Human Flesh Super Limited Edition – winner announced

On the 12th of January, a competition was announced for a ‘Super Limited Edition’ of I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like by Justin Isis. The Super Limited Edition is inscribed and decorated by the author, and contains unique material.

Entrants were asked to send a tweet-sized message (perhaps in the form of a caption) conveying what they thought was the hidden meaning of the book’s cover. A winner has now been selected. Daniel Corrick sent us the following entry and will be receiving the ‘Super Limited Edition’ soon:

Synthetic realities; gold plated Existentialism: the soft, moist charms of consumption and conformity. Welcome to style.

For the disappointed who did not win on this occasion, if you are a fan of J-pop you have another chance to win by entering the competition at this link, organised by International Wota and Chomu Press.

The rules are simple: in fifty words or less, describe how you would serve a Japanese idol of your choice as a meal and why you chose this specific recipe for this specific idol. A Johnny’s boy in a flambee? A sticky sweet dessert for an H!P star? An Avex Trax diva served up as a spicy roast? You decide, and explain why!

First prize will be a copy of Justin’s I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, signed and personalized by the author himself, and a $50 YesAsia gift certificate. Second prize will be a signed and personalized copy of Justin’s book and a $30 YesAsia gift certificate. Third prize will be a signed and personalized copy of Justin’s book.

Read more here.

Don’t forget, also, the prize draw to win a uniquely inscribed copy of the excellent Revenants by Daniel Mills, which closes on the 9th of March.

Revenants now among us

Revenants, by Daniel Mills—the fourth title from Chômu Press—is officially released today and is now among us. Pick up a copy here.

Previously, Mills’ work has appeared in Strange Tales III from Tartarus Press. Here is what others have to say:

Readers [of Revenants] are swept into the towering forests of colonial New England right along with the settlers as Mills calls up both the majesty of stately oaks and chestnuts and mist-laden scenes of terrified Native American women and children who were slaughtered where they stood. Otherworldly fiction from a promising new talent.

- Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist

Mills exhibits the evocative prose of an extremely gifted writer and the firm narrative style of an accomplished, mature author. It’s hard to believe he’s a novice in the field.

- Mario Guslandi, reviewer

Daniel Mills is an exciting emerging talent in the field of strange literature.

- Rosalie Parker, Tartarus Press

This is not a conventional horror novel, or a conventional historical novel for that matter. But it is a powerful story, remarkably well told, and makes for a compelling read on a cold winter’s evening.

- The Supernatural Tales Blog

His sublime debut novel comes now as naturally as the leaves to the trees, and as hauntingly as the secret ghosts of your past. It takes us back to the New England of the 17th Century, and to the Puritan settlement of Cold Marsh. Fourteen years have passed since the outbreak of King Philip’s War. During that summer, the men of Cold Marsh surrounded and destroyed a nearby Native American encampment, massacring the inhabitants. Now the people of Cold Marsh are besieged by the returning darkness of their deeds. Two of the town’s young women have vanished under mysterious circumstances, and the country seethes with rumours of witchcraft and devilry. When a third young woman disappears, the men of the village determine to leave the safety of their homes and enter the other world of the woods in search of her, each man haunted by the Jack o’ lanthorn of his own unspeakable secrets.

As the past catches up with them, so it catches up with us; written in the present tense, this is a novel that makes us feel history alive and continuing with our life in the present moment.

More than a historical novel and more than a supernatural tale, Revenants brings Puritan New England to life for the 21st century reader. The ghosts between these pages are real enough for you to feel them breathing. Complete with stunning original cover artwork from Hanna Tuulikki, Revenants offers a different vista again to Chômu readers.

Prize Draw for unique commemorative copy of Revenants

We would also like to announce a prize draw for a signed and uniquely inscribed commemorative copy of Revenants. To be entered for this draw, please sign up to our mailing list and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘Revenants’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, naturally there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘Revenants’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 9th of March.

Last day of the Human Flesh competition

Today is the final day for sending entries in to the competition for the ‘Super Limited Edition’ of I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like by Justin Isis, an edition signed, decorated and otherwise modified by the author. Read the entry instructions here.

