Five Things #3

Another round up of five things that have caught my eye recently...

1. Unmanageable Spirits: a Look at Nadia Bulkin’s ‘Wish You Were Here' by S.P. Miskowski
On The Conqueror Weird (a site new to me, but looks a goodie), author S.P. Miskowski writes about Nadia Bulkin's fine story, 'Wish You Were Here' (which you can read, uh, here).

2. 'The Average Man Is Not Hard To Mystify' by Chloe N. Clark
Another Chloe N. Clark story and another accomplished tale, one that rewards several rereads. Despite it's short length, this one is bottomless.

3. 'Quiet Horror, Unquiet Horror, Disquieting Horror' by Paul St. John Mackintosh
A wide-ranging piece on the Ginger Nuts of Horror site about what is, and isn't, 'quiet horror'. Takes in Robert Aickman, Joyce Carol Oates and many others. I may not agree with everything the author says here, but it's still well worth reading and engaging with.

4. Electric Lit Interview: Victor LaValle
Fascinating interview with Victor LaValle, author of one of the best neo-Lovecraftian books around, The Ballad Of Black Tom. Here he talks about Lovecraft, the mutability of genres, and "imaginative illiteracy" and a whole load more.

5. 'Good Bones' by Maggie Smith
A poem that has been on my mind a lot since the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester & London, and the surge in voter turnout among the young denying the Tories a majority. You could make this place beautiful.

A hearty thank you to Des Lewis, for writing one of his inimitable 'gestalt real-time reviews' for my Hersham Horror novella, Paupers' Graves. Always a pleasure - you can read his thoughts here.


(Paupers' Graves ebook and paperback.)

Recommendation: The Secret Of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett

The Secret Of Ventriloquism is the debut collection from Jon Padgett - and what a debut it is. I'd seen a lot of praise for this book before reading it, so much so that I wondered if it could actually live up to the hype. Now I find myself adding to that praise unreservedly: The Secret Of Ventriloquism is utterly, fantastically, indubitably brilliant.

The stories within cover a range of styles and influences: 'The Indoor Swamp' for example is a largely plotless, Ligotti-esque mood piece, whereas 'The Infusorium' is a longer work, full of vivid characters, plot reversals and the influence of noir. Padgett also gives us jet-black humour in 'Murmurs Of A Voice Foreknown', a one act play, and a story written in the style of a ventriloquism manual.

But despite this impressive variation, these stories all seem to take place in the same fictional geography, with images, events and motifs criss-crossing between them. Padgett-land is a place of thick smogs, mysterious plan-crashes, dream-logic, and the mysteries of 'greater ventriloquism'.

As such, The Secret Of Ventriloquism is not just a collection of good stories, but a good collection of stories, structured and arranged to hint at wider horrors that we never see. If the key to good horror writing is atmosphere (as I keep repeating) then Padgett proves himself a master of it here. Each story builds tension individually, but also contributes to the overall, escalating feeling of unease, of a malaise physical and mental. It's magnificently done and demands to be read by all aficionados of the genre.

The Secret Of Ventriloquism (UK | US)

Five Things #2

Second in a semi-regular series of posts linking to things I've found interesting, valuable or amusing recently. Without further ado:

1. 'Wishing For Alison' by Steve Mosby
Crime writer Steve Mosby has only written a few short stories, but each one I've read has been dark, lyrical, and deftly written. 'Wishing For Alison', published on the author's blog, is no exception.

2. 'Old Water, New Waves' by V.H. Leslie
On the Thresholds site, V.H. Leslie writes about the work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, specifically the story 'Old Water'. Gilman is of course best know for her classic 'The Yellow Wallpaper', but Leslie's piece really makes me want to seek out 'Old Water' too.

3. CVLT Nation Interview with Matthew M. Bartlett
Fascinating interview with Matthew M. Bartlett, author of Creeping Waves and Gateways To Abomination.

4. 'Gold Lift' by Martin Carr
New musical goodness from Martin Carr, which despite being catchy as sin is also a lament/polemic about the Brexit/Trump/Le Pen/Tory wet dream world in which we live. Buy here.

5. Writers On The Short Story Parts 1-4
The Reading The Short Story site has done a four-parter of quotes from various writers about the short story form, including gems from Chekov, Donald Barthelme, Katherine Mansfield, and Julio Cortazar.

Recommendation: Asian Monsters (ed. Margret Helgadottir)

Asian Monsters is the third anthology in the 'Monsters' series from Fox Spirit Press, following on from European Monsters and African Monsters. It's a beautifully designed book, with evokative, sepia-tinted cover art from Daniele Serra and interior art from a range of artists. Two of the stories are in the form of comic-strips too.

