BIBLIOMANCY

Visiting Tartarus: An Interview with R.B. Russell

2012-02-07T20:37:00.002-05:00

Tartarus Press is an award-winning independent publishing house run by R.B. Russell and Rosalie Parker. Russell and Parker are known for a myriad of things, including their invaluable reference book, A Guide to First Edition Prices, their publication of classic macabre tales, and for the care and craftsmanship they put into each and every highly collectable volume they produce.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Tartarus Press. It was through Tartarus Press (Rosalie Parker’s Strange Tales) that I first encountered the remarkable work of Rhys Hughes. (For that matter, anyone who has published a Hughes book should thank Tartarus Press for the hard-earned dollars I spent rounding them all up!) The introductions did not end there. Exposure to the writing of Mark Valentine and Mark Samuels soon followed. Reggie Oliver’s superlative collection Mrs. Midnight & Other Stories was the single best short story collection I read in 2011.

Tartarus won World Fantasy Awards for their publishing efforts in 2002 and 2004, while Strange Tales won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology in 2004. The Horror Writer’s Association gave Tartarus Press the “Excellence in Specialty Press Publishing” award in 2009. Oliver’s Mrs. Midnight has garnered quite a bit of attention, while R.B. Russell’s collection Ghosts has seen its original print-run extended by Swan River Press due to popular demand.

R.B. Russell agreed to answer a few questions about writing, publishing, and books in general.

Jason Rolfe: When I first approached you for an interview, I promised no more than ten questions. While I will try keeping my enthusiasm in check, I won’t guarantee my ability to keep that promise. Given your publishing, writing, artistic, musical and bibliophilic nature I might get a little carried away. Let’s begin with Tartarus Press. Tartarus Press published The Anatomy of Taverns in 1990. Was that your first publication?

R.B. Russell: Yes. I decided it might be fun to try and track down Arthur Machen’s favourite pubs, and the little booklet I produced was the excuse for doing so. I wasn’t planning on becoming a publisher—I was training to be an architect.

JR: Publishing has obviously become an enormous part of your life. What made you decide to do it?

RR: I rather got a taste for it after The Anatomy of Taverns, but it was still only meant to be a hobby, putting into print obscure work by Machen and some of his circle. But it gradually took up more and more of my time. I gave up my job when my son was born, and became a full-time publisher and father. And then Rosalie decided to give up her job as well. There was enough work involved for us to both work full-time at Tartarus.

JR: Subject matter aside, the most impressive thing about Tartarus Press books is their subtle, aesthetic beauty. As a book collector I admire the care and craftsmanship with which you produce your books. In my mind you’re the perfect publisher because you have an artistic eye and a clear passion for the printed word. Have you found it challenging maintaining the high quality Tartarus is known for?

RR: The design has always been based on the elegant books of the 1920s produced by such publishers as Martin Secker, although it slowly evolves. I remember Brocard Sewell (founder of the Aylesford Press) taking me to one side and pointing out the various infelicities in the first ever printing of Ritual and Other Stories. I remedied those problems, but we've still never been entirely happy with any book – there is always something we could have done slightly better. The biggest practical problem in terms of quality has been finding printers who can offer lithographic printing on good quality paper, sewn sections, and good binding. We are currently using Antony Rowe/CPI.

JR: Your early publications, including the aforementioned The Anatomy of Taverns, the two volume essay collection Machenalia, chapters five and six of The Secret Glory, and The Red Hand, clearly reflect your keen interest in Arthur Machen. When and how did that interest begin?

RR: A very curious bookseller in Brighton, Mr Brookes, who had an impossibly over-stocked shop in Queens Road, recommended Machen. He was fed up with me, a teenager, looking exclusively for obscure existentialist authors. He felt that my horizons should be widened and gave me a copy of The Hill of Dreams.

JR: I am a relative (albeit enthusiastic) newcomer to Tartarus Press, having purchased the first volume of Rosalie Parker’s Strange Tales just a few short years ago. One thing I admire about Tartarus is your unpretentiousness. The simple yet elegant design allows the text to speak for itself. Would it be fair to say your work as a publisher has been influenced by your experience as a collector?

RR: Yes, in various different ways. The earliest Tartarus Press books were an attempt to put into book-form the ephemeral material I had collected by Machen. And, of course, I wanted the book design to be appropriate, so trying to make the books look like publications by one of Machen’s publisher, Secker, seemed appropriate.

JR: A Mild Case of Bibliomania is a delightfully personal view of your library and the value you place on the books therein. Your interests have clearly evolved over the years. Where do they sit now? What contemporary writers strike your fancy and why?

RR: My taste has become more catholic over the years, although I still love re-reading the authors I read as a teenager. Amongst contemporary writers, I obviously hold those we have published in the highest regard. In the last few years, in the mainstream, I've really enjoyed David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (audacious but assured writing), Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (a book I wish I'd read when I was fifteen), Michel Houellebecq's Atomised (a fascinatingly unpleasant writer) and Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (a wonderful exercise in nostalgia).

JR: Tartarus Press has found a balance between classics by the likes of Machen and Walter de la Mare, and the work of contemporary writers like Samuels, Hughes, and Oliver. How do you decide what to publish? Do you assess classic and contemporary works differently?

RR: Every author, classic or contemporary, has to be taken on their own merits, and we only publish authors whose work we believe to be really interesting, original and well-written. Of course, it is a subjective decision, but those readers who share our tastes seem to approve. Rosalie reads the submissions by contemporary authors; it’s only every six months or so that we receive a really outstanding piece of work.

JR: Reggie Oliver’s Mrs. Midnight is nothing short of brilliant. It has (rightly so) received widespread critical acclaim. What were your thoughts when you first read it?

RR: That Reggie is a master storyteller. (As Barry Humphries says, he’s ‘by miles, the best living exponent of the spooky yarn.’) And there is something seriously and intriguingly dark underlying his work that goes deeper than the obvious subject matter.

JR: Your own writing has met with critical success. PS Publishing released Literary Remains in 2010, while Swan River Press published Rosalie’s The Old Knowledge in 2010. Your latest anthology, Ghosts (an omnibus edition of your first collection, Putting the Pieces in Place and your novella, Bloody Baudelaire) has had a very successful run at Swan River as well. What inspired you to write?

RR: I’ve written on and off, over the years, and so has Rosalie, but finding the time to write seriously was an important, practical consideration for both of us. I have now given up researching the Guide to First Edition Prices, which took up a good part of every day, and all my evenings, for years! For me, inspiration has come from a myriad personal sources, and there is little in my writing that doesn't have some personal basis, albeit that I try and disguise it very heavily.

JR: Bloody Baudelaire is due to be filmed by 3:1 Cinema in the United States. How did that come about?

RR: I’ve been in contact with Todd Neimi for a few years, without realising that he had started scriptwriting, and was having some success. He asked to write a script for Bloody Baudelaire, having enjoyed the book, and although the script is officially a collaboration, the impetus came entirely from him, and he deserves the credit not only for the existence of the script, but putting it in front of Francisco Orvananos, the director. It’s a big adventure!

JR: The Swan River release of Ghosts is accompanied by an album of the same name. Is this your first foray into music?

RR: No, when I was a teenager I was lucky enough to form a band with a friend, Danny Goring, who was (and still is) a very talented musician, and we even played a few gigs under the name of The Trug Concept. And then, at University, I had the good fortune to meet Mark Johnson who, apart from being a great bloke, is a super-talented musician. Once again, a friend with infinitely more talent than me let me have some input into the song-writing process, and there is even some vinyl out there by The Bollweevils with my name on it. I’m a very poor musician, but I love composing and arranging music. This time, with Ghosts, I’ve been lucky enough to be aided by the wonderfully talented Lidwine.

JR: You are clearly passionate about books – those you read, those you write, and those you publish. You are artistically selective about the look and feel of the books you produce, from the paper they are printed on to their 1920s aura. You recently began releasing eBooks. Given your obvious affection for print, was that a difficult decision to make?

RR: I understand why people like ebooks, but I have to admit that they leave me cold. Producing them is a soul-destroying task – all of the design and formatting has to be stripped-out to make it work on electronic reading devices, and the conversion software tries to add all manner of odd formatting. But, there are people who appreciate the convenience.

JR: How do you apply the same aesthetic strength your traditional books are known for to the electronic medium?

RR: The text is obviously the only point to ebooks. As we’ve only released ebooks that we’ve already published conventionally, then we are happy that they’re elegantly-written, well-edited, and proof-read.

JR: The rise of the eBook has certainly had an impact on the publishing world. As a bibliophile I am distressed by those who claim the imminent demise of print-publishing. I prize the books I have found containing unexpected gems. I have a book on alchemy, for example, that once belonged to Charles Muses. The book is heavily annotated in Muses’ own hand, including his thoughts and comments on the text itself. I have a 1925 edition of Two Tales signed by Walter de la Mare and a 1663 edition of chemist Robert Boyle’s Some Considerations Touching the Style of the Holy Scriptures bound together (unexpectedly) with the 1665 edition Seraphick Love. Each of these examples would be impossible in an eBook world. As a publisher, author, and literary aficionado, where do you see the print industry in ten years? Does it face inevitable death, or can it survive and grow in an increasingly digitalized world?

RR: I can see that physical and electronic books both have their place in the future. Statistics suggesting the death of the traditional book seem to be dubious. For example, Amazon.co.uk says that it is selling more Kindle books than hardcovers, but they admit that their sales of hardcover books continue to increase as well…

JR: I think the books that best exemplify your importance as a publisher are those you have published by Robert Aickman. Aickman certainly deserves more recognition, and through your efforts has been introduced to new audiences. I mentioned earlier that Tartarus Press introduced me to contemporary writers like Samuels and Hughes, but it also introduced me to writers like Aickman and Hoffman, and gave me a new appreciation for writers like Sarban and Hearn. Would you say it was your intention to shed light on authors who had either missed or lost the attention they deserve?

RR: Yes, because I am still a book collector at heart, and there is a joy in finding an author, by chance or by recommendation, that is unaccountably overlooked. And if we can pass the recommendation on to other readers through Tartarus, then it gives us a great deal of satisfaction.

JR: You recently released a paperback reprint of Quentin S. Crisp’s Morbid Tales. Having only recently ‘discovered’ Tartarus Press I’m grateful for such reprints. Your paperback reprint of Worming the Harpy by Rhys Hughes was certainly appreciated. Do you have other reprints in mind? (Note: If you’re taking requests, Tales from Tartarus would be well received by me!)

RR: Angela Slatter’s Sourdough will be the next paperback reprint. Some of the older titles deserve to be reprinted in hardback once again, and will be, as time and resources allow.

JR: What can we expect from Tartarus in 2012?

RR: We don’t like to reveal too much in advance, but an expanded edition of Marcel Schwob’s The King in The Golden Mask is on its way. There are also new collection of short stories, and a novel, by two very talented, but previously unpublished authors. And we’d like to complete the reprinting of Aickman’s short story collections.

Click here to visit Tartarus Press.

The Swan River Press: An Interview with Brian J. Showers

2012-01-08T11:29:00.003-05:00

In an increasingly digitalized world, literature is fast becoming impermanent. Books are becoming bits of data meant to last as long as the technology used to display them. A century from now today’s eBooks will be lost to time and progress, forgotten by the past and unavailable for circulation. Historians will look back on our generations and find little more than a large gap where works of fiction ought to be. We ourselves can look back on writers like J. Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker because their print-and-paper books require nothing more than a good set of eyes in order to read them. I am not opposed to eBooks. My novelette Synthetic Saints will be published as such later this year. I am, however, opposed to those who say they represent the death of print-and-paper publishing. That is why, as a bibliophile, I am extremely passionate about independent publishers like Swan River Press.

Swan River Press has been publishing chapbooks and literary pamphlets since 2003. With the release of Rosalie Parker’s The Old Knowledge and Other Strange Tales in 2010, Swan River has produced absolutely stunning hardbound books – books that will stand the test of time. These books will persist a century from now, and while they may not thank Brian J. Showers now, I’m certain readers in 2112 will be thanking him profusely for the work he’s done! Brian was generous enough with his time to answer a few questions I had for him.

JASON: You recently co-edited Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Hippocampus Press, 2011). Were you interested in Le Fanu before moving to Dublin, or did the move to Le Fanu’s haunts spark your curiosity?

BRIAN: That’s an interesting question. When I was first visiting Dublin in 1999, I made a point of seeking out Le Fanu’s house on Merrion Square. Even got my photo taken in front of it! Yeah, I’d read Le Fanu (and Stoker and Dunsany, et al.) before moving to Dublin, but it wasn’t until maybe a year after I’d been living here—so around 2001—that I was reading a biography of Le Fanu and realised he was buried a short fifteen-minute walk from my flat, where I was sat reading. It was sort of an epiphany: literary history, the type that really interests me, was not far beyond my doorstep. I immediately grabbed my jacket and headed out the door to see the tomb for myself. It didn’t take long for me to realise that Dublin is saturated with places important to the history of supernatural literature. That was more or less the impetus behind Literary Walking Tour of Gothic Dublin too.

J: The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories reads like a walking tour of Rathmines. You have a knack for telling ghosts stories the way they should be told. By blending historical narrative with hints of local lore you breathe life back into the dead. You clearly have a passion for it. What inspired it?

B: I just like to read ghost stories, I guess, so I thought I’d try writing them. With regard to The Bleeding Horse and Old Albert, I wanted to graft stories onto my adopted neighbourhood. Just like I was saying before, when I realised all of Dublin’s literary associations, both fictional and real, I eventually decided to contribute some of my own. For me it was a bit like a game. I thought, hey, that house or bridge or church or whatever is kinda interesting. And since I pass these places every day of my life, I thought I’d make my life more interesting by making up stories about them. So that’s what I did. Of course there are “real” stories about many of these places already. It’s called history. But rather than eject all of that history, I decided it would be much better to use it and work with it. Hopefully no one can see the sutures between what is real and what isn’t!

