ecosophia | Entries tagged with weird of hali

Midnight is just a few minutes away, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.1 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. As I mentioned last week, once I found a publisher willing to bring out my fiction, a lot of it found its way into print in a hurry, so we're going to be in tentacle territory for a while now. This was my fifty-first published book, the fifth volume in The Weird of Hali and the only book in that series that takes place in a town that actually exists. Yes, that would be Providence, Rhode Island, across the Seekonk River from where I live now. I had the chance to visit partway through the process of writing the story, which was helpful, and also has a lot to do with why I live in Rhode Island these days. I used a mashup of H.P. Lovecraft's Providence stories as the raw material, so we get to find out what Charles Dexter Ward was really up to.

One of the entertaining features of these novels is that I kept on having to come up with new, colorful ways to do in the villains. It's Lovecraftian fiction, right? They can't just die in some bland ordinary way, like being shot. This one borrowed one cause of death from Lovecraft himself and another from Arthur Machen, one of the writers Lovecraft admired most, whose writing I appreciate and whose thinking annoys the bejesus out of me. I thought they both worked tolerably well. If that sounds entertaining, why, you can get a copy here if you're in the US and h ere if you're elsewhere.

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week -- and in the meantime, if you're a US citizen and haven't done so already, VOTE.***

Current Mood: tense
Current Music: Emerson Lake & Palmer, "Barbarian"

Midnight is just a few minutes away, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.1 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. The book above was my fiftieth published book and my eighth published novel. (Once I found a publisher that was willing to take a chance on my fiction, it came out in a rush, so we're going to be in tentacle land for a little while!) Miriam Akeley, a sixty-something college professor, was an important subsidiary character in the first two Haliverse novels, and took center stage in this one. As usual with these novels, I had no idea where it was going to end up and was astonished by some of the twists and turns.

One of the reviews this novel got finally succeeded in cluing me in about why my fiction leaves so many people baffled. The reviewer thought it was a good story, but was completely floored by the fact that Miriam was, you know, an ordinary person, without superpowers or anything else that made her unlike the rest of our species. That's when I realized that the reason so much of today's fiction sucks is that it's obsessed with the dreary fantasy of being the One Special Person around whom the whole world revolves. Me, I prefer stories about the rest of us. If you have similar tastes, you can order a copy here if you live in the US and here if you live elsewhere.

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

~~With that said, have at it!~~

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Will Ackerman, "Passage"

Midnight is just a few minutes away, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.1 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. The book above was my forty-ninth published book, my seventh published novel, and the book in which The Weird of Hali really found its rhythm. It was harder to write than the two earlier volumes in my para-Lovecraftian series; Innsmouth practically wrote itself, and Kingsport took a little more work but I never had to struggle to see where it was going. Chorazin began smoothly, but once the action reached the little town of Chorazin in the shadow of Elk Hill, it took me repeated drafts to get things to come out right. Still, I think the result was as good as anything in the series, and it brought in themes and characters who turned out to be central to later books. You can order a copy here if you live in the US and here if you live elsewhere.

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

~~With that said, have at it!~~

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: The Moody Blues, "Veteran Cosmic Rocker"

I'm very pleased to report that the revised and corrected second edition of my seven-volume epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, is coming along well; many thanks to everyone who helped chase down typos and other mistakes in the original printings. The publisher is gearing up to commission cover art -- no, the image on the left isn't one of the covers. (That's just Asenath Merrill saying a little prayer after Sunday school.)

The question the publisher and I have is what would be the best scenes from the novels to illustrate for the cover art, and the suggestion was raised that, since I have the best commentariat on the internet, I should toss it to you. So we're going to have a little contest among those who've read one or more of the volumes of The Weird of Hali.

What image from each book would you like to see illustrated on the cover of each of the seven volumes?

Here are the rules:

1) Each contestant can propose one scene from each book.

2) If the scene has already been proposed, attach your comment to the original proposal in this comment thread.

3) If you're the first one to post a given suggestion, either post it via a Dreamwidth account or include some identifying info in the post, because...