The fourteen stories here (edited by Margret Helgadottir) take creatures from various strands of Asian folklore and give them new twists. If, like me, you're as boringly British as they come, you'll be sure to find beasts and creatures new to you in these pages. As such, it's an anthology that feels more original than many. I assume that most of these tales are based on old myths and folktales, but the the stories in Asian Monsters all feel like fresh retellings, the authors using their stories to investigate contemporary and human concerns.

Every story here is worth reading; here are a few words on my personal favourites:

'Good Hunting' by Ken Liu exemplifies the combination of the traditional and the modern I mentioned above; indeed it's about the journey from one to another. This story starts with a familiar setup–a demon-hunter seeking out his quarry–but ends up somewhere completely different, as the magic of spells and tradition is replaced by that of industry and modernity. It's a spectacularly well written story about how both the demon and the hunter adapt and thrive; in its scope its the equivalent of that jump-cut from 2001.

One of the most disturbing monsters in the anthology is to be found in 'Datsue-Ba' by Eliza Chan. Here, the traditional and the modern appear to be in conflict. The central characters are as modern as they come: two unmarried lovers enjoying a break at a Tokyo onsen; but they are unaware of the spirit-like creature there with them, one who sits in judgement over their actions and characters. But while it is a story about judgement, it's unclear whether justice has been delivered, or whether just the stale diktats of dead tradition enacted.

Aliette de Boddard's 'Golden Lillies' also sees the values of the traditional past being forced upon latter generations, although in this case the monster (a deceased ancestor) is actively sought out, by a young woman about to marry. The story is based around the horrific practice of foot-binding, and the reader might wonder if the 'help' the spirit offers is really aid at all, or merely pointless pain and torment.

EeLeen Lee's 'Let Her In' tells of the relationship between mother and daughter, the latter returning from the dead after being forced into an absuive marriage. A wonderfully poignant piece about revenge, cross-generational relationships, loss and love.

Perhaps the best story of all, and certainly the scariest, is 'Blood Women' by Usman T. Malik. Set in a contemporary Pakistan, young children already facing the horrors of bombs and drone-strikes realise that something even more monstrous is out there. It's a vividly conveyed setting, and it's testament to Malik's skills as a writer that the monstrous element still has the ability to shock and scare against this all too human backdrop.

All in all, Asian Monsters is thoroughly recommended (UK | US)

Announcement: Imposter Syndrome

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

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

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

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

Five Things #1

I thought I'd start a new semi-regular feature where I link to various 'things' (stories, articles, reviews, whatever) that have interested me recently. It's the kind of stuff I normally tweet or post on Facebook, but that only gives people a fleeting opportunity to see them. So here's something more permanent.

1. And Then There Were (N-One) by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine)
This is a simply superb story, a clever mingling of Agatha Christie style murder mystery and multiple reality sci-fi. It is set at a convention in which all the attendees are different versions of the same person... and then one of the Sarah Pinskers is killed. But which Sarah Pinsker is the killer?

2. This Michael Wehunt blog-post about the types of horror and weird fiction he does (& doesn't) write. It's always interesting to read a thoughtful writer discuss their passions, but fewer talk about the roads they've not taken.

3. The Rage Of Cthulhu by Gary Fry: Gingernuts Of Horror review
If there's any current writer who can do something new and orginal with the Cthulhu mythos, it's Gary Fry (see also his story in The Outsiders). The Gingernuts Of Horror site agrees with me.

4. Red Hood by Eric Schaller (Nightmare Magazine)
I read this story blurry eyed one morning, drinking coffee while my daughter watched Peppa Pig in the background. And yet it still both impressed and unnerved me.

5. 9 Things To Do As A Notts Newbie (Left Lion)
I've lived in or around Nottingham most of my life, but I've not done some of these. I've including it here because of the book related ones, natch: a nice shoutout for the Five Leaves independent bookshop, where I had a launch for Trying To Be So Quiet. Also listed are the charity shops in Sherwood (where I live), in which I've found many a second-hand book-shaped bargain, incuding the Fine Frights anthology edited by Ramsey Campbell.

Recommendation: The End Of Everything by Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott's novel The End Of Everything is a book with a disapearence at its heart: that of 13 year old Evie Verver from her suburban American family home. It's narrated from the point of view of her best friend and next door neighbour, Lizzie. One of the first things you'll notice about this book is the impressive characterisation of Lizzie: at once appalled and fascinated by what might have happened to her friend. Lizzie is on the cusp of adulthood, and like many teenagers is both determined to appear grownup yet still subject to adolescent fantasy. Lizzie does not stay passive in the hunt for Evie, and the ramifcations of her intervention, for herself and others, form a key part of the story.

