I’m about a week behind on this, but October Country isn’t about breaking news first – it’s about sharing the cool stuff whenever we find it. And this sounds cool.
Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters is a new anthology coming in November from editors John Langan and Paul Tremblay by way of Prime Books. The editors released the full table of contents on the anthology’s website, and it’s packed to the, er, gills with goodness. Check out this list:
IT CAME AND WE KNEW IT
“Godzilla’s Twelve-Step Program,” Joe R. Lansdale
“The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” Jim Shepard
“After Moreau,” Jeffrey Ford
“Among Their Bright Eyes,” Alaya Dawn Johnson
“Under Cover of Night,” Christopher Golden
“The Kraken,” Michael Kelly
“Underneath Me, Steady Air,” Carrie Laben
IT CAME WE COULD NOT STOP IT
“Rawhead Rex,” Clive Barker
“Wishbones,” Cherie Priest
“The Hollow Man,” Norm Partridge
“Not from Around Here,” David J. Schow
“The Ropy Thing,” Al Sarrantonio
“The Third Bear,” Jeff Vandermeer
IT CAME FOR US
“Monster,” Kelly Link
“Keep Calm and Carillon,” Genevieve Valentine
“The Deep End,” Robert R. McCammon
“The Serpent and the Hatchet Gang,” F. Brett Cox
“Blood Makes Noise,” Gemma Files
“The Machine Is Perfect, the Engineer Is Nobody,” Brett Alexander Savory
“Proboscis,” Laird Barron
IT CAME FROM US
“Familiar,” China Miéville
“Replacements,” Lisa Tuttle
“Little Monsters,” Stephen Graham Jones
“The Changeling,” Sarah Langan
“The Monsters of Heaven,” Nathan Ballingrud
“Absolute Zero,” Nadia Bulkin
That is absolutely a can’t-miss lineup. Good old-fashioned monster stories have been out of vogue lately thanks to the vampire and zombie crazes, but perhaps this collection will kick-start the imaginations of other writers. The world can always use another story about something misshapen and unspeakable rising from the swamp, or the ocean, or maybe a volcano, ready to carry innocent people off to their doom. Or something like that.
October Country 