Ellen Datlow Honorable* Mentions

Ellen Datlow's annual Honorable* Mentions list has been published, and I'm sure I'm not the only writer who scrolls down the alphabetical list to where my name might be before reading the whole thing...

So this year I was bowled over to see that my story 'A Glimpse Of Red' from Great British Horror #1 sitting at the end of the Es—my second mention. And not only that, but three stories from The Hyde Hotel (edited by myself and Dan Howarth) were also selected; richly deserved congratulations to Simon Bestwick, Ray Cluley and Amelia Mangan!

Being less self-centred, it's great to see stories from so many friends and excellent writers included. Of the ones I've read on the list I particularly liked those by Eliza Chan, Kristi DeMeester, Malcolm Devlin, Cate Gardner, Carole Johnstone, V.H. Leslie, S.P. Miskowski, Ralph Robert Moore, Simon Kurt Unsworth, D.P. Watt, Michael Wehunt, and A.C. Wise.

You can read the whole list here (Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3)

* this is the only occasion on which I'll be using the American spelling :)

Edge-Lit 5: After

On Saturday I went to Edge-Lit 5 and had a wonderful time, as always. The whole day passed in much of a blur, so this post won't be as detailed as Mark West's latest Convention Report: he's a man who seems to remember everything that happened. Maybe the fact Mark doesn't drink helps...

Mark West, me, Peter Mark May
(photo by Peter Colborn)

But my post is a few impressionistic snapshots of what I remember from the day:

Sitting opposite someone on the train who was reading a Sarah Pinborough book so I was convinced they were 'one of us' and I almost struck up conversation... but no, they got off at Long Eaton. Poor sod.

The launch for Trying To Be So Quiet (alongside Tracy Fahey launching her new collection and Exaggerated Press launching the Darker Battlefields anthology) seeming to go really well from what I could tell - I signed and sold a few books, so that was a good sign...

Buying some excellent looking books, including both those that launched alongside mine, The Grieving Stones by Gary McMahon, and the Hauntings anthology from NewCon Press

Good friends Mark West, Phil Sloman, Ross Warren, Lisa James, Steve Byrne, Kit Power and many more responding to my 'recent exciting review' in that most British of ways: by taking the piss.

Realising anew each time I signed a book (or in one case a contract) how truly shit my handwriting is.

Sitting discussing horror, ghosts and the past with Victoria Leslie in the sun while eating a delicious chorizo sandwich and fries from The Quad... only to hear Victoria repeat some of my bumbling ideas in her Supernatural Fiction panel later. She gave me credit for them though :)

The look of indignation on Steve's face when informing me they didn't serve beer before 11am...

Simon Bestwick continuing an animated political discussion we'd had online in the front page of his novel Hell's Ditch when he signed it for me. Still not convinced, Simon :)

My first mediocre convention curry. I blame Brexit.

Meeting friends old and new; and despite the risk of missing someone I'm going to list who I remember because these things really are about the people. So as well as the above, shout outs to: Priya Sharma, Peter Mark May, Holly Emma Ice, Dion Winton-Pollock, Andrew Hook, Nina Allen, Cate Gardner, Gary Couzens, John Travis, Johnny Mains, Ian Whates, Amanda Rutter, Terry Grimwood, Richard Farren Barber, Anthony Cowin, Ray Cluley, Roy Gray, Adele Wearing, Angelina Trevena, Gary McMahon, Steve Shaw, Yvonne Davis, Theresa Derwin, Greg James, Gary McMahon - with some of you it was all too fleeting a chat. Lets's rectify that over a pint that at the next one, okay?

Trying To Be So Quiet - Release Date & Preorders

My novella Trying To Be So Quiet* will be released 16th May 2016 from Boo Books. It will be available both as an ebook and a limited edition hardback, which you can preorder now (hint, hint). I'm sure I'll be talking about this story more before the release date (and expect some news on launch events, too) so for now I'll just post the cover and blurb taken from the Boo Books site:

Trying To Be So Quiet by James Everington, with introduction from Simon Bestwick**

The day they buried her was the first day Lizzie’s death seemed real…

With death comes a journey: a journey of silence, of ghosts and not-ghosts. Life begins to break, the cracks appearing, the meaning lost in the static of existence. And you find out whether you can come to a resolution with the absolute…
Trying to be So Quiet is an incredibly powerful story of bereavement, of mourning, of finding something amidst nothingness.

Pre-order now to secure your copy of this stunning novella from one of the UK’s most exciting new voices in supernatural fiction.

Preorders here.

