New at Matt Forney’s Electric Camel: “The Voices in Your Head: Phil Hendrie and the Death of Talk Radio, Part 2”

The second part of my article on the career of Phil Hendrie and the death of talk radio is now up at Substack:

Moreover, Hendrie simply could not handle hosting a normal talk show. Having spent much of his career interacting with callers via the crutch of his characters, free to deride them without consequences and fully aware of how stupid they were, he was adrift and listless without that crutch. During his first week, he took a call from a deranged woman who ranted for several minutes about how Barack Obama was the Antichrist. He nodded along in a stupor before thanking her, hanging up, and saying that no, he didn’t think Obama was the Antichrist.

Click here to read the rest.

New at Matt Forney’s Electric Camel: “The Voices in Your Head: Phil Hendrie and the Death of Talk Radio, Part 1”

I discuss the rise and fall of talk radio and the career of Phil Hendrie in an article I originally wrote for another project, now edited and published at Substack:

I knew a likely “chronic” once, when I lived in Chicago. He was my next door neighbor. He was on disability, listened to Michael Savage, and would leave his door open while listening to the radio or watching TV in the hopes somebody would stop in and talk to him. He would constantly rant about “GOD DAMN COMMUNISTS” and how the Democrats were “KILLING BABIES!” whenever he watched the evening news. He also had a fondness for loudly masturbating on the toilet with the window open and once threw his DVD player out the window while drunk. It landed on the roof of the bungalow next door.

Click here to read the rest.

New at Matt Forney’s Electric Camel: “The Internet Didn’t Die, it Was Murdered”

I discuss Dead Internet Theory, AI technology, and government gaslighting operations at Substack:

Commercially available AI tech is hardly the most advanced tech out there. ChatGPT is not the cutting edge. There is evidence to suggest—such as Google’s Selfish Ledger project, initiated in 2016, or its integration of AI tech into its Translation program around the same time—that AI is far more advanced then what the public has access to. The “Upthehappyeveryday” bot is using accounts that have existed since the mid-oughts, for instance. Another data point: In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, was a backer of Narrative Science, an AI company founded in 2010 that specialized in data and narrative storytelling technology.

Click here to read the rest.

New at Matt Forney’s Electric Camel: “Uncle Ted Would Have Been on Substack”

I’ve started a Substack blog for occasional nonfiction articles that aren’t appropriate for Terror House Magazine or other publications, since I’ve accumulated a pile of writing over the past year. I have a more important article scheduled for tomorrow, but this is something short I wrote about the death of Ted Kaczynski:

Kaczynski’s conception of science and technology as being non-neutral and possessing a value set that innately transformed society—and not necessarily for the better—is not an idea he invented. The trope of the “mad scientist,” all-but-extinguished in modern culture with its ethos of “I fucking love science,” is a plank of Western art and culture stemming back to the Romantic era of the early 1800’s, when Britain’s rapid industrialization combined with the upheavals of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars led many to believe that technological advancement was going too far. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written in 1818, is arguably the seminal work of this strain of thought, encapsulating the anxieties many had that scientists were playing God with disastrous consequences. The parallel Luddite movement in Britain, arguing that labor-saving machines produced inferior work to traditional textile workers and were harming working class wages, was another manifestation of anxiety over unchecked technological progress; Lord Byron famously defended the Luddites in his maiden speech to the House of Lords.

Click here to read the rest.

There’s Only Us Out Now: Buy it for 40% Off Through Sunday

Terror House Press is pleased to announce the release of its 45th book: There’s Only Us by Craig Langley. There’s Only Us is a horror novel examining social decay, masculinity, and family values through the lens of post-apocalyptic fiction. Craig is the host of The Cinematic Conservative YouTube channel and made his debut at Terror House’s “Dominion” event in New York City last autumn, reading excerpts from the book. For more information about There’s Only Us, you can peruse the excerpts we’ve published here.

To celebrate the release, the e-book edition of There’s Only Us is on sale for 40 percent off (regular price: $4.99). This deal is only available if you purchase the book directly from Terror House Press.

  • Click here to purchase the paperback edition of There’s Only Us.
  • Click here to purchase the e-book edition.

This sale ends on Sunday, June 11.

For advance information on Terror House books, sales, and more, you can sign up for the official Terror House newsletter by clicking here.

In addition, you can purchase the paperback and e-book editions of There’s Only Us from the following retailers:

U.S.

Canada

U.K.

Germany

France

Spain

Italy

Netherlands

Poland

Sweden

Australia

Japan

Brazil

Mexico

If you’d like a review copy of the book, email me at admin [at] terrorhousepress [dot] com using the subject line “There’s Only Us Review Copy.” All reviewers will receive e-book copies in ePub, MOBI, and PDF format. If you would like a physical review copy, please provide your mailing address. Please allow two to four weeks for delivery.

