Author Priya Sharma has picked a selection of 'Halloween Reads' over on her site. Lots of great suggestions to add to your 'to read' pile if you're a fan of the spooky and horrifying (and there's a nice shout out for The Quarantined City, too).

Priya is a superb writer of the spooky stuff herself; her debut collection is out from Undertow Publications in 2018.

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)

 

Fantasycon 2016.

The view from the bar on Day 1: Sunny Scarborough

Fantasycon this year took place in sunny Scarborough (and it really was sunny) amidst the faded, peeling glamour of the Grand and Royal hotels. As ever it was a long and intense weekend, so I'm just going to mention some of the highlights here...

John Gilbert; Sue Moorcroft; Neil Williams; me; Priya Sharma; Phil Sloman; Mark West; Lisa Childs; Ross Warren; Wayne Parkin; Cate Gardner

Panels:
On the Saturday, I featured on the 'Bright Lights' panel, which was about awards and new talent coming through in genre fiction. I wasn't quite sure how it would go, but it was really well moderated by Penny Reeve, with interesting contributions from my good friend Kit Power, Donna Scott and Liz de Jager. When the questions from the audience came there was the inevitable one about the rabid/sad puppies in America and in our own different ways both Kit and I made our thoughts quite clear...

I may have said "dickheads".

My favourite panel that I saw was 'Is Reality The New Horror' - it featured Paul Finch, Mark West, Tracy Fahey, Victoria Leslie, Helen Marshall, and Ramsey Campbell. With that calibre of talent it couldn't fail to be interesting - I'd have quite happily watched them talk for longer.

Great British Horror Launch:

Steve Shaw was launching both This Twisted Earth (edited by Dion Winton-Pollock) and Great British Horror #1:Green & Pleasant Land, a collection of horror stories with a stunning lineup of authors. Present at the launch were Victoria Leslie, Laura Mauro, Adam Millard, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Ray Cluley, Jasper Bark and Alexandra Benedict. I think all of them felt as thrilled as I did when Steve presented us with our contributor copies - wrapped & with a scroll of the artwork for each of our stories. Laura and Jasper read from their stories; Dion gave a very personal introduction to This Twisted Earth (complete with heckling gulls); Victoria gave a brief chat about the influence of Virginia Woolf on her (wonderful) novel Bodies Of Water, and then it was onto the signing. And we seemed to sign a lot of books. It was one of the most wonderful launches I've done and I left on a real high.

Best contributor
copy ever?

GBH Launch:
Laura Mauro,
Ray Cluley, me,
Simon Kurt Unsworth

Adam Nevill Launch:

I bought *cough* a few books over the weekend, but none were so handsome as Adam Nevill's latest,  Some Will Not Sleep. It's Adam's first collection of short stories and people were literally queuing out the doors for it. I for one can't wait to read it.

Hersham Horror Launch:
The launch for my novella Paupers' Graves, as well as novellas from good friends Phil Sloman, Stephen Bacon and Mark West, and a collection from Marie O'Regan. It had all been organised by head honcho Peter Mark May and I had an absolute blast. Lots of people seemed really interested in buying books and getting them signed, and it was a real pleasure to be launching alongside some of the first friends I made when I started attending conventions. The fact they're all fine writers helped too, of course.

Hersham Horror launch: Phil Sloman, Stephen Bacon, Mark West, me

D.P. Watt Launch:
An intersting one, this. I didn't really know anything about this book other than the fact Undertow published it - which was good enough for me, as I love what they put out. It was a very interesting reading: some of it delivered in the normal way, some via a preprepared recording. It made me instantly think of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. And the story itself seemed brilliant - needless to say I picked up a copy of Watt's collection, Almost Insentient, Almost Divine.

The People:
As well as the folks mentioned above, the following all helped make my weekend a brilliant three days: Conrad Williams (a nice prologue to the con on the train); Wayne Parkin; Andrew Hook & Sophie Essex; Jim McLeod (sorry I lost the t-shirt!); Ross Warren; Lisa Childs; Sue Moorcroft; Chris Barnes; Charlotte Courtney-Bond; Steve Shaw; Chris Teague; Jay Eales & Selina Lock; Neil Williams; Priya Sharma (congratulations on the award!); Cate Gardner; Simon Bestwick (telling rude jokes, natch); Richard Farren Barber; Laura Mauro (still no idea about that wrestling thing, sorry!); Gary Couzens; Ren Warron (told you we would have a proper chat this time), Victoria Leslie and Tracy Fahey (great cow stories!), Ben Jones (Whitby? Whitby??); CC Adams; Dion Winton-Pollock; Ray Cluley and his partner Jess; Kit Power, Helen Marshall; Des Lewis; Neil Snowden; Georgina Bruce; Steve Byrne; Amanda Rutter; Graeme Reynolds; Jasper Bark; John Travis; Terry Grimwood; Lynda E. Rucker; Gary Fry (thanks for the book!); Tim Power, and Tim Jarvis (a nice epilogue to the con in a cafe)

