Studies in Modern Horror

Infobox Journal


discipline = Literary criticism
abbreviation = SiMH
publisher = Seele Brennt Publications
country = USA
history = 2003 to present
website = http://simh.seele-brennt.com/
ISSN = 1548-4955

Studies in Modern Horror is a quarterly scholarly journal designed to promote the criticism of contemporary horror, supernatural, and weird fiction; dealing exclusively with the work of authors who have been active within the last 30 years. Published by [http://www.seele-brennt.com/ Seele Brennt Publications] and edited by NGChristakos. Library of Congress ISSN 1548-4955.

Issues

Issue #1

Dedicated author issue, wherein all articles discuss Jack Ketchum's works.

Release Date: 07 Oct. 2003. Perfect Bound softcover chapbook; Dimensions (in inches): 5½ x 8½; Page Count: 32.Limited Edition of 250 copies, which included the supplemental volume Jack Ketchum: A Selected Bibliography.

Articles:

* "Monsters Among Us: An Introduction to the World of Jack Ketchum" by Larry Roberts. An essay on major themes Jack Ketchum frequently uses in his literature. This piece serves as an introduction to his literary world and how it reflects the darker aspects of the lives we lead.

* "The Ordinary and the Otherworldly" by NGChristakos. Mostly focused on several of Jack Ketchum's short tales from Peaceable Kingdom, NGChristakos correlates an undertaking on the part of Ketchum--an intent to alter the 'surprise ending' into something truly shocking by mutating the reader's preconceptions.

* "Hanging Out in the Weird Wild West with Jack Ketchum" by Valarie Thorpe. A critical review of Jack Ketchum's "The Crossings" (Cemetery Dance Publications). An essay about the novella; several key affects and influences are discussed.

Issue #1 Supplement

Release Date: 07 Oct. 2003. Perfect Bound softcover chapbook; Dimensions (in inches): 5½ x 8½; Page Count: 40.Limited Edition of 250 copies, which included the Studies in Modern Horror issue no. 1.

* Jack Ketchum: A Selected Bibliography by NGChristakos and Dallas William Mayr. This volume is a listing of works done solely under the guise Jack Ketchum; pieces credited to Dallas Mayr, Jerzy Livingston, Bruce Arthur, Dallas Ketchum, or that were published uncredited are not listed in this volume unless said works were later reprinted under the Jack Ketchum nom de plum. Books only list publication dates in the United States, unless foreign publication predated first U.S. printing. On-line, non-print sources have not been cited. Compiled as of 01 Aug 2003. Contents are presented in the following sections: (1) "Books, Novellas, and Chapbooks", (2) "Fiction", and (3) "Nonfiction".

Issue #2

Release Date: 13 Feb. 2004. Perfect Bound softcover chapbook; Dimensions (in inches): 5½ x 8½; Page Count: 40.

Articles:

* "A Question of Influence" (Symposium). A gathering of several of today's top genre authors and critics in an attempt to decern who the primary influence on the contemporary horror author is.
** "Introduction" by NGChristakos
** "Timelines" by Michael T. Huyck, Jr.
** "The Crucial Lovecraft" by Ramsey Campbell
** "Lovecraft’s Legacy" by Jeffrey Thomas
** "Long Live The King" by Michael Oliveri
** "100 Yards Past the Rim…" by Steve Gerlach

* "China Miéville’s The Scar: Pulp Weird Fiction Revisited" by NGChristakos. An attempt to trace the influence of Pulp Weird Fiction on China Miéville. This essay is the first part, with part two to follow next issue; the subtitle for this issue's installment is "The Books".

* "The Best of Horror" by Steffen Hantke. A conjecture as to why horror literature remains outside the academic canon as well as supposition as to how it might infiltrate (or has infiltrated) the same.

* "Notes on Time Displacement and Memory Loss in Crampton" by Nick Curtis. A brief discussion on the use of two science fiction mainstay elements, time displacement and memory loss, and their use with Thomas Ligotti and Brandon Trenz's Crampton. This essay has been edited and annotated by NGChristakos.

* The Unholy City by Thomas Ligotti. An appendix to the Crampton article, this is the text to "The Unholy City", previously made available solely in spoken form. "The Unholy City" is a set of six 'poems' recorded in song form on the CD that accompanies the Crampton book, as issued by Durtro Press.

Cover Art by Gustave Doré

Issue #3

Release Date: 16 Sept. 2004. Perfect Bound softcover chapbook; Dimensions (in inches): 5½ x 8½; Page Count: 40.

Articles:

* "China Miéville’s The Scar: Pulp Weird Fiction Revisited" by NGChristakos. An attempt to trace the influence of Pulp Weird Fiction on China Miéville. This essay is the second part, with part one previously published in issue two; the subtitle for this issue's installment is "The Others".

* "Fritz Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness: Lovecraft, the Compound Ghost" by Dr. Robert Waugh. Regarding the influence of and references to H.P. Lovecraft within Leiber's semi-autobiographical Our Lady of Darkness.

* "Trials of Masculinity in Clive Barker's The Thief of Always" by Drew Williams. Harkening back to the rites of passage from being a boy to a man, Williams examines how Clive Barker's children's book presents a fantastical and yet thoroughly modern take on "growing up".

* "The Annotated Mystery of the Worm" by John Pelan with annotations by NGChristakos. Reprinting Pelan's contribution to the Shadows Over Baker Street collection, in which all the stories involved Sherlock Holmes encountering Lovecraftian elements, complete with annotations by NGChristakos.

Cover Art by Hieronymus Bosch

Issue #4

Release Date: 27 Feb. 2006. Perfect Bound softcover chapbook; Dimensions (in inches): 5½ x 8½; Page Count: 39.

Articles:

* "The Nemesis of Mimesis: Thomas Ligotti, Worlds Elsewhere, and the Darkness Ten Times Black" by Stephen Tompkins. Somewhere beyond ultra-nihilism and absolute nothingness dwells a darkness that is ten times black. Author Thomas Ligotti sets most of his fiction in orbit around this phenomenon. Come and explore its meaning with Stephen Tompkins. Also includes "Read the Darkness Ten Times Black", which is a detailed bibliography of Ligotti works examined in Tompkins' essay.

* "Reflections on a Feline's Pupil: The Fairy Tale Revisited & A Glimpse of Lovecraft's Ghost" by NGChristakos. A solicited introduction to Ray Garton's novella The Eye of the Guardian, published in 2005 by Bloodletting Press. For reasons unknown it was omitted from the final printed version, thus is presented here for the first time.

* "Introductions to the Tales from Terror Incognita" by Jeffrey Thomas. Delirium Books initially issued Jeffrey Thomas' Terror Incognita short story collection, which consisted of thirteen tales, as a signed and numbered hardcover limited to 200 copies in March 2000. Three years later, the volume was reissued as a trade paperback limited to 500 copies. The sole alteration between these two editions would be the exclusion of short introductory notes Thomas wrote for each tale from the trade paperback edition. These are the first time these introductions have been reprinted.

External links

* [http://simh.seele-brennt.com/ Studies in Modern Horror]
* [http://www.getcited.org/pub/103428047 Studies in Modern Horror listing at GetCited.org]