I’m happy to announce that my longish short story “The Key to Eternity” will be published in Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 3 (edited by Steve Proposch, Christopher Sequeira and Bryce Stevens) by IFWG Publishing Australia under their premier Dark Phases imprint. This is the third and final volume in the fantastic Cthulhu Deep Down Under anthology series.
My tale takes place on the docks and waterfront of Darling Harbour and Millers Point in 1925, after a Norwegian sailor named Gustaf Johansen (from H. P. Lovecraft’s 1928 short story “The Call of Cthulhu”) arrives in Sydney with a mysterious artefact. He is the sole suvivor on a ship named The Alert, a disabled island trader that is brought into port after being shot to pieces.
The publisher, Gerry Huntman, says the anthology brings together “some of the greatest scribes of the weird and startling from the land down under bring you brand new stories in the Lovecraftian genre, taking you from the realms of contemporary Australian cities, to the blood-soaked, post-colonial past (touching the powerful original cultures of the land), and even hinting at the disturbing future of Terra Australis.”
I’m proud to be included in this book as the Table of Contents includes some of my favourite Australian SpecFic writers:
- Introduction – Cat Rambo
- All the Long Way Down – Alf Simpson
- Farewell to Elephant – Cat Sparks
- The Third Party Doctrine – Steve Proposch
- Come His Children – Alan Baxter
- The Depiction – Julie Ditrich
- The Key to Eternity – Steven Paulsen
- They Are Impatient – Maurice Xanthos
- Dead Language – Steve Kilbey
- Asleep Beneath the Dripping – Jason Fischer
- Supersymmetry Blues – David Conyers
- Afterword – Jack Dann
The book is being released on 1st May, 2021 in Australia and 30th June, 2021 in North America. It will be available through all the normal retail bookselling channels, and wholesale distribution is through: (Australia/NZ) Novella Distributors; (North America) SPU/IPG; (UK/Europe) Gazelle; (elsewhere) Neilsen/Ingram.
Steven Paulsen 