“I don’t think I’ve ever read a book of stories that are as intelligently written as these. Dave’s work is extremely passionate, deep, and effecting…sometimes to the point of not being very accessible. But other times he can write a story that is that is a just such a joy to read you just sit back and marvel at his talent.

Ennui was a mixed bag for me. Most short story books usually are though, it’s not often you pick one up where you enjoy every entry, you just hope there are more to your liking than not, or that are one or two that stand out that make the reading worth while.

Dave’s stories in this book are not what I would call traditional horror. They are extremely atmospheric and usually address the subjects of pain and loss. Dave does have some stories with conventional creepies here and there, but for the most part, they address horror’s that define the emptiness of the soul…”

READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW!

Anyway -for backstory on For These Things I Am Truly Thankful and an excerpt…

For the three titles available through the Sony Ebookstore - this one, plus BURNING BRIDGES and THE NEXT LEVEL - both of which are fairly obscure.

Here’s a look at the reader … and the image is linked to the Sony e-book store.

There is more on this today over at Macabre Ink.

-DNW

I wrote this story for an anthology about art and horror.  I have no idea why it didn’t end up in that book.  There was another book like that - HWA’s DARK ARTS - and I was in that, but it was a different story.  This one popped into my head pretty much full blown, and it’s strange.  A lot of my stories tend to take a sort of literary high-road into the surreal.  I’ve found that these are the stories that leave an impression on readers the longest, but also the stories that people either hate, or love - no in between.

There’s a short bit of backstory here: THE WHIRLING MAN - as well as a short EXCERPT.

Enjoy!

-DNW

Ennui & Other States of Madness is a 360 plus page book - and one of the things included within those pages is a 35,000 word novella - previously unpublished - titled The Preacher’s Marsh.  I find it odd that (given the history of my books and the market) I could sell that novella by itself, signed, for $45-50 and sell out, but the collection, which offers so much more on top of that novella, is not sold out yet.

Anyway - if you go here:  THE PREACHER’S MARSH you can find an excerpt from the novella, and some of the backstory behind it.

Then you should go HERE and order the book - at least the signed trade paperback, a REAL bargain at $19.95…

-DNW

Read more about the story here….

Read an excerpt from the novelette here

You can read more about the story here…

You can read an excerprt from ENNUI here…

Thanks for stopping by.  Don’t forget to preorder the limited edition - the contest ends soon.

-DWN

The printed interiors of the book have been shipped from the printer to the binder. They will arrive soon. Once they do, the book has to be bound, the publisher has to check it out for quality - and the dust jacket has to be sized to fit the final product. That’s the limited. The lettered will be a bit more delayed, still, because slip-covers have to be built. It’s all a waiting game, as you know.

Still, the time between now and the release of the hardcover, signed limited edition is not far in the future. There are a lot of pre-orders already in, and there will only ever be 100 of the limited edition. On top of that, there will only be one winner of the contest - and the only way to enter it is to pre-order the limited or lettered edition of the book, so time is in the mythical hourglass, so to speak.

I’ve already linked pictures of the prize - a hand-bound (sewn page signatures, leather boards) copy of the collection that I made by hand and personalized, packed in a hand-made tray-case (salvaged from a fancy candy box) with a hand-scribed replica of a Jack the Ripper note on the top of the box. Also included is an antique bullseye lantern, and I can affirm I paid nearly a hundred dollars for it when I needed it for research on the story ENNUI.

All of that can be yours, but if you don’t play, you can’t win, as they say…order today!

MORE INFO ON THE CONTEST HERE:

I’m counting on at least a few of these being useful in marketing the limited edition.  The publisher took a big chance. He believes in getting his books out there and letting them run, so when the trade paperback came in first, he released it.  Most publishers would have held off, trying to get as many limited editions out as possible first, but Joe Morey - the man behind Dark Regions Press - has enough faith in me, and in my book - that he believes the collectors will still buy their copies, but the readers should get them as soon as they are available.

I intend to do all that I can to prove him right.  So…if you are a reviewer, and you just got my book…I hope you love it, and I’ll be waiting (as patiently as possible) to find out what you think, and to help share your review with the world at large.

As I’m so fond of saying…. ONWARD!

-DNW

What I’d like to do is to finish that book this year, but there is only one way that can happen.  I have to start from the beginning, revise the chapters up to the point where I quit, and then write on from there.  It’s the only way to get it fresh in my mind, and it’s the only way I can be sure I iron out the twists and turns that bedeviled me the first time I set out to write it.

Unless something changes - I do have a Stargate Atlantis novel to write soon (if all goes well I’ll know tomorrow) and I also have a novel following up on THE SPIRT when that movie comes out, if all goes well..if one of those drops into place at the right time, Nanowrimo might be the key.

For now, the plan is to put Gideon’s Curse to rest - and it means I’ll have to write a 100,000 word novel so that I meet the 50,000 new words during Nanowrimo goal.  I can do that.  There is a little known clause that says when you’ve successfully completed the challenge a few times, you can work on works in progress…but it’s still 50,000 words.