4) The person who proposes the image that gets the most votes for each book will get a free copy of the new edition of that book, straight from the publisher.

One more note -- this is just for the seven volumes of The Weird of Hali. The four additional novels -- The Shoggoth Concerto, The Nyogtha Variations, A Voyage to Hyperborea, and The Seal of Yueh Lao -- will be published a little later, and I'll do another contest when their turn comes to get cover art commissioned.

So there you are. I'm delighted to see the new edition coming along, and I think you'll be pleased with them also.

Current Mood: jubilant

For a variety of reasons I'd rather not get into just now, my seven-volume epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, will be released in the near future by a different publisher. The current edition will be in print until August 15, and copies will still be in the usual online stores for a little while after that; if you want to complete your collection, you might want to get a move on. (Everything's still in stock on my Bookshop store, for example.)

That said, one advantage in a new edition is that I have the chance to correct errors that slipped through proofreading and editing the first time -- and yes, I know there were some that did so. I'll be rereading and revising the manuscripts, but it occurs to me that the eagle eyes of my readers might be keener than mine. If you're willing, in other words, please consider giving the books a reread and making a list of any typos and continuity errors you encounter, and post them here.

Please note that for the time being, it's only the seven volumes of The Weird of Hali itself that are making the move. I may be posting something along these lines about the other four tentacle novels -- The Shoggoth Concerto, The Nyogtha Variations, A Voyage to Hyperborea, and The Seal of Yueh Lao -- but that's a question for another time. The same is true of my other fiction. For now, I'd welcome corrections on the seven Weird novels. Thank you for your help!

Current Mood: rugose

,,,is finally in print and available for sale. To borrow the one phrase that applies, what a long strange trip it's been,

Back in the autumn of 2018, several readers of my tentacle novels asked if I'd considered doing a roleplaying game set in the world of The Weird of Hali. Conversations, followed, and it turned out someone was listening: the publisher of Aeon Games, who contacted me and offered a contract. So away we went. I got quite a bit of help from my readers, from brainstorming ideas to playtesting the results, and finally, in late 2019, the manuscript went to the publisher.

Then the world went crazy. We had a pandemic, and governments around the world reacted to it in weirdly atypical and mostly counterproductive ways, and supply chains buckled and broke, and -- well, you can fill in the blanks as well as I can. Of course that's more or less what's supposed to happen when eldritch sorceries awaken the Great Old Ones and Great Cthulhu rises from drowned R'lyeh, but I didn't think a roleplaying game would do that...

The last step was a Kickstarter, which was launched a little more than a month ago. From the beginning I fielded emails from readers who would have been eager to chip in, but they were broke because their spouse had been vaccinated and hadn't been healthy enough to work since then, or they were about to lose their jobs because of vaccine mandates, or they'd walked away from a lousy job because it sucked and were getting by on less money, or -- well, here again, you can fill in the blanks as well as I can. So the Kickstarter fell short of its goal.

I'm glad to say that the people at Aeon Games looked at that, and bellowed, "Damn the tentacles, full speed ahead!" So the PDF version of the game is available right now and the print version is being printed as we speak, for mailing in a couple of weeks. You can order a copy here. The publisher's offering a 20% discount; use the discount code WOH20.

If the world has gone crazy, you might as well embrace the weirdness. Enjoy!

***Update:*** I've just heard from the publisher. They had a glitch in the system that got in the way of immediate download of the PDF version, and that's been fixed. They've also added a PDF-only option at a reduced price, which you can find here.

Current Mood: relieved

Tentacle fans rejoice! I am delighted to announce that the Kickstarter for Weird of Hali: Roleplaying the Other Side of the Cthulhu Mythos is now live; you can find it here.

Here's the official blurb:

**********

Weird of Hali RPG — based on the novels by John Michael Greer — is an alternative to everything you think you know about the world of H. P. Lovecraft.

In this reality, the Great Old Ones are not the evil monsters of Lovecraft's original stories. This is propaganda: lies cultivated by an evil secret society named the Radiance. In this RPG you will play a human or Mythos creature, part of the small percentage who still fight for the Great Old Ones, and the nature they represent. But the task is not an easy one: the Radiance is out to get you at every turn. Following a series of obscure clues you must navigate a world full of mysterious power and danger.

