Election Déjà Vu

"Roratorio" in The Underdogs Rise Vol. 2

My latest story, "Roratorio" (8,600 words), has just been published in THE UNDERDOGS RISE VOL. 2, an all-new anthology of underdog-centric tales edited by J.R. Martin! Buy your copy right HERE!!!

The Underdogs Rise Vol. 2

Born to soar, cursed to walk.
A father's blessing, a son's burden.
How many deaths will it take to truly live again?

Underdog Press presents extraordinary tales where heroes come in all shapes and sizes.

Meet the dream weavers, the flawed champions, and the giant slayers who defy expectations. When the odds are stacked against them, these underdogs will rise, proving that every person has their moment to shine.

Forget cookie-cutter stories. Underdog Press delivers unique voices and unforgettable characters in tales you won't find anywhere else.

Thank you for being a reader who celebrates the power of the underdog!

This is their day. This is their fight.

CARL KOLCHAK VS. CRYPTOPOLIS!

As the sun set on Halloween night, intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak showed up on my doorstep to warn me that my recent collection, CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES, had been inhabited by the spirit of an ancient demon known only as "Belphegor"! In order to destroy this iniquitous creature, every copy of CRYPTOPOLIS must be gathered together, bathed in holy water, and set on fire. Of course, to bring about this righteous conflagration, ALL the copies must be purchased first! To save the world, Kolchak is urging you to buy as many copies of this evil tome as soon as humanly possible! DIE, CRYPTOPOLIS, DIE!!!

 

 

At one point during Carl's visit, the anti-matter version of Alice in Wonderland ripped her way through a portal in time and space and tried to abscond with the book, but an ancient incantation uttered in Vulgate Latin solved that problem quickly enough.

 

After the grimoire was dispatched at last, Carl spent the rest of the evening battling other supernatural entities in Southern California. He wrestled with Mothman in a haunted laundry room located somewhere in East Long Beach.

On nearby First Street, Carl dived into the Case of the Cyclopean Skeletons.

 

 

Soon afterwards, the Case of the Newlywed Phantoms was brought to a swift but bloody conclusion.

 

 

In a particularly dangerous interlude, the disembodied head of Jeffrey Epstein attempted to perform unspeakable acts upon Carl, but decisive action involving a vial filled with sanctified holy water blessed by the ghost of Pope John Paul I took care of the infernal revenant soon enough.

 

After stalking the beast-filled streets of the city throughout All Hallows' Eve, Carl kicked up his heels in the haunted Reno Room Bar on East Broadway where he proceeded to exorcise the infamous Ghost Girl with the Bloody Hands, bringing his epic odyssey to a satisfying close.

 

 

ETI Radio 2024 Mahalloween Broadcast!

 Click HERE to listen to the annual EXOTIC TIKI ISLAND Radio Mahalloween Broadcast....

The Cryptoscatology Top 20 Horror Film List (in Reverse Chronological Order...)

Two specific rules dictated the choices on the following cryptoscatological list: 1) There had to be at least one film from each decade, and 2) If you watched all twenty films in a row, the resultant collective film would essentially tell an epic story about The Secret History of the Twentieth Century & Beyond; therefore, I picked movies that shared a consistent theme. If not for those rules, more obvious choices would have been included (e.g., James Whale's THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN or Georges Franju’s EYES WITHOUT A FACE). The list below is submitted for your Halloween viewing pleasure...

20. MAD GOD (Phil Tippett, 2021)

 

19. POSSESSOR (Brandon Cronenberg, 2020)

 

18. BLOOD TEA & RED STRING (Christiane Cegavske, 2006)

17. TWIN  PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (David Lynch, 1992)

 

16. JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)

 

15. SANTA SANGRE (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)

 

14. SOCIETY (Brian Yuzna, 1989)

 

13. THEY LIVE (John Carpenter, 1988)

 

 

12. HOUSE (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)

 

11. SUSPIRIA (Dario Argento, 1977) 

 

10. THE WICKER MAN (Robin Hardy, 1973)

 

9. WITCHFINDER GENERAL (Michael Reeves, 1968)

 

8. SPIDER BABY (Jack Hill, 1968)

 

 

7. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (John Frankenheimer, 1962) 

 

 

6. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (Don Siegel, 1956)

 

 

5. CAT PEOPLE (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)

 

4. THE BLACK CAT (Edgar Ulmer, 1934)

 

3. FREAKS (Tod Browning, 1932)

 

2. VAMPYR (Carl Dreyer, 1932)

 

 

1. HÄXAN (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)

 

 

THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK HAS ARRIVED!!!

Congratulate me on my weird new arrival! The salacious rumors you've heard are shockingly close to the truth! A whiskey-addled, desomorphine-addicted stork has just delivered my dear one, who is now safely tucked away in its booby-trapped crib! Complimentary cigars are both expected and welcome! Today marks the birth of my new book, THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK, courtesy of Madness Heart Press! Feel free to order this beautifully perverse bundle of joy RIGHT HERE! The first to order the print edition will be named the godparent in future editions!

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE EXPECTANT MOTHER DISINFORMATION HANDBOOK...

"Robert Guffey’s The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook is weirder than parthenogenesis, weirder than the Republican Party, weirder than the fetishizing of pregnancy that suffuses our culture, weirder than all the back issues of Weird Tales combined. You will laugh, gasp, and scratch your head in pleasurable bemusement. I can’t recommend this tongue-in-cheek tour de force too highly."

