2015 is drawing to a close. It’s been a while since our last release, Brendan Connell’s The Galaxy Club, and even longer since 2011’s debut from Justin Isis, I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like. But now we are ready to present the follow-up collection from Justin Isis, Welcome to the Arms Race, officially released on the 16th of December, and we believe the wait has been more than worth it.

Where I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like gave us an off-kilter, twenty-first century update of decadence set in Japan, Welcome to the Arms Race ranges across the globe and through time, taking readings for a map of human and post-human destiny with before-and-after snapshots at whose centre is the singularity. It’s science fiction, Jim, but not as we know it. Take your position at the starting line by picking up a copy here.

(Those of you who are interested in buying books as Christmas gifts, please see details below.)

Kristine Ong Muslim describes the new release as follows:

In Welcome to the Arms Race, Justin Isis, as usual, dazzles with his rendition of shattered reality where deeply damaged characters kick up their heels as they revel in their self-inflicted agonies. There’s just no letting up—from depravity involving a squid to the relentless mirroring of our deep-seated anxieties in ‘The Heart of a Man,’ from cosmic horror in ‘The Willow’ to the tortuous psychedelia in ‘M-FUNK VS THA FUTUREGIONS OF INVERSE FUNKATIVITY.’ Another terrific collection of stories from Chômu Press.

There is a brief, recent interview with Justin Isis, talking about his new collection, at the Compulsive Reader website, here. Justin Isis will also be the interviewee for our next Chômu Press e-mail interview, so, if you are not already signed up, please do subscribe in order to receive updates and exclusive interviews.

Welcome to the Arms Race is already in stock at Amazon U.S., but for those in the U.K. who wish to be more certain of receiving a copy in time for Christmas, Chômu Press will, for a very limited period, be taking orders directly. Simply make a payment for £15 (per copy) for U.K. orders by clicking the following link. (Sadly, we are unable to make this offer outside of the U.K., but if you do live in other countries and would like to enquire about special delivery options, please write to info at chomupress dot com with the subject heading “Christmas Arms Race” and we will do what we can to meet your needs.) This offer is open until 1.00 p.m (GMT) Tuesday the 15th. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that the books will arrive before Christmas, but they will be sent by ‘rush’ service with no charge for postage. Otherwise, for readers in the U.K., please remember that The Book Depository, who stock Chômu books here, advise that Tuesday the 15th is the last day to make orders for Christmas delivery. (The Book Depository also offers free worldwide delivery, but cannot guarantee that orders will now arrive in time for Christmas.) Welcome to the Arms Race is also stocked by Jeff’n'Joys, Cold Tonnage, Blackwell’s and other retailers to be announced.

For e-book readers, Chômu are making the following seasonal offer: The e-book of Revenants by Daniel Mills will be available free through Kindle for the whole of the 21st of December, 2015. Of Revenants, Daniel Mills’s debut novel, Booklist’s Joanne Wilkinson wrote:

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.

Please remember also to sign up to our e-mail list for Chômu news and exclusive author interviews delivered directly to your inbox.

The first Chômu release of 2012, Dadaoism (An Anthology), is something of a lepidopterous monster (perhaps not unlike Mothra). It has taken many times more person-hours than our single-author volumes to produce, featuring 26 pieces of writing (short stories, flash fiction, novellas and poems, as well as work slightly harder to categorise) from 25 authors, a killer cover design from Anil Nataly of Bigeyebrow, and what we believe to be stylish mayhem and mystery throughout. As well as authors previously published under the Chômu banner, such as Reggie Oliver, Michael Cisco, Nick Jackson, Jeremy Reed and Brendan Connell, we are also very pleased to present a plethora of authors new to us, and perhaps to the reader: Katherine Khorey, Jesse Kennedy, Megan Lee Beals, John Cairns, Kristine Ong Muslim, Peter Gilbert, and more. The full table of contents is viewable here, from where you may also pick up a copy for yourself.

