No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories

Introduction

In 2007 Subterranean Press honoured me by publishing The Taint and Other Stories in a deluxe hardcover edition signed by both Bob Eggleton—who painted the fabulous wraparound jacket and also did the interior illustrations—and myself. That volume was followed a year later by a companion volume, Haggopian and Other Stories, in a format that duplicated the superb production values of The Taint. Both books contained tales considered (if only by myself, and I’m not the best judge of my own work) the best of my Cthulhu Mythos tales, chosen from my more than forty years of writing. The first book contained the novellas, and the second a great many shorter stories. This current volume has no Mythos stories; it simply does what it says on the jacket, collecting the best of my macabre tales, five of which saw their first outings in the “Unique Magazine,” Weird Tales, while others found homes in many fine award-winning books and magazines.

Now I have to prevail upon Bill Schafer to present this new collection in a format uniform with the others—including the marvellous artwork of Mr. Eggleton, together with his and my own signatures—so that all three volumes will form a trilogy of my best work where they sit side by side on whichever bookshelves they may get to occupy.

I shall mention in passing just two of these stories:

“My Thing Friday” is quite obviously Science Fiction with a touch of Nasty; I include it here if only to illustrate a bit of versatility. And the final story, “The Disapproval of Jeremy Cleave,” is more than a tad sick/humorous, which mainly demonstrates the fact that I don’t take any genre too seriously. (If we can’t have a laugh now and then—even a slightly shuddery sort of laugh—then what’s the point?)

I’ll say no more about this collection of stories, except to tell you that the greatest favour you could do me would be to enjoy them…

Brian Lumley

Devon, England, March 2011