The narrative doesn't solely focus on the mystery of Evie's disapperence or the identity of her potential abducter, but also on the effects on those left behind. It's a book of secrets revealed - the secrets of the Ververs, of Lizzie, of the surburban world she lives in, and ultimately of vanished Evie herself, who Lizzie perhaps didn't know as well as she thought...

This is the first book by Abbott that I've read, but it's unlikely to be the last. It's wonderfully told, both in terms of the flowing, sinuous prose and the dexterious, clever storytelling. The characterisation is spot-on, and the plot's secrets are often revelled subtelly and obliquely. It's one of those stories whose voice seems to linger long after reading. Well worth reading.

The End Of Everything (UK | US)

Recommendation: Unger House Radicals by Chris Kelso

Unger House Radicals by Chris Kelso is a hell of a book: a hell of a book to read, and a hell of a book to even begin to describe. But here goes.

It starts simply enough: a wannabe avant-garde filmmaker and a serial killer team up, with the goal of filming the killer's crimes to start a new cinematic, artistic and philosophical movement: Ultra-Realism. But the story soon turns to people inspired or affected by this movement, and we see the ripples of Ultra Realism's creation spill out into wider society. The plot is told from multiple points of view, cutting across and contradicting each other (and each expertly caputed by Kelso). From these voices, Kelso weaves a whole damn tapestry of violence, nilhism, fractured psyches, blurred timelines. Except 'weave' isn't the right word; instead say Kelso pulls at one loose thread, until everything you think you knew is unravelled. It's like some unholy combination of J.G. Ballard, Fight Club, real-life accounts of serial killers, and a William Burroughs cut-up experiment.

In the hands of a lesser author Unger House Radicals might have been a huge mess. But it's tightly structured despite its sprawling feel, and Kelso's narrative skills hold everything together. There are brutal scenes here, but Kelso does not depict them gratuitiously or lingeringly. A bleak, playful, challenging yet hugely enjoyable work, Unger House Radicals will almost certainly reward rereading. As it is, after one read Unger House Radicals is one of the most memorable books I've read for a while, and one I can highly recommend.

Unger House Radicals (UK | US)

Recommendation: The Little Gift by Stephen Volk

I recently had the opportunity to read Stephen Volk's new novella, The Little Gift, and what a treat that proved to be. It's a cleverly structured and quietly devasting piece of work, a story with implications that linger long in the mind. It begins with a scene of routine, comfortable domesticity into which death intrudes: a long married couple are woken by their cat dismembering a bird in the kitchen. Cleaning away this 'gift' their pet has bought them causes the narrator to reflect on his past, on his marriage, and how things could have been very different...

The Little Gift is a book about which it's hard to say too much about the plot without spoiling things. Indeed, much of the actual plot takes place off-stage; Volk's narrator is a man at the periphery of a truly barbaric event, affected by its ripples but who neither directly caused it or experienced it. So non-central is he that certain key plot points are revealed while he watches the TV news. Of course, only the best writers could make this technique work, and Volk pulls it off with quiet aplomb. Very subtly, this is also a piece of metafiction - a story about stories, about how we tell stories in our own heads. About how we make every story about us, even when we are merely bit-parts.

Some books, you finish reading them and you're done; but the events of The Little Gift stick around in your head, nag at your throughts, reveal new interpretations as you shower, go shopping or drive to work. It's another remarkable work from one of the best writers we have. You can (and should) pre-order it from PS Publishing here.

Nightscript Volume III and 'The Affair'

Nightscript is an annual anthology of weird and strange fiction; the first two volumes contained an impressive collection of stories, selected by editor C.M. Muller. So I'm very pleased to be able to say that my story 'The Affair' will appear in Nightscript III, due out in October.

The full lineup is below; details about the first two volumes can be found here.

