I didn’t publish a lot of new stories in 2025, but I had fun with the ones I did, including the two (and a half) stories in the Starlight Theater Halloween Double-feature zine that I did with artist Patric Bates, and my story “The Phantom of the Wax Museum” in Final Curtain, an anthology of tales celebrating The Phantom of the Opera, put out by Lethe Press to coincide with the centennial of the Lon Chaney film version.

The biggest thing that I did this year, though, was release Notes from Underground, my latest collection of stories from Word Horde, which includes a new novella, “Leandra’s Story.” Unlike previous collections, Notes from Underground is made up of a linked “story cycle” of connected tales that all deal (either directly or tangentially) with the Hollow Earth.

It’s a very different approach for me, so I’ve been a little nervous, and extremely gratified by the positive word of mouth it has so far received. Trevor Henderson called it, “A wonderful collection quite unlike any I’ve read before.”

Earlier this year, I was pleased to get a very thoughtful review of Notes from Underground at The Blog Without a Face, and today I was even happier to see that The Blog Without a Face had included Notes from Underground on their list of the Best Horror Books of 2025. Here’s what they had to say about it:

Orrin Grey builds a linked-story mythos where the Hollow Earth isn’t an adventure postcard, it’s a crack in the world you can’t stop picking at. You get subterranean weirdness, pulp DNA, and a dream-logic ecology that keeps sliding from physical to metaphysical. There’s also the delicious kicker: humanity’s doom and what comes after, including beetle-civilization vibes that make your skin crawl. Smart, uncanny, and fun as hell.

When it comes to ways to wrap up a year, that one’s not bad at all. If you’d like your very own copy of Notes from Underground to read (or want to give one as a belated holiday gift), you can get it direct from Word Horde (or numerous other retailers) here. Or, if you want to give me a present, you could always ask your local library to pick up a copy.