J: How long have you been a publisher?

B: 2003 is when I “published” my first chapbook The Old Tailor and the Gaunt Man. I put the word published in quotes because I created the chapbook as a Halloween card to give to friends and family. Ditto for all the other chapbooks, though some I wrote for Christmas. They were labour intensive to put together, but that was part of the gift. I then had a few people approach me asking if I’d publish their stories as chapbooks—something I couldn’t easily do given the lengthy process. But I did discover I wanted to work with others, which is why I decided to start doing booklets (which are the A5 format productions like Haunted Histories and the Stoker Series). Initially I wanted to make it easy on myself, so I did them as staple-bound booklets. But then my creative side took over and I kept trying to come up with ways to make them nicer. So I started using nicer paper for the covers, hand-sewing the pages and giving them endpapers. As a publisher of hardback books, that started just a couple years ago when I decided to publish Rosalie Parker’s debut collection, The Old Knowledge and Other Strange Tales. Because why not? Seemed like a good idea at the time and I’m learning that in fact it was.

J: On your website you state that it takes 70.5 hours to make 300 chapbooks. The care with which you craft them is not only impressive, but reassuring to bibliophiles like me. Your relatively recent foray into the hardbound world has been equally impressive. From Rosalie Parker’s The Old Knowledge and Other Strange Tales (2010) and Lucy Boston’s Curfew & Other Eerie Tales (2011) to your forthcoming releases, Peter Bell’s Strange Epiphanies (2012) and R.B. Russell’s Ghosts (2012), you have applied the same care and consideration to their production as you have to your chapbooks. Do you find the publishing process daunting, rewarding, or perhaps a bit of both?

B: It’s definitely daunting, if only because there are larger financial transactions involved. It’s important to me that I keep all of this stuff on the level and conduct myself professionally. It’s also daunting because there are publishers out there who have already set the standard quite high—do I really need to name check folks like Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker of Tartarus, Barbara and Christopher Roden of Ash-Tree, Robert and Sarah Morgan of Sarob? But the rewards easily outweigh the daunts. It’s definitely a privilege to work with the people I have so far, doubly so knowing that they trust me with their work. At the end of the day, I just like sharing great stories with others.

J: Using Curfew & Other Eerie Tales as an example, can you take us through the publishing process? From inception to completion, what steps are involved in publishing hardbound books like Curfew?

B: Curfew was a bit of a different one since Lucy M. Boston is twenty years deceased. All the other authors I’ve worked with are more or less still alive. Robert Lloyd Parry originally brought Boston’s unpublished stories to my attention. I’d seen him perform his one-man M.R. James show at Hemingford Grey Manor, where Boston lived, and had read a couple of the Green Knowe books, so was already familiar with her. Diana Boston, Lucy’s daughter-in-law gave Robert permission to send me the manuscripts and, well, you can guess the rest. The main difference between Curfew and the other books is that I had to transcribe a good few stories from the manuscripts, which had Boston’s handwritten edits. Occasionally I had to decipher scribbles or even make the odd editorial decision where I would have preferred to consult the author. Diana gave her approval every step of the way. But hopefully we did the text justice.

Once the text was I order, I asked Diana if there were any relevant images that we could use for the cover. I recalled seeing a few around the Manor when I visited, and of course Diana’s late husband Peter illustrated many of his mother’s books. Fortunately Diana had a couple of items that suited perfectly—we used a painting of Boston by Elisabeth Vellacott for the dust jacket and a painting of pre-restoration Hemingford Grey by William Garden Fraser for the boards. I really like knowing that even the cover images have a close association with Boston. Then I send all the design elements to my good friend Meggan Kehrli in Chicago. I’ve known Meggan since high school and we’ve worked with each other plenty of times. You’ll see her name on a ton of my publications. She’s a graphic designer by trade and really fantastic to work with. She’s the one who makes the Swan River Press books look as professional as they do.

J: The books are beautiful; Meggan has been doing an amazing job!

The Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu series’ published by Swan River offer readers a scholarly look at the works of these two writers. Their more famous works are so often reproduced they often overshadow the lesser known but equally (if not more so) fascinating tales. If you were to introduce someone to Le Fanu for the very first time, what story would you recommend and why?

B: I always have trouble with this question. Someone asked me that on the radio last Halloween. I blurted out “Green Tea” simply because I suspect most of the listeners had not read that one. But assuming most of your readers have . . . I’ll go for Le Fanu’s “faerie” stories: “The Child That Went with the Faeries”, “Stories of Lough Guir” and “Laura Silver Bell”. I’ve always felt these sorts of stories are very effective. Haunting in a different way than his ghost stories, definitely Irish in tone. Peter Bell wrote an essay about “The Child That Went with the Faeries” that rightfully observes the similarities between Le Fanu’s faerie stories and Machen’s little people stories. He said they share the same “sinister ambiance.”

J: The world is well-acquainted with Stoker’s Dracula, and to a lesser degree Dracula’s Guest. In December you published The Definitive Judges House with an introduction by Mike Mignola. What lesser known work would you recommend to readers who want to explore Stoker beyond his most famous creation?

B: One of my absolute favourite Stoker novels is his first: The Snake’s Pass. It’s a Gothic tale set in the west of Ireland—in fact Stoker’s only novel set in Ireland. There’s mystery, romance, folklore, buried treasure . . . go and read it if you can track down a copy! I also have a lot of time for The Jewel of Seven Stars, Stoker’s Egyptomania novel about the resurrection of a mummified queen! While Stoker may not have been the greatest prose stylist, there's still much in his work to be discovered and enjoyed. Though I should probably be honest and point out that in The Snake's Pass there's a lengthy section in which one character describes how to drain a bog--written entirely in Irish dialect. It's painful to read, but thankfully only a few pages long.

J: I have not been able to acquire a copy of Acquainted With the Night (Ash-Tree Press, 2004) so I am eagerly awaiting my copy of The Old Tailor & the Gaunt Man along with your other chapbooks. Jim Rockhill refers to it as “an old fashioned ghost story . . . reminiscent of Charles Dickens and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.” He complements your “expert hand at deploying the shadows and portents, ironic disclosures, and gradual accumulation of detail, which still make the masters of supernatural fiction so chillingly entertaining to this day.” Aside from Le Fanu, are there other writers you draw inspiration from?

B: I’m sure the list is pretty average. I like all the old standards like James, Lovecraft, Machen, Blackwood . . . If I were to choose some of my particular favourites, I’d have to go with William Hope Hodgson, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, John Bellairs, Robert Aickman. I don’t necessarily try to emulate, but these are guys who, when I read them, I thought (and still think) “Hey, cool!” These are writers who I get really excited about and feel compelled to share with others.

J: That’s how I feel about Boston. I’m almost ashamed to admit I was completely unfamiliar with her before reading Curfew & Other Eerie Tales. The collection quickly became one of my favourites. You emboss your publications with both passion and knowledge. Curfew exemplifies your willingness to share both with the reading public and should certainly be commended. Given that you now have two forthcoming titles in 2012 it might be a bit presumptuous to ask (but I will anyway) what can we expect next from Brian J. Showers and/or Swan River Press?

B: I’d definitely like to keep publishing stuff, though I’m doing a masters in popular literature at Trinity this year, so time is something that’s difficult to come by lately. In fact, I should continue writing this paper on Guy Boothby’s Pharos the Egyptian . . .

I’ve nothing definitely scheduled, so it might be better to rephrase your question as who I’ve read lately that I really enjoy. I thought Barbara Roden’s Northwest Passages and Adam Golaski’s Worse than Myself were two excellent debut collections. I’d like to read more by them. There’s also Helen Grant whose short stories are always welcome reading. I loved both of Stephen J. Clark’s books, The Satyr and The Bestiary of Communion—I’m always slightly jealous of multi-talented folks like Stephen (he’s also a poet and artist, for those who aren’t familiar with his work). I’d say we’re also overdue a new Mark Samuels collection, which I hope we’ll get when he eventually emerges from the Cimmerian regions of London.

As far as my own writing, I’m the supreme procrastinator. I’ve more Rathmines stories to write, I’ve a half written collection of Irish-based ghost stories somewhere on my hard drive, I’d like to do a comic book adaptation of a famous ghost story, the title of which I won’t reveal . . . there’s plenty of other things on my to do list, which I’ve since lost. But before that, I predict a series of brilliantly written research papers.

Visit Swan River Press here.

You can purchase Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu here.

2011: A Reader's Year-in-Review

2011-12-29T22:57:00.005-05:00

I can hardly believe 2011 is drawing to a close. It seemed to slip by far more quickly than I'd have liked. Regardless, I did a great deal of reading over the course of the past twelve months. I firmly believe that life is too short to waste on a bad book, so I didn't waste any time reading things I did not enjoy. Instead, I spent 2011 reading books that left me both entertained and amazed (and as a writer more than a little envious.) I spent quality time with Allen Ginsberg, Edwin Muir, and David Jones. I savored the play-writing skills of Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard, relished the short stories of Joyce Carol Oates and Reggie Oliver, Rhys Hughes, Paul Kane, Allyson Bird and John Langan. I fell in love with novellas like Isis, by Douglas Clegg, The Man in the Picture, by Susan Hill, and Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium. I revisited the work of Albert Camus and sank my teeth into widely varied works by (again) Rhys Hughes, Kazuo Ishiguro, Haruki Murakami, and Ryu Mitsuse; got lost in the imaginations of men like China Mieville, William Gibson, and Roberto Bolano, and simply shook my head at the talented and stunningly speculative skills of writers like Margaret Atwood and Robert Holdstock, and the poetic beauty of literary gifts like Catherynne M. Valente and Michael Cisco.

I read thought-provoking philosophies served up by Terry Eagleton, Michael Krasny and Eugene Thacker, shared in the literary philosophies of the wondrous Susan Sontag, Stephen Greenblatt, Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco. As the year draws to a close I find myself reading two final books; The Hidden Reality, by Brian Greene, and Kraken, by China Mieville.

I originally intended to list my top ten favorite reads of 2011, but when the list hit twenty I gave up on the idea. This post would be infinitely longer than it already is! Edwin Muir's poetry collection, Labyrinth is superb, the sheer beauty of David Jones' language in In Parenthesis is second to none in my mind. The new Joyce Carol Oates collection, Give Me Your Heart is quite simply JCO at her very best. There are few writers alive who can rival her mastery of the short story. Paul Kane's Butterfly Man represents, in my opinion, his best work to date. For depth of meaning and sheer, blistering literary talent you needn't look further than Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Stoppard's Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Camus' The Stranger, and the wondrously witty, often absurd work of Rhys Hughes (the finest example of a Welshman I've ever known.) Although I am a Murakami fan, After Dark did not capture my imagination the way his novels have. I could say the same about Ishiguro's Nocturnes, (although his novel Never Let Me Go remains among my top ten all-time favorites.) Atwood and Gibson continued to impress me with Oryx and Crake and Zero History respectively. Oates, Hughes, Murakami, Ishiguro, Atwood, Valente, Gibson: these are standards. They never disappoint. The books that surprised me this year were by writers I had never read before. Michael Cisco, Reggie Oliver, Lucy M. Boston, John Langan, Susan Hill and Douglas Clegg either caught me off guard or flat-out blew me away.

Because I read fiction and non-fiction in equal measure, I've decided to pick two favorites for the passing of 2011. My favorite fiction came from the gifted mind of Reggie Oliver. Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories, published by Tartarus Press, and The Dracula Papers, published by Chomu, simply amazed me. Both Oliver and Chomu Press were new to me. I bought Oliver's The Dracula Papers, Cisco's The Great Lover, and Revenants, by Daniel Mills when I ordered Link Arms With Toads, by Rhys Hughes. Although I am not a fan of vampire fiction, I put my faith in the fine folks at Chomu Press. With writers like Hughes and DF Lewis in their lineup I knew it wouldn't be bad. I never guessed it would be brilliant. It quickly surpassed The Historian as my favorite Dracula tale. I was so impressed by Oliver I promptly ordered Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories. Tartarus Press introduced me to Rhys Hughes. Had I not read The Dracula Papers I likely would have purchased Mrs. Midnight simply because I trust Ray Russell to put out brilliant books. Tartarus did not disappoint me. Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories frightened and delighted me.

I found it just as difficult to pick my favorite 2011 non-fiction read. I had to narrow it down to three before deciding which I enjoyed the most. Michael Krasny's Spiritual Envy is an Agnostic manifesto of sorts. It's an extremely personal book that hit very close to home, and while Krasny's religious background is Jewish and mine Christian, the same internal struggles apply. Terry Eagleton's On Evil is a brilliant, mind-opening book about the active role evil plays in our world. In the end, however, I chose This is Not the End of The Book, a moderated dialogue between Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere. It is easily the best book about books I have ever read. Eco tends to come across as arrogant, perhaps distant, in his non-fiction works. In this wonderful book I found him incredibly personable, his bibliophilic passion worn on his sleeve throughout.

So there are my favorites for 2011. Reggie Oliver's Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories, and his novel, The Dracula Papers, and the Eco/Carriere collaboration, This is Not the End of The Book. In truth, I enjoyed everything I read. If I gave it more thought, Link Arms With Toads could very easily replace Mrs. Midnight while On Evil or Spiritual Envy, or even Thacker's In The Dust of This Planet could supplant This is Not the End of The Book at the top of my 2011 list. There are many more stories and books, articles and whatnots I did not mention here, by writers as varied as Hawthorne and Newton, that could easily make my list as well. Suffice to say 2011 was a very good year for reading, and given the books still on my reading list, 2012 is bound to be better!

Ghosts of Christmas Past

2011-12-17T13:20:00.000-05:00

While it would be difficult to pinpoint the birth of Victorian interest in the supernatural, one could make a case for 1823, and Edgar Taylor's first English language translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales. These stories inspired the fairy and fantasy stories of Charles Kingsley, Christina Rossetti and Lewis Carroll. Charles Dickens wrote arguably the most famous Christmas ghost story, A Christmas Carol (1843), and the Christmas fairy story, The Cricket on the Hearth (1846), intended to be read aloud on cold winter evenings.

