UGLY HEAVEN
by Carlton Mellick III

Heaven is no longer a paradise. It was once a blissful utopia full of wonders far beyond human comprehension. But that was a long, long time ago. The afterlife is now in ruins. It has become an ugly, lonely wasteland populated by strange monstrous beasts, masturbating angels, and sad man-like beings wallowing in the remains of the once-great Kingdom of God.

As two men die and awake in Heaven, they find themselves inside of new bodies with strange alien skin. They no longer remember their previous lives. All they really know is that the afterlife is a horrible, ugly place. Desperately seeking answers, allies, and refuge, these two newcomers explore this surreal world. But what they will soon find is that Heaven has become a place not that much different from Hell.

Available at amazon.com

Despite the best efforts of American macro-brewers and their warnings against Bitter Beer Face, I am a fan of bitter, particularly with regards to the traditional English pale ale, and its malty, bitter bite.

Not to be confused with bitters (such as angostura bitters), which are used as digestifs or cocktail flavorings, bitters are pale ales, typically less hoppy than other British ales, and derive most of their distinctive flavor from roasted malt.

Bitter is an emotional state, grounded in feeling as if you’ve been wronged. Bitter is also the most sensitive of the five basic taste sensations our tongues can pick up, along with sweet, sour, salty, and umami (which I’m attempting to resist turning into a Your Mama joke… “Yo mama’s so bitter…”). I tend to the belief that an appreciation of bitterness is a sign of a well-balanced palate.

So tonight, I’m having a Redhook ESB, a Seattle-style take on the British ESB, which promises to be hoppier than the traditional, and more bittersweet than purely bitter.

ESB pours a clear orange-brown with a thick, but quick, head and minimal lacing. Moderate, ticklish carbonation. Malty nose, with a hoppy backbone, and nutty, grassy qualities. Malty and sweet on the tongue–sweeter than expected (Frosted Flakes?), with a hoppy bitterness following quickly. Fruity: plums, orange peel, lemon, lime. Smooth and creamy medium-bodied mouthfeel, with pronounced carbonation. Astringent, clean finish that leaves your tongue tingling. Great drinkablilty, with an excellent balance of bitter and sweet pleasantly tweaking the traditional British bitter. Would make for a good session beer.

Suggested literary pairings, with a just touch of bitterness for your discerning palate…

Broken Piano for President by Patrick Wensink. A punk rock meditation on the decline and fall of the American Dream, Wensink’s Broken Piano for President follows Deshler Dean, blackout-drunk singer and hamburger savant, on a Pynchonesque odyssey including rival corporations, starving cosmonauts, and untrustworthy bandmates.

The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island by Cameron Pierce. As one might expect from a novel featuring a pickle protagonist, The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island tends to be more sour than classically bitter; however, this absurdist fairy-tale featuring a suicidally-depressed pickle, his pancake paramour, and maple syrup oceans is a bittersweet delight.

The Croning by Laird Barron. This debut novel from acclaimed author Laird Barron showcases the bitter side of cosmic horror, and is apt to have even the most jaded horror fans sleeping with their lights on. Recommended.

—

Ross E. Lockhart is the managing editor of Night Shade Books. A lifelong fan of supernatural, fantastic, speculative, and weird fiction, he holds degrees in English from Sonoma State University (BA) and San Francisco State University (MA). In 2011, he edited the acclaimed anthology The Book of Cthulhu. He lives in an old church in Petaluma, CA, with his wife Jennifer, hundreds of books, and the conspicuous absence of dog. Visit him online at www.haresrocklots.com.

Even if you’re not in Portland, you can watch a live broadcast of the reading online at http://www.spreecast.com/events/satanicsummer.

About the Authors:

Steve Roggenbuck is a 24 year old poet/blogger. He has a book CRUNK JUICE and several e-books. He is a vegan and a buddhist. He is currently traveling around the country and staying with friends while he blogs full time. 666.

Mykle Hansen is the author of the bestselling novel HELP! A BEAR IS EATING ME, the Wonderland Book Award-winning collection RAMPAGING FUCKERS OF EVERYTHING ON THE CRAZY SHITTING PLANET OF THE VOMIT ATMOSPHERE. His latest is the themed short story collection HOORAY FOR DEATH!

Cameron Pierce is the author of GARGOYLE GIRLS OF SPIDER ISLAND and the Wonderland Book Award-winning collection LOST IN CAT BRAIN LAND. He is also the head editor of Lazy Fascist Press.