* Yes, I'm a big Bob Dylan fan...
** Thanks Simon!

The Hyde Hotel is OPEN...

The Hyde Hotel officially opens its doors today. Published by Black Shuck Books, it's the first anthology I've ever edited (alongside Dan Howarth). I first had the idea for a book of stories all set in the same hotel a number of years ago, and it's taken awhile to bring to fruition... So big thanks must go to Theresa Derwin, Steve Shaw, and most importantly to all the authors involved who put up with a few delays and all contributed such fine stories. It's genuinely one of the books I'm most proud of being part of.

The Hyde Hotel is available in both ebook and paperback formats - all links at the Black Shuck Books website.


The Hyde Hotel Welcomes You…

The Hyde Hotel looks almost exactly as you’d expect it to: a faceless, budget hotel in a grey city you are just passing through. A hotel aimed at people travelling alone, a hotel where you know so little about your fellow guests that they could be anyone… and where, perhaps, so could you. But sometimes things are hiding in plain sight, and not everyone who stays at The Hyde gets a good night’s sleep…
Enjoy your stay.

Table of Contents

• CHECKING IN  by James Everington
• THE VIEW FROM THE BASEMENT  by Alison Littlewood
• NIGHT PORTERS  by Iain Rowan
• TICK BOX  by Dan Howarth
• THE EDIFICE OF DUST  by Amelia Mangan
• LOST AND FOUND  by S P Miskowski
• HOUSEKEEPING  by Ray Cluley
• SOMETHING LIKE BLOOD  by Alex Davis
• THE COYOTE CORPORATION’S MISPLACED SONG  by Cate Gardner
• WRATH OF THE DEEP  by Simon Bestwick
• THE SEALED WINDOW  by Mark West
• THE BLUE ROOM  by V H Leslie
• CHECKING OUT  by James Everington

The Hyde Hotel Welcomes YOU

So, a bit of an announcement. Really pleased to say that the first anthology I've edited (well, co-edited) will be out next year from Black Shuck Books. THE HYDE HOTEL features horror and weird fiction about guests all staying in the same hotel. As you can see from the contents below there's a fantastic list of contributors. I hope some of you will consider a stay at The Hyde.

Reservations from 07/01/2016.

THE HYDE HOTEL:
James Everington - Checking In
Alison Littlewood​ - The View From The Basement
Iain Rowan​ - Night Porters
Dan​ Howarth - Tick Box
Amelia Mangan​ - The Edifice Of Dust
S.P. Miskowski​ - Lost & Found
Ray Cluley​ - Housekeeping
Alex Davis​ - Something Like Blood
Cate Gardner​ - The Coyote Corporation's Misplaced Song
Simon Bestwick​ - Wrath Of The Deep
Mark West​ - The Sealed Window
V.H. Leslie​ - The Blue Room
James Everington - Checking Out

FantasyCon 2015 - After...

So, Fantasycon 2015. What a weekend.

This year it took place in my home town of Nottingham. Despite my being local, somehow Steve Byrne got to the venue before me, so when I saw on Facebook he was hanging around in the hotel bar I set off. We were soon chatting away over a pint and gradually other people arrived and joined our table: Ross Warren, Lisa Childs, Phil Sloman, Alison Littlewood & her partner Fergus, Simon Bestwick, Cate Gardner, Priya Sharma (who it was lovely to meet for the first time), Theresa Derwin, Steve Shaw and Dean R Drinkel.

Neil Williams, Wayne Parkin, me, a glass of free wine

The latter three were here for the unofficial launch of Masks (which features my story Porcelain) which we'd been planning to do in the bar... unfortunately the constant flow of people coming to check in and the unpromising acoustics meant we couldn't do any readings as planned, but the books looked great (the artwork is by the late James Powell, who sadly passed away earlier this year) so a number of people bought a copy and asked for signatures from me & Phil, which was great.

They'd been a stir of excitement in the hotel when Joe Hill (a late addition to the convention) entered, wearing a Haunting Of Hill House t-shirt no less. When I came back from the bar I found he was stood talking to our little group; Theresa was somewhat flushed and flustered, and managed to introduce me to him as if I were the important celebrity writer: "Joe, have you meet James Everington?" I could see in his eyes he was thinking 'who the hell is this guy?' but he was charming enough not to say it out loud. I just played it cool and told him I liked his t-shirt.

Me and Steve Byrne then went to get signed in and pick up our free books - in terms of choice it was far superior to last year, and I got some lovely hardback editions of Alison Littlewood, Joe R Lansdale and Sarah Pinborough novels, a Conrad Williams collection from PS Publishing as well as several interesting looking paperbacks.

