Letters From the Labyrinth 1/28/2018

Hi there. My name is Brian Keene and that picture above was my neighbor's house across the road, as of Friday afternoon. In case you are wondering, no, the river is not usually in their backyard and home.
This is the seventy-fifth issue of Letters From the Labyrinth -- a weekly newsletter for fans of my work. Previous issues are archived here.
See, what happens is this. The river freezes, the way it's supposed to during winter. But then the temperatures rapidly rise, which is not supposed to happen during winter, and this leads to a rapid ice melt. Then the temperatures freeze again, which leads to all those chunks of ice being transformed into a massive ice wall, much like the wall in Game of Thrones.
A wall that, incidentally, is two miles downstream from my house.
Temperatures warm again, leading to more ice melt upstream, and all of that volume rushes downstream and hits the wall. Unable to pass, the river then decides to go around the wall. And it makes a new route through our yards and over our roads and in my basement.
These things happen. If you want to live in Los Angeles, you live with earthquakes. If you want to live in Sonoma, you live with wildfires. If you want to live in Boston or Buffalo, you live with blizzards. And if you want to live along the banks of the Susquehanna River, you live with the occasional flood.
Here at the Keene Compound, we are relatively safe. My boat dock and boat house across the street was surrounded by water. The dock itself is currently submerged beneath six feet of ice, but the boathouse interior is dry. My office and podcast studio sits a few degrees higher than most of the other buildings, and the ground around it is sloped. My house, built during the Civil War, has flooded twice, according to my neighbors. But my basement floods every time, which is why I make sure the sump pump installed in the basement floor is always serviced and working, and why I don't store anything important down there. (Current contents were three air conditioners, my 14 fishing rods and assorted tackle, some of Mary's son's stuff that he didn't take to college, a bunch of tools I don't know how to use, my beekeeping equipment, and a box of Christmas decorations. All of these were brought upstairs).
My nine-year-old and I spent much of yesterday throwing rocks at the ice and seeing if we could break it. We did not succeed, but we did have a lot of fun.
Here are a few more pictures from the neighborhood (if your email and browser support pics).




My dear friend and mentor Dallas Mayr, aka Jack Ketchum, passed away this week. He'd been sick for a while now, and those of us who knew him, knew this was coming, but you never really prepare yourself for this type of thing, even when you have advance warning.
Some of you have asked me what this means for the collaboration he and I were doing. Unfortunately, due to deadlines and his illness, we never got past the planning stages, and those plans were very rough. It would have been a short story or novelette, with no supernatural content. Mary SanGiovanni gave us an idea about a serial killer that stalks families based on their bumper stickers, and we'd been kicking that around a bit. Sadly, that's one collaboration that will never be written now.
Next week's episode of The Horror Show with Brian Keene podcast will be a memorial episode to him. And next week's chapter of The History of Horror Fiction will be an interlude dedicated to his novel, The Girl Next Door.
If you read END OF THE ROAD in its serialized form on Cemetery Dance's website (and if you didn't, the hardcover will be out this spring), then you know that one of the last times Dallas and I got to really hang out together was 2016. We saw each other after that, but that weekend in 2016 was better because we had some one on one time. He was looking frail even then, but he still had a year and some change to go.
Here's a picture from that weekend. Myself, Stephen Kozeniewski, and Dallas.
See you in that horror convention hotel bar afterlife, my friend. Give Jesus and Pic and Dick and all our other departed friends a hug from me. I'll be along when I'm finished down here.

Speaking of departed friends...
(Boy, this is a grim fucking newsletter this week, isn't it? Floods and ice walls and dead friends...)
But I digress.
MONSTERS – ANIMALS is the long-awaited two-novella prequel to J. F. Gonzalez’s seminal extreme horror novel SURVIVOR.
MONSTERS was completed before his death. ANIMALS was half-completed, and was finished by his frequent collaborator Wrath James White (following J.F.’s notes).
The novellas, published together in one paperback volume, are now available for pre-order. Click here to reserve your copy. (There will also be digital editions and a limited edition hardcover).
MONSTERS – In one family’s home there is a section of the basement locked-up. After their mother doesn’t come home and their drunk dad refuses to contact the authorities, the kids take it upon themselves to uncover their family’s secrets. What they find is more disturbing than they ever could have imagined.
ANIMALS – In New York City, there is an underground S&M scene where any decadent and depraved pleasure can be had for a price. When a young man gets caught up in the scene and disappears, his friends go in search. But their path will lead them to the darkest pits of human desire.
MONSTERS AND ANIMALS is two novella prequels to the cult favorite hardcore horror masterpiece SURVIVOR. This edition also includes an Introduction by Brian Keene and two more bonus stories, “Shooting Schedule” and “Mabel’s Recipes,” that further explore the world of SURVIVOR.

REMINDER:
I’ll be signing books February 23rd through the 25th as a guest at Con Nooga, taking place at The Chattanooga Convention Center in Chattanooga, TN.
I’ll have books for sale at the convention. You can also bring books from home for me to sign. As always, there is no charge for signatures and no charge for pictures and no charge to hang out in the hotel bar and share a beer and conversation.
Today is Mary SanGiovanni's birthday.
Sometimes, people forget -- Mary got published before I did. She's been doing this as long as I have. Before we were soulmates, we were friends, and before we were friends, we were peers and before we were peers, I was a fan.
Folks often ask me what my favorite book by Mary is. I'll give you my Top Five, along with a handy link to each:
1. FOR EMMY -- Paperback and Kindle -- the perfect blend of psychological, quiet, and cosmic horror.
2. THRALL -- Paperback, Kindle, and Audiobook -- Silent Hill meets John Carpenter's The Thing.
3. THE HOLLOWER -- Paperback, Kindle and Audiobook -- Written years before the Slenderman urban legend, which others have since taken credit for "creating". And way scarier than any of the pretenders.
4. SAVAGE WOODS -- Paperback and Kindle -- More cosmic horror goodness, but with a pinch of Splatterpunk.
5. NIGHT MOVES -- Paperback and Kindle -- A fantastic short story collection that runs the gamut through all of horror's various styles and sub-genres.
Anyway, happy birthday, my love. I hope all of you will help celebrate by maybe purchasing one of the books above, if you have the means to do so.
And if you don't have the means to do so, then maybe check out her FREE podcast, Cosmic Shenanigans, which debuts tonight at 7pm EST on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio and right here at this link. It focuses on the history of cosmic horror, looking far beyond H.P. Lovecraft and Laird Barron (although they are in it, too).
That's it for this week. A few reminders:
PATREON - Where I post new short stories, a serialized ongoing novel, and behind-the-scenes stuff. In fact, right now, there's some super secret stuff relating to THE DOOR that's been posted for the Behind The Scenes folks...
TWITTER - The only social media outlet I still use regularly.
See you back here next week. Stay dry!