Innsmouth Free Press

Readers with a hankering for the strange should seek out the excellent fifth issue of Innsmouth Free Press, edited by Paula R. Stiles and published by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

This free zine offers eight excellent horror stories with a taste of bizarre. A number of the stories are inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos:

Table of Contents

• The Concierto Of Señor Lorenzo | Kenneth Yu
• The Night We Burned Our Hearts Out | Paul Jessup
• The Changeling | Tom Hamilton
• Beneath The Cold Black Sea | Martin Hayes
• Borgan’s Deli |Jarrid Deaton
• The Green World | Julio Toro San Martin
• The Song of Tussagaroth | James Lecky
• Nibbling | Cheryl McCreary

Two brothers watch as a city burns. I particularly enjoyed Paul Jessop’s poetic ‘The Night We Burned Our Hearts Out,’ telling the tale of brothers touched by the unworldly. A story with a powerful emotional punch.   

Tom Hamilton’s story 'The Changeling' is a beautifully written tale of a con artist and the stange tale he hears from one of his marks. A glimpse of a strange creature forces him to acknowledge the ugliness of his own choices. I found the imagery in this story very powerful.   

James Lecky’s ‘The Song of Tussagorath’ is a fantasy that echoes with the language of traditional mythos stories. When an ancient book is obtained, only the  unwise would open its tainted pages. Only the foolhardy would use the book as a doorway into unwholesome realms. A story reminiscent of Clark Ashton Smith.   

As well as the fiction section Innsmouth Free Press prints faux news items (monster bytes) set in Innsmouth, a fiction town from a Lovecraft story, and reviews and interviews.

If you're looking for a fix of weird, dark fantasy you would do well to flick through the pages of 'Innsmouth Free Press.'