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 thrumm of cosmic terror.” —Kim Newman, author of the Anno Dracula series
Ten-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.
Ten-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.
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, Reverand Jebidiah Mercer rides into a possessed town to confront the unspeakable in the crawling sky. Legendary detective C. Auguste Dupin uncovers the gruesome secrets of both the blue lightning bug and the Necronomicon.
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.
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 thrumm 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
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 thrumm of cosmic terror.”
—Kim Newman, author of the Anno Dracula series
Ten-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
Ten-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.
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, Reverand Jebidiah Mercer rides into a possessed town to confront the unspeakable in the crawling sky. Legendary detective C. Auguste Dupin uncovers the gruesome secrets of both the blue lightning bug and the Necronomicon.
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.
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 thrumm 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
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