M. R. James began writing his ghostly tales as stories to be read to friends on Christmas Eve. The frame story in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw finds friends sitting around the hearth on Christmas Eve, and the classic carol "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" includes the line "There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago."

As with M.R. James, Canadian author Robertson Davies (Fifth Business) began writing ghostly tales to be read aloud at Christmas.

"Although I have read tales of ghosts and the Supernatural eagerly all my life, I never thought of writing one until I went to Massey College in the University of Toronto, in 1963. The college had a Christmas party for all its members and their friends, and some sort of entertainment was needed. There were lots of gifted people to call on - poets and musicians - but I was expected to make a contribution, and I decided on a ghost story...For eighteen years I was at the college a story was called for every Christmas..."

Robertson Davies collected these tales in High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1982), "in the hope that other enthusiasts for this sort of tale will enjoy them."

In honor of Davies, James, Dickens and all who have contributed ghosts to Christmases past, I've listed a few of my favorite short stories and collections - tales I would highly recommend this Christmas Eve, whether before the hearth or beneath a warm blanket:

The Man in the Picture - Susan Hill
Curfew & Other Eerie Tales - Lucy M. Boston
Isis - Douglas Clegg
Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories - Reggie Oliver
A Warning to the Curious - M.R. James
Ghost Stories - Edited by Peter Washington
Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural - Edited by Henry Mazzeo
The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories - Edited by Michael Cox & R.A. Gilbert
The Virago Book of Ghost Stories - Edited by Richard Dalby
The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood - Edited by E.F. Bleiler

And for a collection of true tales, my personal favorite is The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories by Brian J. Showers. This book demonstrates precisely how ghost stories should be told.

However it began, wherever it began, the telling of ghostly tales at Christmas is a wonderful tradition, one worth adopting (if you haven't already). I wish each and every one of you a merry Christmas!

Synthetic Saints to be Published in 2012

2011-11-09T21:09:00.002-05:00

My short novella, Synthetic Saints, has been accepted for publication. It will appear as an eBook in 2012.

Although Synthetic Saints is a science fiction story that incorporates many of the harder elements of its genre, the tale itself is more spiritual than material. It touches on death and the nature of the soul, and the ghosts that haunt our memories long after our loved ones have passed. Death is the inevitable end of life, yet we struggle as a race to cope with it. Synthetic Saints is an attempt to personify that struggle through the thoughts and memories of a fellow named Alex Hargreaves. Here is a brief excerpt:

Alex watched the small black frame cycle through Amanda's photographs, from her parents to her little sister, nameless friends she would never see again, and an older man in jeans and a cable-knit sweater. The man stood with his arm around Amanda's waist. She felt so alone, he thought. She fled the helpless love her family offered. He thought about Tycho and the Eden experiment and realized she had not come this far out to escape Massey's ghost. She had traveled eight hundred trillion miles to embrace it. She sought life on Tycho's frozen surface not because it would be mankind's greatest discovery, but because it formed a connection, a link of sorts between her life and Massey's death. "You weren't running from the past," he whispered. "You were running toward it."

He felt a sudden, overwhelming hatred for the dead woman. Her death had dragged him one hundred and forty light years from home, from the subtle scents still lingering in the pillows and the sheets, the towels and the drapes and the countless memories of his life with Emily. The house had remained unchanged since her death. Every color, every carefully placed picture and the countless books that lined the living room wall screamed Emily. Like Amanda's quarters, Emily's house lacked absence. He wanted desperately to hate her. She had left him behind, burdened with all the pain and sorrow that accompanied Mina's death. He wanted to blame her for everything, but in the end he could only blame himself for holding on as long as he had. Emily had been weak and selfish, but she had also been right. She was at peace while he was sitting on a dead girl's bed one hundred and forty light years from home.

Gary Stowe and The Child of Hope

2011-10-29T10:41:00.001-04:00

"It was twelve years since Ranhald secured the crown and he had achieved that with the persuasive power of his voice. It was his talent. Resonant, melodious, he could use it as a musician did an instrument; blending the variables of tempo, tone and dynamics with the precise execution and delicate touch of long practice." - Gary Stowe, The Child of Hope

Like Ranhald's voice, Gary Stowe's words are "resonant and melodious," poetically employed with the "delicate touch of long practice," making it difficult to believe The Child of Hope is his debut novel. Stowe is more than a mere storyteller. In a field filled with retold tales and variations upon aging themes, he stands out as a craftsman, a masterful wordsmith with a prosaic voice and an undeniable understanding of the elements of story.

Stowe is a gifted writer. He paints a vivid picture with his prose - something that is integral to fantasy because it helps the reader visualize the author's imagined world. That Stowe achieves this without overburdening his prose is a rare treat indeed. His brush strokes are clean and crisp, his imagined world unfettered by the fictitious facts of world-building. Modern fantasists tend toward over-complexity, often losing their stories within the worlds they create. Stowe's secondary world is exactly that - secondary to the story - and as such is woven seamlessly into its tapestry using the author's loom-like talent and the wool of his wonderfully chosen words.

Annalisse, the prophesied Child of Hope, has been missing for seventeen years. Alain, her twin brother, believes she is being held captive by a man named Malkarian. The day after his eighteenth birthday, Alain sets out to find Annalisse only to learn that prophecies and people are seldom what they appear to be.

The Child of Hope is, as mentioned earlier, Australian author Gary Stowe's first novel. It opens The Masteries, a new sequence published by Dragonfall Press, and if it serves as a harbinger of things to come, readers of epic fantasy have a great deal to look forward to.

Paperback: 501 pages
Publisher: Dragonfall Press; 2011
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-9806341-8-1

Stories in the Ether, Issue 1

2011-09-26T18:40:00.002-04:00

Stories in the Ether is a quarterly story telling anthology of fantasy, steampunk, and science fiction short stories...

The first issue features 13 tales by Therese Arkenberg, David Bell, Charlie Britten, Matt Delman, Tim Kane, KA Masters, David Perlmutter, Gary Phillips, Michael Morrison, Dawn Vogel, David Wright, Lee Clarke, and myself!

I was thrilled to see Tool on the cover. The artwork by J is as impressive as ever, and the fact that it stemmed from a character I imagined up is simply amazing. Jonathan Jacobs and the editorial staff at Nevermet Press deserve loads of credit for the amazing journal they have put together. As a writer it's always nice to work with editors who are passionate about what they do, and Jonathan definitely fits that bill. As a reader I cannot wait for more Stories in the Ether.

Click here to purchase the Amazon Kindle version of Stories in the Ether.

Click here to purchase an ePUB version of Stories in the Ether from Lulu.com.

And please visit Nevermet Press online by clicking here. They are definitely worth a closer look!

The first four issues of Stories in the Ether will be rolled into a single print anthology and made available through retail stores next year. Suffice to say I am thrilled with the work Jonathan and his crew have done, and am so pleased they gave "Tool" a home.

Fear of the Dark

2011-09-16T05:53:00.001-04:00

Just a reminder that Fear of the Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction is now available for Kindle at amazon.com. If, like me, you prefer your books in traditional paper format, don't worry! You can still by the print anthology here.

From Christopher Fowler’s The Man in the Rain, to Jason Muller’s Lullaby of the Grotesque, the stories collected here suggest a simple, terrifying fact – that darkness gives life to the fears that haunt us all.

From a widespread fear of darkness to the dread of death and restless spirits; through the shadowed cellars and closets of our homes to the dark and twisting corridors of our minds, Fear of the Dark: an Anthology of Dark Fiction reveals the fears we find familiar, and revels in the fears we never knew we even had.

Contributors include Paul Kane, Christopher Fowler, Lisa Mannetti, Mary A. Turzillo, Carol Weekes, Norm Rubenstein, Angel Leigh McCoy, Aaron Polson, Martin Rose, Mark Leslie, Charlie Loudowl, Adrian Chamberlin, Ann M. Pillsworth, Sandra M. Odell, Brian D. Mazur, Jason Muller, Brian Wright, Dave Ingalls, Mike Fudali, A.D. Spencer, and Eric Dimbleby.

Horror Bound Magazine 16

2011-09-15T10:18:00.002-04:00

The sixteenth issue of Horror Bound Magazine has been released. Contained within are short stories by Mimi Vizinau, Josh Wittenberg, Michael Lejeune, Darren Traver, Rekha Ambardar, Evan Pettit, and an impressive horror debut entitled Roses and Charcoal, by author Danielle Paradis.

The latest installment of HBM features the artwork of Duncan Long, and spotlights HWA President, Rocky Wood.

Books reviewed include:

Trailer Park Noir by Ray Garton
Horror Master, Ray Garton, has outdone himself again, in his new novel TRAILER PARK NOIR. This is horror at its best, in the way it plays on the human psyche, and taps into our very own deepest and darkest fears in an authentic way.

Flu by Wayne Simmons
Wayne Simmons's Flu really gets off to a frantic start, with a couple police officers in combat gear and oxygen masks fighting their way through near-riot conditions. Claustrophobic and chaotic, we're swept away, anxiety-ridden, by the action, hearing about the spread of a deadly flu, contamination, and quarantine.

Loathsome, Dark & Deep by Aaron Polson
From the very first page of Aaron Polson's Loathsome, Dark & Deep, there is something about the writing and imagery that offers up shades of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The style and imagery is immediately recognizable.

Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives by Justin Gustainis
Simply glancing at its cover and skimming the title of Justin Gustainis' Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives, one might expect a tried-and-true Lovecraftian type of collection where ignorant mortals get caught up in labyrinthine occult machinations only to meet their messy ends at the hands (or tentacles) of unearthly beasts.

Michael Kelly's Chilling Tales. Chilling Tales: Evil I Did Dwell -- Lewd Did I Live
If you read a lot of horror anthologies, you've undoubtedly come across at least one that didn't quite live up to its title. Maybe it wasn't dark enough, horrible enough, not quite terrorizing, or it didn't cough up the nightmares it promised. Whatever the case may be, you closed this book a little disappointed.

Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney
Flesh Eaters is a solid contribution to zombie fiction.

You can read Horror Bound Magazine here.

Graphic Artist Duncan Long

2011-09-15T09:15:00.004-04:00

Duncan Long has created over a thousand cover and interior illustrations for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, ILEX, Paladin Press, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and many other presses. Talk-show host Victor Thorn named Long one of the three “best graphic artists in the entire world.”

Long recently completed the 80-plus illustrations for Moonstone Book's upcoming Werewolves of New Idria graphic novel written by John Chadwell; he's also created concept art for the screenplay created from the graphic novel (written by Chadwell and Ron Shusett, writer/creator of Alien, Total Recall, etc.).

When not wearing his artist hat, Long writes books, and has authored 13 novels (published by Avon Books, HarperCollins), and over 80 technical and how-to manuals, most of which he also illustrated.

View our featured Duncan Long images here

An Interview with HWA President and King Aficionado, Rocky Wood

2011-09-15T09:10:00.001-04:00

Rocky Wood is widely regarded as a leading expert on the works of Stephen King. His books include, The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King; Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished; The Stephen King Collector’s Guide; Stephen King: The Non-Fiction; and The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King, a six-thousand page encyclopaedia on CD-ROM, which summarizes every story, every character, every place, and the entire timeline of King’s work. His latest endeavour, Stephen King: a Literary Companion (McFarland Literary Companions) was published in April, 2011.

Stephen King aside, Rocky is currently serving a two-year term as president of the Horror Writer’s Association, a community that “exists to promote and protect the careers of professional horror writers and those seeking to enter their ranks.”

Rocky was kind enough to share his time and his thoughts on Stephen King and the horror genre. An invaluable resource for veteran horror writers and newcomers alike, Rocky Wood is an important and influential member of the horror community.

Read our featured interview with Rocky Wood here.

Emotional Illusions

2011-09-05T10:47:00.002-04:00

I am currently reading Confessions of a Young Novelist by Umberto Eco. In the chapter entitled "Some Remarks on Fictional Characters" Eco draws upon the experience of Alexandre Dumas to illustrate the way readers can often forget the fabricated aspects of fiction. It brought to mind a recent online debate about the ability to empathize with fictional characters. I am of the opinion that readers cannot feel true empathy for a fictional character because that character doesn't exist. The 'empathy' we feel as characters is little more than a reflection of true empathy, based on our own personal history. At any rate, I found Eco's commentary interesting and thought I would share it here.

In 1860, on the verge of sailing through the Mediterranean to follow Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily, Alexandre Dumas stopped in Marseille and visited the Chateau d'If, where his hero, Edmond Dantes, before becoming the Count of Monte Cristo, was imprisoned for fourteen years and was tutored in his cell by a fellow inmate, the abbe Faria. While Dumas was there, he discovered that visitors were regularly shown what was called the real cell of Monte Cristo, and that the guides constantly spoke of Dantes, Faria, and the other characters of the novel as if they had really existed. In contrast, the same guides never mentioned that the Chateau d'If had held as prisoners some important historical figures, such as Honore Mirabeau.

This led Dumas to comment, in his memoirs: "It is the privilege of novelists to create characters who kill those of historians. The reason is that historians evoke mere ghosts, while novelists create flesh-and-blood people."

Using Tolstoy's character Anna Karenina to exemplify this point, Eco poses the question asked by a friend, "If we know that Anna Karenina is a fictional character who does not exist in the real world, why do we weep over her plight, or at any rate, why are we deeply moved by her misfortunes?" Eco's answer; "I told my friend firmly that this phenomenon had neither ontological nor logical relevance, and could be of interest only to psychologists. We can identify with fictional characters and with their deeds because, according to narrative agreement, we start living in the possible world of their story as if it were our own real world. " In other words, when we open a book and begin reading, we enter into an unspoken understanding with the author (assuming the author successfully utilizes the tools of his or her trade). We agree, for the duration of the tale, to believe it - to believe in the world (s)he has created and the characters that populate it. As Eco says, "Such phenomena of identification and projection are absolutely normal and (I repeat) are a matter for psychologists. If there are optical illusions, in which we see a given form as bigger than another even though we know they are exactly the same size, why shouldn't there be emotional illusions as well?"