Horror writers are scary, serious people
Lisa Childs, Mark West, Laura Mauro (hidden), Ross Warren, Phil Sloman, Gary Couzens, Peter Mark May, me, Richard Farren Barber, Stephen Bacon

Recommendation: Singing With All My Skin & Bone by Sunny Moraine

A few brief words of recommendation about this fantastic (in both senses) collection of short stories from Sunny Moraine. There's nineteen stories here, and they are all rich and satisfying and worth taking the time to savour. The tales in Singing With All My Skin & Bone are often in the first-person and often addressed to a "you" either inside or outside the tale. So they feel less like prose and more like the speech of someone who has to try and articulate the story of their life. Moraine’s characters are those society considers oddballs and outsiders, and their stories do not always have happy endings.

The style is an alluring combination of horror, magic realism and even science fiction. Many read like extended metaphors for our lives and how we form relationships now: the stripping back of a partner in Love In The Time Of Taxidermy; the finding of your own skull in Memento Mori; the social media suicide epidemic of Dispatches From A Hole In The World; the subterranean magic in the title tale. Sylvia Plath, I imagine, would be nodding her head in violent approval at Moraine's work.

Moraine's prose is typically lyrical and poetic, but gruesome where it needs to be too. A lot of the stories veer towards body-horror, but the body (as the collection's title alludes to) is a source of power too, a source of control over one's own fate.

And then there's Cold As The Moon which with one line (a 21st Century update of a very famous E.M. Forster quote) managed to break my heart, utterly and completely.  

A superb collection and another brilliant title from Undertow. 

Singing With All My Skin & Bone (UK | US)

Recommendation: Year's Best Weird Fiction Volume Two

Undertow Publication’s Year’s Best Weird Fiction series reaches its second volume, this time guest-edited by Kathe Koja alongside Michael Kelly. In comparison to the first volume (which I reviewed here), there are less stories this time that draw from the horror tradition of Lovecraft, Aickman, Ligotti & the like, and more dark fantasy. Whereas my memory of the first book is, perhaps erroneously, of stories of people isolated and alone, the stories here seem more concerned with the relationships between characters as a source of weirdness, whether those relationships be familial, romantic, civic, or more ambiguous. There seems to be more focus, too, on linguistic experiment and playfulness–exemplified by the two stories included by Carmen Maria Machado, once of which has the fantastic title Observations About Eggs From the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And it does exactly what it says on the tin.

There are twenty stories here, and as always each reader will likely have their favourites. Here are mine, with a few brief words why.

Wendigo Nights by Siobhan Carroll – the wendigo has, of course, been part of horror fiction dating back to at least Algernon Blackwood’s tale, but this story finds a new angle on it, featuring not an external creature (probably) but the internalised idea of ‘wendigo psychosis’. Centred around an stranded team of scientists at an Arctic research camp, it also owes something to The Thing's creeping paranoia. No bad thing.

Headache by Julio Cortázar­–not, of course, a new story, but one newly translated. And what a joy it is to read a ‘new’ Cortázar­ story; whilst maybe not quite up there with something like House Taken Over, Headache still has that characteristic aura of matter-of-fact strangeness. It tells of a group of people looking after creatures known as ‘mancuspias’, the exact nature of which is deliberately hard to visualise for the reader. The creatures’ keepers do not seem to know exactly what they are doing (or why) and as conditions deteriorate they increasing suffer from ailments like vertigo and migraines…

Nanny Anne and the Christmas Story by Karen Joy Fowler–a nanny tells the children in her charge a story, which may or may not have some relevance to their life. A story with an ambiguous, skilful blurring of what is real and what isn’t, and which plays on all sorts of childhood fears.