Stephen & Mark

We went into the convention venue proper then, and in the space of another drink or two meet Graeme Reynolds, Lynda E Rucker, Peter Mark May, Paul Feeney, Ray Cluley and his partner Jess, Mark West, Sue Moorcroft, Paul Feeney, Wayne Parkin, Stephen Bacon, Steve Chapman, Clover & Dion Winton-Polak and Emma Audsley. We then went to the first book launch, The Lost Film, featuring a novella apiece by Mark West and Stephen Bacon - two talented writers I'm proud to call friends. They both did a reading, watched over by publisher Chris Teague. It was a really good launch - a big queue for the book, which it deserved given the quality of both Mark and Stephen's previous work.

We then went off for some food, which given the rather poor quality of food in the hotel (already notorious even on the first day) and lack of other options nearby meant a walk to a Toby Carvery. The glamorous life of a writer. So let's gloss over that - back at the convention, Mark had a panel/mock gameshow to attend called The Atrocity Exhibition, which was different to say the least, and got some laughs. I had to leave that before the end to get to Victoria Leslie's reading. I've not managed to review it on here as yet, but I consider her collection Skein & Bone to be among the finest released over the last few years and her reading of one of the stories was predictably brilliant. Later, Victoria and I had a good natter at the bar about all things horror - these kind of conversations that you can't have with 'normal' people are why I relish events like Fantasycon. Somewhere in the midst of the next few drinks I meet both Nina Allen and Simon Kurt Unsworth, who I wanted to say hello to as they were on my panel the next day, and also Neil Williamson, a fellow Infinity Plus author who I've know online for awhile; we've been talking about meeting up at some point for ages.

It was then time for Simon Bestwick's reading, the late night atmosphere suiting his rather bleak extract from his forthcoming novel. After that (I think - bit hazy by this point) I spoke to Alex Davis who will be publishing Trying To Be So Quiet soon and we discussed some of his ideas for the design of the hardback, which sounded amazing.

Saturday started with the launch of Adam Nevill's new novel Lost Girl, complete with a free bottle of local ale - lovely. Adam's a great guy and very supportive of other writers - a fact shown by the fact he let a few of us take over the last fifteen minutes of his launch for a surprise event...

Jim McLeod is the man behind The Gingernuts Of Horror website, one the best sites out there, and he's been a tireless supporter of the horror genre for years, both of the big stars and us lesser names working in the small press. So Phil Sloman put together a book for Jim... a very special book, of which they'll only ever be one physical copy printed. Jim McLeod Must Die! features stories from over 20 different horror authors; in all of them a character called Jim McLeod dies or suffers a fate worse than death. My own story is called Peephole and it was an absolute pleasure to be asked to be included in something so special. The look on Jim's face when he realised what was going on was priceless and for me a moment that sums up Fantasycon: the friendships made at conventions really do lead to great moments like this.

Jim McLeod, Mark West, Phil Sloman (with Sue Moorcroft in the background)

Then followed the launch of the second Spectral Book Of Horrors, in which a huge number of the authors were in attendance to sign, including many I've already mentioned, plus top gents Robert Shearman and Stephen Volk - and of course editor Mark Morris and publisher Simon Marshall Jones.

The it was on to my first panel. Gulp. Which I was moderating. In the main theatre. Double gulp. British Horror Present & Future featured myself, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Nina Allen, Stephen Jones, Cate Gardner, Alison Littlewood and Adam Nevill. Of course, with a lineup as good as that I didn't really have to do much as moderator - we got through less than half the questions I had prepared because everyone's answers were so good. Someone said later that it had the feel of a proper discussion rather than just a back-and-forth Q&A so I was really pleased with that. And as with all these things, once you're actually doing it your nerves vanish.

Me, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Stephen Jones, Cate Gardner, Alison Littlewood, Nina Allen, Adam Nevill

After that a bunch of us went to Priya Sharma's reading, which was excellent, and confirmed what I already knew: that I need to read more of her work. I think it was just after Priya's reading that I said hello to Laura Mauro for the first time, another writer who I know online but was glad to meet in person. (Nearly all horror authors turn out to be lovely people, in my experience.) Then myself and Mark bumped into Andrew David Barker, whose novel Dead Leaves was being launched at the con. Andrew's a great guy but very modest and he couldn't have looked more abashed as me and Mark praised his book to heaven and back...

