Short Story Collections

Pick among the rubble of modern civilization, and listen for the beating of its rusted heart. "Dark fiction so numbing cold and cutting edge you better hold onto your ass with your free hand ... There are no simple 'entertainments' or cheap grabs for the throat to be found here. Hodge is deadly serious about presenting a world where the worst punishment is the mere fact that you are aware you will probably live to see another day." So wrote esteemed critic Stanley Wiater about The Convulsion Factory before ranking it among the 113 best books of modern horror fiction. Its 12 stories are fused together by the recurring motif of decay ... the decay of cities and families, identity and gender, idolatry and love. Among them: "Godflesh" - In pursuit of the ultimate in pleasure, what's ancient is new again. "Androgyny" - What is love? Two souls and one flesh. "Cancer Causes Rats" - The symbiosis between a TV reporter and the serial killer who's making her career metamorphoses toward its inevitable extreme. "Extinctions In Paradise" - Their daily struggle for survival hurtles the street kids of a South American slum into a new phase of evolution. "Liturgical Music For Nihilists" - In the chill of a derelict slaughterhouse, an accidental god awakens and calls to its own. Out of decay comes new life. If only that were the good news...

We were given language, says an old parable, because God loves the stories. And he loves the stories because they help him know himself better. These eight tales in Brian Hodge's renowned second collection advance the cause a little further. Full of gods and devils, tormentors and deliverers, Falling Idols is a twisting, harrowing path toward the state of being that poet Kahlil Gibran describes as being able "to bless the darkness as we have blessed the light." Includes: "Stick Around, It Gets Worse" - The universe creates what it needs, even in a gritty urban Hell. "A Loaf Of Bread, A Jug Of Wine" - A threatened village in World War II France has an unlikely defender: the allegedly soulless creation of Victor Frankenstein. "The Dripping Of Sundered Wineskins" - A trio of immortal Sisters catapults an Irish stigmatic toward his destiny of being either a saint or a butcher. World Fantasy Award finalist. "Cenotaph" - While exploring the fantastical sculptures at an ancient English church, a photographer discovers what really guided her ancestor's hammer and chisels. "As Above, So Below" - A lifetime of searching that began deep inside a derelict railroad tunnel leads a very old soul to a desert town, for his final revelations in sacrifice, miracles, and love. Selected for The Century's Best Horror Fiction .

Dying is easy. Living is hard. Step back, back into the world of 1996... "Dark fiction so numbing cold and cutting edge you better hold onto your ass with your free hand ... There are no simple 'entertainments' or cheap grabs for the throat to be found here. Hodge is deadly serious about presenting a world where the worst punishment is the mere fact that you are aware you will probably live to see another day." So wrote critic Stanley Wiater about Brian Hodge's renowned first short fiction collection, The Convulsion Factory . Three collections later, nothing has changed. Well ... maybe one or two trifling entertainments. A couple of cheap grabs for some body part or another. But that's about it. There are still plenty of fates worse than death. And the time has now come to advance to the next circle of Hell, whose 17 stations include: A hardened photojournalist's glimpses the face behind the atrocities of war. A report on the arcane origins and tragic premier of the flipside version of Mel Gibson's most infamous movie. The seeding of Lovecraftian terrors in the unlikely realms of vintage psychedelia and cinematic sound design. The chapter in the life of Dracula 's Van Helsing that reunited Hodge with editor Jeanne Cavelos, mastermind of the Dell/Abyss series. A trip inside one of the Middle Ages' seven towers of darkest iniquity, now thriving in modern-day Los Angeles. Dying is easy. Living is hard. And forces beyond your control have a bone to pick with you.

The Immaculate Void is Brian Hodge's fifth full-length collection of short fiction, one that reflects a strong, if not exclusive, theme of cosmic horror. It draws from pieces published since 2010, and contains several that were picks for the major year’s-best round-ups and one Stoker Award finalist.

We each inhabit many worlds, often at the same time. From worlds on the inside, to the world on a cosmic scale. Worlds imposed on us, and worlds of our own making. In time, though, all worlds will end. Bear witness: After the death of their grandmother, two cousins return to their family’s rural homestead to find a community rotting from the soul outward, and a secret nobody dreamed their matriarch had been keeping. The survivors of the 1929 raid on H.P. Lovecraft’s town of Innsmouth hold the key to an anomalous new event in the ocean, if only someone could communicate with them. The ultimate snow day turns into the ultimate nightmare when it just doesn’t stop. An extreme metal musician compels his harshest critic to live up to the hyperbole of his trolling. With the last of a generation of grotesquely selfish city fathers on his deathbed, the residents of the town they doomed exercise their right to self-determination one last time. As history repeats itself and the world shivers through a volcanic winter, a group gathers around the shore of a mountain lake to once again invoke the magic that created the world’s most famous monster. With Skidding Into Oblivion , his fifth collection, award-winning author Brian Hodge brings together his most concentrated assortment yet of year’s best picks and awards finalists, with one thing in common: It’s the end of the world as we know it . . . and we don’t feel fine at all.