Tales from the Coming War is a sewn hardback of 253 pages, printed lithographically, with silk ribbon marker, head and tailbands, and d/w.

 

ISBN 978-1-912586-61-5

 

£45.00 inc. free p&p worldwide

 

If you would like to receive your order by way of a tracked postal service please contact us directly at ray@tartaruspress.com

 

Ebook: £7.99

(Please note that the ebook will be sent manually, so there may be a short delay in receiving it.)

alternatively, buy ebook direct from Amazon UK and Amazon.com

TALES FROM THE COMING WAR

by

Eric Stener Carlson

 

Cover painting and illustrations by Joseph Dawson

 

One day, we will read the last book we will ever read; listen to the last record. We will run down the street, laughing, drenched to the bone by the last rainstorm. Far from the crumpled clothes in the hall, we will feel under the sheets for the last time that familiar heart-beat next to us.

 

These things are inevitable, and yet we continue to hope, and plan, and love.

 

This is how the characters in this collection face the last war the world will ever know. From the wild countryside of West Virginia, to a sterile museum in London, from a frozen battlefield in Ukraine to the high plains of Peru, and from islands scattered across the North Sea, the Aegean, and the Pacific, and many places in between, they resist, they imagine, and they remember—and they find that memory is an act of resistance, too.

 

Contains: ‘Notes on the Coming War’, ‘I See Minza’, ‘Desertscape’, ‘Christ, Mammoth’, ‘Death is like a Slotted Spoon’, ‘In our Silences, They Speak’, ‘Roses’, ‘Chronicle’, ‘The Zig-zag Line’, ‘Letter to my Husband’, ‘Bookshelf’, ‘Moth’, ‘Cruel & Unusual’, ‘Dolls at Noon’.

 

Publication 17th January 2025

 

Eric Stener Carlson (Minnesota, 1969) has spent most of his life abroad, and his writing reflects his experiences in South-East Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America. His work spans strange tales, horror, mystery and science fiction.  He is particularly interested in the struggle for humanity within con¬texts of automation and violence. He has published two novels with Tartarus Press, The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires (2009) and Muladona (2016), and the short story collection Dark Arts (2022). His other fiction includes the novel Anxiety of Ghosts (Amazon, 2017), the short story collection Gas (Mount Abraxas, 2017) and his first novel written in Spanish, Plaza Lavalle (Raphus Press, 2022). Eric’s short stories and articles have appeared in journals and collections throughout the Americas and Europe. He currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

 

 

Reviews

 

"With stunning precision, Carlson’s prose captures the horrors and sorrows, the spiralling fall into darkness. . . . Tales from the Coming War feels like history and reads like prophecy.  Readers will find that as well, it lives in memory." Rick Kleffel, Narrative Species blog.

 

"I make it sound grim. Well, it is. But it is also beautiful. And empathetic. And what makes this all possible is the quietly superb writing of ESC. There’s no drang, no strum, no fireworks and no-one else who could have pulled this off." Andrew Sherwell at Coffee and Flapjacks

 

"I eventually came to realize that it's not the horrors that these people face that had me on edge but rather the way in which the author plunges the reader front and center into each story, making you feel like you're the one who's living through these times. That, my friends, is powerful and emotional storytelling. Enough said. Definitely recommended." Oddly weird fiction

 

See also Every Book is an Act of Defiance, is an interview by Ray Russell with the author Eric Stener Carlson and the illustrator, Joseph Dawson, in the recently published UN newSpecial. (p. 34)