The Air We Breathe Is Stormy, Stormy by Rich Larson–a story similar in tone to some of the more horror themed material from Volume 1, the central character here is a man fleeing society and his responsibilities to work on an oil rig. There’s a mounting sense of tension as he thinks he sees someone or something in the dark and stormy waters, before an unforeseen emotional pressure change at the climax.

The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado–the other story by Machado might have the better title, but it doesn’t have the narrative and emotional punch of this one. A story of a woman’s sexual awakening and marriage, the weird element here only subtly intrudes, and the full, horrifying significance of it is only revealed towards the end.

Resurrection Points by Usman T. Malik­­–a story which uses the weird to explore political and religious conflict, Resurrection Points is centred on a young boy in Karachi with a miraculous power both to heal and make dead bodies move. As his sense of power grows so does the conflict and violence around him; the two strands of the allegory intertwine and together create a dramatic and disturbing climax.

Exit Through the Gift Shop by Nick Mamatas–a second-person post-modern riff of on the horror campfire tales of ghostly hitchhikers, this generates laughs as much as unease. At least for awhile... Clever, playful, and with some of the most horrific imagery in the anthology: a combination that shouldn’t work but in Mamatas’s hands really does.

Migration by Karin Tidbeck­–the weird is a self-contained world (or series of worlds) in Tidbeck's fascinating story where the inhabitants of a settlement that exists only as a vast staircase are forced to move to every weirder dwelling places.

As my selection above hints at, one of the highlights of Year’s Best Weird Fiction 2 is the range of authors it includes in its comprehensive and generous definition of ‘the weird’. There are new names and old faces; horror, science-fiction and fantasy; works in translation, an almost equal representation of women as men, and writers from a wider variety of countries than in most of anthologies. There’s even stories by writers a few years dead alongside those living, which is another kind of diversity I guess…

Both volumes of Best Weird Fiction come highly recommended by this reader, then, and it will be interesting to see where Undertow take the series with the third volume.

Year’s Best Weird Fiction 2 (UK | US)

Favourite Books Of 2015

My 'to read' pile, yesterday

As it's that time of year again, here's a post about my favourite books released in 2015. I've picked seven novels/novellas and seven short story collections/anthologies that, for various reasons, had a special place in my heart this year.

My usual post listing my favourite individual stories read this year (and it's bigger than ever for 2015) will be coming the other side of Christmas...

So, in no particular order:

Favourite Novels/Novellas of 2015:

1. Dead Leaves, Andrew David Barker, Boo Books
2. Carus & Mitch, Tim Major, Omnium Gatherum
3. The Wicked & Divine #2: Fandemonium, Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie, Image Comics
4. The Russian Sleep Experiment, Holly Ice, Almond Press
5. The Bureau Of Them, Cate Gardner, Spectral Press
6. The Ragthorn, Robert Holdstock & Gary Kilworth, Infinity Plus
7. Leytonstone, Stephen Volk, Spectral Press

Favourite Collections/Anthologies of 2015:

1. The Second Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Ed. Mark Morris, Spectral Press
2. Darkest Minds, Ed. Ross Warren & Anthony Watson, Dark Minds Press
3. The Strangers & Other Writings, Robert Aickman, Tartarus Press
4. The Monstrous, Ed. Ellen Datlow, Tachyon
5. Probably Monsters, Ray Cluley, Chizine
6. Skein & Bone, VH Leslie, Undertow Publications
7. Aickman's Heirs, Ed. Simon Strantzas, Undertow Publications

Recommendation: Skein & Bone by VH Leslie

VH Leslie's is a writer who I first became aware of via her work in Black Static and Shadows & Tall Trees, in which her stories were consistently among the best featured. So I've been looking forward to her debut collection for a long time, and by god Skein & Bone from Undertow Publications doesn't disappoint. In fact, it's one of the best collections of quiet, strange horror I've read for a long time.

Namesake, the opening story, perhaps sums up Leslie's approach: the story of a woman named Burden, trying to lose her unfortunate surname by finding a husband is intricately constructed from the outset, with every detail note perfect. When Burden meets Blithe, a man at a bar, the reader knows her anticipated happy ending isn't on the cards, but the actual ending is both chillingly ambiguous and clear like fine crystal. Namesake showcases Leslie's skill both at wordplay and literary allusion, neither of which detract from the horrific denouement.

