Toward Ecosophy

 Another podcast interview with JMG, this time on Jim Harold's Conspiracy Corner podcast. The theme, of course, is the history of secret societies, with reference to JMG's new book The Conspiracy Book. You can listen to it online here. 

Those of my readers interested in secret societies, or looking for a gift for someone who likes odd corners of history, may want to know about a new book of mine, just out from Sterling Publishing. The Conspiracy Book is a history of secret societies in the Western world, told in a hundred historical vignettes. It's a quick read, not to mention a gorgeously illustrated hardback with the kind of attractive cover you don't get often these days -- if you've seen my earlier Sterling title The Occult Book, this is the same sort of thing. Sterling is Barnes and Noble's house publisher, you can order copies here, or pick one up at your local B&N if you've got one -- but don't tell anyone that you've read it. ;-)

And another one! This isn't exactly new, but the first volume of my seven-volume epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, has just become available in trade paperback format, after more than a year in fine hardback:



It's currently available on Amazon here, and will be on its way through the usual distribution channels shortly. I'm delighted, to say the least.

Meanwhile book 5, The Weird of Hali: Providence, is in final edits, and book 6, The Weird of Hali: Hyperborea, is 90% finished in draft. The saga slithers rugosely to its conclusion... ;-)

Another new book of mine, and one I'm particularly pleased to see in print!



The Weird of Hali: Kingsport is the second novel in my epic-fantasy-with-tentacles heptalogy, The Weird of Hali, which takes H.P. Lovecraft's fiction and stands it on its head. Those tentacled horrors and sinister multiracial cultists? Yeah, they were the good guys all along: the old gods of nature and their worshippers, slapped with the usual blood libels by the cultural mainstream.

Each volume is written as a standalone novel and can be read independently of the others. The viewpoint character in this one is Jenny Parrish, whom readers of the first novel, The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth, will remember as one of Owen Merrill's housemates. She's finishing up a postgraduate year at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, prior to beginning grad school there. A letter invites her to spend the winter holidays with her relatives in Kingsport, ten miles away on the coast, whom she's never met; there's a certain ancient festival held there once each century, this is the year, and Jenny's invited...

Lovecraft fans will already know that his story The Festival provided a chunk of the raw material, and may suspect -- accurately, as it happens -- that the Terrible Old Man puts in an appearance. (He'll be a major character in the sixth book, The Weird of Hali: Hyperborea.) Robert Chambers' The King in Yellow and Arthur Machen's The White People also contribute their quota, as do the stories of Clark Ashton Smith. That said, it's not just a pastiche; this is my own quirky vision decked out in borrowed finery, and I hope my readers will have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

BTW, this is the fine edition; the ultra-super-duper-fine edition, traycased and bound in shantak hide, will be out a bit later, and the ordinary trade paper edition is at least six months out, maybe more. The trade paper edition of The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth is now in preparation and I hope to be able to announce it shortly.