Just to get you all in the mood…here is the prlogue I wrote a few years back:

GIDEON’S CURSE

David Niall Wilson

Prologue:

PROLOGUE

Desdemona knelt in the loamy soil in the center of the old church. What had once been a wood plank floor had rotted away or been torn apart by encroaching vines. The swamp called to its own. The last rays of afternoon sun filtered in through the cracks in the walls and spider-webbed the interior with dancing shadows and flame-red trails of light.

The broken altar canted to one side, but remained upright, and behind it on the wall a hand-carved statue of the Messiah stared down with vacant eyes. Candles were arranged in a semi-circle about her, and she lit them, one by one, ignoring the pain as her single wooden match burned down to sear her fingertips.

Desdemona stared at the candle directly before her, willing herself to sway with the motion of the flame, catching the breath and pulse of the swamp. She felt it seep up through the moist earth, rise through her bones and reach out to her heart and mind. It chanted in time with the rhythm of the swaying limbs on the low-slung trees. She felt the caress of serpent tongues on her thighs and gasped as a cold shiver of air forced its way through a crack in the burned wood of the wall and lodged in her spine.

She groped blindly beside her, felt the damp earth, and then her fingers closed on the rim of a cracked, soiled pottery bowl. She plunged her hand in, gripped the dry, brittle handful of chalk-white bones and clutched them to her breast. A low, keening sound rose from deep in her throat, and she closed her eyes. She rocked up and back and leaned so close to the candle flames on the forward motion that a strand of her hair caught the flame. It flashed away in a smoky puff, and she hissed in pain as the heat reached her scalp.

The last of the day’s light faded and the light of the candles encased her in a luminous yellow cocoon. Her knees trembled, and the palsy shot up her frame, quivered through her legs and over her too-thin hips. Her ribs shook so violently that a fit of coughing threatened to expel her lungs. Still she rocked and clung to the bones. They cut into her flesh until small droplets of blood leaked out through the cracks between her fingers.

With a gasp she released them. Her eyes snapped open and she watched them fall. They tumbled and rattled as they arched toward the dirt. Some bounced off the bases of the candles. Her eyes roved over the pattern, picking it from the odd structures and the seemingly random angles. Her lips moved, but she didn’t speak. One bone balanced, canted on its edge as if unable to drop and define its message. She reached out, uncertain if she meant to snatch it up before it could fall, or force it one way or the other.

She never touched it. The ground rippled beneath her. A small cascade of dirt rolled against the bone and it toppled. She pulled her hand back as if snake-bit and cried out.

A sliding, sinuous vibration rose through the earth. The swamp released a burp of warm gas and hideous stench. Desdemona closed her eyes and her vision cleared. She met the deep, piercing gaze of a familiar face, a face last seen in its coffin. The eyes were dead, the sockets half empty, and the flesh eaten from the bone as though that familiar skull, those beloved features, had been dipped in acid and left to melt and crumble inward.

Desdemona leaped to her feet. She glanced one way, then the other, and tried to orient herself. Then she lunged for the door. The candles continued to burn, and the bones mocked her from the dirt floor of the church. She clawed her way out the door and ran. Something hard and brittle crackled underfoot - as if the bones moved and scratched her feet. Something had called to them, and they answered. There was something in the wind; Desdemona needed to see it, and to know. If it was her time, at last, she had to prepare.

She crashed through the swamp, legs flashing, limbs and branches slashing painfully at her flesh. She focused on a point beyond the pain, a time beyond the swamp. She turned and saw lights glimmering at the edge of her vision. In the second she was distracted the ground rippled a final time. She screamed. Her mind filled with images of the bones, growing and stretching, grasping at her ankles. She felt something clawing its way free to prevent her from reaching her goal. A sickly, greenish glow floated behind the mist that rose from the cool, moist ground. She broke free with a loud curse.

Lifeless eyes burned with greenish light in her mind. Haunted by her dead son’s face, she ran toward the edge of the swamp and the migrant camp. She ran toward her grandson and the hateful, devil’s plantation. Behind her, in the leaping light of candles trapped in the swamp’s breath, bone shadows danced.

“Ennui and Other States of Madness

Earlier this year, I had an opportunity to read some work by one of my favorite authors, David Niall Wilson, before publication. Now that pre-sales are available for two of the three, I can go ahead and talk about them. The first is Ennui and Other States of Madness.

Due to be published in August from Dark Regions Press, Ennui and Other States of Madness is Wilson’s first collection of short stories since his Stoker-nominated Defining Moments. It is a mixture of previously-published work and some pieces that are new to the volume.

One of the things I like most about Wilson’s work is his ability to shift gears and change focus dramatically from story to story, as opposed to some authors who find one vein and doggedly mine it long after they’ve said everything they can about it. The seventeen stories featured here illustrate this very well.”

==>>Read the Entire Review at Dead in the South