Weird of Hali uses a lightly modified version of the Mythras rule system, an easy-to-use d100 RPG system. Except for paper, pencil and dice, the book contains everything you will need to play. Weird of Hali can be easily combined with Mythras and other Mythras based games. The game is also beautifully illustrated with mind-bending images by artist Sarah Maxwell.

***********
Those of my readers who've enjoyed my epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, and its associated novels know what to expect: the old gods of Nature and their human and not-so-human followers fighting for the survival of the Earth against a powerful and relentless enemy that wants to turn all those clichés about "Man's conquest of Nature" into a bloodsoaked reality.

Cthulhu

The book is ready to publish -- the only thing that isn't quite finished yet is the cover art, which is why I've used one of the interior drawings above. (No, the image on the right isn't the cover art either, though it gets the spirit of the thing right!) Once this project is fully funded, PDF copies will go out instantly to everyone who's backed it and print copies will be going out as soon as the postal service can get it to you. For those who are feeling really enthusiastic, there's a deluxe leatherbound edition for contributors of £50 or more.

One more thing. This project began here on my Dreamwidth journal in late 2018 when fans of The Weird of Hali asked whether a roleplaying game set in the same world might be an option, and a great deal of its evolution took place here as readers offered their advice, encouragement, and help to make this thing happen. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who took part in that process, and once we get this funded, I'll have much more to be grateful for -- so thank you in advance. This represents the fruition of a longstanding dream of mine and I'm delighted to see it rising from the sea at last.

Update #1: we passed the 10% funding level in the first 24 hours, so things are definitely on track. A warm thanks to everyone who's chipped in so far!

Update #2: well past a third of the way there, in less than a third of the time window for the Kickstarter. It's looking very promising at the moment. Thank you, everyone!

Current Mood: jubilant

I'm sorry to say that the announcement I hoped to make today -- the long-delayed Kickstarter launch for the Weird of Hali roleplaying game -- has been delayed yet again.

Sigh.

I'll keep the list posted. Hopefully this happens before I die of old age.

Current Mood: morose

Since before the final volumes of The Weird of Hali saw print, I've had people asking me about the recipes for some of the dishes that are cooked and served by characters in the novels. (No, nobody's asked about Owen Merrill's cheap college meal of dollar store ramen, frozen vegetables, and a sliced hot dog, but that one's pretty self-explanatory.) One of the basic rules of the writing trade is that you pay attention to what your readers want to hear about, and so once the novels themselves were done, I considered the possibility of a cookbook.

Fortunately I had help. Characters are a novelist's imaginary friends -- well, at least mine are -- and so it was the easiest thing in the world to hand over the project to Brecken Kendall, the protagonist of The Shoggoth Concerto and The Nyogtha Variations, who loves to cook when she's not pursuing her career as a composer of neo-Baroque music. She duly dictated a cookbook which contains most of the dishes featured in my tentacle novels, from cheese polenta all the way to exotica such as authentic pirate salmagundi (she got the recipe for that from Toby Gilman, of course).

I should probably mention that all the recipes in this book are real, and none calls for ingredients you can't get this side of the plateau of Leng. Since Brecken and I share the conviction that food should be cheap, tasty, filling, and not especially complicated to make, this is also not the kind of cookbook that's meant to permit members of the overprivileged classes to show off how much money and leisure they have by wasting a lot of both turning out desperately precious yuppie chow. It's geared toward people (like Brecken, and in my younger days, me) who don't have a lot of money or a lot of time to spare, and still want to eat well.

So if you're wondering what to feed the shoggoth who's unexpectedly shown up in your kitchenette, or simply want to have plenty of tasty meals to serve and eat while you're waiting for Great Cthulhu to rise from the sea, here you go. The current release date is August 18, and you can order your copy in advance here.