In the debate I referred to the empathy in question as a reflection of true empathy, while Eco refers to it here as an emotional illusion. Either way it is an artificial response based upon the cultural habits and personal backgrounds of each individual reader.

The Tree Singer

2011-08-08T17:11:00.015-04:00

The Tree Singer is Australian author Danny Fahey's first published novel. The style and rhythm of the novel are reminiscent of early twentieth century fantasy - more patient and far less harsh than contemporary tales.

The story begins with the arrival of Simon the Healer, a dream-like figure whose sage serenity and strange magic restore life to the dying village. Through Simon, a young boy named Jacob learns the art of Tree Singing. Through Simon his dreams appear within reach.

Fahey's illusory prose weaves and winds its way through the tale like a stream. It meanders, much like the work of Victorian and Edwardian fantasists. Like its ancestors, The Tree Singer is a voyage worth taking, but requires patience and perhaps an appreciation for its particular style.

Those who appreciate classic fantasy, who savour the journey as much as the destination, should enjoy Fahey's debut, and should thank Dragonfall Press for giving it a home.

Paperback: 362 pages
Publisher: Dragonfall Press; 1st edition (2011)
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-9806341-5-0

Steven Erikson and The Healthy Dead

2011-08-07T08:46:00.000-04:00

Within the pages of Steven Erikson's The First Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach you will find a brilliant novella called The Healthy Dead. Erikson is a marvelous writer. His multilayered fantasy novels contain breathless depth and dizzying intricacy.

The Healthy Dead contains something far more important than fascinating characters, panoramic landscapes, and overlapping plots. It contains social relevance. "Through the morally devoid, clearly murderous, and undoubtedly monstrous necromancers, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, Erikson gives voice to the dangers of fundamentalist belief."

I highly recommend Collected Tales if for no other reason than The Healthy Dead. My full review of The First Collected Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach can be found online at The British Fantasy Society.

The Ideology of Spheres: Examining Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” Through the Eyes of New Historicism

2011-06-16T19:01:00.004-04:00

American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” first appeared in the January, 1892 edition of the New England Magazine. It is widely regarded as Gilman’s best work of short fiction. The story details a young mother’s mental deterioration and is based on the author’s personal experiences with postpartum depression. In 1884, following the birth of her daughter, Gilman suffered a severe depression. Noted neurologist S. Weir Mitchell prescribed complete bed rest and limited intellectual activity. This rest-cure served as the basis for “The Yellow Wallpaper”. It was a commonly held nineteenth century belief that intellectual activity was detrimental to women’s mental health. Like Gilman, the story’s narrator is advised to abstain from any and all physical activity and intellectual stimulation. She cannot read, write, or attend to her newborn baby. Her husband John, a physician, takes her to a country house where she is confined to the attic nursery for the duration of their stay. Given her personal experience with Mitchell’s rest cure, Gilman felt moved to write “The Yellow Wallpaper” in order to convince him of the error of his ways. New historicists deliberately blur the line between history and literature, believing that literature and its historical context are the same. They argue that literature, like all forms of social discourse, can shape and is shaped by the wider world. According to new historicists, “one of the most important elements in textual analysis is discovering how a text was formed” (Bressler 223) by the historical and societal forces at work around it. Given Gilman’s admission about the story’s purpose, it is evident “The Yellow Wallpaper” can and should be viewed as an accurate and authoritative account of nineteenth-century feminist concerns.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” illustrates the role of women in nineteenth-century American society, focusing on the relationship between husbands and wives. The Victorian era had a significant effect on social values in the United States, encouraging the belief that women were to behave demurely and remain within the domestic sphere. According to S. Weir Mitchell, the American woman was “too often physically unfit for her duties as woman” (141). Gilman adamantly fought to dispel this myth by editing feminist publications, assisting in the planning of the California Women’s Congress of 1894 and 1895, and helping to found the Women’s Peace Party. She toured the United States and England lecturing on the rights of women and labour reform, and in 1898 she published a study on the economic relationship between men and women as a factor in social evolution. Literature, like all forms of discourse, is shaped by and can help shape social forces. Throughout “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman articulates the sense of helplessness that first fuelled her feminist fire. Soon after the birth of her daughter, Gilman experienced “a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia” (Gilman, Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper). Like Gilman, the narrator in the short story suffers from what her husband calls a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency” (Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper 115). While Gilman sought the advice of the well-known physician, S. Weir Mitchell, the narrator is advised to get complete bed rest by her husband who, much like Mitchell, is a prominent physician. Gilman wove Mitchell’s belief that American women were not “qualified to undertake those weightier tasks which tax so heavily the nervous system of man” (141) into the character of John in order to represent the prevailing view Victorian society held that woman were “not fairly up to what nature asks from her as wife and mother” (Mitchell 141). Gilman left her first husband, Charles Walter Stetson, in part because she felt the confines of their marriage had contributed to her depression. She portrayed this same stifling view of marriage in “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Stripped of self-determination, Gilman’s narrator represents the powerlessness and repression of women during the nineteenth-century. By doing so, Gilman openly challenged the sexual politics at play in nineteenth-century marriage.

The nineteenth-century saw the birth of an ideology of spheres in gender analysis. This philosophy held that “men possessed the capacity for reason, action, aggression, independence, and self-interest” (Kent 30) while “women inhabited a separate, private sphere” (Kent 30) more suitable for the “inherent qualities of femininity: emotion, passivity, submission, dependence, and selflessness derived, it was claimed insistently, from women’s sexual and reproductive organization” (Kent 30). The reproductive process required all the energy a woman could summon. For a woman to exert herself in any other manner would weaken the very nature of her being. Gilman portrays this ideology of spheres well in “The Yellow Wallpaper”, using each supporting character as a symbolic representation of the Victorian ideal. John is the reasonable one. Free to work, “John is kept in town very often by serious cases” (Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper 119) while his sister Jennie “is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession” (Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper 118). Both John and Jennie blame the narrator’s illness on her chosen career as a writer, clearly articulating Mitchell’s question: “How will she sustain herself under the pressure of those yet more exacting duties which nowadays she is eager to share with the man?” (Mitchell 141). Gilman suffered from “a severe and continuous nervous breakdown” (Gilman, Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper) for several years, during which she went “in devout faith and some faint stir of hope” (Gilman, Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper) to Mitchell, then a noted specialist in nervous diseases. Mitchell quickly decided there was nothing wrong with Gilman. He applied the rest-cure and advised her “to live as domestic a life as far as possible, to have but two hours’ intellectual life a day, and never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again” (Gilman, Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper) for the remainder of her life. Like Gilman, her narrator is “absolutely forbidden to work” (Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper 115) until she is well again, and like Gilman she disagrees with this idea. Gilman attributes Mitchell’s rest-cure to the proliferation of her melancholia, stating that she “came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin” (Gilman, Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper) that she could see beyond it.

The term feminism originated at the First International Women’s Conference in Paris the same year the New England Magazine published “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The term was used to signify a belief in the advocacy of equal rights based upon the idea of equality of the sexes. An ardent supporter of equal rights, Gilman was heavily influenced by three strong-minded and fiercely independent great aunts: abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”; Catherine Beecher, an important advocate of domestic feminism; and Isabella Beecher Hooker, an adamant suffragist. Their influence aided in the development of Gilman’s feminist convictions and her strong desire to effect social reform. In her 1935 autobiography, Gilman claimed that “the real purpose of the story was to reach Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and convince him of the error of his ways” (Gilman, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman 121). Gilman insisted the secondary status of women in society and their economic dependence on men had nothing to do with biological inferiority, as Mitchell suggested, but was instead the result of culturally enforced behaviour. Literature shapes and is shaped by the social forces at work in the world around it. “The Yellow Wallpaper” both articulated and opposed the oppression of women so prevalent during the nineteenth-century. In 1926 Gilman wrote, “One girl reads this, and takes fire! Her life is changed. She becomes a power – a mover of others – I write for her” (Warhol and Herndl 641).

Works Cited

Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ed. William L Andrews. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." The Harbrace Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Jon C Scott, Raymond E Jones and Rick Bowers. 4th Edition. Nelson Education, 2006. 115-127.

—. Why I Wrote the Yellow Wallpaper. Ed. Catherine Lavender. 8 June 1999. 12 June 2011 .

Kent, Susan. Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914. Princeton University Press, 1990.

Mitchell, S. Weir. "Wear and Tear, or Hints for the Overworked." Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper. Ed. Dale M. Bauer. Boston: Belford Books, 1998. 134-141.

Warhol, Robyn R and Diane Price Herndl. Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Revised Edition. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997.

Speaking with the Dead

2011-06-10T18:29:00.005-04:00

“I began with the desire to speak with the dead.”

Thus begins Stephen Greenblatt’s collection of essays, entitled Shakespearean Negotiations. Although he does refer to professors of literature as “salaried, middle-class shamans” (Greenblatt 557), he does not refer here to actual communion with the dead, but rather the sound of their voices in the literary remains they have left behind. Greenblatt admits that even in his “most intense moments of straining to listen” (Greenblatt 557) the only voice he heard was his own, but he argues that the dead spoke through him, “for the dead had contrived to leave textural traces of themselves, and those traces make themselves heard in the voices of the living” (Greenblatt 557).

The question, “How does Stephen Greenblatt view literature?” can best be answered using the literary clues left behind by Greenblatt in Shakespearean Negotiations. Greenblatt clearly views literature with a passionate, albeit subjective, eye. According to Lodge and Wood, Greenblatt considers literature both reflective and creative, “a tissue of implicit reflexes of thought” (556) that can influence the course of social energy. His desire to speak with the dead is indicative of his interest in New Historicism. Abrams and Harpham suggest that new historicists like Greenblatt, “attend primarily to the historical and cultural conditions” (218) of a text’s production, stressing meaning, effect and later critical analyses.

Greenblatt concedes that it is paradoxical “to seek the living will of the dead in fictions, in places where there was no live bodily being to begin with” (Greenblatt 557), but he argues that lovers of literature find more passion and intensity in the imitation of life than in any of the other vestiges of the dead. This “formal, self-conscious miming” (Greenblatt 557) of life is born with the awareness of life’s absence and therefore can compensate for the loss of the life that has empowered it.

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Boston: Wadsworth, 2009.

Greenblatt, Stephen. "The Circulation of Social Energy." Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David Lodge and Nigel Wood. 3rd Edition. Pearson Longman, 2008. 557-571.

The Arcane Artwork of Martin Rose

2011-06-06T13:05:00.001-04:00

I would like to thank author/artist Martin Rose for this amazing banner. You might recognize Martin as the author of 'Dark Horse', one of the stand-out stories in Fear of the Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction. Martin's work has also appeared in Modernist Press, Library of the Living, Necrotic Tissue, and Northern Frights. He is a contributing reviewer at Shroud and certainly one of the more interesting bloggers out there - http://mrmartinrose.blogspot.com/.

If you haven't yet done so, you really should read 'Dark Horse'. (And I'm not just saying that because it appears in an anthology I co-edited either. The story really stood out amongst others in a very good collection. It is stylish, dark, and uniquely Martin Rose).

So thanks again Martin! The banner is perfect. He even managed to hide a few secrets within the interwoven pictures. I could not be happier with the end result!

Duality and Equivocation: Deconstructing Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"

2011-06-02T09:37:00.004-04:00

Duality and equivocation are constant throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” From the opposing ideologies of rational thought and supernatural fear, to the very lives and deaths of Roderick and Madeline Usher, Poe interweaves numerous binaries into an ambiguous tale that blurs the line between truth and imagination. Traditional interpretations of this text suggest the unreliability of the narrator, arguing that Poe intended the narrator’s experiences as a dream, or perhaps a descent into madness. Given the power of Poe’s language such interpretations are certainly understandable. The narrator, from inciting incident on, is led through the stories events by Roderick’s imaginative creations: his letter and music, his poetry and paintings and his “fantastic yet impressive superstitions” (Bieganowski 182). When we trace the events unfolding for the narrator, the tale appears to be a series of utterances made manifest by and for the narrator. True to this interpretation, Poe’s narrator readily admits the influence of superstition both on himself and Roderick Usher. In his first description of the house, the narrator describes the building and its environs in terms of the “insufferable gloom” that pervades his spirit. He describes the setting as “desolate,” “bleak,” and “decayed” (Poe 26). These words describe the narrator’s impression of the house and surrounding landscape. The author misspeaks when, having “dispelled what must have been a dream” (Poe 26), he has the narrator examine the House of Usher with a more a rational eye. The narrator notes that the appearance of decay belied “any extraordinary dilapidation” (Poe 26). The almost constant equivocation, the caginess with which Poe balances fantasy and fact, lends itself to interpretive supposition. By deconstructing the tale we can glean the author’s subtly misspoken clues in order to divine a deeper understanding of the story.

The commonly held belief that Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a supernatural tale, or that it contains supernatural elements can both be attributed to and argued by the introduction of Roderick Usher. The duality of this statement is supported by the binary nature of Poe’s work. Upon seeing his childhood friend for the first time, the narrator exclaims: “Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher” (Poe 27). At this point the reader is led to believe that Roderick Usher’s countenance has changed dramatically so as to leave the narrator with “a feeling half of pity, half of awe” (Poe 27). However, the author quickly misspeaks, suggesting that Roderick Usher has always possessed “a cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid” (Poe 27). The narrator suggests that “the mere exaggeration of the prevailing characteristic of these features” (Poe 27) caused doubt as to whom he spoke. Again the author misspeaks, suggesting that Roderick’s letter influenced the narrator’s perception of the man when he writes: “For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits” (Poe 27). Roderick Usher perpetuates Poe’s dualism by simultaneously suggesting that his malady was “a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy” (Poe 28), and “a mere nervous affection…which would undoubtedly soon pass off” (Poe 28).