Cross-posted at Terror House Press.

Hypnagogia Out Now: Buy it for 40% Off Through May 12

Terror House Press is back, and we’re pleased to bring you our latest book, our 44th in nearly five years of operation: Hypnagogia by Romain P.A. Delpeuch.

Hypnagogia is a book that is genuinely difficult for me to describe. A meld of prose and poetry, Romain’s debut novella plumbs the depths of human memory, dreams, and the interior life. Revolving around the intertwined stories of a child actress and a Hungarian man investigating the mysteries of an 18th century cult, the best introduction to Hypnagogia is to read some of the excerpts published on Terror House Magazine here. Romain’s other work at Terror House can be found here and you can follow him on Twitter here.

To celebrate the release, the e-book edition of Hypnagogia is on sale for 40 percent off (regular price: $4.99). This deal is only available if you purchase the book directly from Terror House Press.

  • Click here to purchase the paperback edition of Hypnagogia.
  • Click here to purchase the e-book edition.

This sale ends on Friday, May 12.

For advance information on Terror House books, sales, and more, you can sign up for the official Terror House newsletter by clicking here.

In addition, you can purchase the paperback and e-book editions of Hypnagogia from the following retailers:

U.S.

Canada

U.K.

Germany

France

Spain

Italy

Netherlands

Poland

Sweden

Australia

Japan

Brazil

Mexico

If you’d like a review copy of the book, email me at admin [at] terrorhousepress [dot] com using the subject line “Hypnagogia Review Copy.” All reviewers will receive e-book copies in ePub, MOBI, and PDF format. If you would like a physical review copy, please provide your mailing address. Please allow two to four weeks for delivery.

I’d like to thank everyone who reached out after I published my statement last month. We are still in the process of reorganizing and getting back up to speed; if I haven’t gotten back to you yet, I apologize. Please stay tuned to our social media and websites for updates in the coming days.

Cross-posted at Terror House Press.

Statement on My Absence and the Future of Terror House Press

Given that Terror House has been largely inactive for the past two months, I owe an explanation to everyone as to what has been going on. I intended to publish this on Monday, but I’ve rewritten this multiple times because I wasn’t entirely sure how to word it.

For most of the past year, I’ve been severely depressed related to various goings-on in my personal life, a situation that only got worse at the end of last year, when my savings ran out and I was looking for a new job after my two main freelance gigs at the time ended. I also realistically assumed too much Terror House-related work, which would have been difficult to keep up with even in an ideal situation, and began falling behind on that as well. By the time the new year rolled around, I was thoroughly burned out, stressed out about how I was going to pay my bills, and completely at a loss on how to deal with my situation.

I was able to resolve my financial situation in February when I got a new, decent-paying gig. I was initially planning to take a short break to focus on that before returning to Terror House, but days stretched into weeks and into months as I found it increasingly difficult to get back into the swing of things. I started ignoring emails and messages and not communicating with anyone period aside from a close circle of friends (who I also kept unaware of my emotional state).

To be frank, a small part of me has wanted to leave the Internet for quite some time. I’ve always enjoyed running Terror House, but I’ve become tired of being a public figure. I’ve been writing online in some form or another since I was 21; my entire adult life has been defined by this. I don’t understand why, but over the past year, part of me has gotten tired of the negativity, the scrutiny, the constant churn of drama. I made a conscious decision a year ago to distance myself from my past online behavior and be more positive and uplifting, and even then it seemed like people were intent on dragging me into conflicts that I wanted nothing to do with. I’ve barely even looked at Twitter or other social media since January because I’ve had it with the negativity (and because, at least in Twitter’s case, the site is borderline unusable now).

Writing this down makes me feel idiotic and accentuates how selfish and unprofessional my behavior has been. Virtually all of my problems are either self-inflicted or non-problems. The one actual problem I had—my financial situation—I’ve already resolved. And nobody asked me to do this. I started Terror House in 2018 because I wanted to create a publishing house giving voice to neglected writers. It’s been more successful than I could possibly dream of. Giving up on it because…what, I feel sad? That’s stupid.

And one of the things that helped to snap me out of it was Bryden’s death hoax back in February. His trolling led to countless people actually thinking I’d passed away, numerous tributes on Twitter, my phone blowing up, and one of my friends actually banging on my door to make sure I was okay. The fact that so many people were concerned about my well-being was genuinely touching and gradually made me realize how selfish I was behaving.

To everyone: I sincerely apologize. At bare minimum, I should have stated I needed a break of some kind and/or been more communicative. There was no excuse for just dropping off the face of the Earth.