Current Mood: hungry

I'm delighted to report that The Weird of Hali Companion, the complete reference to my tentacle novels, is now available in print and ebook versions. If you have trouble keeping all the details straight in an eleven-novel series -- I certainly did while I was writing it -- here's your guide to the rugose, squamous, eldritch world of the Weird. Here's the back cover blurb:

"The seven novels of John Michael Greer's epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, and its four companion novels take place in an eldritch universe all their own, where the rules of H.P. Lovecraft's famous Cthulhu Mythos are stood on their head and the Great Old Ones get to tell their side of the story for once. The novels of the Haliverse roam across a vast landscape of space and time, reaching billions of years into the past and future and out through the unseen dimensions of anth and ulth to the border where curved time gives way to angular time...and beyond.

This definitive encyclopedia of the Haliverse includes all the people, places, and things -- squamous and otherwise -- that appear or are referenced in the novels, with entries ranging from Abdul Alhazred to Zosimus of Panopolis, along with a timeline of the Haliverse from the creation of the world out of cosmic dust 4.2 billion years ago to the final extinction of life on Earth 2.3 billion years from now. Readers who have enjoyed adventuring with shoggoths, Deep Ones, and the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep will find this guide to their universe indispensable."

You can purchase the print version here and the ebook version here. Enjoy!

Current Mood: pleased

I'm pleased to report that my forthcoming title The Weird of Hali Companion is now available for preorder as an ebook. Once it's out, there'll be a single link to buy it, but for the moment you'll need to preorder it from your preferred online ebook vendor:

Amazon (Kindle)(USA) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W2B4VC3

Barnes & Noble (Nook) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-weird-of-hali-companion-john-michael-greer/1138766714;jsessionid=9D3602DBC544E7AC5DDC787ABC0FF194.prodny_store02-atgap11?ean=2940165303432

Rakuten Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-weird-of-hali-companion

Tolino/Thalia.de https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikeldetails/ID150893586.html

(If you prefer to use Amazon but don't live in the US, check your own country's Amazon website -- it should be available there.)

RPG

If you somehow missed the earlier post here, The Weird of Hali Companion is an encyclopedic guide to all the people, places, and (squamous, rugose) things in my epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, and the four additional novels set in the same eldritch cosmos.

I'm also delighted to report that sometime fairly soon I'll have another announcement to make, along similar lines, to the accompaniment of strange gibbering noises -- the image on the right may be considered a useful hint. Yes, the small print in red says Roleplaying the Other Side of the Cthulhu Mythos...

Current Mood: pleased

...and I'm pleased to announce, first of all, a pair of books now available for preorder, and a pair of graphic novel projects now available as e-comics.

Let's begin with the one that's likely to stir up the most discussion, debate, spluttering indignation, and blind rage. The King in Orange: The Magical and Occult Roots of Political Power is my book-length exploration of the occult dimensions of the Trump era and its aftermath. The Cthulhu mythos reference is of course deliberate; the history of the last five years has been shaped by the rise of squamous, rugose realities that sane, sensible, comfortable people thought were buried forever. Those of my readers who've followed my blogging through the last five years or so know a good many of the ideas I discuss in this book, but not all. It will be released in print and ebook formats in May. Interested? You can read about it here -- the distributor has a good publicity site, unlike some -- and preorder a print copy here.

Also in a tentacular vein, but considerably more lighthearted, is a project I've been working on for some time: The Weird of Hali Companion, an encyclopedia of the people, places, and (ahem) things that feature in my epic fantasy with tentacles, The Weird of Hali, and its four companion novels. Puzzled by sidelong references to the Kitab al-Azif? Not sure why a book by Zosimus of Panopolis was in Charles Dexter Ward's library? Wondering where you met Tom Gilman before that scene in The Weird of Hali: Arkham? Here's your guide. (It's also going to be a fine resource for the Weird of Hali roleplaying game, which is most of the way through the intricacies of production -- I expect to have an announcement to make in the not too distant future.) As a lifelong fantasy geek, I kept copious notes while working on my tentacle novels, and it seemed unfair not to inflict their gibbering horror on fans of the series. Interested? You can preorder copies in print and ebook format here.