There are almost too many highlights in this collection: the deeply unsettling haunting in The Quiet Room; the fantastic allegory of The Cloud Cartographer, the dark, dark comedy of Ghost and the hotel-based psychological horror in The Blue Room. There's plenty of uncanny things happening in these stories but what makes the unease really hit home is the emotional charge behind them all. Grief, loss and missed opportunities haunt Leslie's characters as much as the supernatural or ghostly.

Many of the stories use as a central metaphor something that is handmade, traditionally crafted: old dresses in Skein & Bone, the decoration of a new house in Ulterior Design (with yellow wallpaper, natch), the cooking of preserves in Preservation. There's a similar feel to the stories themselves: these are handcrafted, every allusion and metaphor woven together to make something unique. For this reason, Leslie excels at the endings of her stories: both the literal and the symbolic come together. Indeed, in the perfect last line of Preservation you know longer know or care which is which.

Absorbing, subtle, scary, exquisite - you really, really need to read Skein & Bone. (UK | US)

Favourite Short Stories of 2014

I've been keeping a list of the best short stories I read this year - they weren't all necessarily published this year, but they're all relatively recent. I read a lot of short stories, so although there's nearly a hundred below that doesn't mean I've not been very strict in selecting what to include. Each story had to impress me enough to make a note of it in the first place, and then still seem as impressive when I whittled the list down for this post.

I've tried not to include too many stories from any single author or from any specific book; in all cases I've listed the publication I read the story in, not necessarily where it was originally published.

Last year I had a few emails from readers saying they discovered some new stories from the 2013 list, so I hope that's the case this time. And a big cheesy thank you to all the authors & publishers, for the inspiration, exhilaration (and not a little envy) your stories gave me.

