The Michael Gideon Collection

I’ve dabbled in horror for years — Stephen King is one of my biggest literary influences, after all — and the intent, since childhood, was to someday publish under the pen name Michael Gideon.

Then The Timberhaven Chronicles came along and royally screwed that all up.

As you may have already read, K&Q Press is going to eventually be printing all of “Michael Gideon’s” work under the banner The Michael Gideon Collection.

First up is Tales For Halloween, which collects both I Live Here Now and Spookhunt (previously only available via ebook) along with a handful of shorts in honor of the classic monsters of yesteryear.

I’ll gather up some of the other horror short stories, maybe do a volume 2 of Tales, but I think the next piece for The Michael Gideon Collection will be a novel and I’d like you to weigh in on just which of the stories it will be.

Time for a polling question!

What Waits Beyond was Michael Gideon’s seventh book. The Cage was book number twenty-five. Which would you rather read?

What Waits Beyond

The land of Dream, as vast as it is, is located on the banks of a realm even more infinite. The origin of every human thought stems from this unnamed eternity; the birthplace of monsters and gods.

We, as humans, upon falling asleep, demand direct deposit onto the beaches of Dream, to conjure our reveries from its copious dunes.

But, alas, we do not know the way to Dream.

To cross that unnamed cosmic eternity, one must employ the vessel of the Stygian. Everyone knows that the first dream of each night’s sleep goes to the Ferryman (it’s only upon Death, the final sleep, that he deals in currency), but some mistakenly believe that this is the charge for the use of his ferry, which is not the case.

The ride is free.

The payment is for safe passage, to and from, untouched by what dwells along the way.

Or, this one:

The Cage

The gray-soaked walls quietly slid past Ryndell as he walked the broken streets, the aluminum foil on his feet nearly worn. A rash had begun on his inner thighs due to their rubbing and blood began to run down his legs, staining his dirty white jeans crimson.

The urge to walk had started yesterday. Ryndell just woke up and started to walk. First around the small apartment that he shared with Kyle, his brother, pacing the floor while he ate a bowl of broken crackers and water. That hadn’t been enough though. Something pulled him toward the inner city, toward this particular alley.

At some point tears had begun to stream down Ryndell’s dirt-covered face, giving him an inverted mime’s mask. He didn’t know why he’d started crying, though he hadn’t needed to know.

He only needed to answer the call of whatever was in this alley.

So there you have it, your two options. Come October 2019, one of those books will be available thanks to your vote. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Tales For Halloween!