My forthcoming novel about Lovecraft

Monday sees my new book coming out. It's a very short novel or a novella in which horror writer H. P. Lovecraft is the main character. The book, simply called Haamu ("Ghost"), with the subtitle Kertomus Hollywoodista ("A Tale of Hollywood"), is a case of alternate history: in the book, Lovecraft didn't die from cancer in 1937. After he's been miraculously cured, he decides he's had too much of horror stories in his life, sells his house and library and moves on to Hollywood where he desperately tries to break as a screenwriter. He's living in a beat-up hotel and writes pulp stories but in different genres than before (crime, romance, even mainstream stuff) and tries to keep up his letter writing, mainly with Clark Ashton Smith.

The book is fragmentary and shows us glimpses of Lovecraft trying to write and earn his living. There are also some scenes on a desolate block where Lovecraft finds a dead mole. There are also some real-life Hollywood characters, mainly other writers from B-studios, but also director Edgar G. Ulmer whom Lovecraft meets at a party. There's also Earl Peirce Jr., who's also trying to work in Hollywood and comes up with an idea he tries to sell to Lovecraft. Some of the scenes in the book are more surreal and some of them may seem like Lovecraft is hallucinating, and he's not at all times the most reliable narrator. There's no horror in the book, though, and it has no supernatural elements. It's not a genre novel.

What's the idea behind the book? The vision of Lovecraft working in Hollywood has been with me for years. I think someone suggested it almost ten years ago at the Fictionmags e-mail group where I once was an active member (still am, but not a very active one). At the time, the writer (I can't remember who it was) suggested Lovecraft might've worked in Hollywood already in the early twenties, but I decided to make this an alternate history, set in 1941. (One book that had some influence on how the novel turned out was Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays, her novel on Hollywood that I read prior to starting work on Haamu.)

But there's still something I can't really explain in the book - in my own book! Doesn't art exist to make you wondrous? I'm sure many Lovecraft aficionados will tell me that my Lovecraft isn't the real Lovecraft, and I'm sure they're right. There are of course things that I decided should be according to how he was in real life, but then I also decided I don't have to act as if this was the real Lovecraft - after all, he's gone through a sickness that was supposed to kill him. His writing style has changed drastically, but that came also because I didn't want to emulate or parody Lovecraft's unique style - there are comments on this in the text. There are also subtle hints he's not really alive, as if this were a dream, but I won't give anything away.

The cover for Haamu is by Aapo Kukko, a young graphic artist. He's a very capable guy. Coming out from Turbator, Haamu has a very small print run, so be sure to grab it! Any foreign agents reading this? (Insert smiley here.)

Sherlock Holmes in Finland

Here's the cover for my newest book, an anthology I edited called Sherlock Holmes in Finland. There are fourteen short stories and one play (!) in it, a mix of new and old. The play is from 1936, called Sherlock Mopsi, from a forgotten writer called Arvo Salmivaara. It's hilarious.

But I'll post more details later; the book will be out on Friday, 11st. The cover (which is simply great) is by Anssi Rauhala and you can see by taking a look at this how it refers to the famous painting by the Finnish artist Axel Gallén-Kallela.

Two new books out next Tuesday

Here's the cover by Jukka Murtosaari to a book I've compiled and written the foreword. The book is a collection of Finnish writer Veikko Hannuniemi's sea-faring short stories, starting from 1939 and ending up in the early seventies. Hannuniemi's stories are full of humour and action, but they are not usual adventure stories. As a sea-farer himself, there's also lots of authentic feel to the stories. The book's title translates as "The Great Hunger" which is title of one of the first stories Hannuniemi wrote. The launch party is next Tuesday at the Raisio municipal library - Hannuniemi lived in Raisio from the 1950's on. He died in 1990.

The book is also an entry in my on-going research into the annals of fiction magazine publishing in Finland: all the stories in the book were first published in various magazines, ranging from Kuluttajain Lehti to Seura and Koti-Posti. Suuri jano is also the newest installation in Turbator's series called m.

I've posted my foreword here. It's in Finnish - understandably.

The next Tuesday will also see another book of mine - the collection of my crime fanzine, Isku's best pieces. The book has stories by Tapani Bagge, Helena Numminen, Petri Salin, Petri Hirvonen, Timo Surkka and other writers - including me. (One of my Joe Novak private eye stories.) I don't have the book's cover at hand as yet, but here's the tentative cover I posted a while back.

Jukka's cover for Hard Case Crime found a user

Some months ago I wrote about my friend Jukka Murtosaari's attempt to break through in the US and send cover illustrations to Hard Case Crime's Charles Ardai. The illos were turned down, but now one of them has been published.

The eye-patch lady now illustrates Helena Numminen's short story collection Murhaavasti/Murderingly that had its launch party earlier today. The publisher is Turbator for whom Jukka has done lots of covers and for which I've edited some anthologies and collections. Helena's book collects 14 bitter and hard-hitting crime stories no ordinary publisher would touch. Two of the stories were originally published in my crime fiction fanzine, Isku, namely "Molotovin cocktail" (which is very urgent in its depiction of hospitalized old women) and "Vekan pedissä". Helena seems to have rewritten the ending of the latter. Highly recommended.

