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Written in Darkness

by Mark Samuels
Publication Date: 10th May, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-907681-27-1
Paperback, 148 pages, 8.0 x 5.25 inches

These nine tales are apocalyptic in the truest sense—they lift the veil and uncover what is hidden. Europe decays, but the Bloody Baron’s spirit will not rest. A lone yachtsman is becalmed at sea, and confronts madness, or something greater than madness. A condemned office building is besieged by the forces of transcendent decay. In the city of exiles, an unguessable secret awaits.

These and other strange encounters, intrusions and transformations are to be found within these pages, Written in Darkness.

Contents

Introduction, by Reggie Oliver
1 A Call to Greatness
2 The Other Tenant
3 An Hourglass of the Soul
4 The Ruins of Reality
5 Alistair
6 My World Has No Memories
7 Outside Interference
8 My Heretical Existence
9 In Eternity—Two Lines Intersect

About The Author

Mark Samuels is a London-based writer working in the continuum of weird, strange and mystical fiction. Born in, and a life-long resident of London, he was first published in 1988, and his short stories often focus on detailing a shadowy modernity in which his protagonists gradually discover deeper vistas of reality. His tales have appeared in many prestigious anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic including The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Weird and A Mountain Walks. Forthcoming books by him include the novel A Pilgrim Stranger and a new collection of stories, The Revelations of Doctor Prozess.

About Mark Samuels’ previous work:

“In The White Hands, Mark Samuels earns a reputation as the contemporary British master of visionary weirdness.”

- Ramsey Campbell, Postscripts

“An impressive debut collection, The White Hands is an unexpected dark miracle of invention, tradition, and archetypal revision…. The author exhibits in this carefully arranged onslaught of weird fiction individualistic taste, thoughtfulness, and a strict control of literary subtlety. Re-envisioning the archetypal images and concerns of traditional supernatural fiction with distinctly contemporary, urban settings and bleak if heartfelt characters, Samuels weaves a deceptively subtle, menacing web of wizardry.”

William Simmons, Hellnotes

“…dark, tragic, ominous but ultimately a reflection on ourselves and the society we live in. Mark Samuels, like Thomas Ligotti, looks beyond the supernatural into some dark void which lurks in our minds, he then proceeds to show us the really scary stuff that lurks in that darkness. [The White Hands] is a marvelous collection…”

Highlander’s Book Reviews

“The Man Who Collected Machen & Other Stories is possibly Samuels’s finest collection to date. Like most writers who are confident of their own abilities Samuels is not afraid to acknowledge influences. Hints of Machen, Poe, Lovecraft, Borges and Ligotti are to be found in these stories, but the dominant figure is always Samuels. … What all these stories possess is a rich literary and intellectual subtext.”

Reggie Oliver, Wormwood