The Black Maybe: Liminal Stories
Attila Veres
Translated by Luca Karafiáth
Introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem
Book Description
Every so often a new horror writer bursts onto the scene with a book that is so dazzlingly original, so bone-chillingly terrifying, that it instantly alters the landscape of contemporary horror fiction. Hungarian author Attila Veres’ debut collection The Black Maybe is one of those books.
This volume collects ten of his best tales in English for the first time, ranging from weird fiction like ‘In the Snow, Sleeping’, in which a couple’s vacation to a health spa erodes into a surreal nightmare, to folk horror like ‘Return to the Midnight School’, in which the things that emerge from the soil in one rural farming community are bizarre and horrific, to Lovecraft-inspired tales like ‘Multiplied by Zero’, written as a wry travelogue in which a man sets out on a deadly holiday tour to explore Lovecraftian landscapes. And in the title story ‘The Black Maybe’, which Steve Rasnic Tem calls ‘one of the weirdest tales I’ve read in years’, a girl and her family escape the bustling city to experience farm life, only to discover with unimaginable horror the truth of what is really being harvested there.
These stories are thrilling, frightening, sometimes blackly humorous, and totally unlike anything you have read before. As Tem writes in the introduction, ‘Given both the range and originality of his dark fiction, Attila Veres’ career is one to watch.’ After reading this book, we have no doubt that readers will agree.
Attila Veres
Translated by Luca Karafiáth
Introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem
Book Description
Every so often a new horror writer bursts onto the scene with a book that is so dazzlingly original, so bone-chillingly terrifying, that it instantly alters the landscape of contemporary horror fiction. Hungarian author Attila Veres’ debut collection The Black Maybe is one of those books.
This volume collects ten of his best tales in English for the first time, ranging from weird fiction like ‘In the Snow, Sleeping’, in which a couple’s vacation to a health spa erodes into a surreal nightmare, to folk horror like ‘Return to the Midnight School’, in which the things that emerge from the soil in one rural farming community are bizarre and horrific, to Lovecraft-inspired tales like ‘Multiplied by Zero’, written as a wry travelogue in which a man sets out on a deadly holiday tour to explore Lovecraftian landscapes. And in the title story ‘The Black Maybe’, which Steve Rasnic Tem calls ‘one of the weirdest tales I’ve read in years’, a girl and her family escape the bustling city to experience farm life, only to discover with unimaginable horror the truth of what is really being harvested there.
These stories are thrilling, frightening, sometimes blackly humorous, and totally unlike anything you have read before. As Tem writes in the introduction, ‘Given both the range and originality of his dark fiction, Attila Veres’ career is one to watch.’ After reading this book, we have no doubt that readers will agree.
EARLY PRAISE
"The Black Maybe is the strangest of books: one from a young writer, the Hungarian Attila Veres, fully formed. Never hesitating, his world is unique, bleak, terrifying and all his own. Whether it’s urban fables of rock music, harvests that claim souls, Aickmanesque situations or an amazing take on cosmic horror, his vision is always stunning. These stories, his debut in English, will blow you away." – Mariana Enríquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire and Our Share of Night
"The ten macabre tales that make up Veres’s English-language debut stake their scares on their wildly unpredictable plots. All Veres’s stories begin in realistically grounded settings before veering unexpectedly into territory rife with unforeseeable and surreal menaces . . . These tales wear their resistance to conventional horror tropes and formulas as a badge of honor. Readers are sure to be impressed." – Publishers Weekly
"A profoundly unsettling collection of stories ... Each tale wraps you in the crisp concise language of the author and translator and whisks you away to horrors spanning from cosmic darkness to the traumas of childhood ... an almost perfect story collection ... startlingly unique." – Library Journal
"Every decade or so, a writer comes along who reconfigures the way we think about the Weird. First Thomas Ligotti, then Laird Barron, and now Attila Veres. An astonishing collection, really unlike anything out there, which suggests a new way forward." – Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
"[U]nnerving ... immersive and beguiling ... an original, weird, and disquieting nightmare." – Booklist
"These stories dwell in the in-between places of life and death, that place where nightmares wait to be harvested. These are your nightmares, or they soon will be, so settle in for an excursion to a horrific mental, emotional, and spiritual landscape like no other. A brilliant work." – Elizabeth Engstrom, author of When Darkness Loves Us and Black Ambrosia
