thing for the genre and the industry, and proves that the Splatter Western — which a lot of critics deemed merely a fad — does, in fact, have legs and is here to stay.
Salvation Spring is available in paperback and eBook from Nefarious Bat Press. You can also get the eBook direct from the publisher here.