To this point the author has given preference to imagination, and in doing so has fostered feelings of fear and supernaturalism. His misspoken hints suggest a rational explanation for the condition of both Roderick and his house. In an interesting twist, however, Poe begins to give credence to rational thought. His narrator suggests that Roderick has been enslaved by “an anomalous species of terror” (Poe 28), stating that he “was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted” (Poe 28). The narrator’s implication appears to match the author’s earlier innuendo – that Roderick Usher’s malady has been heavily influenced by his environment. Usher himself supports this theory when he hesitantly admits “that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin” (Poe 28) – his sister’s illness. Madeline Usher’s sudden appearance and subsequent demise allow Poe to cloud the border between fact and fantasy. The external influences that so engendered fear and superstition in Roderick Usher begin beleaguering Poe’s narrator. Usher’s “long improvised dirges” and the paintings “over which his elaborate fancy brooded” (Poe 29) bring to the narrator’s mind Fuseli, a late-eighteenth-early-nineteenth century painter interested in psychological horror and the supernatural. The image of the narrator as the lone voice of reason remains intact. He refers to his friend as a “hypochondriac” (Poe 29), his artwork phantasmagorical, and his rhapsodies as “wild fantasias” that revealed “the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne” (Poe 30). The obscure texts Poe provides them with, from Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell to the Vigiliae Mortuorum Secundum Ecclesiae Maguntinæ deal with supernatural occurrences, death and damnation and are intended to imply the same external influence the narrator so readily addressed regarding Roderick’s rhapsodies and paintings. The author suggests this influence when he writes: “I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac” (Poe 32). Of these, the book that served as Usher’s “chief delight” was the Vigiliae, an obscure Catholic text dealing with services for the dead (Mabbott).

These texts foreshadow the death of Madeline Usher as surely as the “unusually sharp grating sound” (Poe 33) caused by the donjon gate presaged her apparent resurrection. The use of the word “apparent” here is appropriate given the narrator’s description of Madeline Usher: “Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead – for we could not regard her unawed” (Poe 33). Her illness had left “the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face” (Poe 33). The author misspeaks when he refers to the lingering smile upon Madeline’s face as suspicious (Poe 33). To understand why, we must revisit the narrator’s original impression of the house itself. Although the narrator is initially swayed by supernatural influence, he ultimately admits the house lacked “any extraordinary dilapidation” (Poe 26). Poe deliberately misspoke when first introducing his narrator to the story’s Gothic setting. Likewise, he misspeaks when he reveals the “suspiciously lingering smile” on Madeline Usher’s face. When seen through the fantasia-filled eyes of superstition the house and its surroundings seemed strange and terrible. Influenced by Usher’s Fuseli-inspired paintings and the supernatural works of men like Swedenborg and Machiavelli, Madeline appeared strange and terrible in death. In each instance Poe misspeaks, revealing the truths masked by imagination. The house is free of “any extraordinary dilapidation” (Poe 26). Madeline Usher’s features contain a faint blush and a “suspiciously lingering smile” (Poe 33).

From this point forward superstition strengthens its grip on Poe’s narrator: “It was no wonder that his condition terrified-that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions” (Poe 33). The narrator fights against the onslaught of superstitious thought. “I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavoured to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room” (Poe 33), but he ultimately succumbs to the overwhelming power of imagination. With the description of his narrator’s struggle Poe misspeaks again, hiding clues that point to the simple truth that imagination and reality in the House of Usher are quite different. Though he admits to having been swayed by the strength of superstition, the narrator asserts that his fears are groundless: “There sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm” (Poe 34). By emphasizing the baseless nature of these emotions, the author is clearly defining the line his narrator is about to cross. “Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable” (Poe 34) the narrator ultimately submits to the superstitions plaguing him. These “unaccountable yet unendurable” fears are made manifest by the tempestuous weather and fuelled by the reading of Sir Launcelot Canning’s Mad Trist, culminating in Roderick Usher’s revelation “We have put her living in the tomb!” (Poe 36).

Duality and equivocation appear constantly throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” From the opposing ideologies of rational thought and supernatural fear, to the very lives and deaths of Roderick Usher and his sister, Poe masks these binaries within the dark shadows of superstition. Given the vividness and richness of Poe’s language and the Gothic nature of the text it is easy to understand how this could be interpreted as a supernatural tale. As Stocker indicated, “Doubling is a constant theme in Derrida’s work,” making deconstruction an ideal theory to apply to “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Given the dual nature of Poe’s tale, it is through deconstruction that we can see beyond supernaturalism in order to examine the true Gothic elements of this text.

Works Cited

Bieganowski, Ronald. "The Self-Consuming Narrator in Poe's 'Ligeia' and 'Usher'." American Literature (1988): 175-187.

Mabbott, Thomas Ollive. The Books in the House of Usher. 22 May 2011 .

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Fall of the House of Usher." The Harbrace Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. John C Stott, Raymond E Jones and Rick Bowers. 4th Edition. Nelson Education, 2006. 24-37.

Stocker, Barry. "The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Derrida: on Deconstruction." Routledge, 2006.

The Dreaming by David Pelletier

2011-05-15T20:08:00.002-04:00

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about The Dreaming is that it is Australian author David Pelletier's first novel. Pelletier does not show 'potential' with this tale, nor should he be labelled 'promising new writer.' With The Dreaming Pelletier displays all the polish and professionalism of a seasoned veteran.

At its heart, The Dreaming is a dichotomous tale about holding on and letting go, about loving and loathing and the profound affect all of these things can have on the human heart. It is a frightening book, beautifully written, about three children who must confront the monsters of the past - both their own and those that belong to the wider world.

There is a vividness in Pelletier's writing that contradicts the clever subtleness of his work. His scenes are built upon sensations of sight and sound, of scent and taste and touch - subtly stolen from the imagination of the reader. It is through these senses that Pelletier draws us in, compels us to read, and blinds us to the truth so relentlessly stalking his young protagonists.

The threads of plot are meticulously woven into the twofold tapestry of a tale that is both straightforward and surprisingly complex. Rare are the books that are worth a second read. Rest assured this is one of them.

Paperback: 249 pages
Publisher: Dragonfall Press; 1st edition (2011)
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-9806341-3-6

Tool

2011-05-06T19:04:00.002-04:00

Tool has been published by Nevermet Press. It can be found online at nevermetpress.com and will be appearing at year's end in the print anthology Stories in the Ether.

The original artwork included with the story (and pictured here) was done by J. Lonnee and is actually based on a key scene in the short story.

The editorial staff at Nevermet Press have been doing a wonderful job. Their anthology promises to be a good one. I'm thrilled to be a part of it, and very happy to have found another home for Tool. As I mentioned, this is the second story featuring Tool I've had published (the first being Withered Souls). This particular story was intended as the first in a sequence. I am currently polishing the final draft on a second chapter that will take Tool from The Hollow of the Hand to The City of the Dreaming Spires and another strange encounter with the Awakened, the Sleeping Gods, a very proper demon named Spindle, and the man responsible for his current predicament. I hope to have it submitted (and if all goes well) published in the near future. Until then, here is another sample from Tool.

Patience leaned forward and kissed him again. Her lips felt warm and moist against his unshaven cheek. After she left the room he stood and stepped onto the balcony. From there he could watch the river wander down from the mountains into the Kaf Valley, the region aboriginals called the Hollow of the Hand. On clear days Tool could see the shadows of the skiffs and fisher boats rippling on the river bottom. During high tide barges laden with salt were sent upriver to distant ports like Copan and Rid. During low tide the kites and gulls filled the mud flats, feasting on the unfamiliar flora and fauna surrendered by the ancient river.

“Has she left?”

Tool turned and looked at Azar. Her dark skin swallowed the late morning sun, but her smile reflected its warmth. He pulled her into his arms and laughed. “You were jealous.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were jealous. You, a goddess, were jealous of my old friend Patience.”

“You find it funny?”

“I find it impossible to believe,” he replied. He kissed her.

“I am not a goddess,” she whispered. “I simply serve one.”

Tool looked west across the battered rooftops. He saw the countless regiments of the Seven Kingdoms rolling like waves across the valley floor. He watched the stonewight trebuchets launch leprous corpses into the war-weary city, flailing streaks of flesh and bone that showered the ancient streets and courtyards of the Old Quarter. The city would never survive a sustained siege. If Patience was right and Atenkhanu had crossed the border in order to break the siege, open war would exist between the Khashani-Oru and the Seven Kingdoms. The world would inevitably be drawn into any conflict between its two greatest empires. The din of war would be deafening.

Synthetic Saints and Falling Angels

2011-05-02T12:56:00.000-04:00

I am waiting to hear back from a potential publisher about Synthetic Saints. In the meantime I have begun writing a follow-up involving the two primary characters from that novella. Tentatively entitled Falling Angels, it takes place on Earth and, as with its predecessor touches on the subjects of death and faith and the strange borderland between religion and science. The primary characters are Alex Hargreaves, a Security Specialist employed by the ISA, and Persephone, his Synthetic partner. They first appeared in a flash fiction story I wrote entitled Nightfall, which I expanded upon in Synthetic Saints.

While both Saints and Angels have hard science elements I still consider them character-driven tales that talk more about how we, as human beings, cope with death - how we heal and move on after the loss of loved ones - than about FTL travel and nanotechnology. I have always been interested in the physics of the future. I have always been terrified by the thought of my own mortality, and I have never coped well with the loss of loved ones, so I consider these stories very personal. I hope I have captured that well-enough to appeal to potential publishers. We shall see!

Unfinished Tales

2011-04-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I wrote a short story called Himmler's Ghost. Although my intentions for the story were good, I struggled with the application of it and in the end abandoned the project.

While enjoying the day's first coffee this story inexplicably came to mind. One caffeine-driven epiphany later I had an ending I believe works for this story.

Although the word 'ghost' does appear in the title, and a ghost does figure prominently in the story, the specter in question (that of German King Heinrich I) represents Himmler's conscience. In a way the dead king plays Marley to Himmler's Scrooge. Unlike that lovable Dickens character, Himmler is decidedly unrepentant. His efforts to rid himself of ghostly conscience make up the bulk of this tale.

I would not describe Himmler's Ghost as frightening in the literal sense. I certainly could not (nor would not) creatively expand upon the horrors Himmler unleashed upon our world. I would not call the story humorous either. Perhaps quirky would best describe it. I hope to have the rough draft complete (time permitting) in the next few weeks. I am eager to put this one out there - the submission process should be interesting given the subject matter.

Harmonica & Gig

2011-04-20T19:59:00.001-04:00

In 2008 Lilley Press published Harmonica & Gig, a brilliant post-cyberpunk novel by innovative author, RJ Astruc. I thoroughly enjoyed it - it brought to mind the early work of Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash, Diamond Age) while remaining true to Astruc's unique voice and vision. Sadly Lilley Press went away. Fortunately RJ retained the rights to her novel and it has recently resurfaced courtesy of Australian publishers Dragonfall Press.

In honor of this great novel I have decided to re-post my earlier review. I stand by it and highly recommend this story to all those of a cyberpunk-ish persuasion...

The term ‘cyberpunk’ was first coined back in 1983 by Bruce Bethke, and has since been applied to writers as varied and visionary as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Pat Cadigan, and ultimately to post-cyberpunk writers like Paul Di Filippo and my personal favorite, Neal Stephenson. I would definitely include RJ Astruc’s Harmonica and Gigamongst the later.

The classic cyberpunk stories of the 1980’s generally took place in dystopian futures adversely affected by invasive technological changes, (think cybernetic augmentation or in-depth virtual reality). The stories symbolized, much like Shelley’s Frankenstein, the underlying fear that maybe, just maybe, science has come too far too fast.

Harmonica and Gig is not a classic cyberpunk story. Had it been a classic cyberpunk story I would have been disappointed. If one were to sit down and attempt to write such a story it would, in my mind, contradict the cutting-edge ideals that spawned the genre. What RJ Astruc has done, is write an excellent post-cyberpunk tale.

While post-cyberpunk stories, like Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age, continue to focus on omnipresent technologies like cybernetics and virtual realities, they tend to lack the dystopian visions of the near-future that defined their predecessors. Harmonica and Gig, like all good cyberpunk tales, deals with hackers, manipulative mega-corporations, and an artificial ‘Qverse’ that serves to blur the boundaries between actual and virtual reality.

The blurring of reality is at the very heart of Astruc’s novel. When an employee dies whilst connected to the Qverse, rival hacks Harmonica and Gig are approached by Intromet to investigate claims that he may have been murdered via the Qverse. In short, they are asked to either prove or disprove the assertions that a person’s brain can be hacked using ‘Q’ code.

Harmonica and Gig is essentially a mystery. While I wouldn’t call it ‘hard-boiled’, Astruc does deal with Gig in much the same way writer Robert Towne dealt with private detective J.J. Gittes in Chinatown. Throughout the course of his investigation, Gig is followed, harassed, spied upon, lied to, abducted and nearly killed. Mistreatment of the protagonist is common in cyberpunk. Gig is Astruc’s anti-hero, a rebellious hacker who does bring to mind malcontent detectives and private-eyes like J.J. Gittes. These misfits and malcontents put the ‘punk’ in ‘cyberpunk’. Gig fills this niche nicely. In my mind he’s a mix of Stephenson’s Hiro Protagonist and Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), and really exemplifies one of Astruc’s strengths as a writer – her ability to create individuals. Harmonica and Gig are two very unique, very real characters. The story aside, these two people drew me into Astruc’s Qverse. They were the code that Astruc used to hack my brain and convince me to love the tale she wrote.

Harmonica and Gig remains faithful to all the elements of cyberpunk fiction. It is a true testament to the classics of the genre, not by emulating the stories that have been told before, but by pushing the very boundaries of that genre.

I Am Just a Figment of Rhys Hughes's Imagination

2011-04-14T20:13:00.001-04:00

Rhys Hughes recently finished writing a novel entitled Captain's Outrageous in which I reprise my role as villainous inventor Jason Rolfe. You may recall my first appearance in The Coanda Effect.

