For over 25 years The Alchemy Press has published fantasy, science fiction and horror in fiction and non-fiction, and a few poems along the way, from a wealth of wonderful writers such as Sarah Ash, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Steve Rasnic Tem, Storm Constantine, Stan Nichols, Nancy Kilpatrick, Stephen Jones, all encased in covers by the likes of Clive Barker, Daniele Serra, David Hardy, Steve Upham … and many more writers and artists.
Collected here is a smorgasbord, if you will, a taster of what has appeared over the years, to whet your appetite. In these pages you can visit Teufelsberg and Lirpaloof Island; meet the Dragon-Form Witch at the Silver Dollar, where No One Stays Dead; play your Ace in the Hole; and welcome The Return of Boy Justice. Read these stories … because we’ll always have Alchemy.
Dark bleatings, my alchemic tribe! I’m here with an anthology overview for you today, and this book is special because it’s here to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Alchemy Press!
This anthology offers a variety of genres and subgenres; horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and everything in between. I was delighted to find authors I recognise and some that are completely new to me, as well as a couple I’ve been meaning to read but hadn’t yet got around to.
We kick things off with Teufelsberg, an eerily-relatable story for the writers amongst us, and then move over to Lirpaloof Island, where a work-placed joke goes waaay too far. Death and the Weaver rolls in with some existential dread, followed by Inappetence (one of my favourites and one that I find quiet disturbing!).
A genre shift next with Meeting at the Silver Dollar, a western tale of hero worship, and then into some fantasy with Dragon-Form Witch. Weirdness follows in No One Stays Dead, and then we’re delighted with an epic battle in Ace in the Hole – this story has my favourite final line in the whole anthology!
Threadbare is a tale of tarot-telling treachery and trouble (and another personal favourite), followed nicely by Bones, another dark fantasy entry. The Return of Boy Justice is the penultimate title, and stands out because of its wholesomeness. Finally, we round off with a poem called Of Shadows, Of Light and Dark, a nice lyrical finale.
There’s no set theme for this anthology, and as a result, it has one of the wider readership appeals I’ve come across. I think it’s perfect for a FantasyCon crown, actually, because it contains stories and authors that altogether totally encapsulate the spirit of that event. As usual with anthologies, there were some hits and misses for me (my personal taste is very much for the horror so I enjoyed stories in that genre more than the others, for the most part), but overall I think this appeals to a wide audience.
I’d recommend it to fans of multiple genres, particularly horror, sci-fi, and fantasy – and blends of all three! If you’d like to check out the book or the press, I’ve popped some links below for you.
Bleeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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