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)

Guest Fiction by Mark Allan Gunnels

It's Christmas come (slightly) early on the blog today, with a gift from the ultra talented Mark Allan Gunnells in the from of a short story, The Boy Who Killed Santa Claus. You can find details about Mark's new collection below the story.

Take it away, Mark:

THE BOY WHO KILLED SANTA CLAUS

Seven year old Henry Childers crawled reluctantly under the covers of his bed. “But, Mom,” he whined, “I’m not sleepy. Can’t I stay up a few more hours?”

“It’s almost ten already,” his mother Tonya said with an indulgent smile. “If you don’t get to sleep, Santa won’t stop here tonight.”

“Do you think Santa got my letter this year?” Henry asked, sitting up against the headboard.

“I’m sure he did, honey.”

“’Cause I don’t want it to be like last year.”

Tonya sighed heavily and rubbed at her temples. She’d been hearing this same tirade from her son for an entire year now. “Henry, there was nothing wrong with what you got from Santa last year.”

“I asked for an XBox, and he gave me a Playstation. It’s not the same.”

“As I’ve told you a hundred times, maybe Santa was all out of XBoxes,” Tonya said, pulling the covers up to just under Henry’s chin. She and her husband had gone to every store in the city looking for an XBox last year, but they’d all been sold out. It had been a Playstation or nothing, but still it hadn’t satisfied Henry.

“I mailed my letter in October last year,” Henry said. “That gave him plenty of time to have his elves whip me up an XBox.”

“Henry,” Tonya said, a little more sharply than she’d intended, “you’re being awfully ungrateful. There are children in the world who have nothing. If you don’t start being more appreciative, Santa may decide to just skip our house altogether.”

“Okay,” Henry said, his lower lip poked out like a shelf. “I’m sorry.”

“Just get to sleep,” Tonya said, leaning over and kissing her son on the forehead. “When you wake up in the morning, you just might find that bike you’ve been wanting waiting under the tree.”

“You think Santa will like the cookies and milk we left for him?” Henry asked.

“I’m sure he’ll think they’re delicious. I’ll see you in the morning, sweetie.”

Tonya turned off the light, the small nightlight plugged into the electrical socket by the closet throwing a muted yellow glow throughout the room. She eased the door closed, leaving Henry to dream of Christmas morning.

“Do you think it’s safe to start?” Jonas Childers asked his wife. They were sitting in the living room, watching a SciFi channel marathon of the Silent Night Deadly Night films.

Tonya glanced at the clock, saw that it was just past one o’clock in the morning. “He should be sound asleep by now,” she said. “I think we can get started.”

“Good,” Jonas said. “It’ll probably take me ‘til dawn to get that bike put together.”

They went up to the attic, careful to avoid all the squeakiest boards, and brought down all of Henry’s presents. Tonya began arranging all the smaller gifts around the tree while Jonas unfolded the instructions for the bike and began assembling it.

“Shit,” Jonas cursed under his breath, trying to fit together two pieces that simply refused to fit together. “As much trouble as this is, Henry better like this damn bike.”

Tonya knelt next to her husband, took the uncooperative pieces and easily snapped them together. “Are you kidding? He’ll absolutely love it.”

“He better. I don’t want to have to go through another year hearing him bitch and moan like he did about that damn Playstation.”

“It did get a bit tiresome,” Tonya said with a giggle. “But Henry just wants what he wants, and he won’t settle for anything else.”

“Like mother, like son.”

Tonya swatted her husband on the arm. “That’s not true. I settled for you, after all.”

“Very funny,” Jonas said. “How about you settle for passing me those cookies.”

Tonya had baked a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies, half of which her family had eaten, the other half of which had been placed on a plate for Santa. She took the plate and handed it to her husband, who immediately scarfed down two of the cookies.

“Careful,” Tonya said, reading over the instructions. “You keep that up, you’ll soon be fat as Santa.”

“This isn’t for me,” Jonas said around a mouthful of cookie, spewing crumbs like a fine mist. “It’s for Henry. Think how disappointed he’d be if he woke up and saw that Santa hadn’t eaten the cookies he left for him.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Tonya said with a smile.

“Hand me the milk, please.”

