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Equal parts fantasy and pulp noire, Bill Willingham's short story "Thieves of Daring" combines sharp and modern prose with a healthy dose of AD&D dungeon crawling. First published in the fantasy anthology collection "Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery" in 2010 and compiled by editors Johnathan Strahan and Lou Anders, Willingham's short story puts us in medias res on a heist gone wrong where the treasure is your life and not everyone is as they appear. Punchy and dreadful in tone, we are placed in the shoes of Septavian, a young thief who takes on a job with his close companions for what they believe will be an easy score. The truth will be far more deadly. 

As a new trilogy begins this week, we shift from Eldritch oblivions to Swords and magical forces. Starting with a piece from her collection of eleven short stories titled "Orsinian Tales", The Barrow was published in 1976 by American author Ursula K. Le Guin. With icy-cold prose and an even colder setting, The Barrow takes us deep into the frostbitten lands of a young lord as he hosts at his snowy keep, a guest from a distant land. With a focus on historical fiction, pagan mysticism and brooding dread The Barrow sets a dark tone for the fantastical worlds we will soon delve into.

We conclude our foray into cosmic horror with the third and final piece from H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider. Written as a sort of homage to one of Lovecraft's biggest influences, Edgar Allen Poe, The Outsider works as a bridge between worlds. Written over the course of several months in 1921, the story pushes forward its themes of loneliness, isolation and melancholy in a way that evokes a mix of introspective dread and futility rather than a purely cosmic one, exclusively. It exists in the realm of Cosmic Horror but wears all the trappings of its Gothic roots right on its sleeve. Told from the perspective of a man seemingly imprisoned in a massive and dilapidated castle, The Outsider takes Lovecraft's signature brand of horror and redirects it; not out to the universe but towards, perhaps, a more frightening and expansive unknown. Ourselves.

The second piece in our trilogy of Cosmic Horror takes us from the vast expanses and furtive depths of the Pacific in "Dagon" to the tightly packed and dilapidated alleys of Boston's historic North End neighborhood. Set as a recounted tale to his friend Eliot, our narrator Thurber tells of the greatest painter in all Boston, Richard Upton Pickman, who is both revered and shunned for his skill and life-like monstrosities set to canvas. But what begins as a little more than a professional admiration soon becomes artistic obsession as Thurber finally meets his idol and is granted a window into his method....and his madness.    

From the vast vacuum of space to the crushing depths under rolling waves, the fear of the unknown is one of humanities oldest foes. So what better place to begin this project than with a foray into the abysmal terror that is Cosmic Horror. First written in 1917 then published in 1919, Dagon by horror writer H.P Lovecraft establishes many of the standards to be found in his unique brand of horror. Vast oceans, dark depths and grotesque aberrations of abominable scale all define this classic work of cosmic horror.