Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

INTRODUCTION

WEIRDER SHADOWS…

FOLLOWING ON FROM the World Fantasy Award-nominated Shadows Over Innsmouth (1994) and Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth (2005), this third volume was intended to conclude a loosely connected trilogy of anthologies inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s 1931 novella.

As readers of the previous volumes will be aware, it has been far from plain sailing. After the trials and tribulations involved in getting the first book published, I had hoped that the follow-up volume would have found a ready and enthusiastic audience. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons beyond my control, that did not happen.

After having turned out a number of worthwhile and beautiful books from the late 1980s onwards, by the beginning of the new century publisher Fedogan & Bremer was starting to struggle. Despite producing a number of new titles by Hugh B. Cave, Donald Wandrei and Howard Wandrei in the early 2000s, along with a new “Cthulhu” anthology edited by Robert M. Price, the money was no longer coming in as regularly as it had once been. The economics of book-selling were already beginning to change, and for a small operation such as Fedogan & Bremer, this meant that it had wait longer and longer for payment for bookstores and dealers, with the inevitable result that there was not always enough money to invest in new projects.

It perhaps didn’t help that the publisher’s accounting system was also not as good as it should have been, and orders went unfulfilled for long periods. Although they set up a distribution deal with Arkham House—somewhat ironic, considering that F&B was initially created to fill a gap in the market left by that imprint—even that venerable small press publisher was going through some tough times itself.

On top of all that, publisher/editor Philip Rahman had his own personal demons to contend with.

I therefore suggested to Philip that we do another “Innsmouth” anthology. The first book had been a success, going into a rare second printing for F&B and selling to a number of paperback markets around the world. If the follow-up volume did as well as its predecessor, then it should generate enough revenue to kick-start the imprint’s publishing programme again.

Philip readily agreed, and in November 2005 he launched Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth with a terrific party at the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin.

And that was when it all started to go wrong.

Fedogan & Bremer’s management problems worsened. Accounts were not being kept and royalties were no longer being paid regularly. Although Philip managed to get contractual copies of the book to the various contributors, for reasons not fully explained he was unable to send me my own personal copies. Perhaps even more traumatically, first Philip’s old friend Peder Wagtskjold died, and then his second wife and long-time soul mate, Diane Landon, passed away only a few days after the couple were married. It was a double blow from which he would never really recover.

Not long afterwards the imprint all but ceased operations, and the hardcover print-run of Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth simply disappeared from distribution. Without any spare copies of my own to circulate amongst other publishers, there were no other editions produced.

Despite attempts by friends and family to help, Philip’s health deteriorated as his situation worsened, and he was found dead on July 23, 2011. For a while it looked as if his untimely passing would also mark the end of the publishing imprint that he co-founded.

But then something remarkable happened—with the aid of Dwayne H. Olson (who had helped rescue Shadows Over Innsmouth from being a “widowed” book back in the early 1990s), Philip’s business partner and F&B’s co-founder Dennis E. Weiler stepped in to sort things out.

Within a year he had recovered all the remaining stock—including all those unsold copies of Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth—from several warehouses scattered across the United States; he organised the royalty system, paying out long-overdue sums to those who were still owed money, and he even managed to finally get me my contractual copies of the second “Innsmouth” anthology.

Even better, Dennis reorganised the company—issuing a new catalogue to promote the existing stock and creating an online retail presence for the first time—while also looking around for new projects to publish.

During the course of our correspondence, I happened to mention that Philip and I had envisioned the “Innsmouth” books as forming a loose trilogy, and Dennis immediately asked if I would be willing to put together a third volume under the Fedogan & Bremer imprint.

Two years later, this present compilation was the result. Thankfully, this time nothing went wrong. Even better, Titan Books started reprinting the trilogy in handsome paperback editions, and the publication of this title from them marks the first time that all three volumes will have been in print in uniform editions at the same time.

Overseas reprintings of the earlier books continue to appear, and although this series was always envisioned as comprising only three volumes, it has subsequently been suggested that I should consider adding a fourth instalment entitled Weirdest Shadows Over Innsmouth…

But for now, once again taking Lovecraft’s original story as inspiration, prepare to be introduced to the Massachusetts seaport and its ichthyoid denizens years before that fateful FBI raid in February 1928. From there, Dagon’s blasphemous spawn spread out across the globe as the offspring of that decaying fishing town undergo their own, often bizarre, metamorphoses.

While the world changes, so through eldritch rituals and human sacrifices the Deep Ones’ masters—the terrifying Great Old Ones themselves—make ready to escape their prisons throughout space and time when the stars are right, so that they may once again reclaim the Earth as their own.

As the final shadows gather and the waters continue to rise, mankind begins its ultimate struggle for survival against a pantheon of dark gods and their batrachian foot-soldiers…

Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä!

Stephen Jones

London, England