News from Medusa Press … their new release, Vivian Meik’s Devils’ Drums, is available now in a new expanded edition.
Description: Since its publication in 1933 as part of the Creeps series, Vivian Meik’s short story collection Devils’ Drums has long been an especially desirable book for collectors of weird literature. When one considers the scarcity of the title and the fact that it hasn’t been reprinted for nearly eighty years, it’s easy to see why sellers ask for very high prices for worn copies.
This wouldn’t mean much if the stories were not as enjoyable and as thrilling as they prove to be. Vivian Meik’s best horror fiction is unconventional, and it is probably for this quality that his work will be remembered.
Devils’ Drums contains his very best work.
With this book Meik found his métier. Set in and around Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique and Malawi), the ten chilling stories in Devils’ Drums provide an abundance of zombies, curses, vengeful ghosts, and arcane witch doctors to appease the most pulp-hungry reader, and are a refreshing contrast to much of the British horror fiction of the early part of the twentieth century.
For this long-overdue reprint, the original contents have been augmented by two uncollected tales, and an episode from one of his autobiographical books that reads remarkably like his stories.
Douglas A. Anderson has also written a thorough, well-researched introduction to Vivian Meik’s colorful career and adventurous life, with many anecdotes revealed here for the first time.
Medusa Press is proud to reissue Vivian Meik’s Devils’ Drums after decades of silence for a new generation to enjoy. You can order the collection, which is limited to just 300 copies, directly from the publisher here: Devils’ Drums
