This Spectacular Darkness

Tartarus Press is publishing a collection of critical essays by the late Joel Lane. The title of the book comes from a piece published in ST. Joel was a great supporter of the magazine in its early years and contributed several stories. He was a very modest man, but I don't think he'd mind me saying that his interest gave the young ST some kudos it would otherwise have lacked.

Contents: 'Foreword’ by Mark Valentine, ‘Acknowledgments’, Critical Essays for Wormwood by Joel Lane: ‘The Dark Houses of Cornell Woolrich’, ‘The October Revolution: Ray Bradbury’s Existential Paradigm for the Horror Genre’, ‘The Territory of the Others: The Dark Fiction of Theodore Sturgeon’, ‘No Secret Place: The Haunted Cities of Fritz Leiber’, ‘Ruins of Time: The Mortal Terrors of Harlan Ellison’, ‘The Ruins of Reality: Thomas Ligotti and the Uses of Disenchantment’, ‘World Gone Wrong: H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythology of Loss’, ‘Forever Always Ends: Robert Aickman’s Visions of Afterlife’. Other Critical Essays by Joel Lane: ‘Strange Eons and the Cthulhu Mythos’, ‘Negatives in Print: The Early Novels of Ramsey Campbell’, ‘Beyond the Light: The Recent Novels of Ramsey Campbell’, ‘Writers in the James Tradition: Ramsey Campbell’, ‘The Double Edge: Robert Aickman’s Supernatural Stories’, ‘The Master of Masks’, ‘A Dream by the Old Canal’, ‘Hell is Other People: Robert Bloch and the Pathologies of the Family’. Appreciations of the Writings of Joel Lane: ‘Mapping the Territory: Joel Lane’s Essays’, by John Howard, ‘The Paper Ghosts: Reflections on Five Early Stories’, by Mark Valentine, ‘“Where the Gods are Rotting”: The Poetry of Joel Lane’, by Mat Joiner, ‘Socialism or Barbarism: Joel Lane’s Blue Trilogy and the poetry of the lost’, by Nina Allan. ‘Publication History.’