They did not leave out a glass of milk for Santa since that would curdle, but they placed it in a thermos to keep it cold. Tonya passed the thermos to her husband.

Jonas popped the top of the thermos and gulped down several swallows of the milk. Suddenly he retched, spitting milk into the air like a geyser, the thermos dropping from his hand and leaking its contents onto the carpet. Jonas clutched at his throat, making strangled gagging noises as milk and blood dribbled down his chin.

Tonya screamed and grabbed her husband as he collapsed onto her lap. His body was jerking with violent spasms, his eyes rolled up to the whites. He coughed violently, and more frothy blood sprayed Tonya’s arms, and she thought there were chunks of tissue mixed with it.

“Oh God, Jonas,” she screamed, crying. “What’s wrong? What should I do?”

“What’s going on?” Henry said, stepping into the room wearing his pajamas, rubbing the sleep dust from his eyes. “I heard screaming.”

“Henry, get the phone and call 911,” Tonya yelled frantically. “Something is wrong with your father; he needs an ambulance right away.”

“What is it?” Henry asked, wide-eyed, stepping further into the room.

“Henry, call 911 NOW!”

Henry started to turn toward the phone, but then he spotted the spilled thermos of milk and froze. “Did Dad drink the milk?” he asked, snatching up the thermos and waving it at his mother.

“What?” Tonya said, feeling her husband’s spasms tapering off, afraid to contemplate what that might mean.  “Your father needs help.”

“Did Dad drink the milk?” Henry said again, his old stubborn self. “This milk was for Santa Claus, not for Dad.”

“Henry!” Tonya screamed, desperate tears of frustration and helplessness streaking her face. “This isn’t the time—”

“THIS MILK WAS FOR SANTA CLAUS, NOT FOR DAD!” Henry roared, throwing the thermos across the room.

A numbness began to spread throughout Tonya’s body, starting in her chest and reaching out through her limbs. Comprehension came slowly, and it made her feel cold inside. Cold and empty.

“What did you do?” she croaked, her voice raw and raspy. “Henry, what did you do to the milk?”

“I poured Drain-O in it,” he said matter-of-factly, as if stating that he’d brushed his teeth.

Tonya was on her feet in an instant, the still form of her husband stretched out on the floor. She grabbed Henry by the shoulders and shook him, shook him hard. “Why would you do such a thing?” she shouted into his face. “Why in the name of God would you do such a thing?”

“I wanted an XBox!” Henry shouted back, wrenching out of his mother’s grasp. “Not a Playstation, an XBox, and Santa knew that. He knew that, and he gave me the wrong thing anyway. I wanted to teach him a lesson, make him pay for giving me the wrong gift last year.”

Tonya stumbled back, hands to her mouth, and watched as her son turned and ran back to his room, slamming the door behind him. She snatched up the phone and quickly dialed 911 while Santa chopped up a topless teenager on the television behind her.

© Mark Allan Gunnells 5/26/06

If you enjoyed Mark's story, be sure to grab a paperback or Kindle copy (available in Kindle Unlimited, as well) of his Flowers in a Dumpster short story collection - out now from Crystal Lake Publishing.

“…hilarious and horrifying, as all great satire must be. An interpretation so left of field that its concept alone must be celebrated.” – Clive Barker

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.

We Are All Haunted

Pleased to say that I have a new story called The Man In Blue Boots in the forthcoming Hauntings anthology, from the fabulous Hic Dragones press.

I believe it will be released on the 31st July; in the meantime here's the blurbage below:

Hauntings
An anthology of new fiction, edited by Hannah Kate

A memory, a spectre, a feeling of regret, a sense of déjà vu, ghosts, machines, something you can’t quite put your finger on, a dark double, the long shadow of illness, your past, a nation’s past, your doppelgänger, a place, a song, a half-remembered rhyme, guilt, trauma, doubt, a shape at the corner of your eye, the future, the dead, the undead, the living, a grey cat, a black dog, a ticking clock, someone you used to know, someone you used to be. We are all haunted.

The Things That He Couldn't See

 Pleased to say that my (very) short story, The Things That He Couldn't See has been published in Sanitarium Magazine #15.

It's the second time I've been published in this market, and this time my name made the cover. So that's nice.

I always like the design and artwork for Sanitarium, so it's a pleasure to be included in a magazine that's obviously aiming to make a name for itself.