Then I went to see the Weirdness, Darkness & Madness panel, which was obviously right up my street. It was moderated by Terry Grimwood and featured Mark West, Kim Lakin Smith, Helen Marshall, Deborah Walker and Timothy J Jarvis. It was a great panel, one of the best I've seen at a convention.

Outside, we gathered in the foyer for one of the most important parts of any con - curry. Before setting off I had a quick chat with Timothy Jarvis - some of what he had said on the panel had been really interesting, and he gave me a copy of his book. He had a reading later, which I said I'd attend after the curry - after all we had nearly three hours, so what could possible stop me?

Unfortunately it wasn't to be - despite having booked, when so many of us turned up at the restaurant they were woefully unprepared. It was nearly 90mins before starters arrived, never mind the main course. (To be fair, my food was great.) So with the 20min walk either way, we were gone for hours, meaning I missed both Timothy's reading and the Undertow launch of Skein & Bone and Aickman's Heirs. Still, during the loooooong meal I was introduced to Simon Clark and had some good chats with Phil, Dean, Jay Eales & Selina Lock and Benedict Jones.

Paul Woodward, Phil Sloman, Stephen Bacon, Mark West, Alison Littlewood, Jim McLeod, me, Gavin Williams (front)

I had a late night reading slot (11.30) and I was thinking that at that time hardly anyone would turn up, especially as it clashed with the infamous Fcon disco (where I'm reliably informed Mark owned the dance floor for the second year running). But there must have been 20, 25 people there and I read part of my story The Man Dogs Hated which seemed to go down really well - I sold a number of copies of Falling Over afterwards with one person even turning straight to the story to see how it ended. My reading was followed by one by Kit Power (and his flamboyant trousers) which was really enjoyable. Outside, not fancying the sounds of the Timewarp bellowing from the dance floor I sat and had a few beers with Steve and Laura & Peter Watkinson, Stephen King (not that one) and Katina Bill.

I only attended one event on the Sunday, but it was a corker: a reading by Helen Marshall. Like all her work the story was simultaneously funny and moving. I saw a lot of great readings this year, but against tough competition Helen's was the best. I then perused the Dealers Room, having a chat with Terry Grimwood and then the boys from the Sinister Horror table. And then after a few more beers it was time for goodbyes. It took about an hour to say goodbye to everyone there at that point. 

Reading back, somehow I've not even mentioned meeting Ruth Booth, Gary Couzans, KT Davies, Paul Holmes, Fiona Ní Éalaighthe (and her ear!), Andrew Hook, Carole Johnstone, Tom Johnstone, fellow Outsider Rosanne Rabinowitz, John Travis, Tim Major, Ren Warom (we'll have a proper chat next time!) or Paul Woodward. Which just about sums FantasyCon up - there's so many great people there, so many friendships to forge or renew that's it's impossible to remember it all.

A special mention must go to Adele Wearing though, who I didn't manage to see all weekend, despite the fact that she apparently waved at me on a few occasions. That's my professional networking skills for you - completely blanking an award winning publisher (Fox Spirit deservedly won this year's Small Press award) even when she beckoned me over... 

There was a nice coda to the convention when myself and Phil headed into Nottingham to have some food and a few pints before his train. Phil had never been to Nottingham before, so I took him to The Broadway cinema (largely on the basis it has The Shining quotes on one window) and then, of course, to Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem (or 'The Trip' as everyone in Nottingham calls it) which is meant to be the oldest pub in the UK, and is built into the cliffs under the castle. We had a great chat about our hopes for our writing in the future and then Phil left to get his train and it was all over...

I got home, dumped my bag... and later that night logged on and order my ticket for FantasyCon 2016.

Recommendation: Horror Uncut

I'm always dubious of reviews of anthologies that claim that 'all the stories are worth reading'. It's as if the reviewer either doesn't have any critical acumen or they daren't upset any of the authors involved.

However...

Horror Uncut, from Gray Friar Press, is an anthology of 'austerity themed horror' in which, uh, all the stories are very much worth reading. Honest.

Of course I had my favourites. Joel Lane's dark and twisted A Cry For Help couldn't have been a more chilling opening tale; Pieces Of Ourselves by Rosanne Rabinowitz contained a brilliantly evocative description of modern day protesting before becoming enjoyable surreal. Laura Mauro's Ptichka was utterly heartbreaking, whilst John Llewellyn Probert's The Lucky Ones was delightfully sadistic. Oh, and Stephen Bacon's The Devil's Only Friend and Andrew Hook's The Opaque District were both wonderfully constructed pieces of weird fiction, and the Gary McMahon and Simon Bestwick stories were up to their usual high standards. Plus there were fantastic stories by Alison Littlewood and Thana Niveau and.. well, did I mention every story here is worth reading?

