Recommendation: The Searching Dead by Ramsey Campbell

However one defines adulthood, I've been reading Ramsey Campbell's books all my adult life. Indeed, the discovery of his fiction (and its impact on my own nascent writing) feels like part of that transition to adulthood, a defining event. A bold claim to make for the purchase of a book of short stories for 50p from a second-hand shop in Cleethorpes, perhaps, but one that feels emotionally true when I look back now.

So it's apt that Campbell's latest work is based around just that change from youth to adulthood, that it so well describes the experience and embarrassments of beginning to write, and that it is told from the point of view of someone looking back at the events he describes. Worried that he may be imagining as much as he is remembering, creating significance where none appeared at the time - much as I am no doubt doing above.

The Searching Dead is the first volume in a trilogy called 'The Three Births of Daoloth'. And, while it's a book that could be written by no one other than Campbell, it also seems to develop something genuinely new from him: a strand of (pseudo)autobiography. It's set in 1950s Liverpool, a location effortlessly and expertly captured in Campbell's prose, a setting of vivid and concrete detail that still evokes the shifting and nebulous horrors so common to this author's fiction. Crucially, it's a time & place in the midst of transition, caught between the old world of rationing, respect for ones elders, omnipresent Christianity and a newer world yet to be fully visualised - a thought made disquieting by the narrator's hints at the dark way the world does change later, which we will presumably learn about later in the trilogy...

The narrator, Dominic Sheldrake, is also shown in a moment of change. The plot centres around Dom and two of his friends and their suspicions about Mr Noble, a teacher at their school. Noble is also involved in the local spiritualist movement, taking it over with his apparently genuine ability to rouse the dead... Dom has been reading Enid Blyton-esque children's fiction and it is this that spurs him into action. He thinks of he and his friends as the 'Tremendous Three' and imagines movie-like dialogue for them. But fiction, at least of the childish variety, is a poor guide and Dom and his friends' investigation does not go to plan.

The book is built around the classic horror motif of someone attempting to raise the dead, but beneath this conceit are reoccurring hints at something larger, at a cosmic horror that will surely become more explicit as the trilogy progresses. Not that this first volume doesn't build to a satisfyingly scary climax of its own. The Searching Dead is studded with some standout set-pieces - a faceless terror following Dom when he visits the cinema being particularly fine. But as ever with Campbell it's the atmosphere that really makes the book; he's a virtuoso at creating horror from small details, each seeming insignificant in isolation but which cumulatively hint at terrors Dom and his friends only partially understand. It's something he does better than anyone.

I've been reading Ramsey Campbell's books all my adult life, and yet he continues to surprise me. The Searching Dead is up there with his finest novels and I for one can't wait for the next volume. Highly recommended.

The Searching Dead - PS Publishing

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.

The Quarantined City Parts 1 & 2 Reviewed...

Daniel Ausema reviews the first two parts of The Quarantined City on the Geekiary site.

"There is a wonderfully surreal quality to this story so far... the writing skill here and the narrative hooks are enough to keep readers coming back to see how it will all play out."

Nicely balance review, with the odd worry that I'm attempting to spin too many plates at once with this project... Hopefully they'll still all be spinning at the end, and it won't end with me weeping into a mound of broken china... :)


You can read the full review here.

A Romantic Comedy

I wrote this story years and years ago; I was still experimenting with styles and genres at this point, finding my feet. I never wrote anything like this ever again, but I've always kind of liked it. It's nothing like the writing I do now and clumsily try and promote on here; it's not horror, it's not weird. But sod it, it's Valentine's Day, so I thought I'd post it. (I've deliberately not amended anything that my twenty-something self wrote.)


A Romantic Comedy
It wasn’t a relationship, but a rehearsal. We weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend, but just trying out those roles for future reference. We were very young. I don’t know why you picked me, out of all the boys who auditioned. You were considered very pretty, with your long brown hair and startling hazelnut eyes, the kind that would look good on movie posters.

We would walk around the park holding hands, while the light fell on us from different angles. Or we would kiss, learning how it was done. We never went any further than that, because ours wasn’t that kind of film. We were too young to have seen films that went further.

