William Jones (game designer)

Last updated
William Jones
NationalityAmerican
Occupation Game designer and author

William Jones is an American horror fiction writer and editor, and a game designer, primarily of role-playing games.

Contents

Career

William Jones is a writer and editor of horror fiction. [1] As a game designer, he has written articles, role-playing game supplements, and role-playing game design for Chaosium and other game publishers. [1]

To date, he has written four novels, numerous short stories, and the short-story anthology, The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson: Horriplicating Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (2008). [2] Although primarily known for horror fiction, he has also written in the genres of mystery, science fiction, dark fiction, historical, and young adult. [1] Jones is also a noted editor of several horror and Cthulhu-mythos fiction anthologies including Horrors Beyond: Tales of Terrifying Realities , and High Seas Cthulhu , [3] and was the editor of Dark Wisdom magazine [1] in 2005 when it was nominated for an International Horror Guild Award in the category of Best Periodical. [4] In 2008, his curated anthology of short stories, Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World, was nominated for an Origins Award in the category of Publication, Fiction. [5]

Jones also teaches English at a university in Michigan. [1]

Reception

In her 2009 book The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 1, Ellen Datlow called Jones's anthology of short stories, The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson "a clever and entertaining collection of ten interrelated stories of Lovecraftian fiction." [6]

Pamela Kinney said of Jones's novel Pallid Light: The Walking Dead that she needed more background on the protagonist to better understand his motivations, and she also wanted Jones to "Flesh out the story, making it more than the world coming to an end." Despite these points, she rated the book 4 stars out of five, saying, "If you’re looking for a good zombie story to read this winter, this would be the one to get. Just beware: if it’s raining, check for odd lights in the sky. And lock your doors and windows." [7]

Bibliography

Novels

Collections of short stories

Short stories

Anthologies (curating editor)

Related Research Articles

Ramsey Campbell English author

Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.

Brian Lumley English horror fiction writer

Brian Lumley is an English author of horror fiction. He came to prominence in the 1970s writing in the Cthulhu Mythos created by American writer H. P. Lovecraft but featuring the new character Titus Crow, and went on to greater fame in the 1980s with the best-selling Necroscope series, initially centered on character Harry Keogh, who can communicate with the spirits of the dead.

Michael Shea (American author) American writer

Michael Shea was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author. His novel Nifft the Lean won the World Fantasy Award, as did his novella Growlimb.

Ellen Datlow American science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor and anthologist

Ellen Datlow is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor and anthologist. She is a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award.

Laird Samuel Barron is an American author and poet, much of whose work falls within the horror, noir, and dark fantasy genres. He has also been the Managing Editor of the online literary magazine Melic Review. He lives in Upstate New York.

Lovecraftian horror Subgenre of horror

Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games and comics.

Year's Best Fantasy and Horror was a reprint anthology published annually by St. Martin's Press from 1987 to 2008. In addition to the short stories, supplemented by a list of honorable mentions, each edition included a number of retrospective essays by the editors and others. The first two anthologies were originally published under the name The Year's Best Fantasy before the title was changed beginning with the third book.

Darrell Schweitzer American writer, editor, and critic (born 1952)

Darrell Charles Schweitzer is an American writer, editor, and critic in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy. Schweitzer is also a prolific writer of literary criticism and editor of collections of essays on various writers within his preferred genres.

Joe Hill (writer) American writer

Joseph Hillström King, better known by the pen name Joe Hill, is an American writer. His work includes the novels Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Horns (2010), NOS4A2 (2013), and The Fireman (2016); the short story collections 20th Century Ghosts (2005) and Strange Weather (2017); and the comic book series Locke & Key (2008–2013). He has won awards including Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and an Eisner Award.

A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.

Stephen Jones (author) English editor and author

Stephen Jones is an English editor of horror anthologies, and the author of several book-length studies of horror and fantasy films as well as an account of H. P. Lovecraft's early British publications.

Lisa Morton is an American horror author and screenwriter.

David Conyers Australian author

David Conyers is an Australian author. Conyers writes predominantly science fiction and Lovecraftian horror.

Gregory Frost American novelist

Gregory Frost is an American author of science fiction and fantasy, and directs a fiction writing workshop at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa. A graduate of the Clarion Workshop, he has been invited back as instructor several times, including the first session following its move to the University of California at San Diego in 2007. He is also active in the Interstitial Arts Foundation.

<i>Cthulhus Dark Cults</i>

Cthulhu's Dark Cults is an anthology edited by David Conyers, containing ten Cthulhu Mythos short stories set in Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role-playing game setting. All the stories take place during the 1920s and 1930s, the era in which the game is set.

Joseph S. Pulver Sr. American writer

Joseph S. Pulver Sr. was an author and poet, much of whose work falls within the horror fiction, noir fiction / hardboiled, and dark fantasy genres. He lived in Germany, and died from COPD and other issues in a German hospital on April 24, 2020.

The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named after Shirley Jackson in recognition of her legacy in writing. These awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic are presented at Readercon, an annual conference on imaginative literature.

Exotic Gothic

Exotic Gothic is an anthology series of original short fiction and novel excerpts in the gothic, horror and fantasy genres. A recipient of the World Fantasy Award and Shirley Jackson Awards, it is conceptualized and edited by Danel Olson, a professor of English at Lone Star College in Texas.

Livia Llewellyn is an American short story horror writer from Alaska.

Lovecraft fandom, Lovecraftian fandom or Cthulhu Mythos fandom refers to is an international, informal community of fans of the works H. P. Lovecraft, especially of the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraftian horror.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Jones, William (2007). "Flames of War". In Lowder, James (ed.). Hobby Games: The 100 Best . Green Ronin Publishing. pp. 113–115. ISBN   978-1-932442-96-0.
  2. ↑ "Summary Bibliography: William Jones". ISFDB. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
  3. ↑ "PW's BEA Exhibitors Guide: E". Publishers Weekly . Vol. 254, no. 18. New York: PWxyz. 2007. pp. 66ff. ISSN   0000-0019.
  4. ↑ "IHG Award Recipients". International Horror Guild. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
  5. ↑ "Nominees for the 34th Origins Awards Announced!". Flames Rising. 2008-04-29. Retrieved 2020-02-09.
  6. ↑ Datlow, Ellen (2009). The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 1. Start Publishing LLC. ISBN   9781597802413.
  7. ↑ Kinney, Pamela K. (2010-02-16). "Review: Pallid Light". Innsmouth Free Press. Retrieved 2020-02-08.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.