Author and archivist of propulsive horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction

"I opened a door to other worlds that I never should've opened. In doing so, I've started something that I don't think I can stop..."

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About the Author:

Colby Coles is an Idaho-based author of horror, fantasy, and other speculative fiction.
Through stories drenched in the strange, the wonderful, and the horrific, he explores what might survive when we're pushed to our breaking points and beyond; examining how, even amid the most suffocating darkness, it is possible for us to find light.

What is the berkeley archive?

"While clearing out my grandpa’s storage unit, I found a strange box filled with unpublished manuscripts, artifacts, and notes belonging to someone named Rick Berkeley.The thing is, nobody in my family knows who Rick Berkeley is...Most of the stories are in bad shape. Several aren’t even finished. A few probably shouldn’t have been written in the first place.I'm working diligently to restore, rewrite, and publish as many of the stories from this archive as I can, all while trying to make sense of the man who wrote them and the darkness within."

The Berkeley Archive Thus Far...

Below are some of the most interesting things I've found in the Berkeley arhive thus far. Click to see where they take you...

While the works of the Berkeley Archive have still yet to see the light of day, I have been working diligently on assuaging this issue. Below are some of the first stories I've had the pleasure of delving into.

Old Bones:

A tale of primal terror."65 million years it's been planning, waiting, evolving. We've been here for a fraction of a percentage of that. We don't stand a chance..."After a mysterious earthquake and the ensuing government coverup isolates a Northern California prison from the outside world, the surviving inmates and staff find themselves in the fight of their lives against prehistoric nightmares, shady government operatives, and their own primal instincts.If any of them survive, it'll be a miracle.

Old Bones is a cosmic/paleo horror novel that takes the punk-rock, apocalypric dread of Keith Rosson’s Fever House, mashes it together with the powder-keg corruption of the United States prison system, and injects undead dinosaurs.Old Bones will be sent out for query following revisions.

The Antiquary:

A lost manuscript, hidden away in an envelope, now come to light."You should've stayed out in the snow..."When 5 strangers—a young woman fleeing college after a nervous breakdown, a trucker smuggling drugs across state lines, two snowboarders living in their van, and an old crone who’s a few dimes short of a dollar—are forced to seek shelter from a massive Idaho blizzard inside a sprawling, maze-like antique shop, they soon learn that some of the dusty antiques may just have a lust for blood.
By then, it’s too late.

A claustrophobic, frozen nightmare, The Antiquary is the debut novella from author Colby Coles.Coming to booksellers near you, Summer 2026.

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