'The Flower Unfolds' - Simon Strantzas
'Downward' - Amar Benchikha
'What Little Boys Are Made Of' - Malcolm Devlin
'Grizzly' - M.K. Anderson
'Might Be Mordiford' - Charles Wilkinson
'Palankar' - Daniel Braum
'The Gestures Remain' - Christi Nogle
'House of Abjection' - David Peak
'The Undertow, and They That Dwell Therein' - Clint Smith
'A Place With Trees' - Rowley Amato
'The Familiar' - Cory Cone
'Liquid Air' - Inna Effress
'The Beasts Are Sleep' - Adam Golaski
'The Witch House' - Jessica Phelps
'On the Edge of Utterance' - Stephen J. Clark
'Homeward Bound Now, Paulino' - Armel Dagorn
'The Affair' - James Everington
'When Dark-Eyed Ophelia Sings' - Rebecca J. Allred
'We, the Rescued' - John Howard
'Twenty Miles and Running' - Christian Riley
'Something You Leave Behind' - David Surface
'Young Bride' - Julia Rust
'The Other Side of the Hill' - M.R. Cosby

Green & Pleasant Land: Paperback Edition & New Review

The anthology Great British Horror 1: Green & Pleasant Land has just been released in a new paperback edition, and a new review from This Is Horror has some kind words about the book overall and my contribution, 'A Glimpse Of Red':

"...a very ambitious piece about alienation, unreliable memory, and paranoia... Another excellent story from a writer who, though he has been working steadily in dark fiction for a number of years, seems set to gain even greater recognition." (Full review here.)

'A Glimpse Of Red' is a story that seems more timely to me now than when I wrote it. Its central character is an foreginer out of place in the confusing and vaguely sinister place in which she finds herself: modern Britain. In this post-Brexit, post-Jo Cox, immigrant-bashing, Trump-appeasing 2017, I'm increaingly feeling this country, my home, is baffling and sinister too.

Green and Pleasant Land is an anthology I am proud to have been a part of, featuring as it does a wealth of home-grown talent, including V.H. Leslie, Jasper Bark, Ray Cluley, Simon Kurt Unsworth and Laura Mauro.

Great British Horror 1: Green and Pleasant Land  Paperback (UK | US) | Kindle (UK | US)

Recommendation: Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt

I came to this debut collection from American author Michael Wehunt having already admired a number of the stories in various anthologies and yearly best ofs - and yet, it still impressed me even more than I was expecting.

Nearly every story here is worthy of your time, but I'll jump right in and say a few words about my favourites. Your own may vary, as might mine the next time I read them. (And these stories will certainly need rereading.)

'Greener Pastures' is a sustained exercise in atmosphere, set in the a truckers' cafe in the middle of American nowhere. Two truckers fall into conversation whilst staring out into the sodium-lit darkness outside, and it's no surprise that their talk is all about nothingness and empty spaces... Wehunt uses these bare bones to create an utterly compelling, creepy narrative; I've seen this story compared online to a Twilight Zone piece and there's something to that - but it has an emotional resonance beyond any mere twist-in-the-tale piece.

If 'Greener Pastures' was almost minimalist in the elements it used to scare, 'October Film Haunt: Under The House' takes the opposite approach and chucks everything into the pan. We have a classic creepy house, multiple unreliable narrators, Lovecraftian weirdness, entomophobia, and a clever use of the 'found footage' trope in a prose narrative. All these elements are bound by the story's relentless air of fatalist determinism - Wehunt's characters seem stuck in a situation that they know will lead to their ruin but are compelled to play it out anyway. (Or maybe I'm just seeing my own neurosis and intellectual tics staring back at me from the distorted mirror Wehunt crafts here. Readers of 'Fate, Destiny, And A Fat Man From Arkansas' will know how scary I find those notions.)

Like many pieces here, 'Dancers' fuses genuine, poetic symbols of human experience (the titular trees are ones the husband in a long marriage has gradually encouraged to grow entwined together) and horrific imagery that undercuts this human lyricism. 'Dancers' is a darkly terrible story about possession, fertility rites and old gods.

And that's not to mention the Aickman-inspired 'A Discrete Music', the Stephen King-esqe 'Devil Under The Maison Blue' or the superb, surreal, take on small communities and religious fundamentalism in 'Deducted From Your Share In Paradise'.

Overall then, this is a well-crafted, intelligent, not to mention thoroughly enjoyable collection of short stories, each of which builds on genre classics but displays the author's own distinct voice. A fine debut.

Greener Pastures (UK | US)

Inspiration

Two pieces that, given the current state of the world, have inspired me:

"I want to celebrate those things here. I want to write about books and film and art and music and stories and travel and all the glorious things in the world that these small mean grubby minds, these pathetic, paltry imaginations, do not value, would like to crush out of existence."
Lynda E. Rucker: A Citizen of Nowhere

"I think maybe we have to stop reacting and start resisting. There is no way of reacting to Trump... except to sit there, mind reeling with disbelief as yet more levels of total incompetence are revealed (there are more??) and thinking what an absolute dick. Yet even small acts of resistance are valuable and important... Small acts of resistance, among which books, and the talk of books, are the greatest of all."

