Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings
“Orrin Grey writes tales that are as eloquent as they are eerie. He deftly blends the high Gothic aesthetics of classical horror with a raconteur’s innate knack for storytelling. Grey is a unique talent, and is destined to become a major name in weird fiction.” – Richard Gavin, author of The Darkly Splendid Realm and At Fear’s Altar
Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings is my debut collection of dark tales of the supernatural, occult, and macabre. Featuring ten short stories from my last four years as a writer, including my long out-of-print novella The Mysterious Flame. Two of the stories are original to this collection. Never Bet the Devil also features author’s notes for every story, as well as more than ten brand-new illustrations by Bernie Gonzalez.
“Never Bet the Devil is a creepy foray into the realm of the weird and the sinister. An intriguing exploration of traditional and modern horror modes. Grey’s debut shows a great deal of promise.” – Laird Barron, author of Occultation and The Croning
“Ghosts. Ghouls. Monsters of all sorts. These are what line the pages of Orrin Grey’s Never Bet the Devil. Grey’s voice is solid and secure, with the sort of natural joyful ease other writers only envy. A marvellous debut collection.” – Simon Strantzas, author of Nightingale Songs
“The stories of Orrin Grey are fun, fast, and, surprising enough in a genre where doom, gloom, and ultra-gore are standard issue, rather good-natured. It’s not often you come across ‘pleasant horror,’ but that’s the best way to describe this collection — put a load of classic horror movies and comic books in a blender, liberally add some splashes of Mike Mignola-cool, and you’ve got yourself a monster mash to be reckoned with.” – Jesse Bullington, author of Enterprise of Death and The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart
Contents:
- Never Bet the Devil
- Count Brass
- Black Hill
- The Devil in the Box
- Nature vs. Nurture
- The Barghest
- The Seventh Picture
- The Reading Room
- Nearly Human
- The Mysterious Flame
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Orrin Grey
Orrin Grey is a writer, editor, amateur film scholar, and monster expert who was born on the night before Halloween. His stories of monsters, ghosts, and sometimes the ghosts of monsters have appeared in dozens of anthologies, including Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, and been gathered into two volumes, Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings and Painted Monsters & Other Strange Beasts. He also writes licensed fiction and other odds-and-ends for Privateer Press, and he likes to play Hordes whenever he gets the chance, where he is utterly devoted to his beloved Gatormen. His writing about film has appeared in places like Strange Horizons and Clarkesworld, and he writes a regular column on vintage horror cinema at Innsmouth Free Press. John Langan once referred to him as “the monster guy,” and he never lets anyone forget it.
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