Nightscript Vol. 3 Out Now

Nightscript is an annual anthology of the strange and the creepy edited by C.M. Muller, and although it's only in its third year it has already found it's own special place in the literary horror ecosystem (I loved the first two volumes).

So I'm especially pleased that Volume 3 contains my story 'The Affair', as well as stories from twenty-two other writers, including Simon Strantzas, David Surface, Adam Golaski, M.K. Anderson, Daniel Braum, Rebecca J. Allred, M.R. Cosby and Malcolm Devlin.

In my humble (and now biased) opinion, the world needs more anthologies like Nightscript, so I do hope you'll check out all three volumes.

Ebook (UK | US)
Paperback (UK | US)

Recommendation: Nightingale Songs by Simon Strantzas

I've read a number of stories by Simon Strantzas in yearly best ofs and the like, but Nightingale Songs is the first solo collection of his I've tried. Given what I'd read before I was expecting something special, stories literate and creepy in equal measure. And I wasn't disappointed.

But before I talk about the stories themselves, it's regrettable but I must mention that this book had the worst formatting error I've yet seen in an ebook. I say 'formatting' but in fact it was worse than that: the entire ending to a story was missing, and instead appeared as part of the final paragraph of the following story, thus ruining the climax of both. What a shame. (I downloaded the Kindle version over a year ago; hopefully other formats aren't affected and the Kindle version has been corrected by now.)

Anyway, with that unpleasantness behind I can say that the stories that weren't mangled were fantastic examples of strange, ambiguous, supernatural fiction. Aickman's influence is often to the fore, fortunately not in a superficial way - indeed second story Her Father's Daughter may well be the best example I've read of a writer assimilating Aickman's influence whilst retaining their own voice. A story that combined elements of both feminist and Freudian psychology (although Aickman hated Freud) into a compelling psychic landscape of strange car accidents, reclusive sisters and a flatly ambiguous ending, this was one of the best stories I've read so far this year.

Other highlights included Pale Light In The Jungle and An Indelible Stain Across The Sky (what a title!) which owed something to Ramsey Campbell's style of paranoia built from metaphoric connection whilst, again, remaining completely Strantzas's own story. Mr. Kneale by contrast was a black, black comedy taking swipes at literary conventions and success, but still having a core of horror beneath. Nearly all the stories were impressive, and personal favourites will likely vary. Only Everything Floats was a slight disappointment to me, beautifully written and atmospheric but building towards an ending all too predictable.

An excellent collection, then. I notice Strantzas has had another collection of short stories released since Nightingale Songs, and given how satisfying these tales were I'll surely be picking that up soon.

Review: The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror 23

23! 

I remember reading some of the Mammoth horror anthologies when I was at university; possibly before. There's something pleasing about the fact that they're still around.

The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror 23 is a strong collection of stories, although with perhaps a number of odd choices. I'm a huge Ramsey Campbell fan, as regular readers will no doubt wearily attest, but even I'd question whether he deserves to be in a yearly best-of twice. It doesn't help that his first contribution, Holding The Light didn't strike me as his best work (although even second-league Campbell is worth reading) but his second, Passing Through Peacehaven was one of my favourites in the volume.

A number of other stories in the book that I loved I'd already read before, including Tim Lebbon's story original from the House Of Fear anthology, and the two contributions taken from A Book Of Horrors (the stories by Michael Marhsall Smith and John Ajivide Lindqvist). Along with Mark Samuels' The Tower it was great to remake their acquaintance and give them a second read. Lebbon's Trick Of The Light in particular revealed lots of nuances the second time around.

Of the stories that were new to me, the most memorable were:

Steve Rasnic Tem's Miri, a haunting and disturbingly beautiful tale, about the past invading the insubstantial present.

Conrad Williams - Wait. Some brilliant imagery here, although I wasn't sure the ending dovetailed all the elements quite as neatly as I would have wanted.

Thana Niveau - White Roses, Bloody Silk. A bloodbath of a story, like Tarantino writing a drawing-room drama and getting bored three quarters of the way through.

Simon Strantzas - An Indelible Stain Upon The Sky. Another story which, like Steve Rasnic Tem's, shows melancholy and dull grief aren't incompatible with horror, but can enhance it.

But none of the other contributions were in any way bad, and as well as the above authors I'll certainly be on the look out for more work by Paul Kane, Alison Littlewood, Peter Atkins and Simon Kurt Unsworth.

Full contents:

Stephen Jones - Introduction: Horror In 2011
Ramsey Campbell - Holding The Light
Christopher Fowler - Lantern Jack
Paul Kane - Rag And Bone
Gemma Files - Some Kind Of Light Shines From Your Face
Joel Lane - Midnight Flight
Tim Lebbon - Trick Of The Light
Gregory Nicoll - But None Shall Sing For Me
Alison Littlewood - About The Dark
Daniel Mills - The Photographer's Tale
Mark Samuels - The Tower
Peter Atkins - Dancing Like We're Dumb
Simon Strantzas - An Indelible Stain Upon The Sky
Joan Aiken - Hair
Steve Rasnic Tem - Miri
Geeta Roopnarine - Corbeaux Bay
Michael Marshall Smith - Sad, Dark Thing
Robert Silverberg - Smithers And The Ghost Of The Thar
Reggie Oliver - Quieta Non Movere
Joe R. Lansdale - The Crawling Sky
Conrad Williams - Wait
Simon Kurt Unsworth - The Ocean Grand, North West Coast
Evangeline Walton - They That Have Wings
Thana Niveau - White Roses, Bloody Silk
John Ajivide Lindqvist - The Music Of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer
Ramsey Campbell - Passing Through Peacehaven
David Buchan - Holiday Home
Stephen Jones & Kim Newman - Necrology: 2011