A Lush and Seething Hell
Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
-
-
4.6 • 7 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
A World Fantasy Award Nominee!
The award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition.
Bringing together his acclaimed novella The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky and an all-new short novel My Heart Struck Sorrow, John Hornor Jacobs turns his fertile imagination to the evil that breeds within the human soul.
A brilliant mix of the psychological and supernatural, blending the acute insight of Roberto Bolaño and the eerie imagination of H. P. Lovecraft, The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky examines life in a South American dictatorship. Centered on the journal of a poet-in-exile and his failed attempts at translating a maddening text, it is told by a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.
In My Heart Struck Sorrow, a librarian discovers a recording from the Deep South—which may be the musical stylings of the Devil himself.
Breathtaking and haunting, A Lush and Seething Hell is a terrifying and exhilarating journey into the darkness, an odyssey into the deepest reaches of ourselves that compels us to confront secrets best left hidden.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jacobs's collection bundles two evocative novellas exploring human depravity and corruption. "The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky" focuses on the tenuous relationship between aging, once-infamous poet Rafael Avenda o and young academic Isabel Certa, both exiles from the dictator-ravaged South American country of Magera and now living in M laga, Spain. When Isabel finds Rafael's journal and his attempts to translate an unsettling text ("It is a lure, a sweet aroma,/ the killing and/ the letting of blood") from Latin and Greek into Spanish, she descends into a world of unthinkable corruption. In "My Heart Struck Sorrow," a librarian discovers the journals and recordings of a man who recorded blues music in the Deep South, and learns of his fall into madness as he uncovers the Satanic roots of a popular blues tune. In Jacobs's work, the present is held in a manacled grip by the foolishness and horrors of the past. His writing is meticulous, detailed, and atmospheric, evoking a sense of place and suspense in equal turns. Horror readers will enjoy Jacobs's dark vision of human nature.
Customer Reviews
Two really fantastic novellas
The title and jacket illustration really drew me in and I am happy to say these are two of the best short horror stories I’ve read in a long time. If you’re on the fence, jump in!