There were also two other books launched today: publisher Harri Kumpulainen's own collection of absurdist short-shorts and composer Matti Rag Paananen's collection of poetry that he wrote while in Africa. Both have already been reviewed here.

Jukka still has a great cover available - anyone? (Check the link to my earlier post.)

Another book out: my first Western short story collection

I've edited a collection of the Western short stories of two Finnish writers, namely Joni Skiftesvik and Totti Karpela and wrote a lengthy introduction to Finnish Westerns in general (I might post the text on one of my other blogs some day). I'd really like to do a more thorough anthology of Finnish Western short stories, but I don't really think there's a market for this kind of book. We'll see. I have another Western book coming, though, more on that later. (And possibly some others, too.)

The book will be out in just two days and the launch party is at the Turku Book Fair. Here's the cover by Jukka Murtosaari. The contents are as follows:

Juri Nummelin: Lukijalle / For the reader
Juri Nummelin: Suomalaisen lännenromaanin vaiheet / The history of Finnish Western fiction

Joni Skiftesvik:
Menneisyyden vanki, FinnWest 12/1983
Elämä edessä – elämä takana, FinnWest 2–5/1985
Larryn lomapäivä, Kostaja 2/1984
Etsivä Moore ja jokirosvot, Kostaja 3/1984
Kuolemaantuomitun pako, Kostaja 5/1984

Totti Karpela:
Maine ja kunnia, Ruudinsavu 2/2006
Työtä arkkunikkarille, Seikkailujen Maailma 5/1959 (julkaistu salanimellä T. Teller)
Kaupunki ilman lakia, Seikkailujen Maailma 5–6/1960 (julkaistu ilman tekijän nimeä)
Hylkiön mahdollisuus, julkaisematon

Nota bene in Finnish: kirja sisältää kaikki Skiftesvikin kirjoittamat lännentarinat, Totti Karpelalta jätettiin yksi pois hänen omasta pyynnöstään (ensimmäinen, "Neljän sheriffin kaupunki", joka ilmestyi Seikkailujen Maailmassa alkuvuonna 1959). "Hylkiön mahdollisuus" kirjoitettiin 1960-luvun alussa, mutta se ei ilmestynyt Seikkailujen Maailmassa, koska lehti lakkautettiin. Karpela on sen tätä kirjaa varten kirjoittanut uudestaan. Hänen muut vanhat novellinsa on kevyesti editoitu ja hän on itsekin ne käynyt läpi. Skiftesvikin tekstit on julkaistu suurin piirtein sellaisenaan kuin ne alun perin lehdissäkin ilmestyivät.

Tapani Bagge: Ammattimies

My friend, prolific author Tapani Bagge has a new short story collection out soon. Here are the cover by Jukka Murtosaari and the contents of the collection. The book consists mainly of previously published stories, but there are also some hitherto unpublished ones. As you can see, I've published some of the stories in Isku and other fanzines, "Kylmä tuuli/Cold Wind" having been published only in Isku.

Jukka's cover illo features Tapani's hero (or actually anti-hero) Kovanen, who's the lead character in the two graphic novels Tapani scripted to Jari Rasi's drawings.

The book's publisher is Turbator and it will come out to the Turku Book Fair in August, with the Western short story collection I've edited, with stories by Joni Skiftesvik and Totti Karpela.

Alamäki (RikosPalat 1/1988; Isku 1 (2004))
Ammattimies (1988; Pikkujuttu, Gummerus 2003)
Laukaus tehtaalla (SinäMinä 19/1990 (salanimellä Tapio Halla-aho))
Kylmä tuuli (Isku 6 (2005))
Rikoksen pyörteissä (SinäMinä 23/1990 (salanimellä Tapio Halla-aho))
Bodom, bodom, bodom… (Seura 36/2005)
Ääriviivat (Aamulehden Valo 32/2007; Ässä 2 (2008))
Salainen keksintö (1988; Usvazine 4/2007)
Aina murha kotiolot voittaa (RikosPalat 4/1988; Isku 8 (2008))
Keskiyö Rio de Janeirossa (RikosPalat 5/1988)
Varjoton mies (1988)
Kuolema joulun alla (1988)
Jälkisanat

Kirsti Ellilän novellikokoelma Turbatorilta

Kirsti Ellilän novellikokoelma Outoa rakkautta Turbatorin m-sarjassa ilmestyi maanantaina. Kirja sisältää kuusi novellia, joista kaksi on ilmestynyt aiemmin Reginassa, kaksi Portissa ja kaksi on tätä kirjaa varten kirjoitettua. Kirjan tarinat edustavat jonkinlaista kauhun, scifin ja dekkarin rakoihin putoavaa romanttista viihdettä.

Kirjaa saa ainakin Akateemisesta kirjakaupasta sekä Pienestä kirjapuodista ja Turun yliopiston kirjakaupasta, mutta sitä voi myös tilata suoraan kustantajalta: lounaisranta@pelipeitto.fi. Hintaa en valitettavasti tiedä.

Kansikuva on Jukka Murtosaaren piirtämä. Kuva on hyvä, mutta en ole itse kovin tyytyväinen kannen asemointiin; koetan jossain vaiheessa vähän leikkiä kannella ja kansikuvalla ja tehdä paremman ehdotuksen. Tässä on liikaa tyhjää.

(Announcing a new book in a series I've had a hand in.)