September 19, 2012

Gaps

New Tales of the Yellow Sign, my anthology of weird tales conjuring Robert W. Chambers’ classic King in Yellow mythos, is in print as of September from Atomic Overmind Press, and in ebook form from vendors including Amazon/Kindle, Nook, Smashwords, Apple iTunes, and Paizo.

This post is second in a series looking at the individual stories.

When trauma compromises your memory, spaces in time become abysses of horror. Experience this through the second-person point of view of “Gaps”’ unnamed narrator, for whom a kidnapping scheme leads to strange vengeance and an even stranger affection. What complicity do you bear if you jump into an awful crime in mid-act, with no memory of the decision that led to it?

Kenneth Hite, in his introduction finds parallels to multiple Chambers tales:

...a long-form, secular variation on the theme Chambers sets down in “In the Court of the Dragon,” invoking in negative space the games of memory in “Repairer of Reputations,” the loss and wonder of “The Demoiselle D’Ys,” and in muted tones the shifts in “The Prophets’ Paradise.”