Coming soon from Starfire Publishing…
On learning that an ancestor was executed for witchcraft in the sixteenth century, the narrator is prompted to explore her history. Research having failed, he resorts to magical means and exposes an array of malefic forces poised to invade the Earth. In a deserted Welsh ruin he discovers a grimoire revealing traffic between alien entities and their terrestrial agents. Rumoured to have lain for centuries in the custody of a Scottish clan, the grimoire’s existence is known to very few. Among them are powerful occultists such as Aleister Crowley and Phineas Black, desperately tracking it down. The grimoire alone holds the keys ─ and the Sign of Protection. A chimera? An allegory? More aptly, a Warning. Civilization is careering to destruction: it may find the Sign ─ or, the Seal of its doom…
This Nightside Narrative, published as the first in Kenneth Grant’s series of novellas, was written as an introduction to the final volume of the Typhonian Trilogies, The Ninth Arch. It thus takes up some of the elements of the series of Oracles collected in ‘The Book of the Spider’ and weaves them into a multi-layered stream of dream consciousness. Although at times not an easy read, Against the Light is a profound and glittering jewel in the corpus of Grant’s work.
Against the Light was first published in 1997. This republication takes account of annotations in Kenneth Grant’s copy of the book, and is timed to precede the republication of The Ninth Arch in late 2016.
Mick, I have noticed that with all the publicity and notifications of the various fine quality reprints of Kenneth’s works by Starfire, you mention they each “take account of annotations from his own personal copy of the book”, etc (or words to that effect), and I take it that these may be silently edited (i.e., incorporated into the text of the new edition without a specific indication of whereabouts they occur and take place). And I was therefore wondering – this happening to be the case – is there some sort of a compilation or pamphlet available which contains a… Read more »
I do understand your point of view here, Jamie. This is something that we discussed briefly in the forums a year or two ago. In the first place, Kenneth’s corrections are relatively minor, mostly typos that he picked up; it wasn’t Kenneth’s practise to revise previous books in the light of his later thinking, so these changes won’t throw any light on his development. The most significant correction made was to ‘Cults of the Shadow’ where two paragraphs had to be juxtaposed, and there were some other corrections which were consequential. Fortunately I was able to find a typescript by… Read more »
Sorry I haven’t replied earlier, Mick, but I don’t pass by this way on Lashtal very often these days, the level of (non-) activity being what it has become. Still, there’s no use in getting unduly blue about these sort of things! Thanks for the reply & your comments. The situation more or less chimes with what I thought might be the case, although I don’t actually remember it being discussed before in the forums offhand, myself. The typos themselves are not really important and are of minimal significance; I had more in mind the sort of scale of amendments… Read more »
More from Starfire… This book will be going to the printers at the end of July 2016 for publication in August, and is now available for ordering ahead of publication. Against the Light by Kenneth Grant is an attractive, sewn hardbound book, octavo format, 142 pages, with a full-colour dust-jacket, and limited to 750 copies. Included are black and white custom printed endpapers, and a full-colour frontispiece. Further details about the content of the book, as well as how to order both the standard and the deluxe editions, can be found by visiting our website, or by following the direct… Read more »