Secret Asia's Blackest Heart

Fiction writers have long taken advantage of the vast world of Asia as the setting for mystery, adventure, and, yes, horror! It was an irresistible location because of both Western ignorance of it and Western knowledge of it. That is, what explorers, ethnologists, and missionaries told us of its exotic (to us) religions, customs, and cultures made Asia seem like a different planet discovered right here on earth. The ancient wisdom of Asia, some of it esoteric and fantastic, especially as described by travelers like Alexandra David-Neel (Magic and Mystery in Tibet) and Madame Blavatsky (Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine), invited Westerners to imagine the existence of even deeper and more sinister secrets. Sax Rohmer, Talbot Mundy, John Taine, E. Hoffman Price, and so many others attest to this. Nor was H.P. Lovecraft immune to the lore of this fictive Orientalism, focused in his notion of the hidden Plateau of Leng (actually another name for Tibet). August Derleth set up his lemonaid stand right next door, creating the shunned Plateau of Sung in Burma, where the terrible Tcho-Tcho People planned their mischief. Lin Carter joined the game, contributing his own Plateau of Tsang. There seemed to be room in the vastness of Asia for all of them and more. The title of the present volume is a phrase taken from one of Lin's Mythos tales, and it nicely sums up the general theme.

Some of these stories are set here in the West but derive their horrors from imported Asian traditions. Others actually take place in Asia. All are fascinating and full of wonder and dread. Our gurus of gore and and lamas of lore include the likes of Ann K. Schwader, Mark Rainey, Don Webb, Michael Fantina, Joseph S. Pulver, Laurence J. Cornford, and Pierre Comtois.