Their website is here.

Wish List

So, I've a new story out in the charity anthology Murder, Madness, and Mystery.

My story is called Wish List and it's about at least two of the three Ms in the anthology's title, as well as the dangers of owning to many books...

100% of the proceeds from this anthology are donated to The Hunger Project, so I'm very happy to be involved. You can buy the anthology from Amazon (UK | US).

---

Also, I'd to mention  The Year's Best Weird Fiction, a crowd-funding project I've contributed to here. It's a new venture, being published by Michael Kelly (behind Shadows & Tall Trees, a really good horror magazine) and the first volume will be edited by Laid Barron. Do check it out.

Fifteen Minutes in The Sirens Call

A quick update to say that a new story, Fifteen Minutes, is available in the latest issue of The Sirens Call.

As you might guess from the title, it's a story about the desire to be famous - specifically the desire for that strange, modern type of fame, where people are famous for being famous, rather than for actually being talented...

It's also got that whole weird what's-real-what-isn't thing that I'm drawn to so often going on.

I'd love to know what you think of it; Sirens Call #8 is available to download for free from their site.

I'm In The Sanitarium

A quick note to say my story Mirages In The Badlands is now available in Sanitarium issue 8 - you can purchase it in various ways on their site and also on Amazon (UK | US). I believe it will also be available in paperback format soon.

Sanitarium have also released a free preview issue, with five stories from their first eight issues, of which mine is one - also available on their site.

The story itself was an attempt to write a zombie story a bit different to all the rest I was seeing at the time, according to the rules I set myself in this blog post here. To recap, the 'new zombie story rules' were:

New Zombie Story Rule#1: no using the basic narrative structure of modern, civilised society being gradually swept away by a zombie outbreak. The setting can be post-apocalyptic but the story can't be about how that situation came to be.

New Zombie Story Rule #2: the story cannot be centred around a disparate group of plucky survivors.

New Zombie Story Rule #3: it is not original to have the same old story but with a 'zombie with a twist' (like fast zombies - for fuck's sake) or a different setting (zombies at Buckingham Palace etc.)

New Zombie Story Rule #4: neither can originality be gained by having a pseudo-scientific explanation for the zombie outbreak.

New Zombie Story Rule #5: zombie's are the risen dead, but they don't have to want to eat us 

New Zombie Story Rule #6: symbolism - zombies as a symbol for mindless consumerism was an original idea when Romero did it. It isn't now. Nor is the idea that zombies are symbols (used consciously or otherwise) for our fears of super-flu etc.

New Zombie Story Rule #7: zombies don't have to hang around in big groups.

Depending on your point of view, I stuck to five or six of those rules. Have a read and see if you agree.

Story News x 3

So, it's been quite a long time since I've mentioned much about my own writing on here (I can't quite believe The Shelter has been out for nearly eighteen months..!) but all that's about to change...

I'll probably be boring you all stupid talking about this soon, but I'm delighted to reveal that my next collection of short stories, Falling Over, will be out this summer from Infinity Plus. I couldn't be more chuffed - Infinity Plus have put out a lot of books & stories I've loved, so it's a real thrill. 

I won't say anything else at this point - more news & updates about Falling Over nearer the time, I'm sure. (I've added a fancy new mailing list thing to the blog, if you want to be kept super-up-to-date.)

Also, another thrill - Supernatural Tales #23 is out, and it contains my story The Second Wish. I really like this mag (I am a subscriber) so it's genuinely exciting (and surprising!) to have a story accepted for it. The Second Wish is a story about grief, the dead, and memory; it's also a deliberate riff on that old classic The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs.

And also (the good news has kept coming recently, which probably means karma's saving up a writing related face-slap for me), I received my contributor copies of Polluto #10 today - it's a really nice looking and well designed magazine, with some great authors in there. You should check it out. It includes a very short piece from me The Men Who Value Everything In Money.

Robert Aickman Word Clouds

So, I've been participating in a fabulous group read of The Wine Dark Sea by Robert Aickman - no need to explain to regular readers how much I admire Aickman's stories, I'm sure I've banged on about him often enough...

