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In the Mad Mountains: Stories Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft
Joe R. Lansdale
“Joe Lansdale squares up to the Great Old Ones—and taps into rich veins of awe and wit, with always a backbeat thrum of cosmic terror.” —Kim Newman, author of the Anno Dracula series
Eleven-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-tep) returns with this wicked short story collection of his irreverent Lovecraftian tributes. Knowingly skewering H. P. Lovecraft’s paranoid mythos, Lansdale embarks upon haunting yet sly explorations of the unknown, capturing the essence of cosmic dread.
A sinister blues recording pressed on vinyl in blood conjures lethal shadows with its unearthly wails. In order to rescue Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn traverses the shifting horrors of the aptly named Dread Island. In the weird Wild West, Reverend Jebidiah Mercer rides into a possessed town where the unspeakable lurks in the crawling sky. Legendary detective C. Auguste Dupin uncovers the gruesome secrets of both the blue lightning bug and the Necronomicon.
Eleven-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-tep) returns with this wicked short story collection of his irreverent Lovecraftian tributes. Lansdale is scarily down-home in these tales, merging his classic gonzo stylings with the eldritch vibes of H. P. Lovecraft. Knowingly skewering Lovecraft’s paranoid mythos, Lansdale embarks upon haunting yet sly explorations of the unknown, capturing the essence of cosmic dread.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale
“The Bleeding Shadow” Dread Island “The Gruesome Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning”
“The Tall Grass”
“The Case of the Stalking Shadows”
“The Crawling Sky”
“Starlight, Eyes Bright” In the Mad Mountains
“Joe Lansdale squares up to the Great Old Ones—and taps into rich veins of awe and wit, with always a backbeat thrum of cosmic terror. You’ll never look at the howling void in the black heart of the universe the same way again.”
—Kim Newman, author of the Anno Dracula series
“Here’s Lovecraft’s trick: he uses polyphony, many voices, to build his narrative case for the existence of cosmic squids whistling in the dark. Here is Lansdale’s trick: doing it better, with a wider array of voices, including those of Poe and Twain and the classic American folk tale and his own Texas noir sensibility. This collection is a box of cursed yet delicious chocolates. Take a bite of every one!”
—Nick Mamatas, author of Move Under Ground and I Am Providence
“Cosmic horror is alive and well in this eerie collection of what Bram Stoker Award winner Lansdale (Moon Lake) considers to be his eight best Lovecraftian tales, each with different settings and styles and often pulling from other authors’ oeuvres as well. ‘Dread Island’ riffs on Mark Twain, opening with the line ‘this here story is as true as that other story that was written down about me and Jim,’ and going on to tell of how Huck Finn risks his life to save Tom Sawyer from a mysterious evil. Lansdale’s mimicry extends to Edgar Allan Poe as well; ‘The Gruesome Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning’ is a new C. Auguste Dupin exploit, in which the sleuth looks into eyewitness accounts of oddly colored lightning. A third highlight, ‘The Tall Grass,’ evokes Algernon Blackwood, as a businessman traveling in the West has an unsettling experience when his train stops after midnight in the middle of a patch of unusually tall prairie grass that ‘shifted in the moonlight like waves of gold-green seawater pulled by the tide-making forces of the moon.’ Lansdale fans and Lovecraft devotees alike will be impressed.” (Oct.) —Publishers Weekly
“Horror royalty Joe Lansdale’s take on cosmic horror and the Cthulhu Mythos is everything you’d hope for—bloody, profane, grimly humorous, and as vivid as Technicolor hell splashed on a 20-foot tall silver screen.”
—Laird Barron, author of Not a Speck of Light
“Joe Lansdale takes on Lovecraft, Poe, Twain, and more in this adventurous collection of stories. In the Mad Mountains is playful, ambitious, surprising and so much fun to read. What a thrill to watch a modern master play literary games with the greats.”
—Victor LaValle, author of The Ballad of Black Tom
“Lansdale has a wide fan base for good reason, but this book presents a wonderful opportunity to expand it even further by suggesting this collection to fans of twenty-first century cosmic horror authors such as Hailey Piper and Lucy Snyder.”
