The Cryptid Compendium: 2021 - 2025 (Systema Paradoxa Supplementary Volume)

There are creatures lurking in our world. Obscure creatures long relegated to myth and legend. They have been sighted by a lucky-or unlucky-few, some have even been photographed, but their existence remains unproven and unrecognized by the scientific community.

These creatures, long thought gone, have somehow survived; creatures from our nightmares haunting the dark places. They swim in our lakes and bays, they soar the night skies, they hunt in the woods. Some are from our past, some from other worlds, and others have always been with us-watching us, fearing us, hunting us.

These are the cryptids, and Systema Paradoxa tells their tales.

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Delve into this vibrant compendium compiling the cryptids featured in the first five years of the acclaimed Systema Paradoxa series, combined with vivid full-color illustrations by the reclusive JW Harp.

Award-winning author, editor, and publisher Danielle Ackley-McPhail has worked both sides of the publishing industry for longer than she cares to admit. In 2014 she joined forces with Mike McPhail and Greg Schauer to form eSpec Books. Her published works include eight novels, Yesterday's Dreams, Tomorrow's Memories, Today's Promise, The Halfling's Court, The Redcaps' Queen, Daire's Devils, The Play of Light, and Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn, written with Day Al-Mohamed. She is also the author of the solo collections Eternal Wanderings, A Legacy of Stars, Consigned to the Sea, Flash in the Can, Transcendence, The Kindly Ones, Dawns a New Day, The Fox's Fire, Between Darkness and Light, Echoes of the Divine, and the non-fiction writers' guides The Literary Handyman, More Tips from the Handyman, LH: Build-A-Book Workshop, and The Literary Handyman Library omnibus edition. She is the senior editor of the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology series, No Longer Dreams, Heroes of the Realm, Clockwork Chaos, Gaslight & Grimm, Grimm Machinations, A Cast of Crows, A Cry of Hounds, Other Aether, The Chaos Clock, Grease Monkeys, Side of Good/Side of Evil, After Punk, and Footprints in the Stars. Her short stories are included in numerous other anthologies and collections. She is a full member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association and a Supporting Ally in the Horror Writers Association.

Until his decades-long disappearance, JW Harp was known for his trippy underground comic strip Captain Thetan, about a seafarer who controls reality for himself and others. This otherworldly character appeared in a dozen issues of the classic rare underground zine Sandanista Romp. JW has reemerged thanks largely to eSpec Books' Systema Paradoxa series. In 2023, JW started Skilletfire Studios with comic-book author Scott Eckelaert. Under the Skilletfire Studios mantle, JW has produced the graphic novel Boylon Heights, and the Gimme Five Comics series. Since its launch, Gimme Five Comics has included work by Artyom Topilin, Elena Cerisciola, John L. French, Keith Lansdale, and Joe R. Lansdale with more to come. JW grew up in the seedy parts of South Carolina, which is all of it. He feels part Canadian and part Costa Rican these days. He lives in North Carolina. Please get in touch with him at jwharp@skilletfire.com.