It's theme of modern day austerity, its victims and its monsters, makes this a timely anthology, but the sheer quality of stories on display makes it one for the ages as well. Thoroughly recommended; buy it before your native currency collapses.

Fantasycon 2014 - York

This weekend I attended my first Fantasycon convention; I've been to a few cons now but this was the first 'overnighter' and so I was slightly nervous as I am often am in groups of people I don't know. But it helped that I knew good friends from other cons were going to be there, in particular my fellow 'failed to find an Indian restaurant in Birmingham' partners Mark West, Phil Ambler, and Steve Byrne, who I knew could be relied on to draw me out of my shell if needed. (Backup plan: beer.) But any nerves were misplaced for it was one of the most friendly, welcoming events I've been to, and all the people I met or re-met over the course of the weekend made it so.

Some specific highlights:

Book Launch: No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill
What I was saying about people above? Adam Nevill is a case in point - a thoroughly friendly and welcoming guy, and fellow Robert Aickman fan to boot. (Anyone who likes Aickman is alright in my book.) Adam's one of the most successful horror writers out there at the moment, and I'm a big fan of his work, so a chance to get a signed copy of his new book well before release day was too good to pass up.

A Tribute To Joel Lane
Unlike many people present, I never met Joel Lane, but his short stories were always excellent and if it wasn't for his tragically early death he would undoubtedly have been one of the authors I'd have spent ages trying to pluck up the courage to speak to. A number of authors including Simon Bestwick and Ramsey Campbell read from Joel's work and shared some memories of him. Despite the crap acoustics and loud people at the bar behind us, it was a really very special.

Reading: VH Leslie
VH Leslie's short stories are some of the finest I've read this year, a real class act. For this event she read her story Namesake  (you can find it in Best British Horror 2014) and her reading really brought out both the humour and the unease in the tale. I was lucky enough to get the chance to chat with Victoria a couple of times over the weekend; another damn friendly fellow writer.

Book Launch: The Spectral Book of Horror Stories
This was by far the most packed event I attended, and no surprise: the number of authors who were present to sign the book was massive, the signatures & messages in mine not even all fitting onto one page. Here I said hello to online friends Alison Littlewood and Stephen Volk for the first time in person, and finally overcame my stuttering awe to tell Ramsey Campbell what an inspiration he was and is.

Book Launch:The End by Gary McMahon
There was so much going on on the Saturday, but no way was I going to miss the book launch for a new Gary McMahon book. No way. Regular readers will already know how good I think his work is. I also got the chance to buy a copy of his forthcoming chapbook from Knightwatch Press, The Night Just Got Darker directly from Gary in the bar. Given the prices in the con bar, I think it was the cheapest thing I actually purchased in there...

Book Launch: Boo Books/Knightwatch
This was the event where I read from The Place Where It Always Rains from Worms, which seemed to go okay. There were also readings from K.T. Davies (a pleasure to meet, as always), Simon Bestwick (ditto), Allen Ashley, and Reggie Oliver reading Anna Taborksa's stories from Worms.

Food:the weekend also didn't disappoint on this score. Two fabulous pub lunches in The Maltings, which was an nice old fashioned pub (with decoration that included an old sign about where to get treated for VD). A scrumptious evening meal in The Yak & Yeti, apparently Britain's only Gurkha restaurant. And a Saturday curry organised by Phil, where the only thing bigger than the size of the guest-list was the size of the naan breads. Epic naan.

More People: I probably won't remember everyone, but in addition to those above it really was great to chat to Steve Mosby, Jim McLeod, Johnny Mains, Lynda E Rucker, Ruth Booth, Stephen Bacon, Ross Warren, Alex Davis, Terry Grimwood, Paul Holmes, Dion Winton-Polack, Neil Snowden, Sue Moorcroft, Steve Chapman, Neil Williams, Graeme Reynolds, Simon Marshall Jones, Christopher Teague, Robert Shearman, Dave Jeffery, Adele Wearing, Jasper Bark, John Travis...

If I've not mentioned you it's due to my own crapness, don't worry. Or because your pass was on the wrong way round when we spoke, or because you were someone I met exclusively between the hours of 1am and 3am on the Saturday when things were a bit hazy. And speaking of Saturday night:

A Summing Up: The penultimate song at the Fantasycon disco was Elbow's One Day Like This, which finishes with the repeated refrain Throw those curtains wide, One day like this a year would see me right. Which about sums it up - writing can be a lonely business, with the doubts and rejections and long nights, and even the most sympathetic non-writing friend or family member is unlikely to want to talk about our weird stories for more than a few minutes at a time... So chances like this to speak to fellow writers and editors and reviewers feel like something really special to me now, a chance to recharge my creative batteries and go back into the real world all fired up. A chance to remember how lucky I am to be part of a genre I love in some small way.

