Spontaneous Human Combustion

In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman. -Chuck Palahniuk Equally devastating and refreshing, this is a collection to be savored by horror fans and literary readers alike. -Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review Richard Thomas's Spontaneous Human Combustion is a marvelous monster made of blood, anger, fear, guilt, grief, hunger, and pain. These gritty, blood-soaked stories pull readers into the darkness of the single black heart beating at the core of horror and noir, and somehow makes them love every second of it. -Gabino Iglesias, author of Coyote Songs Dark, but rarely bleak. Punishing, but never sadistic. Thomas's stories drag you into the light as often as they knock you into the abyss. A necessary collection. -Doug Murano, Bram-Stoker winning editor of Behold!: Oddities, Curiosities & Undefinable Wonders A feast for the senses, this collection is simultaneously lush and terrifying. Horror and dark fantasy fans are sure to find many delights within. -A.C. Wise, author of Wendy, Darling Richard Thomas gives us a timely and eloquent reminder that, no matter how far we run, we take our darkness with us. -Priya Sharma, author of Ormeshadow By turns poetic and brutal, this is a stellar collection. -Lucy A. Snyder, author of Sister, Maiden, Monster The stories in Richard Thomas's Spontaneous Human Combustion marry a dark noir sensibility with unusually wide-ranging horror and fantasy tropes. The results are impressive, not only because of their originality, but in the way he is able to elicit our empathy for the grotesque sufferings of deeply flawed characters torn between impulses of petty revenge and sacrifice, creation and destruction. The language here is dense and richly evocative, achieving at times a transgressive and surreal quality reminiscent of Rimbaud in its beauty and brutality. -Steve Rasnic Tem, author of Figures Unseen: Selected Stories and Thanatrauma Thomas masterfully combines noir and horror. He paints the beauty and the meanness of human life with an ease that belies how damned hard a trick it is to accomplish. Spontaneous Human Combustion is a bottle of the top shelf stuff-smooth, but it burns. Burns all the way to the bottom. -Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase Transgressive, dark and masterfully written - with Spontaneous Human Combustion Thomas forces the reader to run the gamut of human emotions. With beguiling and devastating prose one can't help but see the beauty in the macabre morsels Thomas has given us to consume. A truly breathtaking collection. -Ross Jeffery, Bram Stoker Nominated author of Tome In this collection, Richard Thomas leads us through a vivid sequence of ever-darkening dreams. Strange, surreal, terrible and beautiful-I didn't want to wake. -Karen Runge, author of Doll Crimes Raw and shocking, each story takes us deeper into the human psyche and our darkest instincts. Favorites included Ring of Fire andRequital, however, the strength of the collection overall make this a disturbingly satisfying read. -Kathleen Kaufman, author of The Lairdbalor, Hag, and the Diabhal Trilogy With Spontaneous Human Combustion, Richard Thomas bravely leads us into the darkest recesses of the human soul. As always his writing is superb-precise, evocative, and moving. -Kate Jonez, author of Lady Bits Richard Thomas isn't just writing stories in his new collection, he's taking that part of yourself you look away from, the dark thoughts and forgotten nightmares, and showing them to you with the clarity and power only our best working writers possess. Take it from a guy who's actually been on fire-Spontaneous Human Combustion delivers. -Fred Venturini, author of The Heart Does Not Grow Back and To Dust You Shall Return Soaked in dread and wonder, Richard Thomas' work has a way of worming deep into your heart to take hold like a beautiful sickness. And true to form, every piece in his magnificent Spontaneous Human Combustion hits like a fever dream you wish would never end. -Matthew Lyons, author of The Night Will Find Us and A Black And Endless Sky Nothing will prepare you for Richard Thomas' stories, for the brutality, for the intense white-hot horror, for the blood-soaked gorgeous beauty of his writing. Reading his fiction is like sinking into a fever dream, filled with an alien-yet-familiar wondrousness to it all that makes you long to be back inside those seductive terrors long after they've ended. I was not prepared: I can't wait to return. -Livia Llewellyn, author of Furnace