But what script would stop there? There was another boy, waiting in the wings. He had been learning his lines, getting into character. He was very good; I didn’t know what was happening. Suddenly I was being out-staged. You barely wanted to hold my hand anymore, let alone kiss me. You told everyone kissing me was “disgusting”, just when I thought I had got the hang of it. My first bad review.

I was forced into a different role. I happen to think I played it rather well. I took long, lonely walks, kicking at dead leaves and not letting myself cry. I wrote letters to you that I never sent. I brooded and listened to sad songs late at night. Everyone saw how well suited I was for the part, but I knew there would be other films later. I never meant to become typecast.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be just a rehearsal with you, when all the doors were still open and we thought we had time to explore them all. We were just seeing which roles we would want to play later. But the doors seem to have shut behind us.

Every script I get offered seems to be the same, with the same ‘surprise’ ending that doesn’t surprise me anymore: dead leaves and late night radio. And I can’t help but thinking that maybe it wasn’t a rehearsal, back then with you, but something far more important and fundamental, that set the scene for all that followed.

I’ve played my part with many girls, although sometimes not for long. And I just wanted to tell you that none of them have seemed as beautiful as you seemed then. I still think of you, every time the film ends, and I watch the credits with tearful eyes. I always watch until the very end, in case anything changes. It never does. I still think of you. My writing this to you when I’ve not seen you for years is perfectly in character.

What more is there to say? It all remains the same, the same long slog through the same lonely scripts. My film career has failed to take off. I’ll probably end up in some dull pantomime, with one of the ugly sisters. While your face beams down on us from the billboard of your latest blockbuster, your romantic comedy, your happy ending.

Compulsory 2014 Retrospective Post

So, 2014.

The Writing:
In terms of my writing, 2014 has felt like an important year for me, although from the outside it might not seem like it. Falling Over continued to pick up some nice reviews, and I had some stories published in anthologies this year, but no big releases. Nothing new purely under my own name.

But I've been hard at work on a lot of different things this year, most of which will see the light in 2015.

Most exciting is The Quarantined City, my monthly serial which will be published by Spectral Press, with the first episode The Smell Of Paprika hopefully being released in January. Spectral Press are one of my favourite publishers and the fact that they're releasing something of mine feels like a real achievement, something that if you'd told me a year ago I'd never have believed. In addition, in writing The Quarantined City (the episodes so far, at least) I feel I've written my most ambitious work to date. Without giving away too much at this stage it's part horror, part fantasy (sort of), part head-scratching weirdness. I've stretched creative muscles I've not stretched before and had a blast doing so.

Max Ernst's Europe After the Rain II will provide the basis for the cover art for each episode of The Quarantined City.

In addition, I've a story in the Lovecraftian anthology The Outsiders from Crystal Lake (another dream publisher) coming out early 2015,  my chapbook Dark Reflections from Knightwatch Press, plus a few other acceptances and thingabobs that I can't mention as yet.

The People:
This year conventions and book launches have gone from being things I was pretty nervous about (because I knew no one and am shit at introducing myself to strangers) to things I actively look forward to, in part through the realisation that the horror community are among the friendliest people I've met (especially those who like a good curry). I've done a few readings this year as well, which went okay, I think. So 2014 felt like an achievement in that sense as well. I certainly hope to attend as many events as is realistic next year. And not forgetting the friendship & advice from people I've only ever met online, which is just as appreciated.

So lots of people I should thank, but too many to list here without it becoming interminable. Here's to you all; you know who you are. The first pint's on me.

Top Ten Books:
The Language Of Dying - Sarah Pinborough
No One Gets Out Alive - Adam Nevill
The Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer
The Spectral Book Of Horror Stories
Gifts For The One Who Comes After - Helen Marshall
Into The Light - SP Miskowski
Best British Horror 2014
Shadows & Tall Trees 2014
The Sleeping Dead - Richard Farren Barber
Dream Of The Serpent - Alan Ryker

(See also my massive favourite short stories post)

Top Five Films: American Hustle; The Double; The Grand Budapest Hotel; A Most Wanted Man; The Wolf Of Wall Street

Top Ten Albums: 
EMA - The Future's Void
Martin Carr - The Breaks
Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
Sharon Van Etten - Are We There
King Creosote - From Scotland With Love
Allo Darlin' - We Come From The Same Place
Lana Del Ray - Ultraviolence
Chvrches - The Bones Of What You Believe
Bob Dylan - The Complete Basement Tapes
Stephen Malkmus - Wig Out At Jigbags

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.