In the realm of graphic novels, meanwhile, I know many of my readers have admired (and purchased) copies of the two graphic adaptations of my stories "Winter's Tales" and "The Next Ten Billion Years" by Wormlamp Productions. I'm delighted to report that both of them are now available online from Comixology, the largest online sales venue for e-comics. Those readers who haven't been following my blogs since the dawn of time will want to know that Winter's Tales is a very capable graphic adaptation of a three-part story from the very earliest days of my former blog, The Archdruid Report, tracing a family's journey through three generations in the declining years of industrial civilization, with a slide rule providing the thread that ties the tales together. The graphic adaptation is by Marcu Knoesen and Walt Barna. You can get the digital comic here, and the print version (originally published in the Summer 2018 issue of Into The Ruins) can be bought here.

10 Billion is based on a future-history vision from the later years of The Archdruid Report, adapted by Marcu Knoesen with art by Daryl Knickrehm You know how authors so often grumble about visual adaptations of their work? This is that rare exception, a visual rendering that's better than the original. With an original frame story and vivid imagery, it's astonishingly good. You can get the digital comic here, and the print edition here.

(And if you're interested in reading the original stories on which these were based, together with the rest of my short fiction from The Archdruid Report, it's available in a single volume as An Archdruid's Tales, which you can order in print and ebook formats here.)

There will be more announcements coming in due time. Stay tuned!

Current Mood: refreshed

It's been a while now since I finished work on Weird of Hali: Roleplaying the Other Side of the Cthulhu Mythos, after gathering reports from playtesters literally around the world. Several people have asked whether it's still in the works. The answer is yes. The publisher, Aeon Games, has had to deal with some unexpected delays, mostly relating to the current virus outbreak. That said, I've already completed the page proofs for the text, the illustrations are in process, and the publisher and I are starting to work out the details of marketing. I don't have a firm release date yet, but one should be set fairly soon.

In the meantime, I'd like to ask for a little help from those of my readers -- i.e., most of them -- who are more internet-savvy than I am.

One of the possibilities we've been discussing is using a Kickstarter campaign -- not least because both of us watched the similar campaign for Vintage Worlds 2 and 3 succeed. Neither of us, however, has ever run a Kickstarter ourselves. So, O initiates of the squamous, rugose mysteries of the internet -- what have you seen in other Kickstarter campaigns that you liked? What lured you in helpless fascination toward the abyss? And what have you seen that made you flee in palsied horror, never to return? Inquiring cultists want to know...

Current Mood: pleased

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the internet...

Shoggoths.

Lots and lots of shoggoths.

To be a little more precise, The Shoggoth Concerto and The Nyogtha Variations, the two Haliverse novels about Brecken Kendall and the shoggoth she names Sho. Set in my quirkily reimagined version of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, with nods to most of the other weird-tales authors of the genre's golden age, they're tales about classical music, love, death -- and, of course, shoggoths. Founders House Publishing is now offering both volumes for a steeply discounted price: $26.99 for both volumes in trade paperback, or $8.99 for both in e-book format.

In a world that twitches and gibbers like a character in one of H.P. Lovecraft's less inspired stories, there's something to be said for curling up with a friendly shoggoth and spending some quality time with eldritch critters such as Nyogtha, The Thing That Should Not Be. Interested? You can get your copies here.

As previously noted, Founders House Publishing is preparing a series of bundle deals for the novels of mine that are set in the Haliverse, my quirky reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos that redefines the tentacled horrors and their cultists as the good guys. Here's the latest bundle -- the complete Haliverse series, all seven novels of The Weird of Hali, plus The Shoggoth Concerto, The Nyogtha Variations, A Voyage to Hyperborea, and The Seal of Yueh Lao, all for a single deeply discounted price -- S149.99 for the trade paperback editions or $39.99 for the ebook editions. If you feel like hiding from a world that's become considerably more crazed than anything H.P. Lovecraft ever dreamed of, and would rather curl up on the couch and spend your time with shoggoths, Deep Ones, and Great Cthulhu himself, well, here's the eldritch, rugose resource of your dreams!