Quoting the introduction from co-editor Justin Isis, the first online review of the anthology concludes thus:

“Feel free to eat this book, tear out any pages which displease you, add corrections and emendations. Feel free, as always, to write lies in the Book of Life.” A truer characterization of unbridled rebel spirit and richly attitudinal contents under pressure could not be made.

- Gordon Hauptfleisch, Blogcritics

This is the first of a projected seven books for 2012. (Although we are publishing fewer books this year than last, with the help of this anthology, we are publishing more authors.) Please watch this site for details of future titles and general news, or sign up here to our mailing list. (Speaking of general news, and for those who missed it, ‘An Interview with Quentin S. Crisp’, a short film by R.B. Russell, in which mention is made, amongst other things, of Chômu, is viewable on YouTube, at this link.)

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Dadaoism (An Anthology)

We are presenting another prize draw this month, this time, of course, for a uniquely inscribed copy of Dadaoism (An Anthology). The prize copy will be inscribed and otherwise creatively defaced by the editors, Justin Isis and Quentin S. Crisp. The same rules apply as in previous prize draws: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘No, it’s not weird fiction’ (remember the important apostrophe) to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘No, it’s not weird fiction’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 31st of May.

We are proud of each of our releases and are gratified to know that our titles are now enlivening bookshelves and enriching readers’ lives around the world. Therefore, first of all, please allow us to introduce a small selection of links here relating to those titles and/or their authors:

Reggie Oliver was featured in Suvudu’s Take Five series, telling us five fascinating things about The Dracula Papers. Signed copies of The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale are available from the Aldeburgh Bookshop.

Chômu authors Michael Cisco and Brendan Connell were interviewed together by Jeff VanderMeer for the Amazon blog Omnivoracious.

Gestalt Mash features a characteristically lively interview with Justin Isis, author of I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, and the review blog of stalwart Theaker’s Quarterly features a review of Revenants by Daniel Mills.

Musings on the cover of The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales, by Mark Samuels, are to be found at Grim Reviews, and Quentin S. Crisp talks about “Remember You’re a One-Ball!” and other things, at Matt Cardin’s Teeming Brain.

In other news, we now have winners for the Dying to Read and The Great Lover prize draws, and can announce that inscribed copies of the books will be sent to Jérôme-Luc Paulin and Steve Poupard respectively. The winner of the prize draw for Link Arms with Toads! by Rhys Hughes will be announced soon. Please look out for prize draws with our future releases.

Speaking of which, those following developments on the site will have noticed that after Nemonymous Night, we have also scheduled releases for two very different (to each other and to just about anything else we’ve encountered) novels, Jeanette, by Joe Simpson Walker (July release), and The Orphan Palace, by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (October release). The former is in the transgressive tradition of Pauline Réage, with a gritty British sixties setting. This will also be the longest work we have so far published. The latter comes from one of the rising stars of the weird, for whom, we believe, the stars are now right; a novel of madness, written in poetry, or perhaps a novel of poetry, written in madness.

Those awaiting news of the Dadaoism anthology should also rest assured that gears are invisibly turning, and we are working hard on making this something special. However, it should be noted that, due to the high number of submissions, it is taking us some time to sift out the very best. We are excited, however, to have already found a considerable quantity of gold in our prospecting. We will release more information on the contents, scheduling and so on for the anthology when it is available. At present, we are still carefully sifting.

Other things to look forward to include mini-interviews with our authors. Interviews with Brendan Connell and John Elliott have already been conducted, and will be sent out in the near future to everyone on our e-mail list. Please note, you must subscribe in order to receive the interviews and other planned exclusive content. Please also subscribe or keep watching this site for news on further releases and developments.

Thank you.

The prize copy is signed and inscribed, and comes with six photographs of the American Northeast, where the novel is set, as well as unpublished poems and lyrics from the author.

Additionally, we can now announce the winner of the Polycrates prize draw as Claus Laufenburg, who will soon be receiving the inscribed and exotically modified copy of The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children, by Brendan Connell.

'Super Limited Edition' plus accessories.

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.

'Super Limited Edition' - glimpse of internals.

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, 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.

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.