BlogHop: Three Things I Don’t Write (& Three Things I Do)

Another one of these author blog hops thingies, this time on the theme of three things I don't write about, and three I do. I was nominated by the always ace sci-fi author Neil Williamson, who also nominated Chris Beckett and Keith Brooke (who's such a swot he's written his already). My own nominations are at the end of my piece. 

So without further ado...

Three Things I Don’t Write About:

• Real Places: I set stories in real places where the story itself seems to demand it, but most of the time I don't feel the urge. A lot of my stories are set in unnamed urban settings; recognisably British maybe, but not somewhere you could actually recognise as being Nottingham or Basingstoke or Widnes or wherever. As long as the readers recognise the details of the place that I'm using for atmosphere - the lonely bus-stop or the graffiti ridden alleyway - then I don't think it needs to be a specific town or city. Indeed I think such detail in a short story, where everything needs to dovetail together, could be counter productive. As I said, there are exceptions in my work such as Home Time (very specifically about the contrast between Oxford and a Nottinghamshire mining village) but even here it's what the place means to the character and the story that's important, not accurately depicting it as is in real life.

• ‘Monsters’ That Might As Well Be Real Animals: A lot of horror deals with death, and so obviously a lot of horror deals with things that kill people. But what bores me is to write the kind of horror where the ‘monster’ – be it vampire, psycho, or blob from the plant K – is just a physical threat which people either run from, fight, or get eaten by. As far as the plot goes, the monster might just as well be a wild dog. Which isn't to say physical beasts don’t feature in my work; it's just I like my monsters to mean something and for the characters to be fighting for more than their brute survival – for their sanity, perhaps, or their view of the world, or to preserve their illusions. I especially like to write about horrors that might not be physical at all – The Other Room being an example.

• Cthulhu & Co: For a writer who portrayed cultist as mad degenerates, it’s ironic how much of a cult has built up around HP Lovecraft’s so-called mythos. I find it odd how Cthulhu and the like, vast and literally indescribable beings who induce awe and madness in equal measure, have been minimised by later generations into generic horror tropes, or t-shirt designs, cuddly toys or RPG monsters with their stats spelt out for you like a kobold’s. Some authors, obviously, have taken Lovecraft's ideas and twisted them to their own ends – TED Klein and Ramsey Campbell spring immediately to mind – and Neil Gaiman’s inspired spoof Shoggoth's Old Peculiar is brilliant. But in general I don’t understand the urge to write ‘straight’ Lovecraft homages nor do I have much interest in the plethora of anthologies called things like Cthulhu In The Wild West or Dagon In The West End. It seems doubly strange because it’s so obvious from reading his work that Lovecraft was using the imagery of his mythos to help articulate a highly philosophical and personal view of existence. He wasn't just thinking Ohhhh Godzilla with a squid for a head – cool!

 Three Things I Do Write About:

• Doubles & Doppelgängers: I think anyone who’s read even a fraction of my work will probably have picked up on this. There’s the obvious doppelgänger stories like Falling Over or New Boy, where there’s a physical copy of someone (maybe)  but there’s also the Jekyll and Hyde like parallels within people’s personalities that I exploit in stories like The Other Room and The Time Of Their Lives. Coming at it all from a completely different angle is Dark Reflections (forthcoming from Knightwatch Press next year) which, as you can possibly guess from the title is about that doppelgänger we all have on the other side of the mirror… There’s also a second aspect to this, where two different stories serve as partial reflections of each other – for example in the collection Falling Over, the story The Time Of Their Lives tells of some sinister adult behaviour from the uncomprehending point of view of a child… whereas Sick Leave shows an adult protagonist struggling to grasp the equally incomprehensible behaviour of a group of eerie children… I didn't write these stories to be conscious reflections of each other (indeed, they were written years apart) but when putting together a collection of stories I like finding these kinds of echoes in my work and to exploit them where I can.

•   Ambiguity: I love endings where you're still not sure what will happen next, or still not sure what has happened, and especially endings where you're not really sure what it all means. There's lots of different types of ambiguity in narrative, and I've argued before that if anything distinguishes 'weird fiction' from straight horror it's ambiguity. That's not to say that my stories simply just stop, or become so weird as to be impenetrable - trying to get the emotional kick of an ending whilst not tying everything up with a neat bow is what I'm going for. 