See below for a tantalisingly blurry photograph of the ‘Super Limited Edition’:

The Dracula Papers are disclosed

A previously secret cache of documents concerning the shadowy figure known to some as Count Dracula has now been unearthed. In this year of Our Lord, 2011, on the 19th of January, those documents are released to the world, for good or ill.

Be among the first to know for yourself the secrets uncovered here.

The learned Dr. Abraham Van Helsing writes in the Foreword:

“I must solemnly warn readers not to scan these pages in a spirit of idle curiosity. I place this work before them to shed some light on the darkness which hides in every human breast…”

The first volume of four to be disclosed, The Scholar’s Tale treats of the early life of Prince Vlad Dracul, as told by Martin Bellorius, a doctor at the University of Wittenberg in the year 1576. It takes us across Europe to the wilds of Transylvania, and beyond, taking in its purview sorcerers, bandit queens, great battles, passionate liaisons, a mechanical tortoise, and much more.

Playwright, actor and theatre director Reggie Oliver resurrects from history’s tenebrous and legend-haunted grave the living Dracula as his terrible destiny takes shape before him – a stormy road of adventure, horror and heartbreak whose twists have till now been shrouded in darkness.

A tale of origins like no other, this book promises to enthral both admirers of Bram Stoker’s original work, and those who have yet to sample its chill delights.

“[The Dracula Papers] has blown away every novel I’ve read this year so far.”

Johnny Mains, writing in December, 2010.

Praise for Reggie’s previous fiction:

The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini (Haunted River 2003)
“Oliver’s sharp eye for character and ear for dialogue never desert him…. Reggie Oliver rediscovers many if not all the qualities which make the English Ghost Story classic.”

Ramsey Campbell, Dark Horizons 2003

A brief and adapted extract from The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale, entitled The Wounds of Exile was published as an Ex Occidente limited edition, now sold out. Of it, the writer, publisher and editor D.F. Lewis wrote: “Poignancy in love, farcical and dream-consistent, this novella is a masterpiece…”

The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale, is available here. Don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list for further news on this and other titles.

Human Flesh is unleashed

At last the date has arrived and the second Chômu Press publication is unleashed. We are very proud to present, I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like by Justin Isis.












Here is what others have to say of the collection:

If you ever wanted to experience some life-bending obsession but thus far are still waiting for one to come along, reading I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like will serve as the next best thing. In his disarmingly masterful first collection of stories, Justin Isis reports on what it is like to be young, Japanese (quite incidentally in our global culture), and hopelessly a slave to awful and bizarre attractions—eccentric enchantments that any fugitive from the conventional world would take agonizing pride in confessing to a sheaf of private papers. Indeed, these are stories in the best tradition of the confessional genre. Even when they are not narrated in the first person, the focus is still that of a Poesque psyche utterly fixated with an imprudent intensity upon someone or something of an unparalleled nature. One problem in writing for the uninitiated about Isis’ stories is how to praise them in terms appropriate to their character. But while there are so many ways in which one might go wrong, each would be likely to bring up some aspect of their fascination. So for present purposes, let us simply generalize them as admirably captivating narratives with the following “black box” label: To be read by those who themselves would be overtaken by the extraordinary liaisons and manias that either save or doom—it can be hard to tell—the characters in these works.

- Thomas Ligotti

Justin Isis’ stories read like future videos, in their shape-shifting, voyeuristic Eurasian themes, dominated throughout by the obsessive retrieval of visual detail pulled right from the edge of one space-time dissolving into another. “He wondered about how present he was” the narrator of the title story questions, and it’s the author’s ability to live parallel to what he is seeing that gives the collection an elusive, fetishistic concentration, as though Isis is trying to step into a film as a real-time participant. I love these stories for their fractionally off-world message that is always vitally, sexily modern.

- Jeremy Reed

To learn more about Isis in his own words, please read the interviews here and here.

There are also reviews starting to appear online. The first ones can be seen here, at Blog Critics, from Jessica Schneider and here, at the Theaker’s Quarterly blog.

Warning: I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like is not horror fiction.