Anyway, I wanted to do a post about some of the stories in the book, and I've decided to do something a bit different. Because reading Aickman is so subjective I'd hesitate to offer my interpretation of one of his stories as definitive; so (with their permission) I've decided to use other people's words from the group read to create these 'word-clouds' for the title story and for The Trains. The phrases are just ones that struck me from the discussion, be they people's view on what the story meant, or other stories it reminded them of, or whatever. The idea was to get a more impersonal, multi-layered, ambiguous description of each story than if I'd just waffled on myself.

I think the results look quite good, and if there's a positive response I'll probably do a couple more.

The Wine Dark Sea

The Trains

Scary Women Mixtape

Apparently, it's Women In Horror Month. As part of this you'll find many great female horror writers talking about their work, which can only be a good thing - I don't know if there's any residual sexism meaning woman have a harder time getting accepted as a horror author than their male counterparts, but given that dickheads like Vox Day exist, the answer is probably yes.

(Don't google "Vox Day" if you are unaware of the man or his views. Seriously, don't. You'll end up feeling worse about people in general, which is never good.)

Anyway, for Women In Horror Month I thought I'd post 20 of my favourite horror short stories by female authors. For no other reason than I like compiling imaginary anthologies; it's like making mix-tapes all over again...

This list is off the top of my head, so it's pretty biased towards stories I've read recently, but I've tried to include both classic and contemporary stories. I've only picked one story per author and as ever my definition of what makes a story 'horror' is pretty loose.

Further suggestions very much welcome in the comments...

In The Waterworks (Birmingham, Alabama, 1883) - Caitlin R Kiernan
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Idolised - Emma Newman

The Screwfly Solution - James Tiptree Jr.
The Little Dirty Girl - Joanna Russ
Don't Look Now - Daphne du Maurier
Cold Coffee Cups & Curious Things - Cate Gardner
A.G.A. - S.P. Miskowski

The Summer People - Shirley Jackson
The Dark - Karen Joy Fowler
Replacement - Lisa Tuttle
Under Fog - Tanith Lee
The Dog That Bit Her - Autumn Christian
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Room Upstairs - Sarah Pinborough
The Devil of Delery Street - Poppy Z Brite
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? - Joyce Carol Oates
The Hortlak - Kelly Link

Afterward - Edith Wharton
White Roses, Bloody Silk - Thana Niveau

Polluto: Wage Slave Orgy

Clutch your credit-chips close and head on over to see what Polluto has on offer: a world of malls, stretching endlessly into one another. Systems of oppression, both real and fictional. Corporations of the future, Flooded London, money and privilege, a human life claimed for art. A mathematician feverishly tattooing his formulae onto prisoners of war. Workers on special offer: cheap-labour, clone-labour and corpse-labour. And bear in mind, valued customers, that nothing comes for free!

A nice start to 2013: my story The Men Who Value Everything In Money is available in the new issue of Polluto magazine, edited by the awesome Vicky Hooper.

This edition of the magazine is subtitled Wage Slave Orgy.

(Yet More) Favourite Books Of 2012

So... If you're playing catch up,I wrote this post on Luca Veste's site listing my favourite books published in 2012, and this post  listing the favourite novels and anthologies I read in 2012 regardless of when they came out.

Finally, I've done the same things for novellas short story collections below...

Short Story Collections

Just Behind You - Ramsey Campbell

Welcome To The Underworld - I.F. Rowan

From Dark Places - E.J. Newman

Martyrs & Monsters -  Robert Dunbar

Worse Than Myself - Adam Golaski

Novellas/Individual Stories

The Mill - Mark West

They're Waiting - Tony Rabig

The Death Trip - Marion Stein

In The Skin - Gary McMahon

Sandy DeLuca - Death Moon

(More) Favourite Books Of 2012

When Luca Veste asked me for my Top 5 Books Of 2012, I picked my favourite books published in 2012. Because this ruled out plenty of good books I read this year, I thought I'd do a couple of follow on posts - this week some more of the favourite novels and anthologies I read this year, and next week the same for novellas and short story collections.

Novels:

Knock Knock - S.P. Miskowski

The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

Claire Obscure - Billie Hinton

Black Flowers - Steve Mosby

Dark Matter - Michelle Paver

Anthologies/Magazines:

House Of Fear

A Book Of Horrors

Off The Record

The Weird

Supernatural Tales

Strange Story #19: The Beautiful Stranger

Strange Story #19: The Beautiful Stranger
Author: Shirley Jackson
Collected In: Come Along With Me
Anthologised In: The Dark Descent

What might be called the first intimation of strangeness occurred at the railway station...