Okay, the lyrics don't quite fit, but yes: days like this, and all you fab people - you see me right.

Fantasycon 2014 - Reading

It's my first Fantasycon this year, which I'm immensely excited about. And I'm also very pleased to say that as part of it I'll be reading from my story The Place Where It Always Rains as part of a combined launch for Worms, X7, and After The Fall.

It will take place at 7pm on the Saturday, and as well as me they'll also be readings from:

Simon Bestwick
K.T. Davies
Mike Chinn
Anna Taborska

so it should be a great event. Hope to see some of you there, or just about generally over the course of the weekend. I'm shy as heck during these kind of things, so do come over and say hi!

Fantasycon 2014 book launches.

Best Short Stories of 2013 (Somewhat Biased & Woefully Uncomprehensive)

This year, I've been keeping a log of the best short stories I read; I was initially going to only record those that were actually published this year, but I got slightly confusing with reprints and the like, so this list includes some stories pre-2013, but they're all comparatively recent.

To be eligible, the stories had to be ones I read for the first time at some point in 2013, and ones that impressed me enough to make a note of them. Then I reviewed the list prior to writing this blog post; any I couldn't really remember and that hadn't stuck with me were discarded.

In general, I've tried to avoid listing any author more than once, but I weakened a few times.

Nina Allen: The Phoeny War (NewCon Press Sampler)
Simon Bestwick: Lex Draconis (Tales Of The Nun & Dragon, Fox Spirit)
Simon Bestwick & Gary McMahon: Thin Men With Yellow Faces (This Is Horror chapbook)
Keith Brooke: Beside The Sea (Memesis, Infinity Plus)
Ramsey Campbell: Holes For Faces (Holes For Faces, Dark Regions Press)
Ramsey Campbell: The Long Way (Holes For Faces, Dark Regions Press)
Mark Chadbourn: Whisper Lane (The British Fantasy Society: A Celebration)
Ted Chiang: Story Of Your Life (Stories Of Your Life And Others)
MR Cosby: Unit 6 (Darker Times)
MR Cosby: In Transit (Darker Times)
Nicole Cushing: The Peculiar Salesgirl (Polluto #10)
Christian A. Dumais: Leave Me The Way I Was Found (Shock Totem #2)
Cate Gardner: Pretty Little Ghouls (Shock Totem #2)
Jessica George: New Town (Impossible Spaces, Hic Dragones)
John Greenwood: Puppyberries (No Monsters Allowed, Dog Horn Publishing)
Shaun Hamilton: The Shuttle (Ill At Ease II, PenMan Press)
Lauren James: Fences (The Side Effects Of The Medication)
Lauren James: The Side Effects Of The Medication (The Side Effects Of The Medication)
Hannah Kate: Great Rates, Central Location (Impossible Spaces, Hic Dragones)

Gary Kilworth: Filming The Making Of The Film Of The Making Of Fitzcarraldo (Infinity Plus Quintet)

BV Larson: Beside Still Waters (For When The Veil Drops, West Pigeon Press)
Amelia Mangan: Some Girls Wander By Mistake (No Monsters Allowed, Dog Horn Publishing)
Gary McMahon: Just Another Job (Urban Occult, Anachron Press)
Gary McMahon: The Grotto (NewCon Press Sampler)
Mark Mellon: Asshole Factory (Polluto #10)
Steve Mosby: Fruits (author's website)
Tony Rabig: The Other Iron River (The Other Iron River & Other Stories)
Iain Rowan: The Singing (Supernatural Tales #23)
Christina Scholz: The Lost City Of Emory Winters (The Big Click)
Steve Rasnic Tem: Wheatfield With Crows (Dark World, Tartarus Press)
Lisa Tuttle: Flying To Byzantium (Infinity Plus Quintet)
Stephen Volk: The Arselicker (Anatomy Of Death, Hersham Horror)
Mark West: The Bureau Of Lost Children (Ill At Ease II, PenMan Press)
Leslianne Wilder: Sweepers (Shock Totem #2)
Conrad Williams: The Fox (This Is Horror chapbook)
Jennifer Williams: Spider Daughter Spider (Urban Occult, Anachron Press)

Guest Post: Hannah Kate & Impossible Spaces

So here's a guest post from Hannah Kate, editor and contributor to one of the most interesting anthologies I've read this year: Impossible Spaces from Hic Dragones. As you might gather from the title, the anthology collects together stories from across multiple genres that deal with places not on any maps, with weird locations and twisted geometries. Hannah's own story, Great Rates, Central Location, was one of my favourites - a story of shifting identities in a very singular hotel (if you've read The Other Room you'll know why that would appeal to me...) so I'm pleased to welcome her here for this guest post...

