Updates 8/19/24
It’s been a little over a week since the end of Killer Con 2024. The luster of winning my first Splatterpunk Award has worn off enough for post-con depression to set in. Maybe it’s the Blue Super Moon, Moon-a-geddon, Moons Over My Hammy, or whatever we’re calling the latest lunar phenomenon this time.
Happy Monday. This is Fiction for the Cosmically Disturbed, a newsletter for family, friends, and readers of Splatterpunk Award-Winning Author Lucas Mangum. Sometimes I show peeks at what I’m working on, sometimes I give my thoughts on what I’m reading and watching, and sometimes I just talk about my weekend.
I watched Abigail last night. It’s a disjointed, silly, but ultimately enjoyable flick that I wish hadn’t been spoiled for me. If you haven’t seen any trailers or looked up anything about it, definitely give it a watch. You’ll be in for a surprise. You’ll probably still enjoy it if you know what’s coming—I did—but I imagine the reveal will be a lot more pleasing if you don’t.
Speaking of surprises, I obtained a copy of Hell: City of the Killing Dead by Judith Sonnet while at Killer Con, and I burned through it in three days. That’s rare for me with full-length novels, but Hell: City of the Killing Dead is just that kind of book. Here’s what I said about it on Facebook: “This book just might be Judith Sonnet’s masterpiece - a breathless, vivid nightmare from page 1.”
Judith has only been publishing for a couple of years, but in that time, she has created a staggering body of work. Her love of Italian horror films and old-school exploitation movies are evident in most of her stories, but perhaps it’s most on display in Hell: City of the Killing Dead.
Now I’m reading CV Hunt’s collection The Next Time You’ll See Me, I’ll Probably Be Dead. The opening story “The Haunted House of Obsolescence” could easily fit in the world of my book Gods of the Dark Web, so reading it made me smile.
On the writing front, I’ve been a bit scattered since finishing Barn Door to Hell earlier this year, but over the past few weeks, I’ve been tinkering with a longer piece I’m not ready to talk about yet, and I outlined a novella called Goddamn Graveyard Zombies. The latter is a project I hope to marathon my way through during the next writing retreat (9/12-9/15).
My book The Bleak Season will be going temporarily out of print in the next few days. It’s for a good reason, but if you’re curious about what me doing “grief horror” looks like, you can grab this edition here. The next printing will include a new cover, some revisions, and a new story. Look for it this upcoming winter.
That’s it for now, fam. Have a good week!
