You Should Be Reading Eric Ortlund

Thoughtful and Complex Cosmic Horror

Hello darkness, my old friend.

I got to know Eric Ortlund when we were colleagues, fellow faculty at a college in Saskatchewan. We bonded over our mutual interest in cheesy low-budget action films, existential psychology, martial arts, and books. Lots of books.

It was Eric who infected my mind with the Gene Wolfe virus. He loaned me a copy of The Wizard Knight. I read it, and gave it back saying that it wasn’t for me. But the darn book wouldn’t get out of my head, overriding my free will and forcing me to read it again. And again. And then making me seek out more of Wolfe’s books. And now I’m doomed to exist in a world of unreliable narrators and perplexing vocabulary. Thanks a lot, Eric.

Speaking of books that get into your brain and won’t leave, Eric Ortlund recently published his third book of fiction, and I figured now would be a good time to introduce everyone to the dark universe that lurks behind his eyeballs. Seriously, just look at his face if you want a hint of what it’s like in there:

That’s not a camera effect; it’s how he normally looks. With a punim like that, is it any surprise to learn that Eric is also a brilliant Old Testament scholar who also publishes academic works on suffering, meaninglessness, and chaos?

Eric Ortlund deals with similar themes in his fiction writing, producing high-concept apocalyptic works that are complex, thoughtful, and disturbing. And his stories are not for the faint of heart, because the end of the world is only the beginning of the horror.

Dead Petals starts things off with a classic zombie uprising that very quickly turns into… something else. These aren’t your ordinary zombies. A walking abomination twists reality and demands worship. An ocean of primal chaos writhes below the world. And new gods must rise.

The protagonist of I Am the Doorway is a man of modernity who starts out thinking that he understands life, only to have everything taken away from him as he is dragged into a world of hungry animalistic gods, mad cultists, and mind-shattering truths. Trapped between two world-destroying forces, will there be anything left of him? Will there be anything left of anything?

All Gods Die And Other Stories is a collection of short fiction. A tribe of humans teeters on the brink of annihilation on a faraway planet. An online sickness infects a son with the sins of his father. A boy learns that we are all walking wounded. The world blackens beneath a living plague. The broken find their voices around a midnight fire. Emotionally gut-wrenching, reading the tales in this collection is like looking into the broken heart of someone who is being brutally honest about himself, saying in stories what he cannot say directly.

Is there hope on the other side of nihilism? Is there forgiveness for those who break the world?

Eric Ortlund’s writing is dark and atmospheric, creating a sense of crushing inevitability and growing dread. These books are ideal for fans of Lovecraft and other cosmic horror authors. You will not find comedies or fast-paced thrillers here, but you will find depth, psychological complexity, and above all else thoughtfulness. So if that is your vibe, you should be reading Eric Ortlund. You can find his work at Amazon and other online book sellers (see the links above), or at the Seed of Dragons writers’ collective.

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