Nina Allen: Seeing Nancy (The Mammoth Book Of Ghost Stories By Women)
Stephen Bacon: Apports (Black Static #36)
Stephen Bacon: I Am A Creation Of Now (Peel Back The Sky, Gray Friar Press)
Stephen Bacon: The Trauma Statement (Peel Back The Sky, Gray Friar Press)
Richard Farren Barber: Bus Routes Through the Sticks (The Horror Fields, Morpheus Tales Publishing)
Richard Farren Barber: Where The Stones Lie (The 13 Ghosts Of Christmas, Spectral Press)
Jasper Bark: How The Dark Bleeds (Stuck On Your & Other Prime Cuts, Crystal Lake)
Laird Barron: Nemesis (Primeval: A Journal Of The Uncanny #1) 
Simon Bestwick: A Kiss Of Old Thorns (The Condemned, Gray Friar Press)
Michael Blumlein: Success (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Eric Brown: The Disciples Of Apollo (Ghostwriting, Infinity Plus)
Eric Brown: The Man Who Never Read Novels (Ghostwriting, Infinity Plus)
Pat Cadigan: Chalk (This Is Horror chapbook)
Chloe N Clark: Mud (The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society Feb 2014)
Chloe N Clark: Who Walks Beside You (Supernatural Tales #25)
Ray Cluley: The Festering (Black Static #36)
Ray Cluley: Water For Drowning (This Is Horror chapbook)
Ray Cluley & Ralph Robert Moore: The Space Between (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Erin Cole: Between Feathers & Furs (February Femme Fatales)
MR Cosby: Necessary Procedure (Dying Embers, Satalyte Publishing)
MR Cosby: Turning The Cups (Haunted, Boo Books)
Anthony Cowin: The Brittle Birds (Perpetual Motion Machine)
KT Davies: Zombie Worms Ate My Hamster (Worms, Knightwatch Press)
Kristi DeMeester: Like Feather, Like Bone (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Paul M Feeney: The Weight Of The Ocean (Phrenic Press)
Gary Fry: Biofeedback (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Terry Grimwood: Red Hands (The Exaggerated Man & Other Stories, The Exaggerated Press)
Terry Grimwood: Soul Masque (Spectral Press chapbook)
Stephen Graham Jones: The Elvis Room (This Is Horror chapbook)
Rachel Halsall: The Conch (Hauntings, Hic Dragones)
Frances Hardinge: Slink-Thinking (La Femme, NewCon Press)
Hannah Kate: Lever's Row (Hauntings, Hic Dragones)
Holly Ice: Trysting Antlers (La Femme, NewCon Press)
Jane Jakeman: Adoptagrave (Supernatural Tales #16)
Carole Johnstone: Scent (The Bright Day Is Done, Gray Friar Press)
Carole Johnstone: Stomping Ground (The Bright Day Is Done, Gray Friar Press)
Joel Lane: Like Shattered Stone (Joel Lane Archive, Spectral Press)
Emma Lannie: There Is A Light & It Never Goes Out (After The Fall, Boo Books)
VH Leslie: Namesake (Black Static #36)
VH Leslie: The Quiet Room (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Alison Littlewood: The Dog's Home (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)
Livia Llewellyn: Furnace (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Sean Logan: The Tagalong (Supernatural Tales #27)
Johnny Mains: Aldeburgh (Frightfully Cosy and Mild Stories for Nervous Types, Shadow Publishing)
Usman T Malik: Ishq (Black Static #43)
Nick Mamatas: And Then, And Then, And Then... (Innsmouth Free Press)
Amelia Mangan: If I Were You (X7, Knightwatch Press)
Amelia Mangan: These Blasted Lands (After The Fall, Boo Books)
Helen Marshall: Death & The Girl From Phi Delta Zeta (Gifts For The One Who Comes After, Chizine)
Helen Marshall: In The Year Of Omens (Gifts For The One Who Comes After, Chizine)
Helen Marshall: We Ruin The Sky (Gifts For The One Who Comes After, Chizine)
Laura Mauro: When Charlie Sleeps (Black Static #37)
Gary McMahon: For The Night Is Dark (Knightwatch Press chapbook)
Gary McMahon: The Ghost Of Rain (Tales Of The Weak & Wounded, Dark Regions Press)
SP Miskowski: This Many (Little Visible Delight, Omnium Gatherum)
Alison Moore: Eastmouth (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)
Alice Munro: Queenie (Penguin chapbook)
Scott Nicholay: Eyes Exchange Bank (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Thana Niveau: And May All Your Christmases (The 13 Ghosts Of Christmas, Spectral Press)
Thana Niveau: Stolen To Time (From Hell To Eternity, Gray Friar Press)
Antony Oldknow: Ruelle Des Martyrs (Supernatural Tales #26)
Jonathan Oliver: Baby 17 (British Fantasy Society Journal #11)
Reggie Oliver & MR James: The Game Of Bear (The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #21)
Stephen Palmer: Palestinian Sweets (La Femme, NewCon Press)
Sarah Pinborough: Collect Call (The Mammoth Book Of Ghost Stories By Women)
John Llewellyn Probert: The Secondary Host (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Iain Rowan: The Grey Ship (52 Songs, 52 Stories)
Iain Rowan: Waiting For The Man (52 Songs, 52 Stories)
Nicholas Royle: Dead End (X7, Knightwatch Press)
Nicholas Royle: The Reunion (The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #21)
Lynda E Rucker: Beneath The Drops (The Moon Will Look Strange, Karoshi Books)
Lynda E Rucker: The Moon Will Look Strange (The Moon Will Look Strange, Karoshi Books)
Karen Runge: The Philosopher (Pantheon July 2013)
Daniel I Russell: Following Orders (Phobophobias, Western Legends Publishing)
Ray Russell: Company (Supernatural Tales #16)
Eric Schaller: To Assume The Writer's Crown: Notes On The Craft (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Robert Shearman: Granny's Grinning (The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #21)
Robert Shearman: It Flows From The Mouth (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow)
Angela Slatter: Home & Hearth (Spectral Press chapbook)
Phil Sloman: P Is For Pathophobia (Phobophobias, Western Legends Publishing)
Michael Marshall Smith: Author Of The Death (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Elizabeth Stott: Touch Me With Your Cold, Hard Fingers (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Simon Strantzas: The Nineteenth Step (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Undertow)
Cameron Suey: East (After The Fall, Boo Books)
Adrian Tchiakovsky: Lost Soldiers (The 13 Ghosts Of Christmas, Spectral Press)
Steve Rasnic Tem: The Night Doctor (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)
Stephen Volk: The Magician Kelso Dennett (Best British Horror 2014, Salt)
Mark West: The City In The Rain (Strange Tales, PenMan Press)
Mark West: A Quiet Weekend Away (Strange Tales, PenMan Press)
Conrad Williams: The Jungle (Nightjar Press chapbook)
Neil Williamson: Amber Rain (The Ephemera, Infinity Plus)
Mercedes M Yardley: Black Eyes Broken (Little Visible Delight, Omnium Gatherum)
Rio Youers: Outside Heavenly (The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)