For additional information and other such stuff, most delving into things far more important but slightly less villainous than yours truly, check out Rhys's blog, The Spoons That Are My Ears.

Those of you who know me know that I am an enormous Rhys Hughes fan. I love the idea that I (or rather a much more interesting incarnation of myself) exist in a world created by him. I will obviously recommend the book to you when it comes out, but keep one thing in mind. The old adage that 'truth is stranger than fiction' doesn't apply to either one of me. In fact, if anything I would say 'fiction is stranger than truth'. Although I am mildly villainous, and I do have the mail-order instructions for a jet-propelled bicycle pinned to my 'to-do' list.

Stories in the Ether

2011-04-04T15:43:00.001-04:00

"Tool" has been accepted for publication by Nevermet Press. The 7,000 word short story will be appearing in Stories in the Ether. According to Nevermet Press, this anthology represents "a compelling collection of fantasy, science fiction, and steampunk short stories and flash fiction." As with others in the anthology, "Tool" will first be published through Nevermet Press as a blog series, and later as a collected print, PDF, ePub and audio anthology "for fans to enjoy offline or through other means."

Those of you who know me might recognize Tool as a character I created several years ago for an online creative writing group called The Doom Lounge. Tool first appeared as a published entity in the short story "Withered Souls" (Silver Blade Quarterly, Fall 2010), but the tale being published by Nevermet actually takes place before "Withered Souls" and reveals a bit more about the title character and his world. I am thrilled the fine editors at Nevermet Press have selected "Tool" for inclusion in their blog series and ultimately their anthology "Stories in the Ether."

But you should never start a sentence with the word but.

2011-03-28T18:09:00.007-04:00

"One cannot help wondering whether those who teach such a monstrous doctrine ever read any English themselves." - Charles Allen Lloyd, 1938

We have all been taught (generally in the early years of primary school) never to begin a sentence with the word "but." But, according to a usage note in the fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary, "but" may be used to begin a sentence at all levels of style.

Harvard rhetorician Adams Sherman Hill wrote, "Objection is sometimes taken to employment of "but" or "and" at the beginning of a sentence; but for this there is much good usage" (The Principles of Rhetoric, 1896). We might be taught not to begin our sentences with a conjunction, but the truth is it has been done quite regularly since at least the 10th century. Nevertheless the grammatical myth that "buts" should only by used to connect elements within the same sentence still persists.

St. Clair McKelway, a writer for The New Yorker composed the following argument supporting the oft-maligned but:

If you are trying for an effect which comes from having built up a small pile of pleasant possibilities which you then want to push over as quickly as possible, dashing the reader's hopes that he is going to get out of a nasty situation as easily as you have intentionally led him to believe, you have got to use the word "but" and it is usually more effective if you begin the sentence with it. "But love is tricky" means one thing, and "however, love is tricky" means another--or at least gives the reader a different sensation. "However" indicates a philosophical sigh; "but" presents an insuperable obstacle. . . .

"But," when used as I used it in these two places, is, as a matter of fact, a wonderful word. In three letters it says a little of "however," and also "be that as it may," and also "here's something you weren't expecting" and a number of other phrases along that line. There is no substitute for it. It is short and ugly and common. But I love it.

As with any other word, but can be overused. If employed too frequently or incorrectly it might confuse, or at the very least distract the reader. But that doesn't mean it should be avoided. As Charles Allen Lloyd so eloquently stated regarding this particular language myth, "One cannot help wondering whether those who teach such a monstrous doctrine ever read any English themselves."

To learn about this and other myths, check out Garbl's Myths and Superstitions of Writing.

A Touch of Skullduggery

2011-03-23T16:41:00.001-04:00

Too often creative inspiration is more elusive than holy grails and needles in haystacks. On rare (or at best medium rare) occasions ideas bubble over and I struggle to keep up with them. I carry a small notebook everywhere I go because whenever I get struck by the creativity bus I want to make sure I'm ready.

I had such an occurrence today, this afternoon to be exact. It began at 2:33 in the afternoon and continued through until I'd jotted everything down. It ended just now, actually. The end result is that I mapped out a new short story collection. I sketched out eight new short stories and from The End of the Story Isn't the End of the Story at All to This Taxidermied Man in a Room of Frozen Nature I am quite pleased with the preliminary results. I wrote detailed outlines for the two stories mentioned above, and have begun a (very) rough draft of Send Goya, With or Without Head.

Suffice to say I was fortunate to have the day off work.

My problem now is that I am extremely excited about this new collection - but I have not finished the current collection I am writing (Psychomachia) - I have finished second drafts of All Within the Tender Bones, Mother Greed's Black Milk, and Abandoned in Voluptuousness but I am struggling through the first draft of Wrath, Showing her Teeth.

I suppose I shouldn't complain about having too many ideas, but it would be nice if they spaced themselves out about more considerately. Apparently my Muse likes to let these things build up before spewing them into my brain in bulk.

Finding Time to Write in my Daughter's World

2011-03-20T10:47:00.000-04:00

My daughter just turned three. She is a wonderful little girl, so bright and beautiful and filled with an energy I can only envy. I write because I love telling stories. I am a Market Specialist because I need the money. Between the career I enjoy, the editing I love, and the family I am passionate about, (not to mention the return to university and other extracurricular activities I am involved in) I find it increasingly difficult to find time to write.

For as long as I have written (for fun and profit) I have been told to "write every day." While that is often easier said than done, I do not doubt its importance. I am constantly amazed by the prolific nature of authors like Rhys Hughes (four books published in the past four months) and Paul Kane, who are constantly creating. They do write every day, and they write quite well. I, on the other hand, struggle to juggle the various aspects of my life. I enjoy each and all of those aspects, but time is singular. Any of it I spend on one thing cannot be spent on another. How can I finish writing Psychomachia, Blue Shift, Paradigm and begin working on a joint novel with Loretta when I barely have time to go to the bathroom? How can I possibly hope to write every day when I have a family that needs and wants my attention?

I have found a way to write every day and spend valuable time with my beautiful daughter at the same time. It began during the early stages of potty-training (not mine, my daughter's). She found sitting on the potty understandably un-entertaining. In order to keep her still long enough to complete the business at hand (or bottom as the case may be) I began telling her stories about her various stuffed animals. The stories collectively became known as "Puppy Puppy and Kitty Kitty" stories whether they involved those two well-loved toys or not. The stories revolved around the ruins of an old castle (found in Lyla's closet) and a forest named Slumbering Trees. I began writing these stories for no other reason than my daughter. They are simple little fantasy tales filled with magic (both good and bad), and an endless variety of animals, from the aforementioned Puppy Puppy to Mother Tree, Dizzy Daisy Crow, Squiggy Squirrel, and Midnight - a giant black cat who brings sweet dreams to the citizens of Slumbering Trees.

These stories were meant for Lyla. They lack any other motivation - although they do provide me with the practice intended by writing every day. Occasionally the stories are clever, funny, and possibly instructive. Mostly they are poorly (not to mention wearily) told tales that spill forth from my mind in the wee hours well past Lyla's bedtime. But they do allow an outlet for my creativity, and they constantly remind me that storytelling is a fun and wonderful thing.

Today I want to work on "All Within the Tender Bones" - but my daughter is in the next room watching Strawberry Shortcake. It is hard to write dark fiction while Strawberry Shortcake sings in the background. I will set aside time tonight to be diabolic. In the meantime my daughter needs some company...

Associate Editor at Horror Bound Magazine

2011-03-05T10:00:00.002-05:00

Maria has promoted me to Associate Editor with Horror Bound Magazine. Clearly she learned nothing from my work on Fear of the Dark. That being said, I am utterly and completely thrilled by the opportunity she has given me. If my Fear of the Dark co-editing gig gave me a glimpse inside the editorial process, this new role with Horror Bound will be less like a glimpse and more like a long, drawn out (and slightly awkward) stare - maybe an ogle or two depending on the authors I get to work with as I go.

I will still be writing book reviews for Horror Bound, but my new responsibilities will include reading/editing submissions, promoting Horror Bound online, and reaching out to writers and artists for content (reviews, spotlights, etc.) Needless to say I intend to embrace this opportunity wantonly. When I first submitted a short story to Horror Bound Magazine, I did so because the magazine's content appealed to me. The first issue I read contained an interview with Ramsey Campbell and some very impressive stories. The quality of the content makes Horror Bound Magazine stand out amongst its peers. Contributions from writers like Campbell, Lisa Mannetti, Christopher Fowler, Nancy Kilpatrick, Kelley Armstrong, Jonathan Maberry, David Wellington, Joe R. Lansdale, Paul Kane, Kim Paffenroth, and Sarah Langan (among others) have earned both Maria and Horror Bound a very healthy reputation amongst horror aficionados. The Horror Bound Press anthology, "Return of the Raven" garnered several British Fantasy Award nominations while our current anthology, "Fear of the Dark" includes contributions by award-winning writers like Fowler, Kane, Mannetti, and Mary A. Turzillo.

I have learned so much about the "other" side of the writing world through Maria and Horror Bound. I look forward to continued contributions and collaborations! Thanks again, Maria!

Voices in the Dark

2011-02-24T16:08:00.006-05:00

My review of Voices in the Dark by Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan has been published in Horror Bound Online Magazine.

Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan dedicate Voices in the Dark “to horror fans…everywhere.” It is an appropriate dedication considering the interviews contained within this collection are a must read for horror fans everywhere. The questions posed and the answers given shed light on a genre often underappreciated for the contributions it has made to both literary and cinematic platforms. Those who write, direct, and star in these offerings are both talented and passionate about their respective crafts. Kane and O’Regan capture that talent and that passion perfectly in the pages of Voices in the Dark. From the limitless talent of Clive Barker and the creative brilliance of Rob Zombie, to the studied skills of Betsy Palmer and Ron Perlman, Voices in the Dark sheds new light on the people who inspire widespread appreciation for the horror genre.

You can read the full review here, at Horror Bound Online Magazine.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

2011-02-21T19:24:00.001-05:00

Fear of the Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction is now available. Click here to purchase your copy.

From Christopher Fowler’s The Man in the Rain, to Jason Muller’s Lullaby of the Grotesque, the stories collected here suggest a simple, terrifying fact – that darkness gives life to the fears that haunt us all.

From a widespread fear of darkness to the dread of death and restless spirits; through the shadowed cellars and closets of our homes to the dark and twisting corridors of our minds, Fear of the Dark: an Anthology of Dark Fiction reveals the fears we find familiar, and revels in the fears we never knew we even had.

Featuring stories by:

Christopher Fowler was born in Greenwich, London. He is the award-winning author of thirty novels and ten short story collections, and author of the popular Bryant & May mysteries. He has fulfilled several schoolboy fantasies, releasing a terrible Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, posing as the villain in a Batman graphic novel, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror, and standing in for James Bond. His work divides into black comedy, horror, mystery and tales unclassifiable enough to have publishers tearing their hair out. After living in France and the USA he is now married and lives in King’s Cross, London.

Paul Kane’s genre journalism has appeared in magazines like Fangoria, SFX and Rue Morgue, and he is the author of The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy. His short stories have been collected in Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones and Peripheral Visions, and his novellas include Signs of Life (shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards 2006), The Lazarus Condition (introduced by Mick Garris, creator of Masters of Horror) and RED (illustrated by Dave ‘MirrorMask’ McKean). His mass market novels Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland detail the exploits of a post apocalyptic Robin Hood, and he is the co-editor of Hellbound Hearts – stories inspired by the Clive Barker novella that spawned Hellraiser. His story ‘Dead Time’ was turned into an episode of the Lionsgate/NBC network show Fear Itself : adapted by Steve Niles (creator of 30 Days of Night) as New Year’s Day, and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II-IV). Paul also scripted The Opportunity, based on his own short, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. His website, which has featured guest writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and James Herbert, can be found at www.shadow-writer.co.uk. Don't miss Paul's upcoming book: Shadow Writer. Available at fine bookstores in 2011.

Lisa Mannetti’s debut novel, The Gentling Box, garnered a Bram Stoker Award. She has authored a macabre gag book, 51 Fiendish Ways to Leave your Lover, as well as non-fiction books, and numerous articles and short stories in newspapers, magazines and anthologies. Recent and upcoming works (2010) include “Resurgam” in Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology; “Condemned” in Legends of the Mountain State 4; and “1926: A Fall River Halloween,” Shroud Magazine. Her story, “Everybody Wins,” was made into a short film by director Paul Leyden starring Malin Ackerman and released under the title Bye-Bye Sally. Visit Lisa on the web at www.lisamannetti.com.

Mary A. Turzillo's Nebula winning story, "Mars Is No Place for Children," and her novel An Old- Fashioned Martian Girl, (Analog, July - November 2004) have been selected as recreational reading on the International Space Station. Her work appears in Asimov's, Astropoetica, Interzone, Oceans of the Mind, and anthologies and magazines in the US, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Germany, and the Czech Republic. She lives in Berea, OH with an adorable mad scientist and two mysterious cats.

Carol Weekes has written and published fiction, primarily Horror, since 1995. A first novel, 'Walter's Crossing' was released in 2007 from Naked Snake Press. This was followed by a 2nd novel, 'Ouroboros', co-written with Michael Kelly, that saw a 2009 hardcover release from Bloodletting Press, and is currently available as a trade paperback through Dark Regions Press. A collection of horrific tales 'The Color of Bone' will be released soon from Dark Regions Press. Carol lives in Gananoque, Ontario, in a 130 year old red brick farmhouse, where the construction of more grueseome tales will undoubtedly take place over the years.