•  Flawed People: God, is there anything more boring to write about than happy well-adjusted people? Or even worse, people with so many abilities and advantages that they overcome everything they face? This is something Neil included in his three things, actually, where he said he’d never write about superheroes and I completely see his point. Even where people in my stories do have abilities beyond the ordinary (Regina in The Watchers for example) their ‘powers’ are as much a curse as a blessing, and not really under their control. But I'm not much drawn to this theme, and much prefer to write about flawed, two-faced, self-deceiving and even downright repellent people in my fiction. Part of his goes back to the idea that the horrors of the story should have some connection to the protagonist, and part of it is the much simpler horror trope that an unpleasant protagonist should get their comeuppance in the end.

Passing The Baton...

Up next are Mark West, Amelia Mangan, and Jennifer Williams. Fabulous writers one and all, so do see what they have to say for themselves.

Recommendation: The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough

I’d heard a lot of good things about this book before I read it – so much so, in fact, that I wondered if it could possibly be as good as people said it was. Perversely, each glowing review I read moved this one further down my to-read pile, until last weekend when I finally decided to give it a go. After reading the first few pages, I realised something:

I’m a twat. It's brilliant.

So let me say first off that if you’re like me and have the same kind of grudging, disbelieving response to overwhelmingly positive reviews – don’t be a twat too. Especially as you’re about to read another review that sings this book's praises to high heaven and back round the yard again. 

The Language Of Dying is a novella with a simple plot: five siblings gather at the house of their dying father, and the bonds between them weaken as their father’s body slowly fails in the room upstairs. Meanwhile, the unnamed narrator of the tale is waiting anxiously for the reappearance of the a fabulous beast she has seen outside of the window on other occasions of stress and trial... It's a powerful, at times difficult read, that doesn't flinch from the realities of a slow, drawn-out death that, let's face it, we're far more likely to end up facing than the gruesome deaths of most horror or crime fiction.

The beauty of the story (and it is beautiful) lies in its telling; it’s one of those books where you read an amazingly crafted, punchy sentence and think that you must remember it, only to read an even better sentence a few lines down that makes you forget the first one, and then you forget that one as you read yet another beautiful sentence on the next page... and so on. As befits the title, this is a book about words as much as about death. About how our words die, too.

In the end, this is a book that pulls off that magic trick that only fiction can do: reminding us of the universal by telling us of the specific. Quite simply, one of the most best books I've ever read. 

2013 - Looking Back...

Advanced warning: this is a very much me-me-me post, although I will be taking the time to thank a few people who've helped make this year what it was.

So, 2013.

Obviously, the main event in terms of my own writing was the publication of Falling Over - a move away from self-publishing, Falling Over was released by the stupendous Infinity Plus. The reasons I wanted to try and get this book published by someone else were as much psychological as practical or monetary: for a long period of my adult life, although I was writing I did very little in regards to trying to get published, and the reason was simply I was scared to. I was afraid to find out what reaction my stories would get. And I don't think it can be good for you, psychologically, to have not done something in your life that you want to because of fear. So in 2013 I did it. (Thanks to Iain Rowan who gave me a valuable shove when I was dithering.) And I'm exceptionally pleased with how it turned out: the artwork by Keith Brooke is great (lots of people have told me how much they like it) and the reviews from readers and sites such as Amazing Stories, Dark Musings, and Horrifically Horrifying Horror have been uniformly positive. And just being published by a publisher like Infinity Plus seems to have got me some attention and invites to write stories for people, which is all to the good. So I was stupid to be scared after all (mind you, that fear wasn't 100% misplaced: I'm very glad some of my earliest stories have never seen the light of day!)

Falling Over has got a bit of love in people's 2013 round ups as well, garnering an 'honourable mention' in the short story collection of the year category on Dark Musings, and being picked as one of Martin Cosby's favourite books of the year on Stranger Designs. And The Shelter has also got a mention in Mark West's Fifth Annual Westies Awards, at No. 11 in his fiction reads of the year. What a star.