For me, the best of Shirley Jackson's novels and short stories are among the very best the genre has to offer. (Frustratingly, not all her books are easily available in the UK, although I believe Penguin is rectifying that in 2013.) The Lottery is by far her most famous story but she wrote many others equally as good if not better. The Beautiful Stranger is one such tale, a mini-masterpiece in a few thousand words. Warning: it's hard to describe without spoilers.

It begins with the words I quoted above, but then proceeds to describe a rather mundane, humdrum situation: a wife waiting at a train station for her husband, who is returning from a work trip to Boston. Margaret is slightly worried because she argued with John before they parted, but other than that everything seems normal. (Jackson is always spot on when writing about families and their interactions.)

But back at home, Margaret looks at John and thinks:

Who? .... Is he taller? That is not my husband.

The story describes Margaret's conviction that the man who has returned from Boston is not her husband, (despite his acting the same, speaking the same, dressing the same) but the beautiful stranger of the title. Beautiful - for this isn't a body-snatcher tale of paranoia and fear; Margaret doesn't want the man to be her husband. And whether he is or not (somehow it almost seems a moot point to the story itself) there does seem to be a genuine relief and happiness felt by Margaret; a genuine, albeit small, realignment of their marriage that was perhaps troubled. How could that be, if 'John' wasn't actually the same person? But then, how could it be if he was? 

It is he reader, not Margaret, who is unnerved - how much of what is happening is in Margaret's head? Her own behaviour to 'John' changes when she thinks he is someone else; is that the cause of his supposed differences? Who changed first?

The ending of the story is troubling and ambiguous - it's probably no surprise that Margaret's new happiness was more fragile than she might have supposed. The last few sentences seem to hint at a whole different explanation for the proceeding events, without being quite clear what that explanation is. Certainly the tale as a whole seems to be a (feminist) warning about the dangers of living your life through and for other people and of the seductive danger of fantasy (many of Jackson's heroines are dreamers). But there's room for endless interpretations here, and endless rereading. It truly is one of those tales that can be read again and again; one that despite its short length is bottomless.

Strange Stories #18: Objects in Dreams May be Closer Than They Appear by Lisa Tuttle

Strange Story #18: Objects In Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear
Author: Lisa Tuttle
Anthologised In: The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2012; House of Fear

I didn’t know why he felt the need to revisit the past like that...

Looking back through the sixteen ‘Strange Stories’ to date I noticed something disturbing the other day – not a single haunted house story…

Let’s rectify that with Lisa Tuttle’s thoroughly haunting Objects in Dreams May be Closer Than They Appear.

The most obvious way to define a haunted house would be to say it’s one that contains a ghost (or ghosts). But that’s a bit boringly literal, and I prefer to think of these stories are being ones where our dwellings, our homes - where we should feel at our safest - turn out to be some kind of trap. Houses are not the same as other things that we buy, and not just because of their price. We buy a certain kind of house because we want a certain kind of life. Because we can imagine a certain kind of life there.

I would have been happy to go on for months, thinks the narrator in this story, driving down to the West Country, looking at properties and imagining what our life might be like in this house or that... 

People talk about finding their ‘dream house’… and the one in Tuttle’s story might be just that. It is first glimpsed by a young couple house hunting – their dream house seen in a glimpse whilst they are driving. But despite hours of trying, and checking with the local estate agent, they can’t find the road, or any road, that leads to it. The house seems to remain like a mirage on the horizon.

There it was, so close it must be just beyond the next curve of the road, yet forever out of our reach. The faint curl of smoke from the chimney inspired another yearning tug...

They don't find a route to that house - to their dream, if you like. And the story is narrated from the vantage point of years later, after the breakup of their relationship in the thoroughly normal, non-dreamlike house that they did end up living in.

Years later they meet up - and Michael (her old husband) has found the house again... and found a route to it.

“You’re not talking about our house,” she says. Outwardly she has her misgivings about going to look for the house - not out of fear, but because she doesn't want to relive the past. But maybe some part of her has been dreaming all these years - "our house" she says.

