Imposter Syndrome launched!

It’s here! 

Imposter Syndrome is the second anthology edited by myself and Dan Howarth; it's published by Dark Minds Press and the stunning cover artwork was done by Neil Williams. 

The book will be formally launched at this year’s Sledge-Lit on November 25th with the editors and a number of the authors in attendance. Paperback copies will be available at the event but follow the link here to order if you can’t attend. The Kindle version will be released on launch day, just click here to pre-order.

Should further proof be needed that this will be one of the anthologies of the year, just another take a look at the TOC…

INTRODUCTION
James Everington & Dan Howarth

I KNOW WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE
Gary McMahon

IN THE MARROW
Laura Mauro

WHO IS THAT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF YOU?
Timothy J Jarvis

WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE
Holly Ice

THE INSIDER
Neil Williamson

OTHER PEOPLE’S DREAMS
Stephen Bacon

HOLD MY HAND AND I’LL TAKE YOU THERE
Ralph Robert Moore

THE WRONG HOUSE
Tracy Fahey

LITTLE HEART
Georgina Bruce

VIRTUALLY FAMOUS
Phil Sloman

Five Things #5

Yet more things horror and book related I've enjoyed recently, and think you might too.

1. A Conversation With S.P. Miskowski, Hellnotes
Rejoice, for S.P. Miskowski has a new novel out! It's called I Wish I Was Like You (the Nirvana reference very much deliberate). Hellnotes caught up with her for this fascinating interview.

2. 'Hands Lying Light In The Interstices, You Rave' by Timothy J. Jarvis
A compelling piece of interactive fiction here; and given its been written by Timothy Jarvis you know it's going to be creepy as hell. The shifting nature of the interactive experience makes it even more disturbing...

3. The Stoakes-Whilby Natural Index Of Supernatural Collective Nouns by David Malki
Every wondered what the collective noun for a group of banshees is? Or gargoyles? Or manticores? Well, wonder no more!

4. Mothers Who Consume by Kristi DeMeester, Apex
"I don’t remember the first time I caught my mother in a lie..." So begins this fascinating, moving piece of non-fiction by one of horror's finest writers, Kristi DeMeester.

5.'Das Steingeschopf' by G.V. Anderson, Strange Horizons
I included this story in my 2016 list, but as it's just been nominated for a World Fantasy Award I thought I'd mention it again. It's beautifully written, an early sign of brilliance from a writer I predict will go on to do great things. G.V. Anderson has started a fundraiser to raise money to attend WFC (where hopefully this story will win) so donate if you can.
 

The Quarantined City real-time reviewed...

Only connect...
Wait, no, that's another book

Yet more thanks I owe to Des Lewis, who has now real-time reviewed The Quarantined City on his famed Dreamcatcher website.

One of the distinguishing features of these reviews is the connections Des makes between different stories... so given this novel's stories-within-stories structure, it's no surprise he found plenty illuminating to say (including comparing it to Timothy J. Jarvis's wonderful The Wanderer). Indeed, one of the buried inspirations for The Quarantined City was Malcolm Lowry's masterpiece Under The Volcano and a half-remembered university seminar about it, in which the lecturer said that paranoia was the act of a mind making too many connections. Another one of which would be that Under The Volcano is a story about a man wandering around a city, having too much to drink, which might sound familiar...

A Des Lewis review of Under the Volcano would no doubt be amazing. Meanwhile, you can read his review of The Quarantined City here.

The Quarantined City (UK | US)

Announcement: Imposter Syndrome

Very pleased today to be able to annonce Imposter Syndrome, a forthcoming anthology edited by myself and Dan Howarth. The book will feature all original stories about doppelgängers, clones, changelings, Capgras-delusion and pod-people.

I'm immensely excited by the authors who are contributing stories:

Laura Mauro
Ralph Robert Moore
Gary McMahon
Tracy Fahey
Holly Ice
Timothy J. Jarvis
Neil Williamson
Stephen Bacon
Georgina Bruce
Phil Sloman

Imposter Syndrome will be released winter 2017 by the wonderful Dark Minds Press.

