Valancourt Books
The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales by Attila Veres - tpbk
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Translated by Luca Karafiáth
Introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem
Every so often a new horror writer bursts onto the scene with a book that is so dazzlingly original, so bone-chillingly terrifying, that it instantly alters the landscape of contemporary horror fiction. Hungarian author Attila Veres’ debut collection The Black Maybe is one of those books.
This volume collects ten of his best tales in English for the first time, ranging from weird fiction like ‘In the Snow, Sleeping’, in which a couple’s vacation to a health spa erodes into a surreal nightmare, to folk horror like ‘Return to the Midnight School’, in which the things that emerge from the soil in one rural farming community are bizarre and horrific, to Lovecraft-inspired tales like ‘Multiplied by Zero’, written as a wry travelogue in which a man sets out on a deadly holiday tour to explore Lovecraftian landscapes. And in the title story ‘The Black Maybe’, which Steve Rasnic Tem calls ‘one of the weirdest tales I’ve read in years’, a girl and her family escape the bustling city to experience farm life, only to discover with unimaginable horror the truth of what is really being harvested there.
These stories are thrilling, frightening, sometimes blackly humorous, and totally unlike anything you have read before. As Tem writes in the introduction, ‘Given both the range and originality of his dark fiction, Attila Veres’ career is one to watch.’ After reading this book, we have no doubt that readers will agree.
Introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem
Every so often a new horror writer bursts onto the scene with a book that is so dazzlingly original, so bone-chillingly terrifying, that it instantly alters the landscape of contemporary horror fiction. Hungarian author Attila Veres’ debut collection The Black Maybe is one of those books.
This volume collects ten of his best tales in English for the first time, ranging from weird fiction like ‘In the Snow, Sleeping’, in which a couple’s vacation to a health spa erodes into a surreal nightmare, to folk horror like ‘Return to the Midnight School’, in which the things that emerge from the soil in one rural farming community are bizarre and horrific, to Lovecraft-inspired tales like ‘Multiplied by Zero’, written as a wry travelogue in which a man sets out on a deadly holiday tour to explore Lovecraftian landscapes. And in the title story ‘The Black Maybe’, which Steve Rasnic Tem calls ‘one of the weirdest tales I’ve read in years’, a girl and her family escape the bustling city to experience farm life, only to discover with unimaginable horror the truth of what is really being harvested there.
These stories are thrilling, frightening, sometimes blackly humorous, and totally unlike anything you have read before. As Tem writes in the introduction, ‘Given both the range and originality of his dark fiction, Attila Veres’ career is one to watch.’ After reading this book, we have no doubt that readers will agree.
EARLY PRAISE
"The Black Maybe is the strangest of books: one from a young writer, the Hungarian Attila Veres, fully formed. Never hesitating, his world is unique, bleak, terrifying and all his own. Whether it’s urban fables of rock music, harvests that claim souls, Aickmanesque situations or an amazing take on cosmic horror, his vision is always stunning. These stories, his debut in English, will blow you away." - Mariana Enríquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire and Our Share of Night
"The ten macabre tales that make up Veres’s English-language debut stake their scares on their wildly unpredictable plots. All Veres’s stories begin in realistically grounded settings before veering unexpectedly into territory rife with unforeseeable and surreal menaces . . . These tales wear their resistance to conventional horror tropes and formulas as a badge of honor. Readers are sure to be impressed." - Publishers Weekly
"Every decade or so, a writer comes along who reconfigures the way we think about the Weird. First Thomas Ligotti, then Laird Barron, and now Attila Veres. An astonishing collection, really unlike anything out there, which suggests a new way forward."
- Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
"The Black Maybe is the strangest of books: one from a young writer, the Hungarian Attila Veres, fully formed. Never hesitating, his world is unique, bleak, terrifying and all his own. Whether it’s urban fables of rock music, harvests that claim souls, Aickmanesque situations or an amazing take on cosmic horror, his vision is always stunning. These stories, his debut in English, will blow you away." - Mariana Enríquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire and Our Share of Night
"The ten macabre tales that make up Veres’s English-language debut stake their scares on their wildly unpredictable plots. All Veres’s stories begin in realistically grounded settings before veering unexpectedly into territory rife with unforeseeable and surreal menaces . . . These tales wear their resistance to conventional horror tropes and formulas as a badge of honor. Readers are sure to be impressed." - Publishers Weekly
"Every decade or so, a writer comes along who reconfigures the way we think about the Weird. First Thomas Ligotti, then Laird Barron, and now Attila Veres. An astonishing collection, really unlike anything out there, which suggests a new way forward."
- Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World