Bradley Sands is the author of SORRY I RUINED YOUR ORGY, RICO SLADE WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, and PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT ME IN THE FACE: A NOVEL.

Diana Salier is the author of LETTERS FROM ROBOTS and the chapbook WIKIPEDIA SAYS IT WILL PASS. Her work has appeared in Housefire, Red Lightbulbs, Metazen, Thunderclap, New Wave Vomit, and other places. She is the poetry editor of NAP Magazine. She wears striped pajamas.

Keegan Crawford is the author of the ebook THE MOON LOOKS RED AND THE SKY LOOKS BLACK AND I CAN REMEMBER EXACTLY HOW YOUR HEART SOUNDS AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT. His work has appeared in Screaming Seahorse, Spoken War, Amphibius, and is actually a ghost.

Below you’ll find Alan M. Clark’s weekly Dilation Exercise. Please look at the picture, read the caption, above and below the image, and allow your imagination to go to work on it. If the artwork inspires an idea, please use the comment feature to tell us something about it. Need a further explanation? Go to Imagination Workout—The Dilation Exercises.

Outshone by the Sun for so long and finally given a chance to prove itself with a full solar eclipse in the largest venue imaginable, the Moon’s pride demanded unprecedented hype for the production.

Because the promoters failed to hire a weather service, however, few were able to see the event through the cloud cover, and the Moon’s embarrassment was unendurable throughout the hours-long procession to exit the stage.

Artwork: “Too Early the Moon” copyright © 2008 Alan M. Clark.
Unpublished.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

Two weeks left before the the raffle of a free painting by Alan M. Clark to promote Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim, published by Lazy Fascist Press. The image on the left is the painting by Alan M. Clark for the raffle [details below]. The image is inspired by Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim, and is currently unpublished. The painting is acrylic on hardboard with dimensions of 12″x18″.

For those of you who missed the initial announcement, here’s how to enter the raffle:

A. Take a picture of yourself with Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim and post it online (on your blog/website, Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere). Send a link to the photo to lazyfascist@gmail.com.

OR

B. Correctly answer the following trivia questions (send your answers to lazyfascist@gmail.com):

1. What song did Katie sing in the novel during her cousin’s execution?

2. What was given to infants by the childminder, Patricia Ennis, in order to quiet them?

3. What item in the novel is referred to by the slang expression “nose warmer”?

No purchase necessary. If you have any questions about the raffle, please email lazyfascist@gmail.com. The winner will be announced on June 4th, 2012.

Of Thimble and Threat: The Life of a Ripper Victim is a story about the intense love between a mother and a child, a story of poverty and loss, fierce independence, and unconquerable will. It is the devastating portrayal of a self-perpetuated descent into Hell, a lucid view into the darkest parts of the human heart.

Alan M. Clark is a World Fantasy Award-winning artist. He has illustrated the works of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Jack Ketchum, Joe R. Lansdale, Richard Laymon, Brian Lumley, F. Paul Wilson, Brian Keene, William F. Nolan, George Orwell, Poppy Z. Brite, and Christopher Golden.

We have mountains in the furnace.

It’s difficult to explain to company why we can’t turn on the heat in the house. “Well, there’s a problem with the furnace,” is what we usually say. We don’t like to lie. But it’s hard to say: “There’s a delicate mountain ecosystem in the furnace,” or “Our furnace is protected by the N.G.P.A. Commission,” or “Turning on the furnace would result in the complete obliteration of more than 80 animal species, 250 species of plants, and innumerable varieties of insect found nowhere else.” You can’t just say, “There are over 1,000 acres of mountain forest located inside our furnace,” to normal, God-fearing people.

Over the years we’ve used a lot of excuses: “The boys prefer the cold,” “Cutting back on electricity bills,” “Furnace needs repair.” Sometimes people are pretty suspicious. They ask a lot of questions. But we found out a long time ago that it’s no use telling them the truth, although sometimes we’ve wanted to, they only want to see it for themselves. But too much foot traffic in the forest disrupts the undergrowth and the government officials that stop by periodically to take photographs and record data about the forest get fussy about damaged plant life.

So we can’t tell our guests the truth about the mountains in the furnace.

The mountains do technically belong to us, that’s the strange thing about the N.G.P.A Commission, the land is protected, but still in our possession. There are pretty strict limits on what we can do in the furnace.