Interested? Mesmerized? Ready to join the Esoteric Order of Dagon, sprout tentacles, and start chanting "Iâ! Iâ! Cthulhu fhtagn!"? You can order your copies here.

I'm delighted to report that the final novel set in the quirky, tentacle-infested fictive cosmos of The Weird of Hali is now in print in both paper and ebook formats, and ready to slither its squamous, rugose way into your imagination. The Seal of Yueh Lao is another plunge into the Cthulhu mythos seen from the other side, set two years before the last volume of The Weird of Hali. You can order a copy here. Here's the back cover blurb:

***************

A Legacy From The Eldritch Past...

Asenath Merrill, sixteen years old, spends her summers studying witchcraft in the village of Chorazin and her nights traveling the uncanny kingdoms of the Dreamlands. It's all perfectly ordinary if you happen to belong to one of the secretive cults that worship the Great Old Ones, your mother comes from Innsmouth and has tentacles for legs, and your grandmother is the Black Goat of the Woods herself. When Asenath encounters a mysterious girl in the stone circle atop Elk Hill, however, her prosaic existence begins to stretch and blur into patterns she must struggle to master.

So the Haliverse is finally all in print. What a long strange trip it's been! The publisher will have some other special deals on books in the series to announce shortly -- and I've got a new novel under way...

Current Mood: pleased

I'm very pleased to announce that, to celebrate the upcoming publication of my new novel The Seal of Yueh Lao, Founders House publishing is offering a series of special prices on my Haliverse fiction: novels set in a madcap reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft's iconic Cthulhu mythos, in which the Great Old Ones are the old gods of nature, those supposedly sinister cultists are a maligned religious minority guarding a wisdom older than the human race, and gods and cultists alike are locked in a desperate struggle with a powerful secret organization of mad rationalists who want to turn all that rhetoric about Man's Conquest of Nature into a bloodstained reality.

The core series, The Weird of Hali, comes to seven volumes, and there are also four additional novels -- The Shoggoth Concerto, The Nyogtha Variations. A Voyage to Hyperborea, and The Seal of Yueh Lao -- which take place in the same fictive setting and overlap with the novels of The Weird in an assortment of ways. It's been a long strange trip to write, but I'm delighted with the result -- and so, to judge by the comments I've received, are a great many of my readers.

Here's the first installment of the special prices: more will be forthcoming.

The Weird of Hali Series Bundle

(For US customers only) All seven novels in The Weird of Hali for a discounted price: $94.99 plus shipping for the print editions, $24.99 for the ebook editions: click here for details.

Special E-Book Deals:

(For everyone everywhere) For those who haven't yet read any of my tentacle storiesand are wondering what the fuss is about, each of the first three novels in The Weird of Hali series is now available in e-book format for $2.99:

The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth

The Weird of Hali: Kingsport

The Weird of Hali: Chorazin

More to come!

Current Mood: jubilant

All good things must come to an end sooner or later, and the last of my epic fantasies with tentacles, The Seal of Yueh Lao, is now available for preorder. Here's the blurb:

*********

A Legacy From The Eldritch Past...

A century before, a family tragedy in the little Massachusetts town of Dunwich spun out of control and nearly plunged the world into chaos. Four centuries before that, armed men came to the Norse settlements on Greenland and slaughtered every person they could find, leaving a legacy that still troubles the family of Asenath's closest friend. A secret from the ancient world connects those events with the girl named Cassie, and Asenath will need all her courage and her fledgling powers as a witch in training to unravel the mystery -- and open the way to her own unguessed destiny...

*********
When I started writing The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth six years ago, I had no idea that it was going to be the first eldritch, rugose installment of an eleven-novel series. Still, that's what happened, and to my taste, at least, this final volume -- set two years before the events in The Weird of Hali: Arkham, the final book in the original sequence -- does a good job of rounding it all off, tying up some loose ends while still leaving plenty of room for my readers' tentacular imaginations to slither freely. It's been a grand adventure and I'm grateful to everyone who's enjoyed the stories. In the meantime, yes, I have some other fiction projects under way...