—Booklist
“For fans of horror fiction searching for something spine-chilling, this book is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.”
—Bibliophileverse
“Lansdale proves once again with In the Mad Mountains, as he has over his long and triumphant career, to be a master of every genre he touches.”
—Rae Wilde, author of Merciless Waters and I Can Fix Her
“Joe Lansdale is an American treasure—he’s funny and he can write whatever he wants to, in whatever genre he chooses and IT WILL BE GOOD. In these stories inspired by Lovecraft, Joe lets his imagination run wild . . . Highly recommended!”
—Char’s Horror Corner
“Showcases a master storyteller riffing on the voices and themes of other writers while crafting something unmistakably his own. Lansdale reimagines the mythos, atmosphere, and some of the characters of cosmic horror and classic literature through his distinct, muscular prose.”
—Horror DNA
“Lansdale’s tales are fun, carefully constructed, and an important contribution to the opus of cosmic horror in our fallen world.”
—Steve Capone, Jr., author of Jimmy vs. Communism
5/5 stars. “What an eclectic, delicious collection of creepy short stories that Joe Lansdale has written in In the Mad Mountains.”
—Hall Ways
“In The Mad Mountains is a whip-like tentacle of poison that wraps itself around you, dragging you into deep corners of darkness while your heart pistons into overdrive.”
—Read@Joes
“It should come as no surprise that Joe R. Lansdale’s take on Lovecraft is utterly original—Scary, fun, and cosmic as all hell. Lansdale is a master in just about every genre imaginable (not sure if he’s ever tried his hand at children’s books, but that could be interesting), and it shows here.”
—Dave Writes and Draws
“Exploring the darkest corners of the human psyche, here is a lethally entertaining journey through Joe Lansdale’s twisted landscape, where ancient evils lurk and sanity hangs by a rapidly fraying thread.”
—Paul Finch, author of Never Seen Again
“It’s a perfect spooky season/Hallowe’en read, even better with a buddy. The cover art by Mike Mignola is a nice bonus and suits the book perfectly.”
—Nonstop Reader
“The book may be inspired by Lovecraft, but the stories take advantage of all the author’s areas of expertise and his sense of humor in an often creepy and always entertaining collection.
—Silver Screen Library
“[Lansdale]’s abundant talent is on full display in In the Mad Mountains: Stories Inspired by H.P.Lovecraft, published by Tachyon.”
—Head Full of Horror
Joe R. Lansdale is probably the only person in the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame who has received the Edgar, ten Stokers, the Raymond Chandler, the British Fantasy, the Spur, the Golden Lion, the Grinzane Cavour Prize, the Herodotus, and the Inkpot Awards. Lansdale has also been designated as a Grandmaster of Horror by the World Horror Association. His acclaimed works have landed him in the Texas Literary Hall of Fame and the Texas Institute of Letters.
Lansdale’s extraordinary output includes mysteries, Westerns, horror, pulp fiction, science fiction, and thrillers. He has written more than 40 novels, 400 shorter works, numerous comic books, and a handful of screenplays as well as creating the Shen Chuan Martial Science. His novels include Dead in the West (1986), The Magic Wagon (1986), The Nightrunners (1987), The Drive-In (1988), Cold in July (1989), the Edgar Award–winning The Bottoms (2000), A Fine Dark Line (2002), Flaming Zeppelins (2010), The Thicket (2013), the Spur Award–winning Paradise Sky (2015), More Better Deals (2020), Moon Lake (2021), and The Donut Legion (2023). Beginning with By Bizarre Hands (1989), Lansdale’s short stories have been collected in several volumes, including The Best of Joe R. Lansdale (2010), Terror Is Our Business (2018, with Kasey Lansdale), Things Get Ugly (2023), and The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team and Other Stories (2024). He has edited fifteen anthologies, including Dark at Heart (1992, with Karen Lansdale), Weird Business (1995, with Richard Klaw), Retro Pulp Tales (2006), Crucified Dreams (2011), and The Urban Fantasy Anthology (2011, with Peter S. Beagle).