Nina Allan: A New Year And A New Home(Land)

And so, back to the small act of writing. (Do follow the links and read them in their entirety.)

2016: My Writing Year

So 2016, eh? An, uh, 'interesting' year for many of us... for reasons I'm sure you don't need me to remind you of.

But just judging 2016 based on what it meant for my writing, it was a good year. In terms of books published I looked very prolific, but in reality this was caused by the vagaries of small-press publishing schedules rather than anything else.

Books
Trying To Be So Quiet 
A ghost story released as a (brilliantly designed) hardback - a first for me. Jim McLeod of Ginger Nuts Of Horror included TTBSQ in his Top 20 Books of the year, and Anthony Watson mentioned it in his 2016 Review post on his Dark Musings site. Sadly Boo Books are no longer with us, so I'll be looking for a new home for this one.

The Quarantined City
Finally the whole story could be told... stories, in fact. After 'publisher problems' prevented this being released episodically as originally planned, the brilliant Infinity Plus stepped in to release the whole novel. It's the book of mine I'm probably most proud of, and Anthony Watson picked it as his second favourite novel of the year, calling it a "truimph". And of course I'm going to be crass enough to mention again that this one got reviewed in the bloody Guardian.

Paupers' Graves
Part of the Hersham Horror novella range, this one stretched me as a writer, involving a fair amount of historical research (the setting is based on a real life cemetery here in Nottingham). Fortunately the hard work seemed to pay off, with Mark West including Paupers' Graves in his annual Westies awards; Horror Novel Reviews in this 2016 List; Anthony Watson mentioning it in his year end piece; as did Kit Power in his personal round up for Ginger Nuts of Horror.

The Hyde Hotel
My first book as editor, alongside Dan Howarth. I loved putting together this - thanks to all the stellar authors involved. And again, Anthony Watson (a man I owe a drink to, should we ever met) mentioned this in his roundup of the year.

Stories & Non-Fiction: 
Including reprints, I had seven stories published this year. The new ones were 'Hooked' (Thirteen Signs), 'A Glimpse of Red' (Great British Horror #1: Green &Pleasant Land) and 'Premonition' (Reflections). And although not released in 2016, Kit Power (a cracking writer in himself) mentioned 'The Man Dogs Hated' (from Falling Over) as one of his favourite short stories he read this year in his own annual round up.

I also had two pieces in the Writers On Writing series from Crystal Lake, both republished in the Omnibus Edition: 'Embracing Your Inner Shitness' and 'Fictional Emotions; Emotional Fictions'.

Events:
I attended more writing related events than ever before, and had a blast at all of them: Edge-Lit 5, Sledge-lit 2, Derby Writers' Day, Nottingham Library Local Writers Showcase, and of course the annual three days of talking books, eating food, launching books, drinking beer and buying books that is Fantasycon.

Coming Up...
2017 will see me hard at work upon a novel, as well as hopefully see some more short stories published. I'm tentatively thinking about what tales should feature in my next collection too, so hopefully they'll be some news on that.

See you next year, everyone!

Favourite Short Stories: 2016

Another year, another favourite short story post. And there's some truly excellent ones below, representing a small fraction of those I read in 2016. These are all recent short stories, although in a few instances I've bent the the definition of 'recent' to sneak a favourite in. As I have with the definition of 'short' as well. And in a couple of cases, even 'story'. But all of them are brilliant, without equivocation.

I hope readers of this blog will sample at least a few of the stories below. Enjoy!

(You can find my lists for previous years linked here.)