Terror House will continue. Submissions will reopen in the coming days. Emails and messages will be caught up on if they haven’t already. New books are forthcoming. There will be some internal changes, but if you’re a reader or contributor, nothing will be different.

Thank you for your support over the years.

Cross-posted at Terror House Press.

Attention Deficit Out Now: Buy it for 50% Off This Weekend Only

Terror House Press is pleased to announce the release of its 43rd book: Attention Deficit by Van Wright. Attention Deficit is a comedic novel about millennial dysfunction, modern relationships, online culture, and filmmaking. Van Wright is a contributor to Terror House Magazine and Expat Press; Attention Deficit is his first novel. For more information about Attention Deficit, you can peruse the excerpts we’ve published here.

To celebrate the release, the e-book edition of Attention Deficit is on sale this weekend only for 50 percent off (regular price: $9.99). This deal is only available if you purchase the book directly from Terror House Press.

  • Click here to purchase the paperback edition of Attention Deficit.
  • Click here to purchase the e-book edition.

This sale ends on Sunday, January 29.

Please note that due to an issue with our paperback distribution partner, we can’t provide a discount on the paperback edition of Attention Deficit at this time. We are working on resolving this issue and will update this post as soon as we can.

Due to logistical issues, we were unable to provide pre-orders for Attention Deficit. Terror House newsletter subscribers ordinarily receive a coupon code offering 25 percent off if they pre-order paperback editions of our books. For future sales as well as Terror House news, sign up for the official Terror House newsletter by clicking here.

In addition, you can purchase the paperback and e-book editions of Attention Deficit from the following retailers:

U.S.

Canada

U.K.

Germany

France

Spain

Italy

Netherlands

Poland

Sweden

Australia

Japan

Brazil

Mexico

If you’d like a review copy of the book, email me at admin [at] terrorhousepress [dot] com using the subject line “Attention Deficit Review Copy.” All reviewers will receive e-book copies in ePub, MOBI, and PDF format. If you would like a physical review copy, please provide your mailing address. Please allow two to four weeks for delivery.

Cross-posted at Terror House Press.

Matt Forney Live: Eviction Experiment

On this episode of Matt Forney Live, I will be testing out my new streaming settings, discussing new projects, and other topics. The show will air this evening at 7PM Eastern (6PM Central/4PM Pacific).

Watch the show below (you can also use it to watch a recording after the show ends):

To watch the show on YouTube, click here. To listen to and download the show in MP3 format, click here.

To watch future streams live (as well as any other videos I upload), you can subscribe via the following platforms:

To listen to the show in MP3 format, you can subscribe via the following platforms:

Episodes will be made available shortly after the live show ends. The show is also available via Pocket Casts, Overcast, and other platforms.

If you have a comment you want me to read live on air, you can send me a Streamlabs tip by clicking here.

To support the show, click here.

Links

Artwork by Matt Lawrence. Intro music “Beijing to Mogadishu” by Common Filth.

Art Official Out Now: Buy it for 50% Off This Weekend Only

Terror House Press is pleased to announce the release of its 42nd book: Art Official by Kurt Cole Eidsvig. Art Official is a comic novel examining the art world and the influence the government exerts on contemporary culture, rooted in American history and the post-9/11 world. Terror House editor and Shanghai Horror author Arbogast describes Art Official as “a strange (and darkly comedic) tableau” that “serves as a reminder that art and culture have always been weapons of war.” For more information about Art Official, you can peruse the excerpts we’ve published here.

To celebrate the release, the e-book edition of Art Official is on sale this weekend only for 50 percent off (regular price: $9.99). This deal is only available if you purchase the book directly from Terror House Press.

  • Click here to purchase the paperback edition of Art Official.
  • Click here to purchase the e-book edition.

This sale ends on Sunday, January 8.

Please note that due to an issue with our paperback distribution partner, we can’t provide a discount on the paperback edition of Art Official at this time. We are working on resolving this issue and will update this post as soon as we can.

Due to logistical issues, we were unable to provide pre-orders for Art Official. Terror House newsletter subscribers ordinarily receive a coupon code offering 25 percent off if they pre-order paperback editions of our books. For future sales as well as Terror House news, sign up for the official Terror House newsletter by clicking here.

In addition, you can purchase the paperback and e-book editions of Art Official from the following retailers:

U.S.

Canada

U.K.

Germany

France

Spain

Italy

Netherlands

Poland

Sweden

Australia

Japan

Brazil

Mexico

If you’d like a review copy of the book, email me at admin [at] terrorhousepress [dot] com using the subject line “Art Official Review Copy.” All reviewers will receive e-book copies in ePub, MOBI, and PDF format. If you would like a physical review copy, please provide your mailing address. Please allow two to four weeks for delivery.

Cross-posted at Terror House Press.