Beneath The Surface by Simon Strantzas

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Revised and expanded, the startling debut of Simon Strantzas resurfaces with tales of dark Gods and monsters of the flesh, emissaries from a world beneath our own, a world from where nightmares are born. Here, a man searches for truth in a universe that has forsaken him and pays the price for that knowledge, and a woman with out hope travels northward to find the place where her life fell to pieces and discovers of what she truly is made. They say no man is an island, no matter how much he wishes to be, but what then is that ship that sails toward him, and what pray tell is that lashed to its bow. These are tales that infect our dreams, tales of things that live beyond our understanding and watch us with malignant indifference. They are tales of grief, of loneliness, of guilt. Tales of the liminal places that separate our world from that other world, the world to which our souls are merely a gateway. Come inside and witness what resides in us all, deep down beneath the surface.

Table of Contents

Foreword To Beneath The Surface by Matt Cardin • A Shadow in God's Eye • It Runs Beneath the Surface • The Constant Encroaching of a Tumultuous Sea • A Thing of Love • Off the Hook • More to Learn • Behind Glass • In the Air • You Are Here • The Autumnal City • The Wound So Deep • Thoughtless • Leather, Dark and Cold • Drowned Deep Inside of Me • Afterword: Excerpts from a Writer's Journal

"One of the most important debut short story collection in the genre." - Stephen Jones

"Simon Strantzas is a star ascendant upon the firmament of Canadian dark fiction. Brooding and macabre, Beneath the Surface makes for a fine introduction to his eerie precincts." - Laird Barron, author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation

"The stories in this book are of an unusually high standard-- they range in quality from above average to rather brilliant..." - Supernatural Tales

"No one is better at writing compelling nightmares than [Simon] Strantzas." - The Speculative Fiction Junkie

"Flawless in execution and alive with disturbingly vivid writing, Simon Strantzas has successfully done his part in assuring the future of the horror genre." - Horrorworld

"... an expert in urban ennui." - Ellen Datlow, editor of the Best Horror of the Year series

"His is a stark new voice in the black chambers of the weird underground ..." - The Grim Review

Editions

Leather-bound Deluxe Lettered Hardcover w/slipcase (sold out): lettered A-Z, 6"x9", bound in leather, signature page which is signed by both author and artist, front cover stamped and spine stamped with the title and the author's name, includes end papers, colored book ribbon, full colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, a slipcase and dust jacket.

Trade Paperback: first 100 copies are signed by the author, 6" x 9", 12 point full color cover, 60lb. natural vellum stock.

About the Author

Simon Strantzas is the author of the critically-acclaimed Cold to the Touch and Nightingale Songs. His first collection, Beneath the Surface, has been called "one of the most important debut short story collections in the genre". Strantzas's stories have appeared in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Cemetery Dance, and Postscripts. In 2009, his work was nominated for the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife and an unyielding hunger for the flesh of the living. For more information, please visit http://www.strantzas.com/

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