Lansdale’s most famous creation is the unlikely duo of Hap and Leonard. Hap Collins is white, liberal, and even-tempered. Leonard Pine, who is quick to anger, is Black, conservative, and gay. In a series of 14 novels, spanning Savage Season (1990) through Sugar on the Bones (2024), and several novellas and short stories, the best friends encounter violence, racism, and adventure in their East Texas haunts. The often-humorous tales have garnered much praise and a legion of devoted fans. Many of the Hap and Leonard novellas and shorter tales are collected in Veil’s Visit (1999), Hap and Leonard (2016), Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade (2018), Of Mice and Minestrone (2020), and Born for Trouble (2021). For three seasons, the pair were featured on the television series Hap and Leonard (2016–18), starring James Purefoy and Michael K. Williams.
Lansdale’s works that have been adapted for film treatments include Bubba Ho-Tep and Cold in July; “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” for Masters of Horror; “The Dump,” “Fish Night,” and “The Tall Grass,” for the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots; “The Companion” for Creepshow; and Christmas with the Dead, which Lansdale produced with a screenplay by his son, Keith. He has written many screenplays and teleplays, including episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. He has also written graphic novels for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, and others. The documentary All Hail the Popcorn King explores the enduring legacy of Lansdale and his creations.
Lansdale also possesses multiple black belts, and he is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System.
Joe R. Lansdale lives with his wife, Karen, in Nacogdoches, Texas.
“A terrifically gifted storyteller.” —Washington Post Book Review
“Joe R. Lansdale is one of the more versatile writers in America.” —Los Angeles Times
“A zest for storytelling and gimlet eye for detail.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Lansdale is an immense talent.” —Booklist
“Lansdale is a storyteller in the Texas tradition of outrageousness . . . but amped up to about 100,000 watts.” —Houston Chronicle
“Lansdale’s been hailed, at varying points in his career, as the new Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner-gone-madder, and the last surviving splatterpunk . . . sanctified in the blood of the walking Western dead and righteously readable.” —Austin Chronicle
In the Mad Mountains: Stories Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft
Joe R. Lansdale
“Joe Lansdale squares up to the Great Old Ones—and taps into rich veins of awe and wit, with always a backbeat thrum of cosmic terror.”
—Kim Newman, author of the Anno Dracula series
Eleven-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-tep) returns with this wicked short story collection of his irreverent Lovecraftian tributes. Knowingly skewering H. P. Lovecraft’s paranoid mythos, Lansdale embarks upon haunting yet sly explorations of the unknown, capturing the essence of cosmic dread.
In the Mad Mountains: Stories Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft
by Joe R. Lansdale
ISBN: 978-1-61696-424-5 (print); 978-1-61696-425-2 (digital)
Published: October 15, 2024
Available Format(s): trade paperback, ebook
A sinister blues recording pressed on vinyl in blood conjures lethal shadows with its unearthly wails. In order to rescue Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn traverses the shifting horrors of the aptly named Dread Island. In the weird Wild West, Reverend Jebidiah Mercer rides into a possessed town where the unspeakable lurks in the crawling sky. Legendary detective C. Auguste Dupin uncovers the gruesome secrets of both the blue lightning bug and the Necronomicon.
Eleven-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-tep) returns with this wicked short story collection of his irreverent Lovecraftian tributes. Lansdale is scarily down-home in these tales, merging his classic gonzo stylings with the eldritch vibes of H. P. Lovecraft. Knowingly skewering Lovecraft’s paranoid mythos, Lansdale embarks upon haunting yet sly explorations of the unknown, capturing the essence of cosmic dread.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale
“The Bleeding Shadow”
Dread Island
“The Gruesome Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning”
“The Tall Grass”
“The Case of the Stalking Shadows”
“The Crawling Sky”
“Starlight, Eyes Bright”
In the Mad Mountains
“Joe Lansdale squares up to the Great Old Ones—and taps into rich veins of awe and wit, with always a backbeat thrum of cosmic terror. You’ll never look at the howling void in the black heart of the universe the same way again.”