And they do find a way to their ‘dream house’ from all those years ago, and foolishly enter. The trap springs shut, and it’s an utterly compelling and unnerving one which I won't spoil here. But it is note-perfect, Tuttle managing to make it both incredibly disturbing and a perfect demonstration of how old dreams can curdle and warp.

Next Time: Strange Stories #19:  The Beautiful Stranger by Shirley Jackson

Sex, Fear, and Dust - Luca Veste's Off The Record 2

Very pleased to say that my story Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) will be appearing in the second Off The Record charity anthology, directed by Luca Veste and produced by Paul D. Brazill.

The first Off The Record had a neat concept: a bunch of great writers wrote stories all named after classic song titles (I reviewed it here). As you might gather from the rather spiffing cover art, and from the title of my contribution, the stories in the second volumes are all named after films...

The full list of authors can be found on Luca's site, but I will just say here that although I've never heard of Will Carver before, his story title alone has convinced me he is either a genius or madman.

But... a confession.

Somehow, despite all the clear evidence, when Luca first sent me an invite to contribute to OTR2 I completely missed the fact it was stories named after film titles this time. I managed to convince myself it was songs again. I was merrily writing a story named after Mazzy Star's song Into Dust before I realised.

There then followed language that would require a fifteen certificate at minimum.

However, and somewhat implausibly, I then realised that the title Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask) fitted the story I was writing equally well as Into Dust. So I carried on my merry way, and am quite pleased with the result (which is unusual, for me) and feeling very smug it has found a home alongside stories from such talented writers.

If you want to know what kind of story could possibly fit both titles, you will need to buy Off The Record 2 when it is released. Suffice to say it's a story about sex. And death. And dust.

See you at the movies.

Pulp Ink 2

Hello. Very pleased to be able to say today that the anthology Pulp Ink 2 is out now from Snubnose Press. It contains my story Snow as well as a whole load of brilliance from authors such as Julia Madeleine, Andrez Bergen, and Patti Abbott. Check out the fantastically pulpy cover below:

"Pulp Ink 2’s got beautiful killers, visions of the apocalypse, blood-thirsty rats, and one severed arm on a quest for revenge. No half-assed reboots here, just some of the finest writing in crime and horror today..."

You can buy it either in paperback (Amazon US) or as an ebook (UK | US) now.

The first Pulp Ink was a cracking read and really well-received, so as you can imagine I'm delighted Snow was picked for the follow up anthology, especially as I'm not naturally a crime writer. Snow is a blend of crime and my more usual messed up horror.

And it means the curse of Snow has finally been lifted! If you've no idea what I'm on about, see here.

So what with this, and the first Penny Dreadnought anthology being published, it's been a hell of a good week.

Penny Dreadnought Omnibus Volume 1 Out Now

Very pleased to say that the Abominable Gentlemen's diabolical plan is coming to fruition, with the release of the first Penny Dreadnought Omnibus!

(For those who don't know, Penny Dreadnought is a series of themed weird fiction anthologies from myself, Alan Ryker, Iain Rowan, and Aaron Polson).

It contains all sixteen stories from the first four volumes of Penny Dreadnought as well as a bonus gallery of cover art. Side effects may vary from reader to reader, but are likely to include: trembling hands; creeping dread; visions of the end times; speaking in tongues; existential doubt, and an intolerance to sparkly vampires.

Experience it at Amazon UK | Amazon US

 

The stories are:

 

‘Lilies’ - Iain Rowan

‘Cargo’ - Aaron Polson

‘First Time Buyers’ - James Everington

‘Invasion of the Shark-Men’ - Alan Ryker

‘Falling Over’ by James Everington

‘All the Pretty Yellow Flowers’ by Aaron Polson

‘Ice Age’ by Iain Rowan

‘A Face to Meet the Faces that You Meet’ by Alan Ryker

‘Precious Metal’ by Aaron Polson

‘Only the Lonely’ by Iain Rowan

‘The New Words’ by Alan Ryker

‘He’ by James Everington

‘Occupational Hazard’ by Iain Rowan

‘The Aerialist’ by Alan Ryker

‘Packob's Reward’ by James Everington

‘Poe's Blender’ by Aaron Polson