I met a lot of great people in 2013, both online and out in the wild at Edge-Lit 2 and Andromeda One. I'm not naturally the most outgoing of chaps when I'm with people I don't know, so going to these things alone is always slightly daunting, and I'd like to thank each and every person who was so friendly. In particular it was a real laugh hanging around with Phil Ambler, Mark West and Steve Harris/Byrne at Andromeda One, and with the Fox Spirit gang plus assorted hangers on (i.e. me) at Edge-Lit. It's a sign of how quickly friendships can develop between people with the same, slightly warped, interests that I'm already looking forward to hopefully catching up with people again next year, and meeting some new faces.

I had a fair few stories published in 2013; the two I'm most proud of probably being The Second Wish which featured in Supernatural Tales #23 (a magazine I've always really admired) and Calligraphy in the recently released anthology Little Visible Delight, where I'm alongside such cracking writers as Lynda E. Rucker and SP Miskowski. I also wrote a number of stories that have been accepted for publication that are due out next year; they're some of my best work, I think, and I can't wait to be allowed to tell you all about them...

As to 2014, well I'm currently pausing between drafts of a novella called Other People's Ghosts - this one is proving a sod to get the structure right for, but I'm sure I'll get there in the end. Between drafts on that I'm working on a story called Retro Night. It's about going out when you're young and invincible and think you can live forever... and going out when you're older and wiser and know that you won't.

And, tentatively, I'm starting to think about a third collection of short stories as well - working out which ones I have available would fit together thematically and trying out some hypothetical running orders... 

But enough navel-gazing - I hope everyone who reads this has a great festive period and a brilliant 2014. Have a drink on me. 

Cheers!

Distorted Visions

I like to say, in glib self-promotional moments, that the sort of horror that I write is one where the story reflects the psychology of the characters. You can probably find me saying something similar in the About Me section on this very blog. It’s a short hand, really, to say that my stories aren't just about people having their spleen eaten off by zombies, oh no. It's true as far as it goes. But like most marketing speak it’s too simplistic to mean much.

Thinking about it more, I think that what I am trying to say is that a lot of good horror reflects the world-view of the characters (and readers). But like one of those funfair mirrors, what comes back is distorted. Or even broken.

Clichéd example alert: Lovecraft is well known for his ‘cosmic horror’, one of the central ideas of which is that mankind is meaningless to the universe at large. This is a direct challenge to the prevailing Christian view of earlier times, that mankind was essential to Creation, because God. And even 19C atheists seemed to have a very smug, aren't-we-swell view of humanity. Maybe its because that kind of small-r religious view of the life is less prevalent that explains why Lovecraft’s legacy, amongst his more second-rate followers, seems to have been reduced to pop-culture wowing over the cool monsters with funny names. Few seem to grasp that the Outer Gods are scary because they are gods; debased, insane gods who don’t care about us enough even to punish us.

I'm not religious myself, which is probably why I merely admire Lovecraft’s work as one horror author amongst many rather than hero-worshipping him like some in the horror community (oh, and there’s his repellent racism, too). But I have my own views on life and the horror that I most admire is probably that which challenges these views and throws them back at me in distorted ways. Of course, some opinions I hold are too trivial or subjective to be considered here – my contention that Giant Steps by The Boo Radleys is the most underrated album of the 90s is certainly one that’s been challenged, mainly by my mates in the pub, but such ignoramuses disagreeing are hardly going to destroy my entire world view. But how about these statements, all of which I ‘believe’ to certain degrees and with the usual caveats:

That we have free will, to a greater or lesser degree, and therefore at least some influence over our own destinies.

That logic and cause and effect mean that life is relatively stable and sensible, and that we can understand the reasons why.

That although people don’t have a soul they do have a personality that remains largely the same over their lives.

That despite all the setbacks, society is slowly becoming more civilised and tolerant; we are moving away from the jungle.

All these beliefs are pretty fundamental but I can see that a lot of my stories are essentially trying to test these principles to destruction; to attempt to prove them wrong. The doppelgängers and the ghosts; the conspiracies and the inescapable deaths are all suggestive of the fact that what I believe might be as fundamentally wrong as the idea that humanity is at the centre of you universe. That such fundamental truths are little more than smoke and mirrors. And what could be more horrifying than that?

---

  

Over on Martin Cosby's site, you can find a new interview with me, should you be so inclined. Lots of talk about influences and crippling writer insecurity.