—Kim Newman, author of the Anno Dracula series
“Here’s Lovecraft’s trick: he uses polyphony, many voices, to build his narrative case for the existence of cosmic squids whistling in the dark. Here is Lansdale’s trick: doing it better, with a wider array of voices, including those of Poe and Twain and the classic American folk tale and his own Texas noir sensibility. This collection is a box of cursed yet delicious chocolates. Take a bite of every one!”
—Nick Mamatas, author of Move Under Ground and I Am Providence
“Cosmic horror is alive and well in this eerie collection of what Bram Stoker Award winner Lansdale (Moon Lake) considers to be his eight best Lovecraftian tales, each with different settings and styles and often pulling from other authors’ oeuvres as well. ‘Dread Island’ riffs on Mark Twain, opening with the line ‘this here story is as true as that other story that was written down about me and Jim,’ and going on to tell of how Huck Finn risks his life to save Tom Sawyer from a mysterious evil. Lansdale’s mimicry extends to Edgar Allan Poe as well; ‘The Gruesome Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning’ is a new C. Auguste Dupin exploit, in which the sleuth looks into eyewitness accounts of oddly colored lightning. A third highlight, ‘The Tall Grass,’ evokes Algernon Blackwood, as a businessman traveling in the West has an unsettling experience when his train stops after midnight in the middle of a patch of unusually tall prairie grass that ‘shifted in the moonlight like waves of gold-green seawater pulled by the tide-making forces of the moon.’ Lansdale fans and Lovecraft devotees alike will be impressed.” (Oct.)
—Publishers Weekly
“Horror royalty Joe Lansdale’s take on cosmic horror and the Cthulhu Mythos is everything you’d hope for—bloody, profane, grimly humorous, and as vivid as Technicolor hell splashed on a 20-foot tall silver screen.”
—Laird Barron, author of Not a Speck of Light
“Joe Lansdale takes on Lovecraft, Poe, Twain, and more in this adventurous collection of stories. In the Mad Mountains is playful, ambitious, surprising and so much fun to read. What a thrill to watch a modern master play literary games with the greats.”
—Victor LaValle, author of The Ballad of Black Tom
“Lansdale has a wide fan base for good reason, but this book presents a wonderful opportunity to expand it even further by suggesting this collection to fans of twenty-first century cosmic horror authors such as Hailey Piper and Lucy Snyder.”
—Booklist
“For fans of horror fiction searching for something spine-chilling, this book is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.”
—Bibliophileverse
“Lansdale proves once again with In the Mad Mountains, as he has over his long and triumphant career, to be a master of every genre he touches.”
—Rae Wilde, author of Merciless Waters and I Can Fix Her
“Joe Lansdale is an American treasure—he’s funny and he can write whatever he wants to, in whatever genre he chooses and IT WILL BE GOOD. In these stories inspired by Lovecraft, Joe lets his imagination run wild . . . Highly recommended!”
—Char’s Horror Corner
“Showcases a master storyteller riffing on the voices and themes of other writers while crafting something unmistakably his own. Lansdale reimagines the mythos, atmosphere, and some of the characters of cosmic horror and classic literature through his distinct, muscular prose.”
—Horror DNA
“Lansdale’s tales are fun, carefully constructed, and an important contribution to the opus of cosmic horror in our fallen world.”
—Steve Capone, Jr., author of Jimmy vs. Communism
5/5 stars. “What an eclectic, delicious collection of creepy short stories that Joe Lansdale has written in In the Mad Mountains.”
—Hall Ways
“In The Mad Mountains is a whip-like tentacle of poison that wraps itself around you, dragging you into deep corners of darkness while your heart pistons into overdrive.”
—Read@Joes
“It should come as no surprise that Joe R. Lansdale’s take on Lovecraft is utterly original—Scary, fun, and cosmic as all hell. Lansdale is a master in just about every genre imaginable (not sure if he’s ever tried his hand at children’s books, but that could be interesting), and it shows here.”
—Dave Writes and Draws
“A consistently entertaining, varied, horrifying, and vividly told collection.”
—Umney’s Alley
“Exploring the darkest corners of the human psyche, here is a lethally entertaining journey through Joe Lansdale’s twisted landscape, where ancient evils lurk and sanity hangs by a rapidly fraying thread.”