Take it away Hannah:

I'm really pleased to have been invited as a guest poster on James’s blog as part of the blog tour for Impossible Spaces, a new collection of strange and dark short stories from Hic Dragones. As you might see from the cover of the book, I edited this collection. As you might see from the website, I am also the founder and editor-in-chief of the publishing company.

But I'm also a writer myself, and it’s nice to be invited to talk about my own story in the collection, Great Rates, Central Location, which is set in a budget hotel in Manchester. I've written a piece for my own blog about the hotels that gave me the idea for the story, so I thought I’d write something today about the books that I enjoy reading (and which may or may not have inspired my own writing).

I've been a fan of horror and dark fantasy since I was a kid - when your dad teaches you to read using The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, then gives you Titus Groan and Gormenghast when you hit ten, it’s impossible not to be. But my tastes have changed a little over the years. As a teenager, I liked my horror Gothic. I read Dracula and Frankenstein, but what I really loved were the Gothic novels of the late eighteenth century: The Castle of Otranto, The Monk, The Mysteries of Udolpho. If you’ve read Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, and can picture Catherine Morland, you can picture me as a teenage reader.

I still love a bit of high Gothic – it’s like a delicious, melodramatic treat –but as time has gone on, I’ve found myself drawn more to a different mode of horror writing: the urban, the contemporary, the everyday. I particularly like horror (and fantasy) that is as realistic as possible, scenarios that could almost (almost) be real life… but that are just a little bit off.

I suppose part of this change of tastes could be down to a choice I made at university. I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Roald Dahl, and while I had a lingering, nostalgic love for his children’s fiction, I became fascinated by his short stories for adults (several of which were adapted for the Tales of the Unexpected TV show – though this was ever so slightly before my time). My favourite short stories were always those that presented an ordinary – even mundane – world, which is unsettled by one piece of odd (or unexpected) behaviour: ‘Stairway to Heaven’, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, ‘The Landlady’.

Tales of the Unexpected has been a big influence on my writing. I never watched The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, so when I imagine a strange and off-kilter world, where ordinary people get dragged into something different, something ‘off’, it’s the Tales of the Unexpected theme music I hear, not the Twilight Zone.

As well as weird and twist-in-the-tail fiction, I also enjoy fiction that’s more easily described as horror. 

Again, I like stories that are grounded in the everyday – but an everyday that’s dark and wrong. It kinda goes without saying that Stephen King is the master of this type of tale. One of my favourite stories by King is his novella The Sun Dog. The story’s opening is so beautifully ordinary – a kid gets a Polaroid camera for his birthday; he’s quite excited about it, and gathers his family together to take his first photo… but as the picture develops in front of his eyes, there’s something wrong with it. It’s the perfect set-up (in my opinion) and the gradual reveal of the ‘wrongness’ is expertly timed.

I recently reread The Sun Dog, and followed it up immediately with Ramsey Campbell’s The Influence. Again, Campbell’s status as a master of horror doesn't need to be stated, and I'm over-the-moon to have been able to include his short story ‘The Place of Revelation’ in Impossible Spaces. This story is a wonderful example of the way Campbell can evoke ordinariness, whilst simultaneously undercutting it with a deep, ancient sense of dread. This is also apparent in The Influence, in which supernatural menace is combined with commonplace family life. Although the ‘evil’ in The Influence is not the eldritch, grand terror found in some of Campbell’s other novels, it is a more claustrophobic, creeping horror – and that always works for me.

Finally, there are a couple of up-and-coming horror writers whose work I'm really enjoying at the moment. Simon Bestwick – whose short story ‘Trading Flesh’ can be found in Impossible Spaces – is one of them. Although ‘Trading Flesh’ is a dark, twisted steampunky (in the twisted, post-apocalyptic way) tale, Simon’s novel The Faceless (which I can never recommend highly enough, no matter how hard I try) is grounded in a more ‘real world’ realm of children’s bogeymen, family relations and the historical trauma of war. It’s a truly terrifying read, and Bestwick is brilliant at conjuring up a thoroughly believable world that is riddled with seriously disturbing secrets.