By the way, if you haven't yet started on this sequence of eldritch adventures in a world where H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos has been turned on its head, where the Great Old Ones are the old gods of nature and their enemies are a cult of crazed rationalists who want to turn all that rhetoric about Man's Conquest of Nature into a bloodsoaked reality, the publisher's putting together some promotional deals on the earlier volumes; I'll be making an announcement about that sometime in the next few days.

Current Mood: jubilant

I'm delighted to report that The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth, the first volume in my fantasy epic with tentacles, is now available in audiobook format, and has finished percolating through the distribution channels. Audiobooks being audiobooks, there's no single source I can point you to, but if you check your favorite audiobook supplier, they should have it in stock. In case you're wondering what the story is, here's the back cover blurb:

*****

There Are Two Sides To Every Story

Like every other grad student at Miskatonic University, Owen Merrill knows about the Great Old Ones, the nightmare beings out of ancient legend that H.P. Lovecraft unearthed from archaic texts and turned into icons of modern fantasy fiction. Then a chance discovery—a lost letter written by Lovecraft to fellow Weird Tales author Robert Blake—offers a glimpse into the frightful reality behind the legends, and sends Owen on a desperate quest for answers that shatters his familiar world forever.

As he flees across the witch-haunted Massachusetts landscape toward the mysterious seaside town of Innsmouth, Owen finds himself caught up in a secret war between the servants of the Great Old Ones and their ancient enemies, a war in which yesterday's friend may be tomorrow's foe and nothing is as it seems. The history of the world is not what he has been taught—and the tentacles reaching out for him from the shadows of a forbidden past may hold not only his one chance of escape from the terrifying forces closing around him, but the last hope of life on Earth...

*****

The remaining volumes of The Weird of Hali will be appearing in audiobook format over the next year or two. In the meantime, if you missed out on the print edition, why, you can find it here.

Current Mood: pleased

I'm delighted to report that the next (and next to last) of my Haliverse novels, A Voyage to Hyperborea, is now available for purchase in print and e-book formats. Here's the back cover blurb:

***************

Beneath Greenland's Glaciers...

All Toby Gilman wants is a postdoc position where he can pursue his studies in ancient Arctic linguistics and keep the secret of his nonhuman ancestry safely hidden. The bitter academic politics in his field leaves him only one option: a Miskatonic University expedition to an isolated station on the eastern coast of Greenland needs a linguist who can decipher the language of the long-vanished Hyperborean civilization. Having no other choice, he sails with the advance party to the wilderness on Tornarssukalik Inlet.

But the expedition is more than it seems, and he is not the only nonhuman among its members. A lethal peril threatens the survival of Earth itself, and the Great Old Ones and their deadly enemies are both in motion—and they are not alone. When disaster strikes Tornarssukalik Station, Toby must make his escape across arctic wasteland, board a tall ship crewed by undead pirates and captained by the Terrible Old Man, and face all his deepest fears in a journey in which love, betrayal, and death are constant companions—a journey that will end in the caverns far below Mount Voormithadreth, where the nightmare being Abhoth guards secrets that could end the world...

***************
Interested? Copies of the print and e-book editions can be ordered here, In the not too distant future, I also expect to have an announcement to make about audiobooks with tentacles...

Current Mood: excited

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John Michael Greer

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Toward Ecosophy

Entries tagged with weird of hali

Magic Monday

Magic Monday

Magic Monday

Weird of Hali Update -- and a contest

Moving Day in Drowned R'lyeh

Weird of Hali: Roleplaying the Other Side of the Cthulhu Mythos

The Stars Are Right At Last

Yet Another Delay

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back To The Kitchen...

The Weird of Hali Companion

Ebook preorders for The Weird of Hali Companion

Back To Work...

Weird of Hali RPG Update, and a Favor to Ask

And Another Haliverse Bundle!

The Ultimate Haliverse Bundle!

The Seal of Yueh Lao

July is Tentacle Month!

The Last Tale of the Haliverse

The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth Audiobook

A Voyage to Hyperborea

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