Apart from fishing a little in the streams, and walking in the meadows, we aren’t allowed to do anything that could affect the plants or wildlife.

The government officials gave us permission to cull a herd of mischievous elk in 1992 – that was the spring when all the new growth along the river banks was being ripped up by an overpopulation of elk because almost no wolf-cubs had survived the previous year.  All because of a late frost in the spring of ’91.

It just goes to show you how fragile everything in nature is – how everything is connected.

We had elk in our freezer for three winters and that was with the huge barbecue we had for all of our friends at my brother Sam’s house. Sam and I had quite a time getting those elk out of the furnace once we’d shot them. We had eight, overall.

The summer Sam and I taught the boys to fish, the trout count dropped below acceptable levels and we got in a lot of trouble with the government officials. Our oldest boy, Eric, turned out to be a natural fisherman. He had an eye and a hand for it that not even Sam had ever had.

Mauve and I spend a lot of time in the furnace now that the boys are grown. We climb in when the weather’s nice in there and sit in the meadow in those old lawn chairs, just holding hands, reading or talking.

In our younger years we explored a lot of the western side of the mountain range – we hiked up and down, taking different routes every time, we summitted the three peaks, and kept a close eye on the wildlife. It got to the point, over the years, that all the animals knew us, even the birds would light on our hats or shoulders, looking to be fed.

Now the only hiking we do is a few miles up the mountain to this little stream where Sam and I can fish and Mauve can write and soak her feet.

When we bought the house – it was a real find. We’d wanted desperately to stay in the city, close to the hardware store where I’d worked since Mauve and I met, but Mauve was pregnant with our first son, Eric, and we needed a place to start the family right. Our realtor showed us the house right off, said it’d been on the market for about a year. It was ancient, built at the turn of the last century, but it’d been well cared for, and it was close to the city. I had just been promoted to assistant manager, and Mauve had inherited a bit of money from an aunt. We didn’t really have the money for the house, but between the little extra coming in from the hardware store and Mauve’s inheritance, we were able to scrape together enough to get the place.

Sam and I did a lot of work on the house the first month or so, tore up carpets and replaced wires and light fixtures. It was a hot spring, and a hot summer and there wasn’t a night until October when we needed to turn on the furnace.

When we did, eventually, we found the switch disconnected. I thought I could fix it right up but Mauve thought we should call a repair guy, just in case. The thing was just as ancient as everything else there and she wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to burn down the house. I didn’t think it was anything I couldn’t repair, but she was eight and a half months pregnant, so I humored her.

I mean, it’s lucky I did.

That repair guy opened the furnace up and there it was, a whole mountain landscape, stretching off into the distance in every direction.

Of course we explored the place and called the realtor. We even called the company that had made the furnace, but no one could tell us anything about it.

A few months after Eric was born, the N.G.P.A officials showed up and gave us a lot of paperwork and pamphlets.

Mauve was worried we’d have to claim the property in our taxes but, as it takes up only around two square feet, and it’s inside the house, no one’s ever told us we need to claim it.

We’ve never had heat in the house, but we’ve gotten used to cold winters.

At first Mauve wanted to move – after we found the mountains and there was the risk that repairing the furnace would incinerate everything inside it, our only choices were to live with it or move. We eventually decided to tough out the winters. Some years were harder than others.

But in the end it’s been worth it to have the mountains, for ourselves and for the boys. From as early as either of them could walk, they’d spend days and weeks exploring the woods and meadows. Growing up with mountains in the furnace has made them strong, independent, and confident. It still strikes me, when they visit, that those boys know the forest better than the backs of their hands.

We don’t regret keeping the house, or the cold in the winter. Mauve and I don’t regret a thing about our lives here, in the house, and the mountains.

And Eric and his wife, Marie, just moved into a little studio apartment downtown, not far from the house, it’s a real small place but it’s cheap and it’s just right for them. It’s about eleven o’clock at night when he calls up Mauve, we’re out watching the stars in the furnace and he says, “Hey Mom, our stove’s broken, and we’re gonna call the landlord in the morning, but Marie’s just opened the thing up, and there’s an ocean in there.”

Action figure madman, Xysma, has been taking toys and art supplies and creating mini works of art based on his favorite characters from all sorts of media. Recently, they turned their attention to the work of Carlton Mellick III.

