S.G. Browne

Swallowed by the Cracks, the collection of short stories by Lee Thomas, Gary McMahon, Michael Marshall Smith, and myself, is now available for your Kindle or your Nook:

Kindle Version

Nook Version

In short, Swallowed by the Cracks is a collection of horror stories and dark tales that contains four stories from each of the four authors. My stories include two supernatural horror tales (“Lower Slaughter” and “The Lord of Words”) that are pre-Breathers and two more (“Dream Girls” and “Dr. Lullaby”) that are more along the lines of the dark comedy and social satire you’ll find in Fated and Breathers.

However, if you prefer the old-fashioned paper version of the collection, you can order it from Dark Arts Books or from any of the following outlets:

Amazon.com
Bad Moon Books
Borderlands Books
The Horror Mall
Jeff N Joy’s
Realms of Fantasy Books
Ziesing Books

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting excerpts from each of my four short stories included in the recently released Dark Arts Books collection, Swallowed by the Cracks, which is available for order through the Dark Arts website.

Below is an excerpt from the opening of “Dr. Lullaby,” a short story that takes place in Manhattan and is the concept upon which I’ve based one of my future novels.

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DR. LULLABY

People still get confused about my name.

I suppose I shouldn’t take it personally. After all, it’s not like I’ve ever done any interviews or tried to set the matter straight. I’m not even the one who came up with the moniker. I think The New York Post was the first to print it. That was my first big headline. The one that turned me into a local celebrity. Though celebrity isn’t really the right word, since no one knows for sure who I am. Who any of us are.

Still, you’d think that after all of the press surrounding the events that have transpired over the past few months, people would understand what it is I do. But from what I hear on the street and on talk radio, a lot of people still think I’m some kind of serenading physician or an academic pedophile.

I’m thinking I need to hire a good publicist.

Before I go any further, I should probably explain a few things. So let me start at the beginning. Or maybe we should start in the middle. Isn’t that where stories are supposed to start? In the middle? Not with the hero graduating from college and getting a job working for an advertising agency in Manhattan, then getting downsized and blowing through his severance and savings in less than a year and trying to figure out how he’s going to earn a living.

You don’t start with all of that expository crap.
The wistful reverie.
The character building.

It’s not: Lights. Camera. Backstory.

What you start with is action.

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“Dr. Lullaby” can be read in its entirety in Swallowed by the Cracks.

As I mentioned in last Friday’s blog post, I’m going to have four (mostly) never-before-published short stories appearing in the collection Swallowed By The Cracks, which will debut at the World Horror Convention in Austin, TX,  at the end of this month. I say “mostly” never-before-published because one of the stories, “Lower Slaughter,” appeared in Issue #30 of Outer Darkness in 2005.

But the other three are new.  And one of them, “Dr. Lullaby,” is a bit of a sneak peak at one of the novels I’m currently working on.

In any case, the collection, which also includes stories from Lee Thomas, Gary McMahon, and Michael Marshall Smith, is available for Pre-Order now at the Dark Arts Books bookstore.  And if you’re so inclined, you can check out the official announcement of Swallowed By The Cracks.

I’m happy to announce that Dark Arts Books is going to be publishing four short stories of mine in their new collection Swallowed by the Cracks, which will officially debut at the World Horror Convention in Austin, TX, at the end of April.   The collection, which also includes stories by Lee Thomas, Gary McMahon, and Michael Marshall Smith, will be available on Amazon and at other various bookstores beginning May 1.

Three of my stories in the collection have never been published and two of them are examples of the type of fiction I predominantly wrote from 1990-2003.  Supernatural horror.  Alternate dimensions.  Unexplained phenomenon and things that go bump in the night.

My four stories include:

“Lower Slaughter” – a story about a married couple vacationing in England who discover that time has a habit of slipping away;

“The Lord of Words” – the tale of a struggling writer who believes that outside forces are attempting to prevent him from finishing his novel;

“Dream Girls” – a social satire about a new technology that involves cloning, aliens, and the assassination of JFK;

and “Dr. Lullaby” – a cautionary comic tale about the unexpected side-effects of an over-medicated society.

These last two stories are both written in the first person and similar to the style in which I wrote Breathers, Fated, and the upcoming Lucky Bastard.  So it’s a nice mix of supernatural tales and dark comedies.

In addition to my stories, you’ll find some nice dark fiction and tales of horror from the three gentlemen I mentioned above (Lee, Gary, and Michael) all of whom are most excellent wordsmiths.  I’m honored to be included in the collection with them and I’m looking forward to celebrating the release of Swallowed by the Cracks next month in Austin.