See Arcane
Scribbles
Who is See Arcane?
A scribbler of supernatural horror.You might see some of my stuff floating around in anthologies like, Strange Little Girls, Offbeat: Nine Spins on Song, and 99 Tiny Terrors. Another's popping up in 2024's 99 Fleeting Fantasies, under the name C.R. Kane.But where those pieces were all stories from scratch, I’ve recently been bitten by the classic horror literature bug and I'm now playing with century-old bogeymen.
Wait, is it
See Arcane
or
C.R. Kane?
Short version: Yes.Long version: See Arcane is a nickname you’ll see used among friends and on my very sparse social media.C.R. Kane is the name you’re more likely to see on published works. That may change in the future, but it’s the setup for now. At the very least it’s the name you’ll see attached to The Vampyres.
The Vampyres?
The Vampyres!My first novella, released as an eBook and paperback March 15, 2024. The Ides of March is a day for knives and bitter bloodshed, so it seemed appropriate.
For the eBook version, I’ve got a handy UBL (Universal Book Link) that will let you check out all the places it’ll be available.
Just use the following link:
And then pick your eReader of choice.For the paperback, you'll be able to order through just about any online retailer or library. Barnes and Noble and Amazon will have it first, but by March 20th other online stores--Books-A-Million, IndieBound, among thousands of others--will have it available to purchase. Give Bookshop a gander for more options:
Alternatively, you can browse around using the ISBN(s).eBook ISBN: 9798218374594
Paperback ISBN: 9798218374587
It’s a bloody bite-sized morsel concerning the living, the dead, the uncanny horrors in-between, and the consequences of old oaths coming back to bite certain monsters in the throat…
Something is culling the undead.
Whether they imbibe blood, leech life, or traded mortality away to their devil of choice, the revenants of the world are disappearing. The Vampyre, a possessor of many names and collector of many lives, has been fretting over the phenomenon for some time.
A laughable fear, for he is one of those canny cadaverous few who made a deal for perpetual resurrection. The bitten may crumble, but the bargainer can rise from death after death.So he reminds himself.So he worries is no longer the case.
Not when the boyar in the Carpathians was one of the first to vanish. Still, the monster from the mountains may simply be in hiding, just as the rest of the bargainers must be.The Vampyre convinces himself of this for a single night……before the monster called Quinn Morse makes itself known.
Sounds cool. But haven’t I seen a title like this somewhere before?
If you’re into old school vampire tales, almost definitely.Odds are you’re thinking of John William Polidori’s short story, “The Vampyre.” It’s one of the earliest depictions of a vampire as a suave and seductive monster versus some gruesome leech of a corpse. The story was born during the same summer and under the same roof as Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, both the products of a contest among Lord Byron's guests to invent a scary story.If you haven’t read it yet, I definitely recommend it! Especially if you want to spot a few eerie Easter eggs hiding in The Vampyres.
Ugh. So I need to do homework before I even read it?
Not at all.While The Vampyres was grown out of the corpses of more than one horror lit classic like a pungent crop of garlic, it’s not necessary to have read them to enjoy the story. What you need to know will be there in the text (and subtext). Even so, I suggest giving certain stories a gander if you want the experience to be a little richer. At least enough to sit up and point at [REDACTED CHARACTER] to alternately mock, gasp, or feel an extra sinking weight drop through your stomach as all the pieces come together.Stories like…
A blithe young man becomes enamored with the mysterious and charming Lord Ruthven.
Weird how so much madness, despair, and exsanguinated murder keeps piling up around him.
Jonathan Harker goes on his first ever business trip to scenic Transylvania!
It goes wrong from there.
A beguiling bachelorette's paramours keep dying off. Maybe John Barrington Cowles will make it!
(Note: Do not get attached to John Barrington Cowles.)
A traveler gets a disturbing historical account of the cruel Count Magnus and goes to visit the man's sarcophagus in person. Probably should have opted for the tourist traps.
Before there was Jonathan Harker, there was Nameless Narrator, also on his way to Dracula’s place. This prototype to Mr. Harker makes a stop in a dreary dead village and discovers it’s livelier than expected.
In which the undead take the phrase, ‘I love you to death,’ to horrific extremes.
(It has a gruesomely fun adaptation in the anthology film, Black Sabbath, with Boris Karloff starring as the family's bloodthirsty patriarch. Worth a watch!)
Those are the major ones.
But, although they don’t get an explicit nod in the novella, I’d also recommend taking a look at...
Carmilla is one of a few names worn by the title character who spends most of her scenes pining for our narrator, the lovely Laura. She just wants to eat the girl up—in every sense.
One of the first and best tales of a vampire who isn’t evil so much as a happy hedonist. One who's in very risqué love with the narrating priest.
...Just to round out the classic vampire club.So many of these bloodsuckers get overshadowed by Count Dracula. Including the Count himself! More folks know about the movies and spinoffs than have ever picked up his book or any of these other marvelous monsters'.Which is a shame, considering how rich the stories and characters are. It's part of why I wrote The Vampyres in the first place. It's dedicated to some figures who are long overdue for a turn in the bloodstained spotlight.
Sounds nice. Are you working on anything else?
There’s a pile of in-potentia projects brewing. Their titles are subject to change—as is my focus—but as I’m physically incapable of not writing, odds are good that plenty will start popping up on the to-publish list.For now, the main ones I’m chewing on are:
Was Frankenstein Not the Monster?
Another stab at a combo of a follow-up and a crossover for several old supernatural horrors. It's full of alchemic-to-eldritch happenings that dance along the lines between Machen and Shelley and Chambers, oh my.The story begins with a perilously curious individual as he tries to find answers behind the unearthly fire that swallowed a secluded lab, a pair of surreal strangers with a wretched history, and revelations that not only prove there are horrors worse than death, but destinations further than Heaven or Hell.
Unknown and Terrible
There is a castle in the mountains and a monster inside it.He has been scheming for lifetimes, preparing for the arrival of a specific visitor fresh from England.An intimately familiar face, even in the year 2013…The briefest way to define this one is as a full spiritual opposite to The Vampyres. Also a textual mouthwash in response to Francis Ford Coppola’s take on Dracula.
I could go on for another two dozen ideas that are ping-ponging around in my notebooks right now, but these two are the ones that are the most fully congealed as concepts.Odds are 50/50 about one or both being shouldered out of the way for something entirely unexpected. I won’t pretend for a second that I have control over where my focus will yank me. It's a dog the size of Cerberus and it's dragging my carcass around by the leash.
Also, if you're reading through any of the stories or snippets above, I've got some tunes to recommend.
I consider them optimal soundtracks for exsanguinating, slaying, and abusing the laws of life and death to.
Is there anything else I should know?
A few things!
1. If you haven’t gotten into either of them already, I absolutely recommend hitting up the Dracula Daily Substack or the Re: Dracula podcast. They add so much more flavor to reading Dracula than I've ever experienced! I’ve yet to see them matched by any ordinary retelling or audiobook, to say nothing of adaptations which have skimped on ninety percent of the story’s details and warped the remaining ten. Think about joining up with all the other bloodsucking bookworms when they reset and restart in May so you can get in on the en masse read-along and delicious memes.
2. Carmilla’s another classic vampire tale set to get its own audio drama by the Re: Dracula crew! Keep an eye out for updates while the production gets rolling in 2024.
3. You can find me lurking hereabouts:
For professional patter, I can be reached at seearcane@gmail.com.
4. You can find some of my smaller published works floating around in these anthologies.
That's about all I have to say for now.Thank you for reading.
