Stephen Mark Rainey (born 2 May 1959) is an American author and editor who has contributed numerous novels and short stories to the fictional Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft.
Overview[]
Rainey began his writing career in the mid-1980s with a number of short stories set in or inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Many of his early works were published in Robert M. Price's Crypt of Cthulhu and other magazines under Price's Cryptic Publications label, such as Revelations From Yuggoth edited by Shawn Ramsey and Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, edited by Wilum H. Pugmire. Many of Rainey's Mythos-related stories originally appeared in Chaosium's Cthulhu-Mythos "Cycle" anthologies, such as The Azathoth Cycle, The Shub-Niggurath Cycle, The Innsmouth Cycle, The Ithaqua Cycle, and others. He went on to edit his own Cthulhu Mythos anthology, Song of Cthulhu, published by Chaosium in 2001.
Rainey's Lovecraftian and Cthulhu Mythos stories have appeared in such anthologies as The New Lovecraft Circle (1996), Miskatonic University (1996), Singers of Strange Songs (1996), World War Cthulhu (2014), Return of the Old Ones (2014), Black Wings IV (2015), Through a Mythos Darkly (2017), Summer of Lovecraft (2019), and Tales from Arkham Sanitarium (2022), among others.
Many of Rainey's Lovecraftian stories are set in or around the fictional community of Aiken Mill, a rural community in the mountains of southwest Virginia. Most of these stories involve entities summoned by the music of one Maurice Zann, whose relationship to Lovecraft's Erich Zann remains undefined but absolute. Maurice Zann is the author of a grimoire titled The Spheres Beyond Sound, a book of music that, when performed, opens doors to a realm populated by entities both directly and indirectly related to those of the Lovecraft's pantheon. Pivotal works in what author/editor Robert M. Price calls Rainey's "Fugue Devil Cycle" include the stories "Threnody," "The Spheres Beyond Sound," "Fugue Devil," "Eye of the Devil," "The Herald at Midnight," and "Misfits."
Selected Bibliography[]
Editor[]
- Song of Cthulhu (2001)
Author[]
Novellas[]
- The Gods of Moab (2012)
Short Stories[]
- "The Grey House" (1985)
- "Threnody" (1986)
- "The Spheres Beyond Sound" (1987)
- "The Red Depths" (1987)
- "Rapture in Black" (1987)
- "Misfits" (1989)
- "Fugue Devil" (1990)
- "The Herald at Midnight" (1991)
- "The Last Show at Verdi's Supper Club" (1992)
- "Stalker of the Wild Wind" (1993)
- "Sabbath of the Black Goat" (1993)
- "S" (1994)
- "To Be as They" (1995)
- "Silhouette" (1995)
- "The Devil's Eye" (1995)
- "Shudder Wyrm" (1996)
- "The Fire Dogs of Balustrade" (1996)
- "The Children of Burma" (1999)
- "Epiphany: A Flying Tiger's Story" (2001)
- "The Violet Princess" (2004)
- "Other Gods" (2005)
- "The Ghost Lens" (2007)
- "Signals" (2007)
- "Beneath the Pier" (2010)
- "The Warlords of Leng" (2010)
- "The End of Henry Switch Road" (2010)
- "The Danforth Project" (2011)
- "The Game Changers" (2013)
- "When Jarly Calls" (2013)
- "Masque of the Queen" (2014)
- "Short Wave" (2014)
- "Contact" (with John Pelan, 2016)
- "The Diaries of Henry P. Linklatter" (2016)
- "The Veil of Dreams" (2017)
- "Messages from a Dark Deity" (2017)
- "Pons Devana" (2018)
- "Virus" (2019)
- "Nimbus" (2022)
- "Doom at Dragon's Roost" (2023)
- "Magic Eye" (2023)