Bastards of the Absolute

Thomas Ligotti writes:

'The stories in Adam Cantwell’s Bastards of the Absolute are richly imagined mysteries. They could be fairly equated with the works of Kafka or Borges if their prose were not so luxuriant and surprising at every turn. Contemplating the mood and storylines of these arresting pieces, a quote from Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym comes to mind: “My visions were of shipwreck and famine; death or captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged out in sorrow and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an ocean unapproachable and unknown.” The fate of each protagonist in Cantwell’s collection delineates or fulfills Pym’s fantasy—one that is both lavish in its exoticism and unbounded in its desolation. Although these beings are entrapped in worlds that to all appearances turn upon axes of torment, they are as likely to be resigned as resistant to their cruel destinies. While readers may not chortle in experiencing these awful fantasias, they will be captivated by them.'

The book contains eleven pieces — a mix of novellas and short stories, revised and reworked especially for this book — along with nine previously unpublished drawings by Charles Schneider and an introduction by George Berguño.

The full table of contents is as follows:

Introduction — George Berguño

The Face in the Wall

The Filature

Offal

The Notched Sword

Beyond Two Rivers: A Symphonic Poem

Only For The Crossed-Out

The Curse of Desert and Flesh

Moonpaths of the Departed

The Kuutar Concerto

Symphony of Sirens

Orphans on Granite Tides

The book is a lithographically printed, 256 page sewn hardback with printed endpapers (by Eduard Wiiralt), limited to 250 copies. ISBN 978-0-957160675.