Norm Rubenstein a former litigation attorney and judge currently resides near Phoenix, AZ. He’s an Active Member of both the Horror Writer's Association and the International Thriller Writer's, Inc. Norm’s authored over one hundred published book reviews, is/has been a regular reviewer for Horror World, Cemetery Dance and Dark Scribe Magazines, columnist for Shroud Magazine and Fear Zone, and served as reviewer for the Pod Of Horror podcast. Norm’s had extensive experience working as a copy editor and Associate Editor for Bloodletting Press, Cargo Cult Press, and Thunderstorm Books, and is currently employed as the Editor for Dark Regions Press. Norm’s a contributor to the recent hardcover Anthology, Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, and is currently busy working on two screenplays and a new novel collaboration with author Carol Weekes.

Angel Leigh McCoy writes speculative fiction. Her stories fall primarily within the categories of horror and dark fantasy. Recently, her fiction has appeared in the anthologies Ravens in the Library, Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of Horror, and Cobalt City Christmas. In addition, she has published stories in the print magazines Sinister Tales and Revenant Magazine. During the day, she is a writer/game designer at ArenaNet, where she is part of a vast team effort to make the coolest MMORPG ever: Guild Wars 2. At night, she serves as head editor at WilyWriters.com

Aaron Polson currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a tattooed rabbit. His stories have featured magic goldfish, monstrous beetles, and a book of lullabies for baby vampires. Several new stories are forthcoming in Shimmer, Shock Totem, Space and Time, and other publications. The Saints are Dead, a collection of weird fiction, magical realism, and the kitchen sink, is due from Aqueous Press in 2011. You can visit Aaron on the web at aaronpolson.blogspot.com.

Martin Rose lives in New Jersey, where he writes a range of fiction from the fantastic to the macabre, holds a degree in graphic design, and enjoys blurring the line between art and life. More details are available at www.MartinRoseHorror.com

Mark Leslie is a Hamilton area writer and bookseller. His short fiction has recently appeared in Necrotic Tissue, Black Ink Horror and the NORTHERN HAUNTS anthology. He is the editor of CAMPUS CHILLS, a collection of horror stories set on Canadian campuses and has a novel (I, DEATH), forthcoming from Atomic Fez publishing. Mark can be found online at www.markleslie.ca.

Charlie Loudowl was born and raised on the Canadian Great Plains where he developed an appreciation for solitude, an interest in writing, and an attraction to robots, rayguns, zombies, horror, and the weird. He currently lives in the quiet suburbs of Calgary, Alberta with his wife, twin girls, and dog, where he divides his time between writing, painting, and playing music. Loudowl is the author of The Still Beating Heart, a short story featured in the Poe-inspired anthology “Return of the Raven.”

Adrian Chamberlin’s works have appeared in Guy N Smith’s Graveyard Rendezvous, Spinetinglers.co.uk, the British Horror Novels Forum and the DF Underground, where he’s a contributing author to the Underground Rising fiction collaboration.His story Warpigs will be published in John Prescott’s M is for Monster, and Winter Sun will appear in Tasmaniac Publication's sell-out Festive Fear 2: Global Edition.He is a founding member of Dark Continents Publishing and his first novel The Caretakers, a supernatural thriller set in a fictional Cambridge College, will be released in 2011.

Anne M. Pillsworth is a long-time resident of the Providence area, Lovecraft country, which informs many of her stories. Her short stories have appeared in Night Terrors, Bellowing Ark, Zahir, Arkham Tales and Mindflights. She is currently working on her fourth novel.

Sandra M. Odell is a 43-year old, happily married mother of two boys with special needs, an avid reader, compulsive writer, and rabid chocoholic. She enjoys asking disturbing questions and capturing people's uncomfortable answers on the page. Her writing credits include publication in Jim Baen's UNIVERSE, audio production in THE DRABBLECAST, and four honorable mentions from the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest. She is a Clarion 2010 graduate, and associate member of the SFWA.

Brian D. Mazur work has been published in several small press magazines. In the summer of 2009 his short story "Raven and the Darkness" appeared in Horror Bound’s anthology "Return of the Raven." For over a year, he has headed a local writing group of no specific genre and recently joined another in a town next door.

Jason Muller is currently pursuing his teaching degree at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette. An award-winning collegiate essayist, his work has appeared in The Journal of College Writers, while his fiction has appeared in The Edge of Propinquity, A Fly in Amber, Night Chills, and Stories That Lift.

Brian Wright lives in Wales, which is probably the nicest part of the United Kingdom. He spends part of his days trying to come up with short stories, most of which turn out to be a little bit weird! His other interests include history, rock music and learning Japanese. Somehow he has managed to get one or two of his stories into print magazines like Twisted Tongue and online magazines like The Harrow.

Dave Ingalls written work has appeared in FATE, Aberrations, Nightmares, Outer Darkness, Autopsy, Black Petals, Country Discoveries, The Storyteller, Worcester Magazine, and local newspapers. Besides writing horror, he's also shopping agents with a full-length humor/travel/non-fiction adventure story that he's co-authored, Asleep in Wolves' Clothing: Las Aventuras de Dos Gringos Gordos en Habana. You can learn more about it--and him--at www.DosGringosGordos.com.

Mike Fudali, born on the Ides of October, currently lives in a rural suburb far west of Chicago. He is a life long Mets fan, and therefore fully understands the concept of dealing with disappointment. He celebrates the victories of life with his patient wife and two highly energetic children. He enjoys reading all genres of fiction and everything and anything involving astrophysics, cosmology, reiki and the mysteries of why we are here. He has had his work appear in Nocturnal Ooze Magazine and continues to write short stories in between the demands of his otherwise taxing adult life.

A.D. Spencer is a graduate of The University of North Alabama but credits her true education to a teenage love affair with the supernatural. Her speculative short stories can be found in published and upcoming anthologies such as Free Range Fairy Tales, Monster Mash, Patented DNA, and Groanology 1 and 2.

Eric Dimbleby lives (with his wife and son) and works in Maine. To learn more about the works of Eric Dimbleby, visit his website at www.ericdimbleby.com.”

The Art of Dan Crockett

2011-02-20T08:55:00.000-05:00

I have known Dan Crockett for a long time, and while I vaguely recall an interest in art, I had no idea he was this good! The example pictured here is one of many pieces Dan posted on his Facebook page. The artwork is widely varied with a definite speculative flavor. Distinctive dark fantasy, science fiction, and horror elements permeate his work, as do dark, often apocalyptic tones and themes.

I have little doubt Dan's work will become much more prominent online and in print in the not-to-distant future. He definitely has the talent to go far. If you happen to be looking for commissions, let me know. I'm sure Dan would be more than willing to consider it.

All Within the Tender Bones

2011-02-12T13:24:00.000-05:00

"Why, in the hour of birth we embrace the whole man, his frame still warm from his mother, and extend the strength of our power through the body of the newborn child, we are lords and masters all within the tender bones." - Prudentius

I just wrapped up the second draft of All Within the Tender Bones and I'm pretty pleased with the result. The story takes place in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood, but does delve into Motown's French and Irish history. Though the first story written for a collection I have planned out, All Within the Tender Bones (or A Lament for the Dead) actually continues the protagonist's search for the Old Gods currently battling for his soul.

I am about to start in on the second draft of Mother Greed's Black Milk, another of the stories I've planned for this collection. Like 'Tender Bones' it takes place in Detroit, not far from Corktown in and around the remnants of Eloise, an old Poorhouse/Insane Asylum/Hospital that began life as a stagecoach stop named The Black Horse Tavern. The story is another 'chapter' in my protagonist's determined effort to find the Old Gods cryptically mentioned by Prudentius.

I will be looking for proofreaders for both very soon if anyone is interested in helping me out!

The Book of Jade

2011-02-01T20:44:00.000-05:00

I recently received a facsimile of the 1901 Doxey's edition of David Park Barnitz's "The Book of Jade." Barnitz (1878-1901) was an American poet and the 'anonymous' author of The Book of Jade. He died soon after San Francisco bookseller William Doxey published the aforementioned collection under the imprint "At the Sign of the Lark."

A little-known masterpiece of nihilistic verse, The Book of Jade led many to question Barnitz's death. According to obituaries throughout the mid-west, the 23 year old author's death came as the result of an enlarged heart, rumors began surfacing suggesting Barnitz had committed suicide. The book's poetic prelude begins with the line, "I am a little tired of all things mortal," doing little to quell these rumors. In 'Sonnet' Barnitz wrote, "My heart is fain for death to end its woe," while in 'Monotony' he wrote, "Beneath the open sky my soul lies dead/Shameless and rotten and unburied."

There is a weariness in his work, a melancholic weight that belies his twenty three years. I have only just started reading The Book of Jade but I am already intrigued by its author.

Monkey Business

2011-01-15T16:01:00.000-05:00

Here I am, hard at work on the second draft of 'All within the Tender Bones.' It's a good picture, but truth be told I am much taller in person, and far harrier than this picture gives me credit for. Also, I wear glasses when I type.

I am really excited about 'All within the Tender Bones' - a story that will ultimately belong to a collection I have called 'Psychomachia.' The stories take place in Detroit, a city I consider to be an ideal setting for dark fantasy. Tender Bones delves into the Francophonic history of the area a wee bit, but predominantly deals with Irish folklore as it applies to the city's Corktown district. Corktown, Detroit's oldest neighborhood was a settling point for the Irish escaping famine, oppression, and poverty in their homeland. Although not the largest endpoint for members of the Irish diaspora, it certainly housed its fair share. The Irish were the first large-scale ethnic group to settle in Detroit.

Anyway, better get back to monkeying around!

Storytelling as a Basic Aspect of Being Human

2011-01-07T11:41:00.000-05:00

The following is taken from Acting on Words: An Integrated Rhetoric, Reader, and Handbook by David Brundage and Michael Lahey:

"There are two important things to consider when telling a story. The first is that it is a fundamental impulse and need of human beings, so primal and important that many scholars as well as elders in traditional societies regard storytelling as a basic aspect of being human."

"The second important point to consider is that storytelling arises from and constantly draws upon oral traditions. Delaware author Daniel David Moses says that 'the three functions of all stories prehistorically seem to have been: (1) to entertain, (2) to instruct, and (3) to heal.'"

Fear of The Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction

2010-12-27T17:53:00.004-05:00

I am thrilled to report that Fear of The Dark: An Anthology of Dark Fiction will be available soon! With an introduction by Paul Kane (Shadow Writer, The Gemini Factor, Hellbound Hearts) and the editorial prowess of Maria Grazia Cavicchioli (Return of the Raven) and Jason Rolfe (Nothing of Substance), Fear of the Dark delves into the fundamental fears that fill our collective hearts with dread.

Among the anthology's award-winning contributors are Paul Kane; Christopher Fowler; Lisa Mannetti; Mary A. Turzillo; Carol Weekes; Norm Rubenstein; Angel Leigh McCoy; Aaron Polson; Martin Rose; Mark Leslie; Charlie Loudowl; Adrian Chamberlin; Ann M. Pillsworth; Sandra M. Odell; Brian D. Mazur; Jason Muller; Brian Wright; Dave Ingalls; Mike Fudali; A. D. Spencer; and Eric Dimbleby.

I would really like to thank Maria for including me on this project, all the writers who submitted work (and made me work), and those mentioned above, whose stories both frightened and fascinated me. It was a wonderful glimpse inside the editorial world (a world I had, until this project began, feared and loathed with uneducated abandon.)

The book will be available early in 2011, and in my less-than-humble opinion will be well worth the price of admission. The stories included in this anthology are well-told and certainly embrace the fundamental fears that haunt us all.

The Coanda Effect

2010-12-12T12:12:00.000-05:00

I just received two copies of The Coanda Effect, by Rhys Hughes. Published by Ex Occidente's Passport Levant, the book is a wonderful, highly collectible tribute to one of the most unique writers in the world today. I gave a copy to my sister and kept one for myself.

Rhys has an amazing ability to craft fascinating characters, from Castor Jenkins of Postmodern Mariner fame, to Dylan Thomas, reincarnated as a bus in Portrait of an Artist as a Rusty Bus (see Tales From a Lost Anthology, Tartarus Press, 150 signed and numbered copies, of which mine is 118).

Rhys pays tribute to the literary past, displaying an appreciation for the work of such varied authors as Maurice Richardson and Jorge Luis Borges. The Coanda Effect exemplifies this appreciation. The character, Corto Maltese, was the creation of Italian Hugo Pratt back in 1967. But Corto wasn't the character that inspired my purchase of two copies of this wonderful book. It was the dubious inventor, Jason Rolfe, who appears in the chapter entitled 'The Bicycle' that solidified my decision. In truth, as an avid purchaser of Rhys Hughes books, I'd have purchased the book anyway. But the fact that my name appears in his work simply iced the cake for me.

So thanks again, Rhys, for including me in your book! If your plans for 2011 come to fruition (and given your track record I have no doubts whatsoever) I look forward to reading the finished products!

Psychomachia

2010-11-20T11:52:00.001-05:00

I have two complete rough drafts (poetry excluded) in my Psychomachia collection. "Mother Greed's Black Milk" and "All Within the Tender Bones" are (relatively speaking) done. I will shelve them until January so that I can look at them with a more objective eye before tackling second drafts. In the meantime, I have begun writing "Old Gods," which will actually be the first (in order) in the collection. I am pretty pleased with the results so far. I think the protagonist (a self-titled Cryptotheologist) has depth and emotion, and is certainly flawed by life. The stories are all contemporary, and take place in Detroit, so those of you from the area might glimpse the familiar when reading. Speaking of reading - at some point in January I will start sending the stories and poems out to anyone willing to take a look and give me their thoughts. I received wonderful feedback on the opening poem for Psychomachia, entitled "Praefatio." Thanks to Joe, Maria, Nate, and Loretta for your thoughts and suggestions, and for not calling it rubbish. I thank you from the bottom of my ego!

Synthetic Saints

2010-11-08T11:53:00.001-05:00

I have been working on a science fiction novella tentatively entitled Synthetic Saints. I wrote the first few scenes several years ago, but they failed to go anywhere because the 'story' just wasn't what I wanted it to be. The story has more to do with love and death and the nature of both, and I couldn't quite deliver on that so I shelved it and moved on to other projects.

