The Imago Sequence

The collection features seven stories, including the title novella alongside other notable cosmic horror works like "Hallucigenia" and "The Procession of the Black Sloth." It was first published in 2007 by Night Shade Books and helped establish Barron as a leading voice in modern weird fiction.

While the book introduces many of Barron's recurring themes of ancient, indifferent cosmic entities, it does not explicitly focus on his later Old Leech mythos. Instead, the stories largely blend hardboiled noir, crime fiction, and Lovecraftian terror in isolated settings.

The story follows a San Francisco-based private investigator who is hired by a wealthy eccentric to track down the origins of two mysterious, gruesome photographs. His search plunges him into an occult underworld that reveals horrific, reality-altering secrets about human evolution.

The collection was originally published by Night Shade Books in 2007. It has since been reissued by publishers like Tachyon Publications, ensuring the foundational cosmic horror stories remain available for contemporary readers.