Check out this amazing T-2000 figure from ZOMBIES AND SHIT:

Then they took on WARRIOR WOLF WOMEN OF THE WASTELAND. Here is Mayor McCheese and the Hamburgler:

What I think is really cool, is Xysma was so inspired by the book that they started inventing other citizens of McDonald Land. My favorite is the Fry Guy:

Here’s the back story and creation process courtesy of Xysma:

“The last remaining brother from a group of mutant siblings, the scarred and insane mutant known only as “The Fry Guy” terrorizes the Wasteland seeking vengeance for his lost brothers.

I used Superboy lower torso and legs, a styrofoam ball for his head, burned slightly to give it some texture and burned a little deeper in the places I wanted to be burn scars. Eyes are coll eyes, sculpted over with green stuff, mouth is sculpted in green stuff with toothpick tips inserted for teeth, and finally the hair is all sculpted from green stuff.”

Click on the picture below to check out more of Xysma’s awesome work:

I’m just back from the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, where I had a blast, saw some incredible flicks, and had a number of amazing conversations with friends new and old. And while Portland is a food and beer Mecca (more on that in the next few weeks), I did have a little difficulty finding decent Mexican food, ending up with a plate of cheese enchiladas at one place that seemed to be sculpted entirely out of cheese (just listen to those arteries harden), and (on the other end of the scale) raw vegan nachos at another, smothered in cashew cheese, which I’m pretty much certain were constructed entirely out of mixed nuts, salsa, and cilantro. But that salsa… oh, it was exquisite.

At one point, I found myself talking lucha libre with Silvia Moreno Garcia, publisher of Innsmouth Free Press, whose story “Flash Frame” (a tale of yellow decadence set in a Mexico City porno theater) I reprinted in The Book of Cthulhu. And of course, when talking about luchadors, one must invoke El Santo, the silver-masked wrestler and folk hero who stared in somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty films, in which he took on vampire women, Frankenstein-esque monsters, mad scientists, gangsters, and, of course, other wrestlers, including Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras. If you haven’t seen an El Santo flick, you’re in for a treat…

El Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro

I grew up in San Diego, in a time where you had six television channels to choose from, two of which were in Spanish. So by default, I grew up watching El Santo flicks. My personal favorite is El Santo vs Blue Demon in Atlantis, which made me want to live in a world of world of muscle cars, dragonfly-shaped helicopters, jazzy organ soundtracks, femmes fatal, and luchadors pummeling the hell out of one another. Many purists, however, prefer El Santo vs Las Momias de Guanajuato, which teams up El Santo, Blue Demon, and Mil Máscaras in a comic-book-style adventure against vengeful mummies…

El Santo vs Las Momias de Guanajuato

El Santo died of a heart attack in February of 1984, one week after removing his mask on live television and revealing his face to the world. Coincidence or curse? You be the judge.

So tonight, I’m having a Negra Modelo, a Mexican take on a Munich Dunkel Lager. This one is a personal favorite, and is generally easy to find at better Mexican restaurants. Plus, it pairs quite well with a lucha libre movie marathon.

Negra Modelo pours a translucent copper with a finger of tan head and minimal lacing. Caramel and brown sugar on the nose, with a bready, yeasty backbone, and notes of chocolate and dried fruit. Sweet malt on the tip of the tongue, with taste following scent: caramel, brown sugar, and molasses dominate, with toasted nuts and lager yeast becoming more present as the beer warms. Medium bodied, with light carbonation. Clean finish, with a lasting suggestion of fruitiness. Refreshing and thirst-quenching, and at 5.4% ABV, extremely sessionable. Goes very well with a nice mole.

Suggested literary pairings, with body slamming action:

Gigantic Death Worm, by Vince Kramer. Schlocky, action-packed survival horror featuring a giant killer mescal worm, Mexican ninjas, and wolf-spitting bears.

Armadillo Fists, by Carlton Mellick III. Psycho June Howard, the former underground boxer who had her hands replaced with living armadillos, is on the run from a group of gangsters who believe she is responsible for the death of their boss.

Spin the Sky, by Katy Stauber. A Tex-Mex take on The Odyssey… in space! Cesar Vaquero has returned to Ithaca, a rugged orbital colony boasting the only herd of cattle in space, and a wife and son who don’t even recognize him when he shows up at their doorstep.

Hellboy Volume 11: The Bride of Hell and Others, by Mike Mignola. Featuring the story, “Hellboy in Mexico, or, A Drunken Blur” here, Big Red takes on a vampire luchador. El Santo would be proud.