Nina Allan: The Art Of Space Travel (TOR)
G.V. Anderson: Four Stops (Syntax & Salt)
G.V. Anderson: Das Steingeschöpf (Strange Horizons December 2016)
Anonymous: The Role of Music In Your Life (A Five Dials Experience) 
Dale Bailey: Mr Splitfoot (The Best Horror Of The Year #6, Night Shade Books)
Nathan Ballingud: The Good Husband (The Best Horror Of The Year #6, Night Shade Books)
Matthew M. Bartlett: The Investigator (Gateways To Abomination)
Matthew M. Bartlett: Rangel (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #3, Undertow)
Steve Berman: The Haferbräutigam (The Dark #12)
Keith Brooke & Eric Brown: In Transit (Parallax View, Infinity Plus)
Molly Brown: Living With The Dead (Obsidian, NewCon Press)
Georgina Bruce: White Rabbit (Black Static #50)
Nadia Bulkin: The House That Jessica Built (The Dark #18)
Nadia Bulkin: Pro Patria (Cassilda's Song, Chaosium)
Ramsey Campbell: Fear My Name (Fearie Tales, Jo Fletcher Books)
Ramsey Campbell: At Lorne Hall (Nightmare #2)
Ted Chiang: The Great Silence (Electric Lit)
Chloe N. Clark: Where Is Your Destination, What Is Your Plan (Menacing Hedge Spring 2016) 
Chloe N. Clark: Stricken (Cheap Pop)
Ray Cluley: A Tale Before Supper (This Is Horror)
Ray Cluley: The Castellmarch Man (Great British Horror #1: Green & Pleasant Land, Black Shuck Books)
Brian Conn: The Guest (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #3, Undertow)
Julio Cortazar: Headache (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #2, Undertow)
Elaine Cuyegkeng: The House That Creaks (The Dark #17)
Kristi DeMeester: All The World When It Is Thin (The Dark #11)
Kristi DeMeester: Everything That's Underneath (Nightscript #1)
Seth Dickinson: Anna Scares Them All (Shimmer #21)
Steve Duffy: The Marginals (The Dark #14)
Brian Evenson: Click (Granta)
Brian Evenson: No Matter Which Way We Turned (People Holding Spring 2016)
Gemma Files & Stephen J. Barringer: Everything I Show You Is A Piece Of My Death (Apex)
Cate Gardner: Blood Moth Kiss (Shadow Moths, Frightful Horrors)
Brian Hodge: The Same Deep Waters As You (The Best Horror Of The Year #6, Night Shade Books)
Ashley Hutson: Houseplants In Winter (Spelk)
Timothy J. Jarvis: Under The Sign Of The Black Raven (Treatises On Dust)
Carole Johnstone: Wetwork (Black Static #52)
Benedict J. Jones: The Listening (Skewered & Other London Cruelties, Crime Wave Press)
Tyler Keevil: Foul Is Fair (Black Static #50)
Claude Lalumiere: Dead (Nocturnes & Other Nocturnes, Infinity Plus)
John Langan: Inundation (Lovecraft Ezine #37)
Rich Larson: The Air We Breath Is Stormy, Stormy (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #2, Undertow)
V.H. Leslie: Man Of The House (Black Static #50)
V.H. Leslie: Hermaness (Great British Horror #1: Green & Pleasant Land, Black Shuck Books)
Patricia Lillie: The Cuckoo Girls (Nightscript #1)
John Ajvide Lindqvist: Come Unto Me (Fearie Tales, Jo Fletcher Books)
Alison Littlewood: The Eyes Of Water (Spectral Press chapbook)
Livia Llewellyn: The Low, Dark Edge Of Life (Nightmare #51)
Kevin Lucia: Yellow Cab (Through A Mirror, Darkly, Crystal Lake)
Sophie Mackintosh: The Weak Spot (Granta)
Carman Maria Machado: The Husband Stitch (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #2, Undertow)
Usman T. Malik: Resurrection Points (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #2, Undertow)
Tim Major: Lines Of Fire (Game Over, Snow Books)
Helen Marshall: Exposure (Cassilda's Song, Chaosium)
Laura Mauro: Obsidian (Obsidian, NewCon Press)
Gary McMahon: What We Talk About When We Talk About The Dead (Shadows & Tall Trees #4, Undertow)
Ian McEwan: My Purple Scented Novel (The New Yorker)
S.P. Miskowski: Stag In Flight (Dim Shores Chapbook)
Alison Moore: It Has Happened Before (Shadows & Tall Trees #4, Undertow)
Sunny Moraine: Dispatches From A Hole In The World (Singing With All My Skin & Bone, Undertow)
Sunny Moraine: Cold As The Moon (Singing With All My Skin & Bone, Undertow)
Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Stories With Happy Endings (This Strange Way Of Dying, Exile Editions)
Mark Morris: Full Up (Black Static #51)
David Nickle: The Caretakers (TOR.COM)
Scott Nicolay: Do You Like To Look At Monsters? (Word Horde)
Scott Nicolay: Noctuidae (King Shot Press chapbook)
Sarah Pinborough: Do You See? (Obsidian, NewCon Press)
Leone Ross: The Woman Who Lived In A Restaurant (Nightjar Press chapbook)
Lynda E. Rucker: The House On Cobb Street (You'll Know When You Get There, Swan River Press)
Lynda E. Rucker: Who Is This Who Is Coming? (You'll Know When You Get There, Swan River Press)
Erica L. Satifka: Bucket List Found In The Locker Of Maddie Price, Age 14, Written Two Weeks Before The Great Uplifting Of All Mankind (Lightspeed #61)
Jeremy Schleiwe: A Little Lost Thing (Supernatural Tales #32)
Priya Sharma: The Absent Shade (Black Static #44)
Robert Shearman: Bedtime Stories For Yasmin (Shadows & Tall Trees #4, Undertow)
Robert Shearman: Times Table (Everyone's Just So So Special, Big Finish)
Robert Shearman: A History Of Broken Things (Everyone's Just So So Special, Big Finish)
Laurel Sills: The Animals Inside (Game Over, Snow Books)
Maggie Slater: The Behemoth Beaches (Apex)
Christopher Slatsky: Loveliness Like A Shadow (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #3, Undertow)
David Surface: Terrible Things (Shadows & Tall Trees #4, Undertow)
Karen Tidbeck: Migration (The Year's Best Weird Fiction #2, Undertow)
Lavie Tidhar: Selfies (TOR.COM)
Paul Tremblay: A Haunted House Is A Wheel On Which Some Are Broken (Gutted, Crystal Lake)
Lisa Tuttle: Paul's Mother (Obsidian, NewCon Press)
Simon Kurt Unsworth: Mr Denning Sings (Great British Horror #1: Green & Pleasant Land, Black Shuck Books)
Valerie Valdes: A Diet Of Worms (Nightmare #49)
Damien Angelica Walters: The Hands That Hold, The Lies That Bind (Cemetery Dance)
D.P. Watt: Shallabalah (Almost Insentient, Almost Divine, Undertow)
D.P. Watt: The Usher (Almost Insentient, Almost Divine, Undertow)
Michael Wehunt: Birds Of Lancaster, Lairamore, Lovejoy (The Dark #11)
Michael Wehunt: The Death of Socrates (Nightscript #1)
Mark West: Photograph Of You (Tales From The Lake #2, Crystal Lake)
Aliya Whiteley: Bird Charming For Beginners (Horizons #3, British Fantasy Society)
Conrad Williams: The Pike (Born With Teeth, PS Publishing)
Neil Williamson: The Death Of Abigail Goudy (Secret Language, NewCon Press)
A.C. Wise: The Men From Narrow Houses (Liminal Stories #1)
A.C. Wise: The Last Sailing Of The Henry Charles Morgan In Six Pieces Of Scrimshaw (The Dark #14)
Alyssa Wong: Scarecrow (TOR.COM)
Alyssa Wong: Rabbit Heart (Fireside Fiction #37)
Jason A. Wyckoff: On Balance (Nightscript #1)
Stephanie M. Wytovich: The Morning After Was Filled With Bone (Gutted, Crystal Lake)
Mercedes M. Yardley: Water Thy Bones (Gutted, Crystal Lake)

