Book Received: The Children of Old Leech Anthology - trade paperback edition

During April of last year I had the opportunity to work on a unique collection of stories edited -- and published -- by Ross E. Lockhart, under his Word Horde label.

The book is entitled The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron -- and it has just been published in a trade paperback edition.

I previously wrote about my work on this book last April (Editing in Process...), and then followed up with another blog post in July (Book Received...) after the deluxe hardcover edition (with all its accompanying swag) arrived in the mail. Fortunately, for those who prefer paperbacks, or in this case a trade paperback, TCoOL is now available in an easy-to-hold edition that won't break the proverbial bank.

Around the same time the book was initially published, Ross began showcasing excerpts from each of the 17 stories, beginning with "The Harrow" by Gemma Files. If you're unfamiliar with -- or undecided about -- this anthology, click "The Harrow" link and read the excerpt. And at the bottom of the page you'll see a link to the next story, and so on.

Here is the contents list, once again, for The Children of Old Leech:

Introduction: Of Whisky and Doppelgängers — Justin Steele

The Harrow — Gemma Files

Pale Apostle — J. T. Glover & Jesse Bullington

Walpurgisnacht — Orrin Grey

Learn to Kill — Michael Cisco

Good Lord, Show Me the Way — Molly Tanzer

Snake Wine — Jeffrey Thomas

Love Songs from the Hydrogen Jukebox — T.E. Grau

The Old Pageant — Richard Gavin

Notes for "The Barn in the Wild" — Paul Tremblay

Firedancing — Michael Griffin

The Golden Stars at Night — Allyson Bird

The Last Crossroads on a Calendar of

Yesterdays — Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

The Woman in the Wood — Daniel Mills

Brushdogs — Stephen Graham Jones

Ymir — John Langan

Of a Thousand Cuts — Cody Goodfellow

Tenebrionidae — Scott Nicolay & Jesse James Douthit-Nicolay

Afterword — Ross E. Lockhart

I wouldn't be surprised if a story or two (or three, or...) ended up on one or more of this year's awards lists. Don't miss this opportunity to read some of the best "weird" horror fiction in recent years. I'll close this blog post with a couple sentences I wrote back in April 2014:

But it is the subtitle that's the clincher: "A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron." Imagine, 17 stories (by 19 authors) and more than 100,000 words of fiction, written using characters, situations, and locales created by Laird Barron. It gave me the willies just thinking about it... And that was even before I worked on the book!