Final results: Michael Chopade won FUTURE LOVECRAFT, [removed, redrawing!] won THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE, Lee Joyner won THE SHADOW OF THE UNKNOWN, and Luis Rivaa won TWISTED IN DREAM.  Congratulations to all four of you!

I’ll be having contests every month from now on.  You could win Lovecraftian books, movies, sculptures, and more.  To be entered into the contests, simply subscribe to this website (top right side of this webpage).

If you’re not one of the lucky winners, I highly recommend you buy one or more of the below books.  Long-time readers of this website know that I don’t recommend a book unless I think it’s great.

Here’s the Amazon.com synopsis for each book:

FUTURE LOVECRAFT: Decades, centuries and even thousands of years in the future: The horrors inspired by Lovecraft do not know the limits of time…or space. Journey through this anthology of science fiction stories and poems inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Listen to the stars that whisper and drive a crew mad. Worship the Tloque Nahuaque as he overtakes Mexico City. Slip into the court of the King in Yellow. Walk through the streets of a very altered Venice. Stop to admire the beauty of the flesh-dolls in the window. Fly through space in the shape of a hungry, malicious comet. Swim in the drug-induced haze of a jellyfish. Struggle to survive in a Martian gulag whose landscape isn’t quite dead. But, most of all, fear the future. Featured authors include: Nick Mamatas, Ann K. Schwader, Don Webb, Paul Jessup, E. Catherine Tobler, A.C. Wise, and many more.

THAT WHICH SHOULD NOT BE: Winner of the 2011 JournalStone horror writing contest.  Miskatonic University has a long-whispered reputation of being strongly connected to all things occult and supernatural. From the faculty to the students, the fascination with other-worldly legends and objects runs rampant. So, when Carter Weston’s professor Dr. Thayerson asks him to search a nearby village for a book that is believed to control the inhuman forces that rule the Earth, Incendium Maleficarum, The Inferno of the Witch, the student doesn’t hesitate to begin the quest.  Weston’s journey takes an unexpected turn, however, when he ventures into a tavern in the small town of Anchorhead. Rather than passing the evening as a solitary patron, Weston joins four men who regale him with stories of their personal experiences with forces both preternatural and damned. Two stories hit close to home as they tie the tellers directly to Weston’s current mission.

THE SHADOW OF THE UNKNOWN: Madness and the Mythos, the Surreal and the Sinister. Editor A.J. French has collected 29 tales of horror inspired by H. P. Lovecraft and the element of the unknown in supernatural fiction. Featuring stories by Gary A. Braunbeck, Gene O’Neill, Michael Bailey, Glynn Barrass, P.S. Gifford, Lee Clark Zumpe, James S. Dorr, Geoffrey H. Goodwin, Erik T. Johnson, R.B. Payne, and Ran Cartwright. Warning: Once you open the pages of this book, you willingly unleash a whirlwind of delirium and insanity that will creep into your mind. Think your sanity can withstand the assault…? — “A diverse cross-section of contemporary horror by established writers and exciting newcomers. Fans of Lovecraft, Ligotti, Campbell and other masters of the genre will find much to appreciate in this well-rounded anthology.” — Jeffrey Thomas, author of PUNKTOWN — “Anyone who tries to breathe new life into the Elder Gods takes an unspeakable risk. But these authors succeed in bringing the darkness home… where it belongs.” — Gary Fry, author of ABOLISHER OF ROSES

S.T. Joshi has this to say about TWISTED IN DREAM: “Ann K. Schwader’s poetry fuses metrical precision and horrific imagination in a manner not seen since the heyday of Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. It suggests far more than it states, and its implications of dread menace are underscored by a cosmic pessimism that raises her work far above the level of mere shudder-coining.” —S. T. Joshi

Book synopsis: During the past decade or more, Ann K. Schwader has become the most critically acclaimed living author of weird and fantastic poetry. Following the distinguished tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, Frank Belknap Long, and others, Schwader has written scores of finely chiseled and powerfully evocative verse that packs all the intensity of a short story within the space of a sonnet or quatrain. The present volume gathers for the first time her collected weird poetry, including the complete contents of the landmark volume The Worms Remember (2001) and the sonnet cycle In the Yaddith Time (2007), along with dozens of uncollected and unpublished poems. All in all, this volume is the definitive collection of one of the most vibrant weird poets in contemporary literature.

“If Yog-Sothoth knows the gate, is the gate, is the key and guardian of the gate, then likewise, Ann K. Schwader’s weird verse opens a gate to lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. Schwader’s verse—haunting, evocative, arresting in both conception and imagery—gibbers like Old Ones’ voices on the wind, and like the earth that mutters with Their consciousness.” —Leigh Blackmore, author of Spores from Sharnoth