Big Dave's Top 5

The Chief's Favorite BZA Deep Cuts

I get asked all the time “What are your favorite stories that you’ve published?”. And I’ll be honest, that question is harder to answer than which albums would you take to a desert island. The Bizarchives is absolutely stacked with awesome storytellers. Many of whom I work with frequently and get to read much of their work that doesn’t make it into print.

On top of that, we’re now five issues in. Each volume contains a minimum of a dozen stories. That’s over 50 individual stories from several authors of different styles and genres. And that’s not even getting into the several novels and novellas we’ve published. For being a young company we have a girthy catalog. We’re very proud of that. But at this point, it’s tough to remember each and every story we’ve ever published and which ones I loved.

So, it would probably be easier to name the top three, or even the top five of each individual author. But that would be pretty cumbersome to type up for a quick article. So after leafing through all of the issues and recalling which stories I loved, I’ve cooked up a top five of my personal favorites from all five issues.

To be clear, this is not at all “the best” stories or the best-selling stories. These are just the tales that tickled my pickle in my own personal preferences. One of you Bizarbarians out there could have a totally different list and it would be just as good as mine. So, without further ado;

Number 5

Dunelord’s Dreaming by M.S. Jones (BZA2)

(art by Donald Kent)

Truth be told, I’m not a big fantasy guy these days. Maybe it’s fatigue, maybe I’m in a different place in my life right now. But, when I sit down for leisure I rarely reach for fantasy. That being said, I’d be shocked if this yarn wasn’t on most favorites lists. It’s not a deep cut. This is a fan favorite. It was featured on the cover of The Bizarchives #2 and still remains to this day one of the best fantasy shorts we’ve ever published and one of the best ones ever written. That’s not hyperbole or bias. Dunelord’s Dreaming is a perfect story and can stand up to any of the greats of any time period.

It’s about a company of undead mercenaries in a weird Arakisesque setting where they do work for coin. Usually, they escort trade caravans to their destinations. What do sentient undead need money for you might ask? To buy a very rare psychedelic pollen that comes from a red flower. They risk everything just to get a hit of this stuff. And when they use it they enter a dream state so they can remember and see their loved ones from their past lives. Problem is, after the high is over and they come down, they remember nothing. Freakin’ genius.

Deep lore: Mr. Jones’ first version of the story had a different ending. I didn’t think it was strong enough so I made him rewrite it. He came back with the perfect ending.

Number 4

The Thing from the Sea by L.T. Greystoke (BZA4)

(Art by random anon bro on Twitter.)

I frickin’ LOVE this story. It’s nothing too fancy, it’s not a legendary story that I’ve never seen before. It’s a familiar yet classic premise of a creature feature that you’d see in the old pulp pages of yore. It’s about a dude who finds a weird amorphous critter on the beach. He brings it home and puts it into a fish tank. The thing grows into a hideous tentacle monster that starts talking to him in a disembodied voice and eats his girlfriend. Then it escapes out the door to probably wreak mayhem and eat more girlfriends. Based.

Number 3

The Crater of Asulugar by H.G. Byron (BZA4)

(couldn’t find the art)

H.G. Byron has appeared in The Bizarchives twice (I think). He’s one of those writers that has a truly unique voice. He’s not a very literal describer and has an almost airy surrealist quality to his style. He mostly writes sci-fi but is as far away from Asimovian hard sci-fi as you can get. He presents strange dreamlike settings and characters. It’s not for everyone but it is for me. Crater of Asulugar is about two clones who wake up in a spaceship pod thing trying to figure out who and where they are. They then crashland on an odd planet that has antediluvian ruins.

Number 2

Prestwick’s Project by A. Cuthbertson (Cosmic Horror Double Feature)

Cover by The Light of Decay

This was the first novella that we published by the first author that ever submitted to The Bizarchives. That story, “Tanner’s Gold”, almost made the list here. And I’m sure a few of you are going to blast me for not putting the mighty Count Choralure on the list. Choralure is probably the most popular BZA character and the series is obviously fantastic. But it’s not your list, is it? These are Dave’s favorites. The Daveorites. And my absolute favorite Cuthbertson yarn is the second half of A Cosmic Horror Double Feature. A tale called “Prestwick’s Project”. He sent me this story when I was supposed to be spending a few days at the in-laws. I ended up ignoring everyone and getting sucked into it. It’s about a physics student who works on a project under a celebrity professor. But that project is building machines that monkey with frequencies or vibrations or some such spooky science thing. Turns out there are super-intelligent interdimensional parasite aliens looking to come into our world. They pull up, snatch bodies, and destroy reality. Geometry gets all twisted, time is tampered with and dudes transform into tentacle flesh balloons with faces on them. Absolutely top-notch. One of my favorite stories ever.

Honorable mentions:

I could go on to honorably mention everyone. There’s so many banger stories from BZA alumni. Here’s some rapid fire that absolutely deserve mention.

The Horror Beneath by C.P. Webster (Novel)

Master of the House by Arbogast (BZA3)

Inertia of a Protean Tantalus by Jim Bonner (BZA5)

Statement of Carter Brinton by Froskaz (BZA2)

Stranger in the Morgue by Marc Andre Chevalier (BZA2)

Jennings by Robert C. Booth (BZA3)

He Tried to Die by Liberty Magee (BZA3)

Before I go listing everything in my honorable mentions here’s my personal number one favorite BZA tale. I absolutely adored this tale as it was the perfect bookend to our second issue. In BZA2 I start it out with an introduction called “The Silver Key”, an homage to H.P. Lovecraft, the patron saint of The Bizarchives. This tale had a subheader that read “A tale lovingly crafted”.

Number One

The Sound from Beneath by C.J. Miller (BZA2)

(can’t find the art done by Donald Kent)

The Sound from Beneath is a masterful supernatural horror yarn told in a voice that sounds almost identical to the gentleman from Providence. It’s such a good impression that if we attributed it to Lovecraft nobody would question it. This is a big deal because everyone tries to sound like Lovecraft and very very few really pull it off. Not only does he sound like him in this story, he absolutely nails the crawling eerie pace of a traditional Lovecraftian tale. It’s a story about a young man who hears an ominous sound from the bottom of a well at the far end of his family’s estate. As time passes becomes obsessed with this strange sound as if it’s calling to him. He begins sneaking out into the night to dig until he reaches an underground gate that he keeps seeing in increasingly bizarre dreams. It’s so good. He has another great creature feature called “Tangrils” that would’ve made this list if he hadn’t written this one.

There are so many other great deep cuts in The Bizarchives. Not every story is for everyone but that’s the fun of pulp compliations. It’s a mixed bag of weirdness that covers all kinds of genres. Part of the excitement is the adventure of going into uncharted waters. Flipping to the next story from an author you’ve never heard of in a genre you’d never thought you’d enjoy.

What’s your list of top five favorite BZA stories?