It all sounds innocent enough.
Four authors, with a broad but shared vision of good weird and chilling fiction, banding together to release a series of books.
Innocent enough. Except when those authors happen to be the Abominable Gentlemen. Oh, each volume is on its own ordinary enough. Four fine stories, one from each of the Gentlemen, maybe a guest author, all usually based around a theme. Nothing exceptional. Nothing untowards.
Just words.
But of course, being Abominable, the Gentlemen have a wider plan. Hatched late one night, over brandies in the club. In the corner, the Man With A Skull For A Head nodded his quiet encouragement.
Although each volume on its own is harmless, a pleasing diversion or a brief hair-raising chill, piece by piece they form part of a greater whole. A greater whole that, when complete, will change everything. Once the work is complete the words in the individual volumes will seek each other out, as if drawn by some strange attractor, and the words will fuse and the words will twist, and they will feed and they will change and they will breed. An alchemical transformation of language will take place that will spell out the secret words of the universe itself, the words of power that hold the bonds of reality together and which will open the gate to universes beyond all human imagining. A million beautiful but terrible mutant flowers will bloom, reaching their twisted petals in supplication to skies of molten cloud, before they wrench their roots shuddering from the earth, and start to walk.
At least, that's the plan. The original arcane rituals demanded volumes of illuminated lettering on parchments made from the shirts of martyrs, and we are not yet sure whether it will survive the conversion to Amazon's proprietary electronic format.
But are you sure that it won't?