Over the last decade, Geoffrey Reiter has established himself as a distinctive voice in weird fiction. His tales, far from being mere shudder-coining, probe profound questions of the self and of humanity’s relationship to the boundless cosmos. A moral and religious sensibility underlies much of his work—a sensibility that only augments the clutching horror of his scenarios.
In “Testing the Spirits,” a Christian rock band devolves into internal disputes, with horrific results. “Adept” tells of an ancient manuscript that may reveal secrets about Atlantis. In “Big Sky,” a hapless family appears to be trapped in its home by mysterious forces. “A Green Shade” speaks of two women on the trail of a centuries-old witch. “The Lime Kiln” elaborates upon the work of H. P. Lovecraft in its account of horrors in the rural milieu, while the novella “The Cartographer” delves deeply into the geography of magic.
Reiter has also distinguished himself as a poet, and this volume features a dozen or more poems that span the universe in their search for terror and wonder.
Geoffrey Reiter is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Humanities at Lancaster Bible College (Lancaster, Pennsylvania). He received his Ph.D. from Baylor University. He is the author of numerous articles on the intersection of literature and religion, as well as stories and poems. This is his first volume of fiction.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Testing the Spirits
Permian-Triassic
A Hellish Thing
What if Atlantis . . . ?
Adept
A Voice in the Night
Arbitress of Tides
Star Dust
Big Sky
The Nightmare
Quartz Contentment
The Absence
Désirée
Eternal Night
MacAdam
An Edwardian Quartet
A Green Shade
A Word
The Folly
Termination Shock
A Glint amid the Corn
The Lady in the Wood
The Ache of Bone and Joist and Page
The Mermaids Keep Their Own Counsel
The Lime Kiln
Through Enchantment
The Cartographer
Acknowledgements
Publication History
