Category: Short stories

Brian James Freeman, owner of Lividian Publications, has a Patreon page with different tiers that have different rewards for each level. One of the tiers, the Guest Author Chapbooks tier, is $10/month. Patrons of that tier, and higher tiers, will receive two chapbooks each year by guest authors, as well as two chapbooks per year written by Brian James Freeman (tier 1).

The next Guest Author Chapbook is Robert McCammon’s “Children of the Bedtime Machine,” featuring fantastic art by François Vaillancourt. The chapbook will be signed by Robert McCammon and François Vaillancourt. It will ship in January or February.

“Children of the Bedtime Machine” originally appeared in Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury. It was also included in the Subterranean Press edition of Blue World.

It’s not too late to become a patron of the Brian James Freeman Patreon and receive this chapbook. Becoming a patron is the only way to get the chapbook, though I expect copies will show up on eBay when some patrons decide to sell theirs.

Italian publisher Cut-Up Publishing will release Il Grande Spettacolo delle Ombre, an Italian translation of Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, edited by Mort Castle and Sam Weller and originally published in 2012. The collection includes 26 stories by various authors, including Robert McCammon’s “Children of the Bedtime Machine.”

The book will be available on January 12, 2024, in hardcover and ebook formats. For more details, visit the Cut-Up Publishing page for the book.

Here is video of Robert McCammon’s presentation at the book launch for Seven Shades of Evil, which took place at Alabama Booksmith on Saturday, October 28, 2023.

During the presentation, Robert McCammon read a new Matthew Corbett short story called “Robber’s Roost.” The short story will not be published anywhere, and at the end of the presentation, the story was given away in a random drawing.

I hadn’t planned to record the presentation, so I simply held my phone, and it shows. Sorry about that. After the short story reading, I stopped recording video and switched to audio. At around the half-hour mark, the image switches to a static image, but you can listen to the other half hour of questions and answers.

–Hunter

RIP, William Friedkin. In addition to The Exorcist and many more films, Friedkin directed the 1985 The Twilight Zone adaptation of Robert McCammon’s “Nightcrawlers.”

I was reminded that this Trailers from Hell podcast features Joe Dante and William Friedkin discussing “Nightcrawlers” right after the intro music.

Trailers from Hell: William Friedkin

Here’s a behind-the-scenes photo of William Friedkin directing Scott Paulin on the set of “Nightcrawlers.”

When Subterranean Press published the limited edition of The Providence Rider in 2012, they included a bonus Matthew Corbett short story called “Death Comes for the Rich Man.” Several years later, the story was reprinted in the anthology Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 3.

Until now, the only way to read the story was by having a copy of one of those books. The story is not included in the upcoming collection Seven Shades of Evil, so Robert McCammon decided to release the story digitally here as a free gift for his readers. You can read the story as a web page here, or you can download the story in various ebook formats.

The cover art for the ebook is by Vincent Chong. The illustration accompanied the story in the limited edition of The Providence Rider. Thank you to Vincent for letting us re-use the image for the ebook files!

“Death Comes for the Rich Man” — A Matthew Corbett Story

Download EPUB, AZW3, MOBI, PDF

The next Matthew Corbett book, Seven Shades of Evil, will be published in October 2023 by Lividian Publications! And if you missed the news, a launch event for the book will take place October 28, 2023, at the Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham, AL. Robert McCammon will speak about the book, as well as sign copies of the book and other books you can bring with you. For full details, click here.

“The Wicked Gambler” is a character who represents the era in which the Matthew Corbett stories are set. Robert McCammon’s next release is a collection of stories from Matthew Corbett’s world, Seven Shades of Evil. In his author photo for the book, Robert McCammon had makeup artist and photographer Amanda Chapman create “The Wicked Gambler.”

Robert McCammon has written a new short story entitled “The Wicked Gambler and His Walking Cane” to tell the origin of the walking cane that can be seen in the author photo.

“The Wicked Gambler and His Walking Cane”

The walking cane is the prize in an Alabama Booksmith giveaway that will take place at the Seven Shades of Evil launch party on Saturday, October 28, 2023! For details about the party and how to enter the giveaway contest, please read the June 26 post Alabama Booksmith: October Launch Event and a Giveaway!

Seven Shades of Evil: Stories from Matthew Corbett’s World will be published by Lividian Publications in October 2023. The book contains stories set in the world of Matthew Corbett and featuring various characters from the previous novels. Lividian has revealed the Table of Contents:

  • *The Four Lamplighters (features Matthew and Hudson)
  • Night Ride (features Matthew)
  • The House at the Edge of the World (features Hudson)
  • The Scorpion’s Eye (features Minx)
  • *Skeleton Crew (features Katherine)
  • The Pale Pipesmoker (features Katherine and Minx)
  • *Wandering Mary (features Matthew)
  • *Incident on The Lady Barbara (features Berry)

“*” indicates stories that are new to this collection. Two of the others were previously published in limited editions, and the other two were published here on RobertMcCammon.com.

The Brian J. Freeman-edited anthology Midnight Under the Big Top will be published in trade paperback by Cemetery Dance in July 2023. The anthology includes a reprint of Robert McCammon’s “The Great White Way” (originally published in The Hunter from the Woods), along with stories by bunches of other people. Cemetery Dance originally published a limited edition of the book in August 2020 that sold out almost immediately and has been out-of-print since.

For full details about this affordable trade paperback release of this giant book, please visit the Cemetery Dance website. The new cover by Ben Baldwin is shown below.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Robert McCammon’s short story “He’ll Come Knocking at Your Door” will be adapted as a feature film for Paramount. The project will be directed by Patrick Brice, from a script by Jordan Goldberg and Alex Paraskevas.

For more details, visit The Hollywood Reporter site.

This follows the news that a series inspired by Stinger is being adapted for Peacock. Filming of the as-yet-untitled series begins this fall.

Hot Horror Package ‘He’ll Come Knocking’ Lands at Paramount (Exclusive)