Christine Morgan Reviews CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES!

Multiple award-winning novelist Christine Morgan has just reviewed my short story collection, CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES. Here's an excerpt:

People often ask “what IS bizarro?” as if there’s a single handy definition, but there isn’t. Indeed, even within the category of bizarro itself, multiple sub-genres thrive, from the sheer comedic wackadoo to the elevated philosophical.

As I write this review, Robert Guffey’s delightfully wackadoo previous work, The Expectant Mother Disinformation Handbook, recently received the Wonderland Award, yet here I am looking at Cryptopolis, which is well to the other end of the spectrum. Proving, not that proof is necessary, he’s a talented multi-threat who should be watched very closely.

Wait, that sounds like a threat. Oh well; you get the gist. Cryptopolis, a collection of interconnected and cleverly interwoven short stories, is simply beautiful, while at the same time exceedingly surreal.

To read Morgan's entire review, click HERE.

FYI: One of the tales in CRYPTOPOLIS, "Initiation," was recently adapted by StarShipSofa! If you want to hear Doni Nicoll-Duir's evocative reading of "Initiation," click HERE!

And you can hear me talking about the secret origins of CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES on several different podcasts and radio shows including Tarek Al-Ubaidi's CROPfm, Seriah Azkath's WHERE DID THE ROAD GO?, Solaris Blueraven's HYPERSPACE, Matthew Hopewell's THE AP STRANGE SHOW, and Chris Mathieu's FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE NEWS.

PRAISE FOR CRYPTOPOLIS & OTHER STORIES: 

"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

 "If you want a walk on the wild side, and I mean WILD, Robert Guffey’s fiction delivers that and more. It’s as if you’re lying in the grass in a park on a calm summer afternoon, you look up, and a creature you can’t even describe is looking at you. He starts talking in an even voice. But his words are chopping reality to pieces, and when he puts the pieces back together again, and you see the new picture, you feel a need to call the police. But then you realize you’re in a new place where the last people you want to talk to are the cops. What do you do now? You’re on your own. You better have strong resources. Very strong." 

 --Jon Rappoport, author of The Secret Behind Secret Societies

"The Black Ambulance" on THE NOSLEEP PODCAST!

On January 1st of this year, DIRTY MAGICK MAGAZINE published my new novelette, "The Black Ambulance." Despite the fact that only a month or so has passed since the story's debut, it has already leaped from one medium to another, having been adapted into an effectively eerie and immersive audio drama by the award-winning team at THE NOSLEEP PODCAST. You can hear the story on the Premium bonus episode made specifically for Valentine's Day. If you want to listen to "The Black Ambulance," click HERE to subscribe!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My daughter, Olivia, recently took this photo of Melissa and me on the beach in Carpinteria. Happy Valentine's Day!

Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller on Valentine's Day

Exactly four years ago today, Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller (author of GNOSTICISM: NEW LIGHT ON THE ANCIENT TRADITION OF INNER KNOWING and many other esoteric books) delivered the following lecture at the Ecclesia Gnostica in Los Angeles...

Day of the Holy Valentinus, February 13th 2022:

"Why is creation so weird? Why do all living beings fight each other and eat each other? Why is the great mantra of the universe 'Munch Munch Munch'? These are serious questions. They occurred to me when I was a child already, and my parents said, 'Oh, well, you shouldn't worry about that now... maybe later. Maybe later in life.'"

--Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller, 2-13-22 

Robert W. Sullivan on FRIDAY THE 13th

Since today is Friday the 13th, this would be an appropriate time to listen to Robert W. Sullivan's analysis of the FRIDAY THE 13th films on the 10-23-23 episode of Steven Snider's THE FARM podcast. To paraphrase Snider's description of the show, topics in this episode include: The Knights Templar, the origins of Friday the 13th being perceived as an unlucky day, Jason and the Argonauts, Sirius, the Tarot, the Freudian aspects of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, witchcraft in the HALLOWEEN franchise, the Threefold Goddess, 9/11, Gnosticism, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, THEY LIVE, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, quantum physics, tachyons, and other High Weirdness! To listen to the entire episode, click HERE.

Matthew LaCroix on the "Mysterious Symbols" of a "Lost Civilization"

From Stacy Liberatore's 2-5-26 DAILY MAIL article entitled "Mysterious Symbols Spanning the Globe Hint at a Lost Civilization 38,000 Years Ago":

For centuries, mainstream archaeologists have dismissed the idea that an advanced civilization existed long before modern times.

Now, an independent researcher claims he has uncovered 'paradigm-shifting evidence of a lost civilization' that hid a sophisticated code through geometry, symbolism, and monument design across the globe to preserve its knowledge ahead of catastrophic events.

Matthew LaCroix told Daily Mail the discovery, sparked by a recent find in Egypt, links symbols across continents and dates back 38,000 to 40,000 years.

According to LaCroix, this civilization tracked cosmic cycles, anticipated global disasters, and embedded teachings about human origins, the structure of the universe, and divine existence into monuments and sacred sites.

His investigation began after identifying recurring giant T-shapes, three-level indents, and step pyramids carved into ancient stones worldwide.

'These specific symbols that are built in different size proportions, and the symbols are found in ancient stones around the world, are not supposed to exist; no cultures are supposed to have any cross-platform,' LaCroix explained.

The symbols appear in locations ranging from Turkey's Van region to South America and Cambodia.

According to LaCroix, the origin of this global system lies in eastern Turkey's Lake Van region at a site known as Ionis.

He described it as the earliest source of the civilization's symbols, architecture, and teachings, dating it to around 40,000 years old. He argues it preserves the original blueprint later carried to places such as Giza and Tiwanaku.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

"A New Constellation of Orbital Data Centers"

From Alan Boyle's 2-2-26 COSMIC LOG article entitled "Elon Musk Lays Out a New Vision as SpaceX Acquires xAI":

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says he’s making space-based artificial intelligence the “immediate focus” of a newly expanded company that not only builds rockets and satellites, but also controls xAI’s generative-AI software and the X social-media platform.

That’s the upshot of today’s announcement that SpaceX has acquired xAI. The Information quoted unnamed sources as saying that xAI was valued at $250 billion, while SpaceX’s value was set at a trillion dollars. That would make SpaceX the most valuable private company in the world — but because Musk held a controlling interest in both companies, those valuations may be somewhat subjective.

Ross Gerber, an investment adviser who tracks Musk’s business dealings, quipped on X that the world’s richest person decided to go ahead with the acquisition after “a short negotiation with himself.”

Musk said the combination of SpaceX and xAI would facilitate the creation of a new constellation of orbital data centers. SpaceX is already seeking approval from the Federal Communications Commission to put up to a million satellites in low Earth orbit for such a constellation.

To read the entire article, click HERE.