I've always found Lauren James to be a very acute and interesting writer about literary horror, and so I was pleased to see the title story from Falling Over discussed in this excellent piece about the theme of 'the double'.

And So It Begins

I started a new story today, with the new Laura Marling album on the stereo and the cat sleepily watching me from his chair.

It's actually based an idea I've tried to write before and failed - Other People's Ghosts is my take on the poltergeist theme, and especially the idea that these 'noisy spirits' are in fact manifestations of peoples' inner turmoil and stress. But the first version wasn't good enough to make the cut for The Other Room and nor have I ever shown it to anyone. It plot was just too obvious, the theme too unfocussed, and the whole thing too, well, crap.

It's always been a sore point that I've never done the idea justice, and now I've got some emotional detachment from the first version and the hours I poured into it, I'm ready to go back and fillet out what's useful from it, and discard the rest. I'm not rewriting the old version, but starting something fresh with the same basic idea. And I think one of the faults of the original version was it was too short - that this story needs to be at least novella length for it to work.

Now's a good time for me to be stretching myself and writing someone of longer length - I've probably got a book's worth of short stories doing the rounds with various magazines, so by the time Falling Over is out and everyone is sick of me banging on about it* a third collection should be shaping up nicely. So that gives me some time to work on Other People's Ghosts and see if I can make it work this time, and to see if it really does want to grow up to be a novella.

Oh, and the new Laura Marling album? Excellent.

* okay, maybe not quite that quick

On Ambiguous Endings

So, The Shelter. It’s generally got very positive reviews, but recently a couple of stinkers have trickled in. Which is just one of those things, obviously – don’t worry, this isn't going to be one of those posts where a minor author no one's ever heard of has a massive sweary breakdown just because they got a one-star review. But I do read all the reviews I get and I did think there was a certain common factor that both these two were complaining about:

“It didn't say much about [the] being in the shelter. I didn't think it was a horror story more a book about things playing with a boys mind.”

“You never find out what's down there or even get a description. !!”

I think these reviewers were expecting a more traditional horror story, with an ending where Alan Dean confronts the thingymabob in the shelter, finds out what it is, and defeats it, somehow. 

Well, The Shelter was never going to be that kind of story - as you’ll know if you've read the afterword, I conceived of it over fifteen years ago and whilst much has changed between then and the final draft, the ending has always been the same. So I'm relatively relaxed about those reviews as they relate to the story itself (although arguably my blurb needs to make it clearer what kind of book this actually is).

What it seems these reviewers are both complaining about, when you get down to it, is ambiguity. I've spoke a lot about ambiguity in the Strange Stories feature on this blog and generally praised it as something that distinguishes a good weird fiction story from an average one. I've mentioned different kinds of ambiguity, from not fully revealing the ‘monster’ (“You never find out what's down there!”) to ambiguity of perception (“more a book about things playing with a boys mind” – I love that angle on the The Shelter, actually).

But it’s an unfortunate fact that, whilst I believe such ambiguity is crucial to a certain type of horror fiction, it isn't very commercial. At all. From a commercial fiction point of view, the story of The Shelter might appear to be literally unfinished – what happens when Alan goes back? Does he find out what is down there? Does he defeat it? You're not telling me the whole story, godamnit! There’s nothing wrong with stories with that type of traditional structure, and I enjoy reading them if they’re well written, but as a writer my main interests are elsewhere. (This perceived need for narrative closure in commercial fiction probably goes a long way to explaining the commercial superiority of the novel over the short story and novella, but that’s another post.)

But, crucially, ambiguity doesn't mean arbitrary. I didn't stop the story of The Shelter at a random point just to be annoying or because my writer's cramp was flaring up. It stopped at the point where there was nothing more to say about Alan Dean’s flight from his past. He has finally decided to go back. I'm sure we've all been in situations where we've agonised over an important decision and then, once we've made it immediately felt better just because the decision has been made. The result of that decision almost doesn't matter that much. One way or another the die is cast, and we feel better for it.

That was the kind of closure I was going for with the story of Alan Dean. From that perspective, the ending isn't ambiguous at all. It ends at exactly that point where the central character's mental dilemma is resolved. In fact I'd go one further: continuing the story would have introduced more ambiguity, because whatever happened would have inevitably cast doubt on the rightness or otherwise of Alan's decision...

