Slow Burn

by Mike Allen

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Pub Date Jul 16 2024 | Archive Date Jul 17 2024

Mythic Delirium

Horror | Literary Fiction | Novellas & Short Stories

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Description

The search for a missing grandson unearths a pit of unholy hunger. A war between flesh-stealing supernatural entities will subject an entire city to devastating mayhem. In a harrowing future world, a slave is charged by his terrifying master with building a creature in its likeness. The voyage of a plague ship won’t end at mere death. Parasites are partners and lovers, and the immortal soul is but a single stage in the complex life cycle of a symbiote.

SLOW BURN gathers fourteen stories of horror and thirteen macabre poems by two-time World Fantasy Award finalist Mike Allen, author of the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated collections UNSEAMING and AFTERMATH OF AN INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT. Allen’s works are “exquisite and vivid, his worlds rich with brilliant detail,” says three-time Bram Stoker Awards® winner Christina Sng in her introduction. “The images he paints with words are terrifying and mesmerizing, keeping you enthralled and unable to look away.”

These tales and verses, set in worlds of fantasy and sorcery, in twisted, surreal futures, and in hard-boiled modern milieus . . . all find ways to explore the abyssal darkness of the human heart.

Advance Praise

“Nerve-racking anticipation and dread … An assemblage of horror tales and somber verses that frighten and fascinate.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Nebula, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy Award finalist Allen (AFTERMATH OF AN INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT) presents a titillating collection of 14 horror stories and [13] poems. Throughout, Allen takes the idea of nothing being as it seems to supernatural extremes. … these slippery, surprising stories will appeal to horror fans seeking something fresh.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“SLOW BURN is a wonderful blend of story, poetry, and co-authored collaboration. It is a collection that transports readers into the shadows through the mythical, chilling, and visceral. Within, you will find tales of messy lives stitched together, twisted obsessions, violence, dark magic, and body horror from multiple perspectives. Truly a slow burn readers will crave to simmer in.”—Ai Jiang, Hugo, Locus, Nebula, and Bram Stoker award-nominated author of LINGHUN and I AM AI

“Mike Allen habitually upends Lovecraftian tropes with his own brand of cosmic horror.”—Laird Barron

“Every story in this collection presents a rich and lived-in world. Allen has created fascinating monsters that are unlike others I've seen in Weird or cosmic horror. … If you can handle some truly gruesome body horror, this book will reward you with beautiful writing about awful things.”—ALTARS OF INK

“Nerve-racking anticipation and dread … An assemblage of horror tales and somber verses that frighten and fascinate.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Nebula, Shirley Jackson, and World Fantasy Award finalist Allen...