The Exile and Other Tales of Carcosa

In the late 1970s, a series of tales inspired by The King in Yellow were published in the pages of Dark Fantasy, Dragonbane, Copper Toadstool, and Gothic under a memorable nom de plume. ‘Galad Elflandsson’ captured the true spirit of Robert W. Chambers’ Carcosa mythology in all its terrifying fin de siècle strangeness. Collected in a vanishingly small edition in 2018, these tales again soon became nearly impossible to find. Now, they are gathered once more with three additional tales of fantastic horror—this time under the author’s real name. These stories are brimming with an originality that one seldom finds in pastiche or tribute, and the chills they inspire are as deep as they are genuine. Though diverse in content, these tales maintain a unified aesthetic. The Yellow King rises in “How Darkness Came to Carcosa.” In the title story, a lonely student is saved from violence and despair by a mysterious exile who harbors a terrible secret. An artist rejects beauty in favor of the grotesque in “The Dance.” The Yellow Sign exacts its gruesome toll in “The Flat on Rue Chambard.” An impossibly old and hideous woman desires the love of a young man in “The Basilisk.” An alchemist seeks to usurp the ruler of Carcosa in “The Hand of the King.” And in “Cauld Shoon,” a man visits his family in their ancestral castle in the company of his sensuous, exotic girlfriend—who may not be who or what she appears.Featuring a foreword by decadent writer Manuel Arenas and interior illustrations by Dan Sauer, The Exile and Other Tales of Carcosa is a surprising, darksome delight."Long out of print, Elflandsson’s Carcosa stories are now resurrected, and set their author as the forgotten heir to the throne once held by Karl Edward Wagner and Joseph Pulver. While skillfully keeping faith with the unsettling original work, these tales move the Chambers mythology in bold new directions both horrific and fantastic, and will thrill devotees of The King in Yellow and the Weird! —PETER RAWLIK, Author of Reanimators and The Eldritch Equations"Galad Elflandsson’s eloquent prose scintillates, possessed of an easy erudition that hearkens back to a more elegant age. Reading his stories is like discovering a heretofore lost Weird Tales author from the era of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. But Elflandsson treads paths Lovecraft dared not, and his characters suffer terrible—and truly unspeakable—consequences for delving into forbidden lore." —ADAM BOLIVAR, Author of Told by Firelight in Timbered Halls"Do you miss the twin suns sinking behind the lake near the lengthening shadows of Robert W. Chambers’ Carcosa? Fear not. In The Exile, Galad Elflandsson's stories take us on an in-depth exploration of the lost land with such elegant, enticing fluidity that you’ll begin to feel right at home. Perhaps that is the time to fear." —CAROL GYZANDER, Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of “The Yellow Crown” in Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign"Earlier today within the space of about an hour I was poking around on ISFDB and went through a rollercoaster of 'Somebody was writing modern Carcosa stories right alongside Lin Carter at the very beginning and everybody just forgot somehow?!' to 'there was a collection in 2018!' to 'it was a print run of fifty?!' to 'there's a new printing coming and I'm preordering right this second.' Thanks for having this all under control right when I needed it. It's almost criminal how badly out of print this material has been for so long." —MICHAEL STUEBER, King in Yellow enthusiast and bibliographer, in a message to the publisher Read more