06/11/2025 Exploring The Labyrinth with Kit Power: A series on the work of Brian Keene

Happy Wednesday! We will be introducing a new series for the summer, while Ali Sweet takes a much-needed break. We have partnered with Kit Power to bring you this series of deep dive essays into the work of Brian Keene.

Please check out his introduction below and get ready to Explore The Labyrinth!

Exploring The Labyrinth - Coming Soon

My name is Kit Power, and I have a confession to make: I basically quit reading new horror in 2001.

I moved over to crime, primarily, and became obsessed with James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, Dom Winslow, and Jonathan Kellerman in particular (as well as diving into the back catalog of Jim Thompson). I don’t regret that - I think good, dark crime fiction and horror are kissing cousins, and the line between them increasingly blurred, and anyway, it’s good to read more widely but it does mean I missed out on the big horror trends and writers of the 00s. In general, Splatterpunk basically passed me by entirely (though I could make a case for James Herbert’s early work being at least proto-Splatterpunk, in some respects - and James Ellroy could almost be described as a Splatterpunk author, even though his output is labelled Crime - but I won’t because this isn’t that article).

In particular, I missed Brian Keene. Entirely.

Through various sources - mainly fellow writers and critics, though also through Mr. Keene’s podcast - it became clear to me that I should probably, in the words of the man himself, un-fuck that situation. So, I picked up The Girl on the Glider, because it was on sale in Kindle format for .99p, and well, I was blown away.

Like, knocked out. Like, this-book-is-as-important-as-On-Writing knocked out. And then I realised that if I was going to do this thing, I should do it properly.

So, the plan is to read Keene’s entire catalogue* and talk about how I find them, starting at the beginning and running in (rough) chronological order of publication. Nothing quite as definite as a review series, I don’t think - in most cases, these books have all been critically evaluated to death and back - more a journal of my own exploration of this writer's work, and my responses to it.

The aspiration is to keep to a monthly schedule with this. Those of you familiar with my past non-fiction projects will already be rolling your eyes at that, and fair enough. I’ll do my best. I’m really looking forward to the journey, and I hope you get something out of it, too. These discussions will be spoiler-filled, so please bear that in mind.

The first 24 essays are already written, so they’ll be released on a biweekly schedule until we’re caught up. A prologue of sorts will kick things off, covering Clickers (which Keene didn’t write, but which is so integral to the rest of his output that it would have been wrong not to include it) and then the series proper will commence with Keene’s debut novel The Rising. And whether you’re a Keene fan of old, or a new reader like me, I hope some of you join me on the journey and share your own thoughts on these books as the essays drop.

I’m looking forward to it.

If you are interested in playing along, here’s the list of publications this series will be covering, in order.

0: Prologue: Clickers (J.F. Gonzalez, Mark Williams)

1. The Rising (2003)

2. City of the Dead (2005)

3. Terminal (2005)

4. Earthworm Gods (2005) – also published as The Conqueror Worms

5. Dark Hollow (2005) – also published as The Rutting Season

6. White Fire (2011, but written in 2005)

7. Ghoul (2006)

8. The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World (2006)

9. Take the Long Way Home (2006)

10. Tequila’s Sunrise (2007)

11. Dead Sea (2007)

12. Shades (with Geoff Cooper) (2007)

13. Jack’s Magic Beans (2007)

14. Clickers II (with J.F. Gonzalez) (2007)

15. Kill Whitey (2008)

16. Ghost Walk (2008)

17. Earthworm Gods: Selected Scenes From the End of the World (2008)

18. Castaways (2009)

19. Urban Gothic (2009)

20. An Occurrence In Crazy Bear Valley (2010)

21. Clickers III (with J.F. Gonzalez) (2010)

22. Darkness on the Edge of Town (2010)

23. The Cage (2010)

24. Scratch (2010)

25. A Gathering of Crows (2010)

26. The Girl on the Glider (2010)

27. The Rising: Deliverance (2010)

28. Entombed (2011)

29. Alone (2011)

30. The Damned Highway (with Nick Mamatas) (2011)

31. Earthworm Gods II: Deluge (2012)

32. Clickers vs. Zombies (with J.F. Gonzalez) (2012)

33. Last of the Albatwitches (2013)

34. Blood on the Page: The Complete Short Fiction of Brian Keene Vol. 1 (2013)

35. Sixty Five Stirrup Iron Road (with Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, J.F. Gonzalez, Bryan Smith, Wrath James White, Nate Southard, Shane Mckenzie and Ryan Harding) (2013)

36. The Last Zombie vol.1 - 25 (2010-2013)

37. King of the Bastards (with Steven L. Shrewsbury) (2014)

38. The Lost Level (2015)

39. The Complex (2015)

40. Where We Live and Die (2015)

41. Pressure (2016)

42. Schools Out (2016)

43. All Dark All The Time: The Complete Short Fiction of Brian Keene Vol. 2 (2016)

44. Throne of the Bastards (with Steven L. Shrewsbury) (2017)

45. Return to the Lost Level (2017)

46. Silverwood: The Door (2018)

47. Hole In The World (2018)

48. Curse of the Bastards (with Steven L. Shrewsbury) (2019)

49. Thor: Metal Gods (2019)

50. Love Letters From A Nihilist: The Complete Short Fiction of Brian Keene Vol. 3 (2019)

51. Nemesai (2020)

52. Dissonent Harmonies (with Bev Vincent) (2020)

53. Suburban Gothic (with Bryan Smith) (2020)

54. With Teeth (2021)

55. The Seven: The Labyrinth Book 1 (2021)

56. Stories for the next pandemic (2021)

57. Submerged: The Labyrinth Book 2 (2022)

58. Things Left Behind (with Mary San Giovanni) (2022)

59. Splintered: The Labyrinth Book 3 (2023)

60. Island of the Dead (2023)

Really looking forward to exploring these books with you.

Kit Power

2/6/25

*Entire in-print fiction catalogue. I think his non-fiction work is also extraordinary, and plan to loop back around and cover that once I’m through the fiction library (so, sometime in 2040).

Bio for Kit Power:

Kit Power is an author of horror and dark crime fiction novels, novellas, and short stories; also a reviewer, essayist, and podcaster. The Finite, A Song For The End (BFA finalist, 2021), and Millionaire’s Day are his most recent fiction works; three novellas with interconnected elements that bring the apocalypse to his hometown of Milton Keynes in three very different ways. He encourages you not to read too much into that.

When he’s not gleefully visiting destruction on his hometown (fictionally), Kit writes non-fiction (much of which is collected in the two-volume My Life In Horror tomes, available wherever books are sold), reviews, blogs, and podcasts on subjects as diverse as Sherlock Holmes, Bruce Springsteen, and short horror fiction.

And if you enjoyed what you just read, please back his Patreon and buy his damn books, because the man needs to eat. Thanks.

Find Kit at the below links:

Find his podcast feed at https://talkingrobocop.libsyn.com/

Find his Patreon (free membership gets you the newsletter, as little as a $1 a month gets something new every week) at: https://talkingrobocop.libsyn.com/

Find him on Bluesky: @kitgonzo.bsky.social