All posts by Matthew Davenport

A Question of Compatibility

Two brain halves jaggedly stitched together inside a migo brain jar

          I don’t know where I was five seconds ago, but it sure as hell wasn’t here.

That was the thought that pounded, and pounded very painfully, through my skull as I stared down at the small porcelain cup sitting only inches from my shaking hand.

My entire body hurt. It was a sharp pulsing pain that started at the base of my skull and coursed all the way down my body before the next wave would start. That didn’t change the fundamental truth of my situation, though. My hand wasn’t shaking because of the fire that was racing across my nerves. My hand was shaking because I sure as hell wasn’t here five seconds ago.

Continue reading »
Posted in Fiction | Leave a comment

NaNoWriMo Check-In!

Checking in! I hope you’re all doing well, fellow writers. My story just crested the 26k spot, which means that I am a little behind, but I am looking forward to catching up this weekend.

Also, don’t be afraid to sign up for the Advent calendar thing we’re doing for December. If you’re looking to pad your word count, that’s an easy way to do it!

Posted in Fiction | Leave a comment

NaNoWriMo Check-in

Hey NaNoNerds!
Checking in! How is everyone doing?
I’ve got 7636 words toward my 50,000 word goal for the month. That puts me a little bit ahead of the day count, but I know something will come up that’ll eat up that lead.
How are you doing and what’s your word count?
Any hurdles you have had to overcome in life or plot or otherwise? Has anyone received one of those 30 covers in 30 days? Show it off!
Let us know!
–Matt

Posted in Fiction | Leave a comment

NaNoWriMo 2022!

Hello Fellow S.N writers!

Not the official people, but sure, them too! Specifically, all you folks who love Lovecraft but also enjoy writing!

Tomorrow kicks off NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This is the magical time of year where we try to write an entire novel in only a month! That’s pretty intense sounding but, in practice, it’s a blast.

That being said, we here at Shoggoth wanted to invite you to travel this weird journey with us. We made a calendar (later in this same post) and we’re going to be checking in with you once per week. We want to hear what you’re writing, how the NaNo is treating you, and words of encouragement. We don’t expect all of us to make it to that mythical 50k this month, but who cares? We just want to support you as horror leaps from your fingertips.

To that effort, go ahead and friend me on NaNoWriMo.org. My username is Spazenport. I won’t be doing my usual horror writings this month, but I most certainly will be supporting your writing, no matter what genre it falls into.

Get ready, get set, and let’s go!

Expect weekly check-ins on Saturday of each week and on the last day of the month in the form of a blog post.

Good luck!

Posted in Fiction | Leave a comment

New Release! Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101

Book Cover - 5 college age kids running. Green background with a faded image of a collegiate facility behind them. The title, Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101 is in purple.
Miskatonic University: Elder Gods 101

Last year, my brother finally said to me, “Hey Matt, what’s the deal with all that Lovecraft stuff?” So, I sent him every story I had and he read them all. He became a man possessed and it was awesome. Suddenly, he had story ideas. He was writing up plots and sending them to me. Weird Fiction was his weapon, and he was slaying me with ideas.

Continue reading »
Posted in Fiction, Reviews | Leave a comment

Tales of the Al-Azif on Audible!

Tales of the Al-Azif on Audible!

Hey all! The smaller Matt here! I haven’t posted in a while, instead lurking in the background, enveloped in cloaks of darkness.

Yeah, that’s what I was doing…

Anyway! My anthology Tales of the Al-Azif, with authors CT Phipps, David Hambling, David West, and David Niall Wilson just came out on Audible narrated by Joshua Saxon! It’s absolutely wonderful! Give it a read! Just in time for SPOOKY MONTH!!!

Was that cheesy enough? Go listen.

Tales of the Al-Azif on Audible!
Tales of the Al-Azif on Audible!

https://www.audible.com/pd/B09HY1YF23?asin=B09HY1YF23

Posted in Publications | Leave a comment

Review: The Arkham Detective, by Byron Craft

Cthulhu's Minions (The Arkham Detective Book 1) by [Craft, Byron]

Cthulhu’s Minions, by Byron Craft

The Innsmouth Look (The Arkham Detective Book 2) by [Craft, Byron]

The Innsmouth Look, by Byron Craft

This review is for two books, as I read them back to back, got swamped with packing up a house, and have finally found time to put together a proper review.
The Arkham Detective series follows a no-name pulp detective in the city of Arkham, Massachusetts. While most of the residents have heard rumors and stories regarding all of Lovecraft’s beasties doing their dirty work in the town, most of them don’t believe them, and neither does our protagonist until a gory encounter and a witness who claims some rather horrendous things.
Cthulhu’s Minions is a great primer to the world of the Arkham Detective in that it’s a great origin story for the guy who makes it his job to hunt down the weird stuff while also being a short read to get you psyched about the bigger stories in the series.
The action doesn’t stop with Minions, though, and my intrigue kept me going straight from the last page of Cthulhu’s Minions and directly into the sequel, The Innsmouth Look.
Depending on the day, my favorite story from the Lovecraft Mythos is Shadow Over Innsmouth. The dark tale of a city cursed by it’s fortune in more ways than one makes for a great setting for some pulpy adventure (as myself and other authors have noted). Unlike those other authors, and even myself, the adventure here is nonstop pulpy goodness that only Byron Craft could have put together. On the trail of a murderer and kidnapper from that doomed city, the Arkham Detective takes grit to a new level as he interrogates the town and puts his best detective shoe forward, stumbling upon Government spies, trapped locals, and, of course, a dark ritual that the town wants to happen while the rest of the world obviously doesn’t.
Craft knows his Mythos and weaves that into a series of books that reads like a great Lovecraftian story, but with more adventure and less fainting. I give both of these books 5 out of 5 stars for just being great and fun reads.
Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Review: Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cangtero

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

To be entirely honest, when I first picked up my audio copy of Meddling Kids, by Edgar Cantero, I had no idea that I would be writing a review for Shoggoth.net. As a matter of fact, I only picked it up because I remembered reading somewhere that it’s an adult parody of Scooby Doo. To that point, it absolutely is a 100% homage to Scooby Doo, but it is also an homage to Lovecraft, the mythos, and the other players in the mythos.

Continue reading »

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Review: Master of Chaos by David Hambling

Master of Chaos by David Hambling

Master of Chaos by David Hambling

Masters of Chaos by David Hambling is the fourth book in the Harry Stubbs series and it goes without saying that I am a huge fan of the series. Continue reading »

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Review: The Gods of HP Lovecraft

The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft

The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft

Normally, I have mixed feelings when it comes to anthologies. It’s not that I don’t like them, my problem is quite the opposite. I love them, but once I get to the point in an anthology story where I want it continue divulging the secrets it’s only just now begun to show me is when the story ends and we shift gears into an entirely different story.

I feared that would happen with The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft, but I wanted to give it a try anyway because I’m a huge fan of Donald Tyson’s Necronomicon books and knew that he had written the descriptors of the gods between each of the individual stories.
I was pleasantly surprised to find every story in this anthology pleasant to some degree. I still suffered, especially at the end of tales such as A Dying of the Light by Rachel Caine.

Continue reading »

Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Copyright 1996 - 2024 Shoggoth.net,