Umbra Sapiens & Other Lurking Life-Forms

The universe is filled with a complex array of surreal life-forms that can be found in unlikely settings. In this story collection, Mark McLaughlin serves as your guide to the most obscure and in some cases, reclusive creatures that Creation has to offer. In “Lurkers From The Dreamlands,” you will learn how bizarre hybrid creatures, from folklore as well as urban legends, were created when humans began to interact with the denizens of the Dreamlands. “Let Me Tell You About Aliens” reveals how and why life-forms from other planets and even solar systems visit the Earth whenever they please. “Delilah’s Siblings” presents the secrets of an unusually large rural family with a disturbing lifestyle. In “Speaking Parts: Frankenstein’s Monster Restitched As A Crazy Quilt Of Flash Fictions,” you will find out more about the components of history’s most notorious assembled monster. None of the parts were donated to the doctor who created the creature. The innovative physician collected the pieces one by one, and each of them has a story to share. “Phantasmapedia: An Alphabestiary of Little-Known Demons, Entities, Mutants, and Pseudo-Biological Aberrations” provides an overview of many weird beings that live hidden in strange locations, or unseen in our midst.

About the Author

MARK McLAUGHLIN is a Bram Stoker Award-winning author whose earliest works were published in literary journals during his teen years. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in more than 1,000 magazines, newspapers, websites, and anthologies, including CEMETERY DANCE, MIDNIGHT PREMIERE, DARK ARTS, LIVING DEAD 2, WRITER'S DIGEST, GALAXY, TOASTMASTER MAGAZINE, and two volumes of YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES (DAW Books). He is also an experienced public relations specialist. He is the author of the novels HUMAN DOLL, a tale of suspense, murder, and the entertainment industry ... THE HELL NEXT DOOR, an adventure set in the after-life ... and INJECTABLES, a work of Lovecraftian horror.Wildside Press has released a mammoth collection of McLaughlin's fiction: THE WEIRD WORLD OF MARK McLAUGHLIN MEGAPACK®. In addition, McLaughlin is the author of many other solo fiction collections, including AS OSIRIS WILLS, BEST LITTLE WITCH-HOUSE IN ARKHAM, MIDNIGHT PET SHOW, EMPRESS OF THE LIVING DEAD, DIMENSION OF MONSTERS, URBAN MONSTERS, UMBRA SAPIENS, THE SPIDERWEB TREE, and HIDEOUS FACES, BEAUTIFUL SKULLS. McLaughlin is the author of many works in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft. Story collections in this vein, co-written with his best friend, Michael Sheehan, Jr., include THE WRATH OF NYARLATHOTEP, HORRORS & ABOMINATIONS, NIGHTMARES & TENTACLES, WEIRD WORSHIP, THE HOUSE OF THE OCELOT, THE PRISONER OF CARCOSA, and CITY OF LIVING SHADOWS. McLaughlin is the coauthor, with Rain Graves and David Niall Wilson, of THE GOSSAMER EYE, which won the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Poetry. Also, Mark is the author of the poetry collections, CRUSHED VELVET, THE EMBRACE OF THE INTERNET WITCH, and PROFESSOR LAGUNGO'S EXOTIC ARTIFACTS & ASSORTED MYSTIC COLLECTIBLES: INCREASED INVENTORY.

Reviews

News