The siren song of nautical fiction calls across time & space, in tales of adventure, horror, love, and loss in AMAZING MONSTER TALES #4: Into the Briny Deep. Of our 11 sea stories, we were able to catch interviews with the authors of 9 of them. These interviews describe writers’ loves for the ocean, their deepest memories of it, and the nautical monsters they love. From mermaids and sirens, to
Family destiny calls a young man to the ocean in this story that perfectly balances love and horror, “The Late Bloomer” by Jamie Ferguson. This story encapsulates a lot of what I love about Jamie’s fiction. It’s not flashy or fast-paced, but it takes on core inner truths that most people wouldn’t touch with a thousand-foot pole, or that they would simplify and make easier to digest. Fools may rush
A solar eclipse portends doom in a journey through frozen Antarctic seas in “The Man Who Would Sell Fear,” a historical science fiction tale by DeAnna Knippling. Jamie Ferguson and I are in all the issues of Amazing Monster Tales and both edit, swapping tasks as time allows. Like many of the things we do together, it started out as me making a smartass comment about doing a project together,
Jetpacks, Nazis, sea monsters, J. Edgar Hoover, and more! Who doesn’t want a taste of classic adventure? Read all about it in Jim LeMay and Charles Eugene Anderson’s “Sea Monster of Monterray vs. the Nazis”! Jim LeMay and Charles Eugene Anderson have written two stories for Amazing Monster Tales, both of them featuring jetpack hero Daring Dorian Pace. These stories are as close to the old pulp fiction tales that
A darkly compelling dream from the deep summons thousands to the California coast, a siren song offering to make all dreams come true, or at least to end to all disappointments, in Jeff Wood’s “Clickbait.” Jeff Wood appeared in Amazing Monster Tales #2: Monster Road Trip, with a messed-up tale about roadside repairs and the little detours we all make along the way, going horrifically wrong. Here, he’s back on the
Pursuing one of Napoleon’s French frigates, the HMS Pegasus may soon find itself the prey of the mysterious Crotar! Every time I read one of Grayson’s short stories (which have appeared in Jamie’s short story collections before), I’m always jealous! This one particularly got to me, with all its juicy historical details. Ah, well. One of the reasons that I like editing the Amazing Monster Tales series is that I
Travel to a long-ago, twisted Japan where a monster brings inescapable good fortune to a seaside village, in Travis Heermann’s “An Idol for Emiko.” Jamie and I have had the privilege of talking writing with Travis on a semi-regular basis before the pandemic struck. I hope we get back to doing that at some point! He’s very chill, a total geek, and loves to experiment with new things. I’m looking
For a mermaid to walk on land, the price to be paid is far greater than the loss of her voice in Alethea Kontis’s story “Blood and Water.” I’ve been following the adventures of Princess Alethea over social media for some time now, but haven’t had a chance to meet her in person yet. Someday. I wasn’t expecting to get a story so exquisitely dark and violent, to be honest.
The ship is sinking and blood and sharks fill the water. All that’s left is to die…or fight! In Brigid Collins’s historical WWII story, “The Road Beneath Indianapolis,” a sailor must fight against the urge to yield to thirst, despair…and monsters! Brigid Collins often writes about the fae and other creatures from myth and folklore, tales that range from very dark stories to stories that are still sharp, but
In the decade after the Great War, a wealthy old woman needs to hire a research assistant to help her at her creepy old mansion on the gloomy Oregon Coast in Lee Allred’s story “Murmuration of a Darkening Sea.” I met fiction and comics author Lee Allred at a writer’s workshop on the Oregon Coast a while ago–I forget what year now. What stuck with me was the way he