Competition

To celebrate the launch of our second book, Chômu Press would like to announce a competition to win a ‘Super Limited Edition’ of I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like. What is the hidden meaning of the cover of I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like? If you think you know or have some interesting ideas of your own, please send your interpretation (tweet-size) to the Chômu Press Twitter feed, using @chomupress. (Please feel free to express the meaning in the form of a caption.) So that we can send you a private message to obtain your contact details if you win, please also make sure to ‘follow’ the Chômu Press Twitter account. To indicate that your tweet is a competition entry, please accompany your interpretation with the hashtag #fleshcover. Alternatively, those who don’t have a Twitter account may send us their entries (again, tweet-size – 140 characters or fewer) via the normal Chômu address: info at chomupress dot com. We may tweet the entries of those who enter via e-mail. Because of text-size considerations, if we do so we will omit the name of the entrant. Therefore, in e-mail entries please specify if you would rather not have your entry tweeted. Multiple entries are allowed.

The closing date for this competition is the 14th of February. The interpretation judged to be the most interesting by Chômu Press and the author will receive a unique and special ‘Super Limited Edition’ copy of I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, signed and decorated by the author.

Finally, please subscribe to our mailing list to keep updated on future releases, behind the scenes insights, news and exclusive rarities (and the competition results).

End of Year Update

It’s almost the end of the year and only 14 days until the release of the second Chômu Press publication, I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, by Justin Isis. The second Chômu release, it will be also the first of a number of releases for 2011. At the time of writing we have ten books on our catalogue and plan to release more before 2011 closes. Since the last Chômu blog entry we have added to our forthcoming list the following titles:

The Man Who Collected Machen by Mark Samuels

A veritable Rosetta stone for scholars of wonder and terror.

The Great Lover by Michael Cisco

A visionary novel of eros and thanatos.

Dying to Read by John Elliott

A post-Ealing comedy murder mystery.

Nemonymous Night by D.F. Lewis

A spiralling towards the event horizon of weirdness.

Link Arms with Toads! by Rhys Hughes

The perfect introduction to the work of this speculative whimsicalist.

We have also announced the deadline for submissions to the Dadaoism anthology – the end of March.

2011 will be the year in which the Chômu vision for the world begins to come clear, but even this will only be the prelude. Soon our newsletter will be operational. Please subscribe to our mailing list for behind the scenes insights, news and exclusive rarities.

Whatever you are expecting from Chômu, be prepared for some surprises; Chômu Press is not a comfort zone.

‘Forthcoming’ catalogue expanded

Chômu Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publications of some of the best authors currently writing in the English language. Please see the Chômu Press ‘Our Books‘ section for details.

I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like is the debut collection from Justin Isis, and will be a defining publication for Chômu Press, setting much of our aesthetic agenda. One of the sharpest and most original debuts you’re likely to read this century.

If you thought that nothing more could be done with the vampire myth, Reggie Oliver’s The Dracula Papers is the book to change your mind. Can a book include high adventure, occult philosophy, whimsical and bawdy humour, the macabre and the pensive all in one arras of harmonious fabric? Apparently so.

Revenants is another debut, this time a novel from Daniel Mills. This story of grim secrets and hell-fire repression brings Puritan New England to life so naturally it’s like reading your own memories, displaced to another era. A sombre and delicate prose-poem of a novel.

From Brendan Connell, The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children is a dazzlingly cosmopolitan collection of short fiction, ranging across the ages and cultures of Earth, uncovering the obsessions that define the lives of the legendary and the obscure. A feast of bizarre delicacies.

We believe that these works mark a highly auspicious beginning to the Chômu Press, but there is still much more to come.

Please watch out for further announcements.

The next book is on its way

The curtains hang still and heavy, shrouding the stage, but now and then a twitch of fabric seems to indicate something passing on the other side.

Much is happening behind the scenes at Chômu Press.  First, we are very excited to announce that our next publication will be the brilliant début collection I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like from Justin Isis.

We also have a growing list of books that we are planning to publish soon. Unfortunately we cannot give details of these yet, but please watch this space and/or subscribe to the the email list for further details of Justin’s collection and for Chômu Press news in general.

We think you will be surprised when the curtains part and,  slowly, all that has been prepared is revealed.

The One-Ball Tour

A blog tour has begun for the promotion of the novel. The tour starts here.

“Remember You’re a One-Ball!” is unleashed

The first publication from Chômu Press, “Remember You’re a One-Ball!” by Quentin S. Crisp, is now available. For more information, please click here.

« Previous Page — Next Page »