Happy New Year

If you are reading this, congratulations, you made it through 2024. Or you are a time traveler and you jumped ahead and decided to spend time reading stuff on the internet. If this is the case, congrats on the whole time travel thing, but really? Checking out the internet? Get your shit together.

We are just coming to the end of that dead period between Christmas and New Years where no one knows what day it is and you’ve eaten so much rich food that your body is just screaming for a salad. Or am I projecting?

This is not the end of the celebrating for our house, as The Mrs was raised in the Armenian Orthodox Church so we’ve got one more family function to attend. Then I can go back to being a hermit until it’s time for Con Season to start.

It’s been relatively quiet since the last post. The only thing of note that I did was attend a press screening of Nosferatu. I posted a review here.

For those who are new to my social media, I have made the same New Year’s Resolution that I have for decades: Not to wear purple polyester pants in public. That way no matter how fucked up 2025 may be, at the end of the year I will still be able to say that I did not break my resolution.

Listening To: I have been spending some time revisiting some of my favorite albums from when I was much younger. Chief among these is Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano featuring Jean Pierre Rampal and Claude Bolling.

Currently Reading: I finished up a couple of books this week just in time to be placed on my 2024 Goodreads List (see below for more on that). These included Hack Slash Deluxe Omnibus 5, The Compleat Meadmaker, and the 2024 Horror Diary.

Current Obsession: We spent NYE binging season 2 of Squid Game. Because, you know, prep for the new year.

We are proud to announce that Shrouded Horror: Tales of the Uncanny by KC Grifant and Chorus of Whispers by Sarah Hans have both been listed on the HWA Bram Stoker Award Reading List.

We received the hard cover editions of Arkham Institutions for the Kickstarter backers. These should go out in the mail tomorrow. Also, now that the Canadian Postal Service strike is over, we are just waiting for the US Postal Service to start shipping to Canada for us to get the last rewards to our Canadian backers.

2024 was a great year for Dragon’s Roost Press.

We released SIX titles:

Seeing Through Skull Shaped Eyes by Michael Cieslak

Open your eyes wide and gaze into the darkness contained within. Here you will see all manner of Stygian sights. Enjoy the dark writings contained in this, the second collection of Michael Cieslak’s fiction.

The Pleasure in Pain ed. by Roxie Voorhees

UNBURY YOUR GAYS

For centuries our stories of romance and love were hidden, coded within for future readers to decipher. There is none of that here.

Here's a shovel.

Twenty-five stories and poems explore the spectrum of queerness through love and lust, and a little blood. Twisted fairytales, possessed jewelry, a house that offers your desires but you can never leave, a god's bathroom glory hole, an asexual cult, and more show you THE PLEASURE IN PAIN.

Shrouded Horror: Tales of the Uncanny by KC Grifant

From the bowels of NYC to the farthest regions of space, Shrouded Horror: Tales of the Uncanny feature people encountering the unseen terrors hovering at the edge of everyday life. Whether it's a glimpse of a malicious creature lurking behind your reflection or an unusual thunderstorm heralding a needy stranger, oddities loom, ready to reveal themselves.With hints of The Twilight Zone, Creepshow, and Black Mirror, this collection of short horror stories-the cosmic, the weird, and the fantastical-will settle into the back of your head and under your skin. They will make you wonder what hidden horrors lie there, just beyond the curtain of reality.

Chorus of Whispers by Sarah Hans

The world looks so different with just one dark twist. Each of the stories in Chorus of Whispers has a setting that feels familiar but contains a discordant note jarring us out of a pleasant melody. Feral babies. Silent women. Plastic surrogates. Gods walking the earth and remaking it one step at a time. Monster hunters as monstrous as their prey.

Don’t let familiarity lure you into a false sense of security.

No one is safe from the darkness of these warped realities.

Especially you.

Hell Hath No Fury, 2nd Edition by Peggy Christie

Ever wonder how you might handle a sabbatical from work? Think the bible told you everything there is to know about the Devil? What if the noises coming from under your child’s bed weren’t just in his imagination? Crack open Hell Hath No Fury, a collection of 23 tales of horror and dark fiction, to learn the answers to these questions. Discover stories of psychotic delusions, ghosts, a murder victim’s revenge, and a family brought closer together through torture. All of this and more awaits inside the book you hold in your hands right now.

Arkham Institutions: Where the Mythos Meet the Mundane, ed. by Michael Cieslak

Travel to the lands of gambrel roofs and unspeakable terror with Dragon’s Roost Press. Join us and 26 authors as we once again explore Arkham, Dunwhich, Innsmouth, and the surrounding areas to explore how the people who run these towns and their institutions deal with the eldritch abominations of Lovecraftian horror.

Take a tour of the Mythos mainstays and visit schools and libraries, morgues and museums, banks and businesses, and even the cat sanctuary and the public pool. See how the citizens of these horrifying New England towns cope with Cthulhu and the other Eldritch monstrosities which are part of their every day lives.

We attended 13 conventions — Dragon’s Roost Press was a vendor at 10, Michael was a panelist at 2, and attended as a member of GLAHW at 1.

On a personal note, I was also a contributor to King's Succession: The Stephen King Sequel Films, ed. by Ron Ford and David Hayes which was released by Slipway Cinema Press

I read 84 books last year. In the past I have compiled a top ten list, but this year is it kind of difficult as I gave 5 star (out of 5) reviews to 18 of the books I read. Rather than ranking them, I am going to just pull out a few titles and provide a little additional information on them. For the full reviews, check out my Goodreads page.

This was the year that I first read Rachel Harrison. I spent the rest of the year reading everything she has written. While it was great to find out about another amazing author, and I did enjoy all of her books, I am kind of bummed that I am completely caught up and now have to wait for her to publish something new. All of her books received at least four stars to all of her books. The five star titles included Such Sharp Teeth, Bad Dolls, and Cackle.

It was a great year for authors I was already familiar with as well. Gwendolyn Kiste continues to amaze with The Haunting of Velkwood which should win all of the awards this year. Other authors whose material I have enjoyed in the past and continued to enjoy in 2024 included Peggy Christie with the first in her Macabre Minis series Con Life, Josh Mallerman’s take on the haunted house (it was a good year for hauntings) Incidents Around the House, Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid novella told from Oberon’s point of view The Purloined Poodle, Jennie Breeden’s Devil Panties Vol 14 (I’m saving Vol 15 to read this year), and the interesting pairing of Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey’s The Dead Take the A Train (so glad that this is the first in a series).

I made a concerted effort to work on my TBR pile. This included the two amazing dives into the history of horror film advertising Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the ‘70s and ‘80s and Ad Nauseam II: Newsprint Nightmares of the 1990s and 2000s by Michael Gingold.

I read plenty of comedic books this year, but the funniest just might be Reginale Bakley’s treatise on fighting the fae Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop: And Other Practical Advice in Our Campaign Against the Fairy Kingdom.

As we head into what is sure to be a…shall we say…interesting year, it might be helpful for many of you to read Kirsten Miller’s Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books. This story of community and fighting back against right wing conservative bullshit really resonated with me.

Obviously, this isn’t the full list of five star titles, but it is a few of the ones I really enjoyed. Here’s to another year of wonderful books.