Chimericana Books is a brand new publisher for a brand new breed of extreme fiction reader

For fourteen years, Tombstone Award Winner Hertzan Chimera was the 'keyboard name' of Oxford, UK-based writer/artist Mike Philbin. Hertzan released a number of books through the alternative press, Szmonhfu (novel Eraserhead Press), Animal Instincts (illustrated collection, Double Dragon Press), B.F.G.S. (collaborative collection, Massacre Publishing), Chim+Her and Chim+Him (collaborative collections, Cyber Pulp Press). These works were the epitomy of extreme sci-fi horror fusion and genre rule breaking. Hertzan waged a private war against mediocrity in the short span of his writing career.

Mike Philbin started Chimericana Books two years ago because he couldn't find any fiction on the so-called horror bookshelf that could hold his attention longer than *clicks fingers* that. Most of the things he read were derivative, weak, grey, cliched, genre-compliant filler product that any honest editor would have sent back in a black fugue of disdain or simply poured gasoline on and burned in the reject bin.

What makes Chimericana Books so different from 99.37% of the literature you find on the book shelves today is a) they defy genre, 3) they're very strange and ix) you can't find them in the shops - Chimericana Books is a totally online trade paperback venture.

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Jane's Game (novel)
by Mike Philbin (65,000 words).
The technicians at the Fountains Institute for Molecular Science thought they knew what they were doing when they wrote her Jane progam, they had rewritten her so many times before why should this time be any different? But they didn't account for love and the power of devotion. They didn't envisage how the merest physical contact would be able to transform the body into a steel scythe that could carve through living matter. They didn't account for unconditional belief in one's true identity. Their most fatal error.

Twilight's Last Gleaming (novel)
by Mike Philbin, writing as Hertzan Chimera (80,000 words).
Written in the early nineties and set in the north of England, the split narrative tells the interwoven story of the a trip to a parallel world from both the physical and the mental perspective. It's up to the reader to decide which. The world is in danger and aliens are harvesting the souls of mankind to further their intergalactic cause. Aliens were never supposed to be this seductive, though.

The Hoo-Hoo Are Coming (novel)
by Mike Philbin, writing as Hertzan Chimera, (80,000 words).
Written in the late nineties, this book explores future European politics and the role of dolphins in human evolution. But it's not really about that. It's about horror, sheer mental and physical horror. The horror of the flesh, the horror of the machine, the horrific interface between the two. Will mankind survive the frenzied amalgamation of desire and chrome?

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Each year, Chimericana Books releases the Chimeraworld anthology, 23 writers from around the world compete to outdo each other in the subversive fiction stakes.

Chimeraworld #1 (23 extreme tales) a pure 'grand guignol' festival of all things subversive, horrific and insane.

Chimeraworld #2 (hell is a sorry s**t hole) the chillled-out downer-antidote to the previous year's gory excesses.

Chimeraworld #3 (atheist, misogynist, terrorist) 23 stories that touch on one or more of these provocative themes.

Chimeraworld #4 (all cars must die) is about car-lust, it's about car-warfare, it's about car murder, car revenge, car conscience… People are born in cars, grow old and fat in them: people die in their cars.



All Chimericana Books titles are available in 6" by 9" trade paperback DIRECT from Chimericana Books at just $14.99.