Favourite Books of 2016

This year, I've done two different list for my favourite books of the year: one for books published in 2016, and one for books published previously. 

(I'll be posting my annual short stories post after Christmas.)

So, in no particular order, two Top Tens:

2016:
1. The Grieving Stones - Gary McMahon (Horrific Tales Publishing)
A superb novella which mixes folk horror with psychological weirdness to produce something only McMahon could have written. A controlled, slow-burn build up leads us into a ferociously good climax. Cracking stuff.

2. The Searching Dead - Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing)
"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" - my full review here.

3. Becoming David - Phil Sloman (Hersham Horror)
This debut novella from Sloman, a tale of a serial killer being haunted by one of his own victims (maybe), delights and appals in equal measure. Superb.

4. Year's Best Weird Fiction #3 - Simon Strantzas, Michael Kelly (ed.) (Undertow)

Does exactly what it says on the tin, really. Nineteen tales that demonstrate both the rude health of literay horror fiction and the keen eye of the editors for a good short story. YBWF is a series we're lucky to have.

5. You'll Know When You Get There - Lynda E. Rucker (Swan River Press)
"Quite simply, one of the short story collections of the year" - my full review here.

6. A Country Road, A Tree - Jo Baker (Knopf)
A fictionalised account of the life of Samuel Beckett, centred around his time in the French resistance in WW2. Beckett is one of my favourite authors, and this book is full of allusions to his work (the title is from the set description for Waiting For Godot) as well as skilfully depicting his character as a young man, caught up in the war, unaware of the artistic success ahead.

7. Secret Language - Neil Williamson (Newcon Press)
There seems to be little Williamson can't do with the short story form (I hate it when people call short stories a 'genre'), as this collection demonstrates. There's horror, science-fiction and dark fantasy here, all twisted into shapes only Williamson could imagine.

8. Singing With All My Skin & Bone - Sunny Moraine (Undertow)
"an alluring combination of horror, magic realism and even science fiction" - my full review here.

