Cassilda’s Song

Cassilda's Song

Details

Publisher: Oakland, CA: Chaosium Inc., August 21st 2015

Page Count: 260 p.

Editors: Joseph S. Pulver

Artist: Steve Santiago, cover illustration

Artist: Nicholas Nacario, cover & interior design

Artist: Marcus J. Ranum, cover model photographed

Summary

Tales inspired by Robert W. Chambers' King in Yellow Mythos

Cassilda’s Song is a collection of weird fiction and horror stories based on the King in Yellow Mythos created by Robert W. Chambers—entirely authored by women. There are no pretenders here. The Daughters of the Yellow Sign, each a titan of unmasked fire in their own right, have parted the curtains. From Hali’s deeps and Carcosa’s gloomy balconies and Styx-black towers, come their lamentations and rage and the consequences of intrigues and follies born in Oblivion. Run into their embrace. Their carriages wait to take you from shadowed rooms and cobble­stones to The Place Where the Black Stars Hang.

The 1895 release of Chambers’ best-remembered work of weird fiction was salted with nihilism and ennui, and ripe with derangement, haunting beauty, and eerie torments. Poe’s influence was present in the core tales and one could easily argue Chambers may have been influenced by the French Decadents and the disquieting transfigura­tions of the Symbolists. All this and more can be said of the works collected in this anthology. Carcosa, accursed and ancient, and cloud-misted Lake of Hali are here. The Hyades sing and the cloud waves break in these tales. The authority of Bierce’s cosmic horror is here. The talismantic Yellow Sign, and the titular ‘hidden’ King, and The Imperial Dynasty of America, will influence and alter you, as they have the accounts by these writers. Cassilda and other unreliable narrators, government-sponsored Lethal Chambers, and the many mysteries of the mythical Play, are boldly represented in these tributes to Chambers.

Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Contents

• "Introduction", Joseph S. Pulver
• "Black Stars on Canvas, a Reproduction in Acrylic", Damien Angelica Walters
• "She Will Be Raised a Queen", E. Catherine Tobler
• "Yella", Nicole Cushing
• "Yellow Bird", Lynda E. Rucker
• "Exposure", Helen Marshall
• "Just Beyond Her Dreaming", Mercedes M. Yardley
• "In the Quad of Project 327", Chesya Burke
• "Stones, Maybe", Ursula Pflug
• "Les Fleurs Du Ma", Allyson Bird
• "Old Tsah-Hov ",Anya Martin
• "The Neurastheniac", Anya Martin
• "Dancing The Mask ", Ann K. Schwader
• "Family ", Maura McHugh
• "Pro Patria!", Nadia Bulkin
• "Her Beginning is Her End is Her Beginning", E. Catherine Tobler & Damien Angelica Walters
• "Grave-Worms", Molly Tanzer
• "Strange is the Night", S.P. Miskowski
• "Authors Biographies"

Comments/Trivia

Chaosium publication 6064. ISBN-10:1568820828. ISBN-13: 9781568820828. Part of the Call of Cthulhu Fiction line.