by Shaun Armando Lawton
British author James Havoc has died. He was integral to the formation of Creation Books, and mentored and befriended Dave Mitchell, now editor of Incunabula Media. The black and white photo Dave posted is the first image I believe I’ve ever seen of him, which appears to be a testament to his legendary obscurity and denizen of the deep underground. I colorized it here with my unique "Griffin template" model that I devised on Deep Dream Generator.
While I didn't know Havoc in person, as an early collector of many Creation titles, I felt I got to know him in spirit from his wordcraft alone. My review of his book Satanskin has been up on Amazon for 27 years now (originally posted under "Luciferal" on May 9, 1999):
"...Want to have an idea what truly evil writing might be like, were it penned by the Devil himself--? Read Satanskin. Want to increase your vocabulary to include a veritable pantheon of obscure/ancient language--? (retromingent, excoriating words; curious, vesuvial language steeped in fecund, anamorphic dahlias, blossoming with puling eidolons of meaning reeking with vitreous, oneiric lacrimal effigies swirled in the carmine fontanelles of an hallucinating pariah...)--Read Satanskin. Want to fuel your nightmares w/truly frightening imagery that was not meant for the human mind? Do you wish to poison your braincells with a virus of utter damnation? If you've been looking for something to offend, your search has come to an end. Discover James Havoc -- and never be the same, poor, innocent human again. Just remember--You have been warned!"
I've felt a poetic kinship with him since discovering that cryptic Creation book on my one week visit to London in the late Fall of ‘95. It was perched upon a stack piled high in a bookstore called MURDER ONE, if I recall correctly. I paid £5.95 for it with my debit Mastercard on November 24. Filed under “Black Fantasy/Surreal,” it was the lurid cover art that first caught my eye. Upon further examination of the back cover, it described the content as “A collection of surrealistic black fantasy fables which disclose an occult world of sex magick, lunar mutiny, excremental demonolatry, in utero lycanthropy, sadomasochistic vampirism, oneiric post mortem malediction, and other bizarre manias; a book steeped in arcane law, suffused with the perfume of graveyard erotica.”
In that sense of poetic kinship, I'm deeply affected by our sudden loss of this daring and innovative practitioner of esoteric, lucid writing. It’s now May 29, 2026, and I’m still stunned over here, stateside, and feeling the long distance echoes of Dave’s pain, along with his extended family and friends. I'm gazing at the spine of SEVEN COFFINS FOR THE KILLER as I type this, James Havoc’s final book, just published by Incunabula Media after an interminable hiatus from the other side of the world, feeling that at the very least, he carved out a significant niche in eternity, by which he'll not be forgotten for as long as this world continues to rot and grow.
He was undeniably a controversial figure. There were many reports of writers dissatisfied with his responsibilities as a publisher, citing having never been paid appropriate royalties, etc. He disappeared from the UK for years, and many ill-suited rumors accompanied in the wake of his departure. I take the online rumors with a heavy grain of salt, neither accepting nor denying them. True impartiality is rare today, but I choose to look past the noise to focus on the creative spirit of the man himself.
James Havoc (whose real name was James Williamson) wrote fiction. James Havoc published extreme literature. He composed poetic flash fables in a manner which outwardly appeared to be driven by a drug-fueled adrenalin and manic obsession with capturing the lurid decadence of the Fin de Siècle per Huysmans and transgressive lit movement heralded by the Marquis de Sade and outsider writers such as Antonin Artaud. James Havoc will remain an avatar of pushing the boundaries of this creative spirit.
As for me, it was the power of his poetry that captivated my attention as a young man seeking out writings that charted unknown territories beyond the Weird to explore a forbidden underbelly with all the strange and bewitching lure of the old masters. To all those who knew him and accepted him for who he was, another troubled and brilliant human soul trapped here among us in this captivating and alternately wonderful and terrible order of Earth, who cared for his genuine gift of crafting wicked prose unlike any of his peers, I salute you in honor of his passing.
James Havoc has shed his snakeskin at long last. I suddenly had this intution, just now, that he was born in a Year of the Snake, because so was I. I looked it up, and confirmed it. Born in 1959, about six years older than I, he pierced through the veil of this mortal existence at the age of 66, to break on through to the Other Side. Let him be remembered as a true literary innovator and creative spirit devoted to wordcraft, in his own light.
I was actually excited about the potential of connecting with him over the internet, by email or Messenger via the metaverse, after ordering his latest book. It’s with a sense of that all too familiar weariness that I must resign my association with him back to the spirit world itself. And so it goes. After all’s said and done, that’s the true world behind the facade that drives us on our daily grind, isn’t it though? The “Omega” that lies in wait at the end of our mortal lives, if examined more closely, reveals itself to actually be the true Alpha to the spirit world. Death remains the entrance to the beginning of our immortal cycle. We have all lost a lot of dear friends and family members who have passed through this EXIT door. Like Jim Morrison said, “No one gets out of here alive.”
A toast to our recently departed friend, then. Here’s to James and our neverending story.