—

Ross E. Lockhart is the managing editor of Night Shade Books. A lifelong fan of supernatural, fantastic, speculative, and weird fiction, he holds degrees in English from Sonoma State University (BA) and San Francisco State University (MA). In 2011, he edited the acclaimed anthology The Book of Cthulhu. He lives in an old church in Petaluma, CA, with his wife Jennifer, hundreds of books, and the conspicuous absence of dog. Visit him online at www.haresrocklots.com.

This past weekend the Eraserhead Press crew was at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon. In case you are not aware of the event, the fest is a Portland institution that been happening for more than a decade. It is a celebration of films, literature, and all things H. P. Lovecraft and Cthulhu. Eraserhead Press has been tabling the event for more years than anybody can remember (really! I asked around).

Cameron Pierce and Jeremy Robert Johnson

The festival also holds dear importance to me. When I first moved to Portland four years ago, and didn’t know anybody, I volunteered at the event. There I met people like Jeremy Robert Johnson and Alan M. Clark for the first time. Two people with whom I’m still friends. The next time I went it was as a vendor for Eraserhead Press. This year, I was a guest author and editor. Words can not express how much it meant to me to be an official part of the festival.

I’m behind the Eraserhead Press table!

Friday night was spent hanging out with friends and catching a few movies. The fest shows films both new (The Ruins, Monsters) and old (Horror Express, The Skull). What they specialize in is showing blocks of independently made short films inspired by Lovecraft or the Cthulhu Mythos. There is where you can find the real gems of the festival.

STAY AT HOME DAD directed by John Skipp and Andrew Kasch and written by Cody Goodfellow was the highlight of the fest for the bizarro fans. A strange, funny, and perverse cosmic horror take on fatherhood. Distribution of the film is still unannounced but here’s the trailer:

BEDTIME FOR TIMMY was one of my personal favorites. A cute and funny stop-motion short of one small boy’s bedtime troubles. Watch the whole movie:

Artist Mike Dubisch had two films in the fest demonstrating his surreal live-art techniques. Check this out:

He also did a quick demonstration at the fest itself. I’m pretty sure the remark in the description on youtube, “I felt like I was tripping,” was me.

Saturday, I did a reading with two genre greats – Jay Lake and Wilum H. Pugmire. I did my Choose-Your-Own-Reading performance, which is where I read SUPER GIANT MONSTER TIME (my choose-your-own-adventure book) and had the audience vote on the choices. This was the longest version of the reading I have ever done. The bastards didn’t want to die!

Ross Lockhart and Wilum Pugmire

The rest of the day was spent selling books and catching films. I saw an awesome documentary named BARBARIAN DAYS about insane and obsessive Robert E. Howard fans in Texas. I had no idea there were people who took Howard so seriously. It was a real eye-opener, and a bit disturbing at times.

One of the coolest events of the day was the Pickman’s Apprentice competition, in which three attending artists were give two prompts (shoggoths and circuses) and two hours to create a work of art. The results were astonishing:

Nick Gucker won and became Pickman’s Apprentice!

Mike Dubisch went for a black-light vibe.

Lee Moyer included a little shout-out to Mother’s Day

The night ended with drinks and live stage magic (!!!!!) at Tony Starlight.

Sunday started off with the Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast, which was the coolest event at the con. While sitting in a movie theater at 12:30 pm and eating eggs, potatoes, and bacon, we listened to Robert M. Price and Cody Goodfellow deliver sermons and debate the place of Cthulhu in the modern world and how he can get more worshipers. It was absolutely insane and the perfect way to start the day.

Cody Goodfellow spreads the good word.

The rest of Sunday was a bit quiet as people were nursing hangovers in the safety of the dark theaters. I did a panel on horror publishing with James Beach, Ross Lockhart, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and E. Catherine Tobler.

Now Rose is behind the Eraserhead Press Table!

That night was the Awards Ceremony where DOCTOR GLAMOUR won the coveted fan favorite award. It was an absolutely insane Lovecraft, meets romance, meets German expressionism, meets eighties glam rock mini-epic. I loved it and any bizarro fan should check it out.

But then the fest ended. It was a great weekend and it was wonderful seeing so many great movies, old friends, and wonderful creative people. Thanks to Brian and Gwen Callahan for putting together such an awesome weekend. I can hardly wait for next year!

Eraserhead Press and Friends

Thanks to Ross E. Lockhart from whom I stole some pictures. You can see more awesome pics from the event courtesy of Thebes-inc here.