The world has ended.
Along with other scattered survivors, astronaut Cynthia Han and the remainder of ISS Expedition 81 have finally learned what happened to the people they’d left behind, and it’s worse than any of them could have imagined.
But even if life as Cynthia knew it is over, her struggles most certainly are not. Joshua Lamb, granted strange and inhuman abilities even as civilization died around him, directs his zealots to scoop up every pocket of survivors, to offer them the simplest choice: Join or die. The nightmarish Crooked Men still hunt the darkened, hollowed cityscapes. And towering over it all, the mind-breaking obelisks with their unreadable alien message.
At stake are not just the lives of Cynthia and her companions, but the last flickering embers of the human race. To succeed, not only must she learn the true purpose of the obelisks, she must come to understand that the worst of humanity’s instincts and sins were never limited to us alone.
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So, it’s been approximately fifty-seven years since I’ve updated. I’m sorry about that. I’m in the midst of ArmadilloCon for the next few days, but after that, I hope to have time for some proper updates.
In the interim, if you’re at ArmadilloCon, you can catch me here:
SATURDAY
1:00 — Sensitivity Readers: Censorship or Sensible? (Ballroom F)
Don’t be expecting a neutral mediator here. I have strong opinions on this topic, and strong opinions on those whose agendas have led to a sometimes deliberate misunderstanding of what this topic is.
2:00 — Signing (Dealers Room)
I don’t have any of my books here, but maybe the vendors might, and you’re welcome to bring your own. If nothing else, I have flyers; I could sign one of those for you.
5:00 — Combining Genres (Ballroom E)
SUNDAY
11:00 am — The Vampire Renaissance (Ballroom E)
For Flight Engineer Cynthia Han and her fellow astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 81 has proved as mundane as space travel ever gets. Yes, this would be Cynthia’s final NASA mission, for reasons she’s so far kept from the rest of the crew; and yes, the latest billionaire “space tourist” has managed to irritate everyone on board. Still, none of them could have asked for a smoother experience.
Until the morning they wake up to silence. All communication with Earth, gone. From half a dozen different agencies with multiple installations and redundancies across the globe, there is simply… nothing.
And through the viewports of the ISS, only the thick veil of churning, lightning-veined dust to suggest the Earth remains at all.
Now, without ground control, without the proper telemetries or calculations or even reliable visuals, Cynthia and the rest of Expedition 81 must make their way home. It will be the most fraught and the most frightening task of their lives.
But it will be nothing compared to the world that now awaits them beyond the dust.
This morning, I did an online chat/interview with Anjuli Smith of Aconyte Books. We talked mostly about Litany of Dreams, but also about Lovecraftian horror, horror in general, addressing “outdated” attitudes in classic writers, and other such things.
So if you’d like to witness the unspeakable horror that is me awake at 10 AM–or maybe you’re just interested in what we had to say–check it out here! (Special cameo appearance by Jarvis at right around the one-minute mark.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4gozi6Wcao&ab_channel=AconyteBooks
It’s been a while since I’ve updated this site, and I’m still figuring out how some of the new options even work. But I realized I hadn’t announced this here, so…
Litany of Dreams is now available in both e-book and hardcopy!
A tie-in novel for the Arkham Horror line of games, Litany is my first foray into novel-length Lovecraftian horror.
The mysterious disappearance of a gifted student at Miskatonic University spurs his troubled roommate, Elliot Raslo, into an investigation of his own. But Elliot already struggles against the maddening allure of a ceaseless chant that only he can hear… When Elliot’s search converges with that of a Greenland Inuk’s hunt for a stolen relic, they are left with yet more questions. Could there be a connection between Elliot’s litany and the broken stone stele covered in antediluvian writings that had obsessed his friend? Learning the answers will draw them into the heart of a devilish plot to rebirth an ancient horror.
While I work on trying to figure out how to actually add more about this book to the site’s bibliography, I thought I’d offer you a chance to read more about it and see if it interests you. So…
Interviews
https://www.trackofwords.com/2021/03/29/rapid-fire-ari-marmell-talks-litany-of-dreams/
http://trans–scribe.blogspot.com/2021/04/arkham-horror-litany-of-dreams-ari.html
https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-litany-of-dreams-author-ari-marmell/
Reviews
http://trans–scribe.blogspot.com/2021/04/arkham-horror-litany-of-dreams-by-ari.html
https://www.armedwithabook.com/litany-of-dreams/
https://www.strangeassembly.com/2021/review-litany-of-dreams-arkham-horror-fiction
There are more, of course, but this ought to be enough to get you started. Hope you all enjoy!
