‘Master of the macabre’ Garth Marenghi announces latest project

Garth Marenghi has returned from the “figurative darkness” with his latest project.

On Wednesday (17 August), British actor Matthew Holness, who co-created the fictional horror author character with Richard Ayoade, appeared as Marenghi in a video to announce the release of a new book.

“Greetings pilgrim,” Holness as Marenghi begins, clicking on a light to illuminate his surroundings, before quipping, “Ideally that should have faded up.”

He continued: “I have returned at last from the darkness – figurative darkness, I’m not a spelunker – to bring you Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome, my latest novel of supernatural terror. Hence, TerrorTome.”

“It’s out on 10 November,” Holness said, adding, “Which is technically after Halloween but I had an argument with the editor and things got delayed a bit.”

The self-proclaimed “master of macabre” told fans the book is now available for pre-order before signing off, “Frightfully yours, ie mine, Garth Marenghi”.

The “long-lost multi-volume epic” from Marenghi is published by UK’s Hodder & Stoughton, and will be available in hard back, ebook and audio formats.

The synopsis reads: “When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination – now leaking out of his own brain – Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and Nick’s dreaded throppleganger, the Dark Third.

Can he and Roz, his frequently incorrect female editor, hunt down these incarnate denizens of Nick’s rampaging imaginata before they destroy Stalkford, outer Stalkford and possibly slightly further?”

In a statement, as the fictional horror writer, Holness said: “Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome will read like my classic oeuvre of paperback horrors crossed with the X-Files, Faustian myth and bits of Manimal.

“Plus the cover is embossed with genuine foil at my insistence and at your expense.”

Holness and Ayoade were behind the cult Channel 4 sitcom Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, which premiered in 2004 and ran for series season. Ayoade played the character of Marenghi’s publisher Dean Learner.

The name “Garth Marenghi” is an anagram of the phrase “argh nightmare”.