—JAMES MORROW, award-winning author of Only Begotten Daughter and Behold the Ape


"Here it is. THE perfect baby-shower/gender reveal party gift. Forget all the binkies, blankies, cute little onesies, and diaper-service subscriptions. Those are so overdone and boring. Want to make a REAL impact? This book. This book right here [...].

"Well-written, lively, engaging, easy to read, and tons of fun. If I were a truly evil imp with plenty of money, I’d sneak copies into every OB/GYN office and ‘Parenting and Family’ bookstore section in the country."

--CHRISTINE MORGAN, award-winning author of Spermjackers from Hell and Lakehouse Infernal 

 

________________________________________________________

The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook is part novel, part fabulist encyclopedia. It’s academic research that’s shockingly close to the truth. The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook is a cabinet of wonders disguised as an informational guide for expectant mothers. Backed up with scientific-sounding footnotes from imaginary obstetricians, this book threatens to raise the paranoia of postmodern motherhood to a new level of absurdity.

In the pages of this handbook you will learn about such chimerical illnesses as the Quantum Singularity Syndrome, Symmetrical Child Syndrome, Involuntary Dimensional Transits, Spontaneous Infant Combustion Syndrome, Black Hole Syndrome, Polyinfantalia, Shrinking Brain Syndrome, Muppetitis, Midwich Disease, and Oneirokyesis (known to some pediatricians as “Dream Baby Disease”). But fatal diseases are not the only purview of The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook. You’ll find out about the dangers of allowing your fetus in utero internet connection, how to use your child as an assassin, the growing problem of terrorism in the womb, in utero phone sex, the high weirdness of Origami Babies, the little known fact that Shakespeare created pregnancy, the mystery of the fetus-abducting Comprachicos, and a rare in-depth interview with Dracula about his attitudes regarding child raising, among many other illuminating tidbits of obscure but vital historical data.

Ultimately, this book is a scathing satire on the unthinking commercialization of motherhood, fatherhood, and procreation in general.

Spooky the Cat Endorses CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES (Sort Of)

Just the other day, my loyal familiar floated over to me and said, "You know, you should take a picture of me posing next to CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES, your recent collection of 25 short stories praised by such luminaries as Philip Fracassi, Nick Mamatas, and John Shirley. People tend to like images of felines, or so I'm told, which is why I chose to manifest in this form in the first place. Why not take advantage of it while I still remain on this plane of existence? Hell, who knows? Maybe some schmuck will actually buy your dumb book. After all, anything is possible in this strange world filled with odd-shaped folks." Then he started aggressively licking his butt. Soon afterwards, I decided to heed his advice and snapped the photograph below...

(Did my loyal familiar mention that you can snatch up the Kindle edition of CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES for only $6.66? What better way to celebrate All Hallows' Eve than to curl up with a furry familiar and a preternaturally evil book? What are you waiting for, my friends? Happy Halloween!!!)

PRAISE FOR CRYPTOPOLIS:

"The stories in Cryptopolis feel like the bloody, star-filled lovechildren of Burroughs and Delany, with each tale ostensibly one part of a greater whole; abstract limbs and organs tethered together by strained flesh. Cryptopolis will take readers on a hallucinogenic journey through worlds fractured by time and place—slipping through liminal dimensions with seamless abandon to unveil unsettling illusions and heartbreaking realities—and totally worth the trip."

--Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley

 

"If you're tired of the same wines and you're curious about the vintage only just whispered about, have a deep draught of Robert Guffey's Cryptopolis. You don't have to descend with Fortunato to the deepest cellars to find this bottle of Amontillado. Here it is! If Poe collaborated with Robert Anton Wilson...if Borges had a lovechild with Lovecraft, which was subsequently adopted by Kafka...you might get Cryptopolis. I think too that Clark Ashton Smith would admire this collection. Written with the obsessive precision of a mysterious staircase descending into the abyss, Cryptopolis will take you to strange epiphanies..."  

 

--John Shirley, author of The Feverish Stars

 

"Once upon a time, weird and speculative fiction had an underground full of stories that were not written as calling cards or as film treatments or as extended internet memes. Guffey's tales resist genre gentrification; they move into your mind to turn it into a punk house squat!" 

--Nick Mamatas, author of Move Under Ground and The Second Shooter

 

 "In Cryptopolis & Other Stories, Guffey's free-ranging intellect meshes wonderfully with his command of the language."

--John Oakes, author of The Fast

 

"Guffey brings together 25 horror shorts that swing wildly between terrifying mindtrips and gritty realism. Throughout, Guffey’s blunt prose lends a sense of normalcy to the fantastic as his cast of losers from all walks of life face the cruelties of their existence—sexual violence, drugs, war, parenthood, and poverty [...]. Though not for the faint of heart, this bizarre and over-the-top collection is sure to thrill devotees of weird fiction."

--Publishers Weekly

"Cryptopolis may end up being a gateway drug into Robert Guffey’s work. I don’t use that term spuriously. So many of Guffey’s stories in Cryptopolis have a hard-bitten edge and gritty feel to them that I could see him crafting a metatext about an author whose books are physically addictive. Across the collection’s twenty-five stories and vignettes, Guffey displays a range of interests and foci with such depth and heart that I wouldn’t be surprised if he became one of my favorite modern writers [...].

"Affect, the experience of emotional response, seems to be at issue in every one of Guffey’s offerings. From the opening eponymous story (which is the only outright Lovecraftian story in the collection), with its resonances of love as a torturous paralytic, to the last, 'Esthra, Shadows, Glass, Silence,' a parable of alternate lives and lost possibilities, the emotional response drawn from the reader appears to be the crux of every piece. These stories are engines designed to make the reader feel."

--Géza A. G. Reilly, Dead Reckonings