Recommendation: Almost Insentient, Almost Divine by D.P. Watts

Almost Insentient, Almost Divine is an excellent collection of short fiction from author D.P. Watt, a very British but also very modern feeling set of weird fiction. The influences of Beckett, M.R. James, Ligotti and (especially) Aickman are evident, but they are just that, influences. The world of D.P. Watt is firmly his own and this collection is proof of the surety of his vision.

The stories here initially seem to use comfortably familiar genre concepts, but by the end of each the reader has been swept far from known reference points, dragged under by the bizarre and mysterious. (And this is an accurate description of the fate of many of Watt's protagonists, too.) The reader will encounter within strange puppets, shifting identities, doomed lovers, the desperate inhabitants of a violent city, and the sleeping beings of a world of snowy wastes. 

These stories are ambiguous, but not in any lazy sense of the word. Watt skillfully crafts what he leaves out of his tales as much as what he includes, and these empty spaces & silences all add to the unease he generates. Only in a few cases did the conclusion seem too enigmatic to me, but even these pieces intruiged me enough to want to reread them soon. Maybe their secrets will be revealed then.

Not everything here aspires to Aickman levels of mysteriousness. Mors Janua Vitae and Honey Moon both had what could be seen as conventional horror denouements; the former being an especially clever tale built entirely on the skillful use of dialogue to convey a one side of a conversation.

 

My favourite pieces here were the opener With Gravity, Grace; the sublimely creepy Shallabalah; and most of all The Usher, the story of a man who attends a very strange theatre performance. It's a story that exemplifies many of the themes and techniques of this collection, and it seemed to me outstanding, a piece of weird fiction for the ages. Special mention must also go to Timothy Jarvis's Introduction to the collection, a fictional exploration of Watt's literary predecessors, and a bravura piece of fiction in its own right. It's a testiment to Watt's talent that his support act doesn't overshadow his own performance.

Almost Insentient, Almost Divine (UK | US)

 

Recommendation: The Wanderer by Timothy J. Jarvis

So, I thoroughly enjoyed The Wanderer by Timothy J. Jarvis. It's one of those novels where a brief précis of the plot can't do it justice, but I guess I'm duty bound to give it a try anyway: The Wanderer purports to be the final manuscript by a writer of strange stories Simon Peterkin, who has mysteriously disappeared. It tells the story of an immortal wanderer of the earth, a man who has lived almost to the end of history but who still fears for his life due to a cruel and demonic being stalking him... This man tells the story about how he became immortal, a story set in our own time and involving a very odd Punch & Judy show, underground rituals, and creepy pensioners. After a brief sojourn in a madhouse he tries to make sense of what has occurred to him by making contact with others who have had encounters with the uncanny. One night a few of them meet in a London pub and they each tell their stories, which have surprising affinities with his own...

See, I told you a précis was pointless. Suffice to say, The Wanderer is a labyrinth of fact and fiction, of stories within stories, of textual ambiguity. (And anyone who read the first parts of The Quarantined City will know how much I like stories within stories.) It somehow manages to combine elements of the Gothics and pulps, old-school science fiction, with a thoroughly modern understanding of horror and the weird. It contains shout outs to many classics of the genre, in particular Poe, Lovecraft and Jules Verne... and indeed, in one bravura passage it manages to encompass almost the entire history of weird fiction into its own fictitious universe. It's gory in places, it's philosophical, it's darkly comic, it's deeply serious yet in parts has the tone of a shaggy dog story told in a disreputable public house.

In short, it's one of the best novels I've read for a long time: original, disturbing and witty. I'm certain it will repay rereading as well, as the significance of certain earlier sections only becomes clear later on. I thought it outstanding.

The Wanderer, Timothy J. Jarvis (UK | US)