And just in case you thought I was only plugging writers I've had the good fortune to edit… I also want to mention Tom Fletcher. Fletcher’s début horror novel The Leaping is a chilling tale (which gave me actual nightmares). I've seen reviews of this book that have concentrated on the second half of the story, which is set in a bleak Cumbrian landscape redolent with ancient terrors and barely-hidden trauma. But the book actually begins in Manchester, and Fletcher’s descriptions of the unsettling nothingness of city centre living and call centre employment is, perhaps, even more frightening than the rural Gothic of the Lake District. As a Cumbrian-by-birth, adopted Mancunian, The Leaping is, perhaps, closer to my ‘real world’ than any of the other stories I mentioned in this post, and that made me love it even more.

Thank you for indulging this little glimpse into my reading preferences. As I said at the beginning, I don’t know for sure how much any of these books have influenced my own writing… but I know I've had countless hours of enjoyment either way.  

Impossible Spaces: buy here...

Reviews: A Horror Novella Special

Because I’m writing a horror novella at the moment, I've deliberately been reading a lot of horror fiction at that length recently (and, uh, Crime And Punishment). I've read far too many to review, so I was going to do a blog post on my five favourites. But then SP Miskowski had the nerve to release another brilliant book, so it's now my favourite six. 

I've not applied any strict criteria on what word length is a novella, I've just loosely applied it to anything in that grey-area between a short story and a novel. As I've already given away the name of one of the authors, I may as well start with:

Astoria - SP Miskowski
Astoria is a book in SP Miskowski's Skillute Cycle, which started with the impressive novel Knock Knock (Astoria works as a standalone tale though.) It takes as its starting point one of the incidents of Knock Knock, when Ethel Sanders flees her home town after her daughter's funeral, and is never mentioned again in that book - Astoria tells what happened to Ethel afterwards, and it might just be Miskowski's best work to date. It's a hauntingly ambiguous story of doubles and dream-like imagery - dreams as in what we wish for, as well as what wakes us at night. The ending immediately made me want to reread it all over again. I can't recommend this one highly enough, folks.

The Kill Crew – Joseph D’Lacey

Books about survivors of a zombe-esque apocalypse have, I know, been done to death. This, though, was really well crafted and went off in a different direction than you might expect. To give an example of how it stands out from its crowded sub-genre, the ‘zombies’ in this book are described like this: They stare at you and their eyes plead. They can't speak but they can wail. They can sob.... If you let them touch you they'll drag you away... and you'll come back mute save for your tears. There's a similar originality throughout this impressive novella, not just of plot but of tone.  I've not read any Joseph D’Lacey before, but on this showing I’ll be reading some more.

Sea Change – Iain Rowan

Genre-chameleon Iain Rowan turns his hand to a YA horror novella here, and in doing so produces yet another book that puts the rest of us to shame. A young boy arrives in a village on the Yorkshire coast, fleeing from a tragedy  at his school… and encounters something darker in the misty streets and caves there. The location and characters are beautifully detailed in Rowan’s readable yet evocative prose, and despite being ostensibly a YA book there’s a real sense of mounting tension, another Rowan trademark. Superb.

The Respectable Face Of Tyranny – Gary Fry

By coincidence, the title story of this collection of three novellas takes place on the same coastline as the Iain Rowan book above. It concerns a man ruined by the global recession, living in a caravan park on the Yorkshire coast with his teenage daughter, who starts to see strange things out the corner of his eye... There’s a distinctly Ramsey Campbell flavour here (no bad thing) and an ambitious attempt to juggle themes of economic and biological collapse. The other two novellas in this collection are equally impressive.

Children Of No One – Nicole Cushing

‘Dark fiction’ – it’s a term that’s casually chucked around nowadays, but this novella from Dark Fuse really deserves the term. Both literally – it concerns children living in a maze which is completely dark – and thematically. It’s an original concept too, with an original bad guy (part James Bond villain, part Samuel Beckett’s even stranger brother). There’s nothing supernatural here, and the story seemed to me to be about the crazy justifications people make for doing something evil. (Not sure about the phonetic English accent of one character though!) 

Let’s Drink To The Dead – Simon Bestwick

Three stories linked to Bestwick’s wonderful novel The Faceless, which regular readers will know was one of my favourites of last year. If you haven’t read The Faceless, start there. If you have, then this is a wonderful opportunity to revisit Bestwick’s grim, twisted world of haunted military hospitals, ‘spindly-men’, and real-world evil. Utterly compelling. I tried to pick a favourite of the three, and failed; damn you, Bestwick.