"A stunning parade of terrors surreal and horrors sublime. The uncanny stories in The Black Maybe are as originally chilling and imaginatively dangerous as anything you’ll read this decade, if not your lifetime, and Attila Veres deserves the worldwide acclaim this inventive work of horror will surely bring him. His approach is genuinely fresh. No maybes about it: this book is pitch black and totally engrossing." – Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Proverbs for Monsters
"Attila Veres is fiendishly talented. Certain images in The Black Maybe caused me to glance at the darkened corners of my office as I read into the wee hours." – Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase
"Original, brilliant, distinctive. These masterful stories by Attila Veres are a breath of fresh air from out of the darkness." – Michael Cisco, award-winning author of The Divinity Student
"The Black Maybe, by Attila Veres, is a refreshing blast of cold cellar air. The horror is insidious and surreal, slowly chewing away what you think is real until you find yourself surrounded by a nightmare. I love this book!" – Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds and North American Lake Monsters
"The Black Maybe is the strangest of books: one from a young writer, the Hungarian Attila Veres, fully formed. Never hesitating, his world is unique, bleak, terrifying and all his own. Whether it’s urban fables of rock music, harvests that claim souls, Aickmanesque situations or an amazing take on cosmic horror, his vision is always stunning. These stories, his debut in English, will blow you away." – Mariana Enríquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire and Our Share of Night
"The ten macabre tales that make up Veres’s English-language debut stake their scares on their wildly unpredictable plots. All Veres’s stories begin in realistically grounded settings before veering unexpectedly into territory rife with unforeseeable and surreal menaces . . . These tales wear their resistance to conventional horror tropes and formulas as a badge of honor. Readers are sure to be impressed." – Publishers Weekly
"A profoundly unsettling collection of stories ... Each tale wraps you in the crisp concise language of the author and translator and whisks you away to horrors spanning from cosmic darkness to the traumas of childhood ... an almost perfect story collection ... startlingly unique." – Library Journal
"Every decade or so, a writer comes along who reconfigures the way we think about the Weird. First Thomas Ligotti, then Laird Barron, and now Attila Veres. An astonishing collection, really unlike anything out there, which suggests a new way forward." – Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
"[U]nnerving ... immersive and beguiling ... an original, weird, and disquieting nightmare." – Booklist
"These stories dwell in the in-between places of life and death, that place where nightmares wait to be harvested. These are your nightmares, or they soon will be, so settle in for an excursion to a horrific mental, emotional, and spiritual landscape like no other. A brilliant work." – Elizabeth Engstrom, author of When Darkness Loves Us and Black Ambrosia
"A stunning parade of terrors surreal and horrors sublime. The uncanny stories in The Black Maybe are as originally chilling and imaginatively dangerous as anything you’ll read this decade, if not your lifetime, and Attila Veres deserves the worldwide acclaim this inventive work of horror will surely bring him. His approach is genuinely fresh. No maybes about it: this book is pitch black and totally engrossing." – Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Proverbs for Monsters
"Attila Veres is fiendishly talented. Certain images in The Black Maybe caused me to glance at the darkened corners of my office as I read into the wee hours." – Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase
"Original, brilliant, distinctive. These masterful stories by Attila Veres are a breath of fresh air from out of the darkness." – Michael Cisco, award-winning author of The Divinity Student
"The Black Maybe, by Attila Veres, is a refreshing blast of cold cellar air. The horror is insidious and surreal, slowly chewing away what you think is real until you find yourself surrounded by a nightmare. I love this book!" – Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds and North American Lake Monsters
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BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 1954321694 ISBN-13: 978-1954321694 $34.99 US, 310 pp. Case Laminate Hardcover Published 2022 BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 1954321708 ISBN-13: 978-1954321700 $18.99 US, 310 pp. Trade paper Published 2022 |
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