—Paul Finch, author of Never Seen Again
“It’s a perfect spooky season/Hallowe’en read, even better with a buddy. The cover art by Mike Mignola is a nice bonus and suits the book perfectly.”
—Nonstop Reader
“The book may be inspired by Lovecraft, but the stories take advantage of all the author’s areas of expertise and his sense of humor in an often creepy and always entertaining collection.
—Silver Screen Library
“[Lansdale]’s abundant talent is on full display in In the Mad Mountains: Stories Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, published by Tachyon.”
—Head Full of Horror
Joe R. Lansdale is probably the only person in the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame who has received the Edgar, ten Stokers, the Raymond Chandler, the British Fantasy, the Spur, the Golden Lion, the Grinzane Cavour Prize, the Herodotus, and the Inkpot Awards. Lansdale has also been designated as a Grandmaster of Horror by the World Horror Association. His acclaimed works have landed him in the Texas Literary Hall of Fame and the Texas Institute of Letters.
Lansdale’s extraordinary output includes mysteries, Westerns, horror, pulp fiction, science fiction, and thrillers. He has written more than 40 novels, 400 shorter works, numerous comic books, and a handful of screenplays as well as creating the Shen Chuan Martial Science. His novels include Dead in the West (1986), The Magic Wagon (1986), The Nightrunners (1987), The Drive-In (1988), Cold in July (1989), the Edgar Award–winning The Bottoms (2000), A Fine Dark Line (2002), Flaming Zeppelins (2010), The Thicket (2013), the Spur Award–winning Paradise Sky (2015), More Better Deals (2020), Moon Lake (2021), and The Donut Legion (2023). Beginning with By Bizarre Hands (1989), Lansdale’s short stories have been collected in several volumes, including The Best of Joe R. Lansdale (2010), Terror Is Our Business (2018, with Kasey Lansdale), Things Get Ugly (2023), and The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team and Other Stories (2024). He has edited fifteen anthologies, including Dark at Heart (1992, with Karen Lansdale), Weird Business (1995, with Richard Klaw), Retro Pulp Tales (2006), Crucified Dreams (2011), and The Urban Fantasy Anthology (2011, with Peter S. Beagle).
Lansdale’s most famous creation is the unlikely duo of Hap and Leonard. Hap Collins is white, liberal, and even-tempered. Leonard Pine, who is quick to anger, is Black, conservative, and gay. In a series of 14 novels, spanning Savage Season (1990) through Sugar on the Bones (2024), and several novellas and short stories, the best friends encounter violence, racism, and adventure in their East Texas haunts. The often-humorous tales have garnered much praise and a legion of devoted fans. Many of the Hap and Leonard novellas and shorter tales are collected in Veil’s Visit (1999), Hap and Leonard (2016), Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade (2018), Of Mice and Minestrone (2020), and Born for Trouble (2021). For three seasons, the pair were featured on the television series Hap and Leonard (2016–18), starring James Purefoy and Michael K. Williams.
Lansdale’s works that have been adapted for film treatments include Bubba Ho-Tep and Cold in July; “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” for Masters of Horror; “The Dump,” “Fish Night,” and “The Tall Grass,” for the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots; “The Companion” for Creepshow; and Christmas with the Dead, which Lansdale produced with a screenplay by his son, Keith. He has written many screenplays and teleplays, including episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. He has also written graphic novels for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW, and others. The documentary All Hail the Popcorn King explores the enduring legacy of Lansdale and his creations.
Lansdale also possesses multiple black belts, and he is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System.
Joe R. Lansdale lives with his wife, Karen, in Nacogdoches, Texas.
“A terrifically gifted storyteller.”
—Washington Post Book Review
“Joe R. Lansdale is one of the more versatile writers in America.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A zest for storytelling and gimlet eye for detail.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Lansdale is an immense talent.”
—Booklist
“Lansdale is a storyteller in the Texas tradition of outrageousness . . . but amped up to about 100,000 watts.”
—Houston Chronicle
“Lansdale’s been hailed, at varying points in his career, as the new Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner-gone-madder, and the last surviving splatterpunk . . . sanctified in the blood of the walking Western dead and righteously readable.”
—Austin Chronicle