Maybe there are no truly unambiguous endings. Maybe, like life, all the author can do is trade off one set of ambiguities against another.

The Shelter (UK | US)

Eleven Facts, Eleven People, Eleven Questions

So, I've been nominated by Martin Cosby (a new weird fiction author who I suspect you might be hearing more of...) for one of these blog thingies; it's called a Leibster apparently, and I have to:

a) reveal eleven facts about myself
b) answer eleven questions from Martin
c) set eleven questions for eleven other people

So without further ado, eleven facts:

1. Six days out of seven I will be wearing a Fred Perry polo shirt. 
2. As I type this I am listening to the song Wonderful Excuse by The Family Cat. I also own a cat called George (or as much as anyone ‘owns’ a cat, at any rate). 
3. I have never broken any bones. Well, not my own. 
4. I suffer frequently from déjà-vu. 
5. I once dressed as ‘boy from Kes’ for a film themed fancy dress party. This involved hasty manipulation of a rubber glove, some shoe-laces, and a kestrel I coloured in with felt-tips on some cardboard. 
6. I run the Headington Shark Appreciation Society (new members welcome). 
7. The first film I ever saw at the cinema was The Empire Strikes Back. It was a double-bill with the first film but my parents got the times wrong, so I saw them the wrong way round. I suspect this explains a lot. 
8. My favourite cocktail is a Whisky Sour. 
9. I am 89% sure that my life is not a Truman Show style hoax. 
10. I contend that the best album of the 90s is Giant Steps by The Boo Radleys. 
11. I suffer frequently from déjà-vu.

Martin's questions for me: 

1. Do you write your first drafts by hand?
Yes I do. Writing by hand has lots of pluses (more speed, less distractions) and few negatives. I know some people would view having to type it up the first draft as a negative, but for me that's a plus too: it means going over every single line of prose again at least once.

2. Do you follow more than 10 blogs?
Yes - see sidebar >>>>>>>>

3. Do you play a musical instrument?
No. I'd love to be able to play guitar but I tried a few times as a teen, and good Christ I was bad. And not even bad in a sounds-cool-feedbacky kind of way, but just bad.

4. Given the choice, which opera would you attend?
Ummm, I know nothing about opera. Nothing. What was that one Mark Twain compared to an orphanage burning down? I'll go for that one.

5. e-book or paper book?
Both. I don't care if it's against the rules - both!

6. Do you use an electric blanket?
No. I don't know how to expand on that answer to make it vaguely interesting, sorry.

7. Do you write in cafes?
No, but I'd like to. Life isn't that luxurious at the moment.

8. Is there a film that has influenced you greatly? 
The Empires Strikes Back - see above.

9. Do you keep a diary?
Not a personal one, but I do have a 'writing diary'. Like so much else in my life it is sporadic, partially illegible, and woefully behind schedule.

10. Which foodstuff do you like the least?
I had something in France - the name escapes me - I love most French food, including snails and the like, but this was vile. It stank to high heaven and ruined a perfectly good piece of fish beneath it. When we looked up the translation, it just said it was a dish consisting of 'innards stuffed with innards'.

11. Do you listen to music while you work? If so, what?
Yes, all the time unless I'm doing final editing of a story. Favourite artists include The Auteurs, Laura Marling, Bob Dylan, EMA, Pavement, Viva Voce, Radiohead...

And now, my eleven questions for eleven fine people:

Alan Ryker, Iain Rowan, Robert Dunbar, Cate Gardner, Dan Holloway, Colin Barnes, Victoria Hooper, Greg James, Anne Michaud, Luca Veste and Neil Schiller.

1. Who’s the most underrated author out there that you know of? 
2. You need to pick one song to be used to torture unpleasant terrorist types, by playing it to them full volume 24/7. What do you pick? 
3. As a writer, what is your own personal definition of success? 
4. How do you like your steak? 
5. A genie grants you get an extra hour every day, meaning your days are 25 hours long. The condition is you must use this hour to take up a brand new hobby. What do you pick? 
6. What’s the most overrated piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given? 
7. If you were in a band, what would your band name be? 
8. Oxford Commas – yes or no? 
9. What’s the most embarrassing typo or mistake you’ve ever found in your work after publication? 
10. Who’s your favourite Muppet? 
11. Will you write me a haiku?