9. Bodies Of Water - V.H. Leslie (Salt)
"a genuine truimph, a book sure of itself and full of quiet ambition" - my full review here.

10. Phonogram #3: The Immaterial Girl - Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie (Image Comics)
The Phonogram graphic novels sound preposterous as a concept - a world like ours except that pop music = magic. But in practice they're a startling exploration of fame, youth, nostalgia, culture and the horror implicit in that famous video for Take On Me.

Other:
1. Everyone's Just So So Special - Robert Shearman (Big Finish)
Robert Shearman gives us a bumper selection of short stories and an overview of world history (with another story hidden within, natch) in this utterly original, delightful, messed-up, and disturbing collection.

2. The Bird's Nest - Shirley Jackson (Penguin Modern Classics)
I absolutely adore Jackson's work, but until the recent Penguin reissues I had some gaps in my collection. Reading The Bird's Nest for the first time was a revelation, a classic to stand alongside Jackson's other works of genius.

3. Lost Girl - Adam Nevill (Macmillan)
"a novel that I know will stay with me, haunting me with the fear that my daughter will grow up into the world it depicts" - my full review here.

4. Gateways To Abomination - Matthew M. Bartlett
"in story after story Bartlett’s protagonists stumble across the strange, infectious voices of WXXT..." - my full review here.

5. Shadows & Tall Trees #4 - Michael Kelly (ed.) (Undertow)
A fine selection of stories from some of the best writers in the horror field: David Surface, Laura Mauro, Alison Moore, Ralph Robert Moore and, uh, more. As with the other issues of S&TT I've read, essential.

6. Albion Fay - Mark Morris (Snow Books)
A novella that mixes traditional horror with more modern fears; disturbing, creepy and seething with repressed emotion and memories. One of Morris's best, which is saying something.

7. A Cold Season - Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher)
An expertly written, engrossing ghost story, but then what else would you expect from Alison Littlewood? I enjoyed every chilly, frozen minute of this one.

8. The Wanderer - Timothy J. Jarvis (Perfect Edge)
"deeply serious yet it has the tone of a shaggy dog story told in a disreputable public house" - my full review here.

9. Thinking Horror #1: S.J. Bagley (ed.) (TKHR)
A welcome venture, Thinking Horror is a journal dedicated to the exploration of the horror genre: it's aesthetics, its mechanics, its meaning, its history. This first issue has interviews and essays from Helen Marshall, Gary Fry, Nathan Ballingrud, Molly Tanzer and more. Stimulating and satisfying.

10. The Death House - Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
A heart-breaking, gut-wrenching, soul-rearranging novel about young people with a mysterious illness, sealed away from the world. It's important to note that I didn't, repeat didn't, blub at the ending. Nope.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Almost Insentient, Almost Divine (UK | US)

 

Recommendation: The Doom That Came To Whitby Town by Gary Fry

Whitby, 2019

The Doom That Came To Whitby Town is the swan song from the much respected publisher, Gray Friar Press, owned by Gary Fry. This parting gift is a novella from Fry himself, in which something ancient and monstrous is uncovered after a cliff fall on the coast near Whitby. The 'something' is spirited away and hidden by the town's authorities, but that doesn't stop its malign influence from spreading...

As might be gathered, this novella is firmly rooted in Lovecraftian tropes, although here they are not treated with the unnecessary, cloying reverence of most modern mythos fiction. Indeed, one gets the sense that Fry was having a blast writing this one, gleefully destroying both his own home town and his protagonist's settled bachorlohood as the story progresses. Whereas much of Fry's work (of which I'm a big admirer) uses horror to explore serious contemporary concerns, Doom is faster paced, lighter on its feet. Most importantly, in places it is genuinely creepy and unsettling.

In part the book works so well because of its use of setting - I was lucky enough to visit Whitby earlier in the year (and to meet Fry himself) and instantly recognised Doom's depiction of narrow streets and narrower alleys, steep hills, deserted pubs, sea frets and maurading Herring Gulls. Much of the story is set in the off season when all the tourists have left, making it easier to visualise in the mind's eye the things Fry only hints at: mishappen beings shambling the misty streets late at night, the locals begining to hide themselves away from prying eyes. There are mysterious deaths, strange pentagrams, visions of the cosmic on the beach (a shout out to Fry's own Emergence, perhaps), and an unhealthy number of things centred around the number five. Even the bastard seagulls are not untainted by what is happening in Whitby town...

A fine piece of work, compelling and entertainng in equal measure.

The Doom That Came To Whitby Town (UK | US)