While suffering through a bout of writer's block I blew the dust off the 6,000 words I'd written and read through them again, this time with a clear head and a fresh imagination. Sure enough I found the story I'd wanted to write all along. Writing is an odd thing for me. Sometimes it ebbs and sometimes it flows. Sometimes it flows a bit too fast and I need to stop and stretch. When the words come too quickly, my poor brain can't keep up with them and when all is said and done they don't make much sense.

I am excited to be nearing the end. Synthetic Saints delves more deeply into loss and certainly character than many of my stories. I am pleased with the first draft so far. I just need to resolve the core problem, tie up the loose ends, and return things to normal for poor Alexander Hargreaves. He's been very patient sitting in that box on the shelf for two years. My main goal for the new year will be to find a home for Alex in print.

Help Wanted

2010-11-01T11:32:00.002-04:00

I am currently working on a short story collection based on The Psychomachia, by Prudentius. The opening piece in the collection is a short poem entitled "Praefatio." I have not written poetry in a very long time, and even then the quality was questionable. I know poetry is often subjective, so on that basis I am seeking open-minded people willing to tell me my short little poem is complete and utter rubbish.

If you are interested, either shoot me an email, or reply to this post. Your comments and suggestions will be both greatly appreciated and carelessly disregarded - I have the talent of a hack, but the vanity of a Shelley or a Byron, after all.

Carnival of Fear Contest Winners

2010-10-31T20:11:00.000-04:00

The 'Carnival of Fear' contest winners have been announced at Horror Bound Magazine. I was thrilled to be one of the judges, and if I do say so myself, I think we picked three outstanding stories. The First Prize Winner, T.R. Sweeny's Carnival of Fear, by Logan Carroll is as chilling a story as I've read in quite some time.

This is the first opportunity I've had to judge a writing contest. I have to admit I enjoyed it thoroughly. The authors who submitted stories made the experience both difficult and an absolute pleasure. The pleasure came in the form of fantastic fiction - the difficulty in narrowing the numerous stories down to three top picks. I do think we picked the three best, but there were others worthy of honorable mention.

While I am on the subject, I should like to point out that I am terrified of clowns. The monstrosity pictured here comes courtesy of Courtney Morgan. Courtney is the featured artist in Issue #14 of Horror Bound Magazine.

Withered Souls

2010-10-12T23:42:00.000-04:00

My short story, 'Withered Souls' can be found in the fall issue of Silver Blade Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. 'Withered Souls' is a fantasy short involving a character I have been toying with for some time.

There is an old rule writers are often told to follow - write every day. I didn't always adhere to that rule, but when I did I invariably wrote about Tool - Edgar by name. I put the poor sod through anything and everything I could think of while experimenting with various elements of creative writing. He has been, for all intents and purposes, a tool employed to help develop and improve my writing.

So it is very satisfying to see him in print. I have numerous Tool stories in various stages of progress, from the brittle bones of inspiration to fully fleshed submissions awaiting response, but this is the first and so I am very grateful to Sue and all the fine folks at Silver Blade for finding it worthy.

And thanks to Joe, Suzie, Beck and all the Doom Lounge Irregulars for putting up with Edgar and I as long as you have.

You can read 'Withered Souls' in the current issue of Silver Blade.

The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic

2010-10-12T08:21:00.007-04:00

The following is taken from the British Fantasy Society News:

The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a juried award based on excellence of writing in two categories: adult and young adult. The awards are presented annually to Canadian writers with a speculative fiction novel or book-length collection of speculative fiction published any time during the previous calendar year.

Unfortunately, the Sunburst Awards have run into a hiccup. They do not have enough operating capital to keep going as they currently stand. This sad news comes at a particularly critical juncture in the award's life--the operating committee is in the process of getting the Sunburst organization registered as a non-profit, and getting it "national arts organization" status.

As part of a fundraising drive to shepherd the Sunburst through this change of status and structure, a group of our Canadian friends would like to ask fans, writers, editors, and publishers from the speculative fiction community to help raise awareness of this vital institution. Here's how:

How to Participate

[The British Fantasy Society is] looking for short (30 second to 2 minutes) videos that say what you think about Canadian speculative fiction. These should be interview-style videos in the vein of Speaker's Corner and can be recorded as simply as with a web camera. Prior interviews or footage can be submitted provided that you have permission to do so. [They] will host these individually on a YouTube channel (sunburstaward), but will also edit them in order to create a series of short videos to promote awareness of the fundraising campaign. A longer video will be shown at the opening remarks to the Toronto SpecFic Colloquium.

Not savvy with a camera? Send [the BFS] a high res image of yourself and either a short paragraph in text or a recorded audio track.

Not Canadian? Never fear. If you have something you want to say about Canadian speculative fiction then [they] want to hear it.

To participate, send your name, contact information, submission and a short release statement giving [them] permission to use the video/image to sunburstvideo@gmail.com by October 15, 2010.

Possible Topics:
-favourite Canadian authors and/or stories
-the relationship between Canadian writing and the rest of the world
-publishing speculative fiction in Canada
-the state of Canadian fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc
-how does Canada inspire your work?
-favourite Canadian settings to use in your writing

Of course, these topics are intended to be a jumping off point. Feel free to think outside of the box. And, above all, show your enthusiasm!

To donate directly, visit http://www.sunburstaward.org/content/please-lend-your-support-sunburst-awards.

There is No Such Thing as Literary Science Fiction

2010-10-12T01:18:00.005-04:00

Author D. Harlan Wilson recently received a lovely piece of hate email stating, among other things that there is no such thing as irreal fiction, or literary science fiction. Although Wilson seems to have taken the critical email in stride (and with much more composure than I possibly could have) I felt the need to post a thought or two on literary science fiction. Names like Huxley, Atwood, and Vonnegut came instantly to mind. I decided I would vent my response in the form of a Top 5 list. So without further adieu, here are the top 5 literary Science Fiction novels (from my perspective). My criteria? The novel had to contain an element of science fiction, and (of course) I actually had to have read it. Feel free to add to my list with books of your own.

5. The Death of Grass, by John Christopher

First published in the UK in 1956, The Death of Grass is a post-apocalyptic novel by British author Samuel Youd under the pen-name John Christopher. In the novel, a viral strain has attacked rice crops in East Asia causing massive famine. A mutation soon appears that infects the staple crops of West Asia and Europe, creating a famine that threatens to engulf the whole of the Old World.

The novel follows the struggles of John Custance and Roger Buckley as they lead their families across an England that is quickly descending into anarchy. Along the way they sacrifice morality in the name of survival, at one point killing an innocent family for their bread.

4. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood

First published in Canada in 1985, The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It won the 1985 Governor General's Award, the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987, and it was nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award.

Set in the near future, in a totalitarian theocracy which has overthrown the United States government, The Handmaid's Tale is a feminist work which explores themes of women in subjugation and the means by which they gain liberation.

The novel has been called everything from pornographic and brutal in it's depiction of the mistreatment of women, to anti-Christian and, most recently, anti-Islamic, when in truth it is anti-fundamentalist. Among the most challenged and certainly challenging books ever written, it is also, clearly, misunderstood by many. According to Atwood, "This is a book about what happens when certain casually held attitudes about women are taken to their logical conclusions."

3. A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

First published in the US in 1960, A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic novel by American writer, Walter M. Miller, Jr. Based on three short stories originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, it was the only novel published by Miller during his lifetime. Widely considered one of the classics of science fiction, it found an audience amongst mainstream and genre readers alike, and in 1961 won the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

The story is set in a Roman Catholic monastery in the Southwestern United States following a devastating nuclear war, and spans thousands of years in which society rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz have preserved the surviving remnants of human scientific knowledge until a time when the outside world is ready to embrace it again.

Inspired by the author's participation in the Allied bombing of the monastery at Monte Cassino during the Second World War, the novel has been compared favorably with the works of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Green, and Walker Percy, and its themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research.

2. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

First published in the US in 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five is a science fiction novel by American writer, Kurt Vonnegut. It was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1969, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1970, and appeared in Time Magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.

Slaughterhouse-Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who has become "unstuck in time." At any given point in his life, he might find himself at another, past or future. But his experience as a soldier during the second world war, much like those of the author's, give life to the madness in him. In chapters 1 and 10, Vonnegut addresses the reader directly, referring to his own experience as a prisoner of war, and his witnessing of the Allied firebombing of Dresden in 1945.

Like Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five has carried the weight of controversy since its birth as a published work. Vonnegut's novel has appeared on the American Library Associations list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books. It has been the subject of many attempts at censorship, due to its irreverent tone and purportedly obscene content. Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the first literary acknowledgements that homosexual men, referred to in the novel as "fairies," were among the victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

1. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

First published in the UK in 1932, Brave New World is a science fiction novel written by English writer, Aldous Huxley. Set in London in the year 2540, the society depicted by Huxley is an embodiment of the ideals of Futurism. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World fifth on its list of the 100 Best English-Language Novels of the 20th century.

Although set in the future, the novel deals with issues that were contemporary to the early 20th century - The Industrial Revolution and mass production, the political, cultural, economic, and social upheavals that followed the Russian Revolution and the First World War. Huxley used the setting and the characters in his novel to express widely held fears about the future, in particular the loss of individuality and personal identity.

As with others on my list, Huxley's Brave New World both appealed to and frightened critics. Amongst his critics? George Orwell, who accused Huxley of plagiarism. Orwell believed that Brave New World had been "partly derived from" We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Huxley insisted that he wrote Brave New World long before he'd heard of We, but Orwell apparently believed he was lying. Vonnegut apparently agreed with Orwell, because he was quoted as saying that in writing Player Piano he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."

Social critic Neil Postman contrasted the worlds of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World wonderfully:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us."

Eccentric Inventors, Jet Propelled Bicycles, and Rhys Hughes

2010-09-20T19:04:00.000-04:00

Given that I will be appearing (figuratively speaking of course) in a Rhys Hughes novella, I felt I should prepare, and how better to prepare than via the trusted, tried, and true 'method' method.

If the eccentric inventor, Jason Rolfe, is going to attempt to attach a jet engine to a bicycle, I better understand how to do it myself - or at the very least, why not to do it. So I took a very sound and serious approach to my research. The Internet. Low-and-behold I found a company in Tipp City, Ohio willing to send me the plans for a jet propelled bicycle - cash on delivery! I don't know who J. Houston Maupin is, but he sounds like a reputable fellow.

Certain Curious Documents Found Among the Literary Remains of Mr. N. C.

2010-09-11T21:48:00.004-04:00

Several months ago I went with my father and sister to a small used bookstore in Windsor. While sifting through old paperbacks my father found a book by a certain Fr. Rolfe. Given our interest in genealogy, we thought the book a rather curious find. Unfortunately I put the book aside and failed to purchase it.

I forgot about Fr. Rolfe entirely, until a recent email from the esteemed Rhys Hughes. He mentioned a Victorian writer named Frederick Rolfe. It was my sister who made the association between Frederick and Fr.

Rolfe is a relatively obscure literary figure. What I've read about him thus far would suggest works that are highly collectible for their rarity rather than their literary merit - unfortunate given that, however interesting Rolfe's eccentric character may have been, he was apparently an astounding writer who deserved far more critical attention than he ever received.

His work varied in depth and style, from the light tones and plots of Nicholas Crabbe to masterpieces such as Don Renato and Hadrian the Seventh. Critics praised these later works for their 'outstanding command of and creativity with the English language.'

It has been stated that Rolfe's personality is exceedingly present in almost all of his works, and that "a less staunchly opinionated being" would be difficult to find. Given what I have read about Rolfe, I am curious to discover that personality for myself. Few literary figures, past or present, led a more extraordinary life than Frederick William Rolfe. The self-styled "Baron Corvo" scandalized Victorian society at the turn of the 20th century. Although he failed as a schoolmaster, a painter, and a photographer, he was posthumously regarded as a literary genius. Sadly, arrogance and paranoia left him destitute for the better part of his adult life. He died, penniless and all but forgotten, in Venice in 1913.

His work was original and erudite. Works such as Hadrian the Seventh and Stories Toto Told Me are widely considered modern masterpieces. I've ordered two from a bookstore in Stratford - a paperback copy of Hadrian the Seventh and a (stated) 1st edition of Hubert's Arthur: being certain curious documents found among the literary remains of Mr. N. C. / here produced by Prospero and Caliban (with an introduction by A. J. A. Symons. Symons perhaps single-handedly dragged Rolfe from obscurity with the publication of his book The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography.

According to the bookseller's listing, my purchase has been inscribed by the author, and while I hope that inscription reads Fr. Rolfe, or Baron Corvo, I suspect the book has been inscribed by Symons. The National Library of Australia lists a first edition of this same book as being a 'presentation copy' inscribed by A. J. A. Symons. The book can be found in their rare book room. I suspect finding a copy of this book in Stratford, Ontario is a stroke of good fortune on my part - made more so by the bargain price!

I intend to write an essay on Frederick Rolfe/Baron Corvo for a university course I am currently taking. If and when it is completed I will post it here.

Short Stories, Novellas, and the Blood of Ten Kings

2010-09-06T11:04:00.002-04:00

My greatest crime as a writer, besides my actual writing, is that I often get bogged down in the plots and plans - generally to the detriment of progress. My countless outlines, maps, names, charts, graphs, diagrams, random thoughts, checklists, etc. combine to form a word count far exceeding the actual story. So I was pleasantly (and recently) surprised by my short story, The Blood of Ten Kings, because the word count (originally estimated at somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000) unexpectedly burgeoned beyond the 20,000 word mark. I haven't even come close to finishing the tale I intend to tell, so my short story has become a novella. I don't imagine it will breach the novel threshold, but I do expect a good sized novella when all is said and done.

The Blood of Ten Kings is a dark fantasy. It picks up where my (yet to be published) short story, The Hollow of the Hand leaves off. The protagonist is Tool, who will make his first published appearance in the Autumn issue of 'Silver Blade Quarterly', in the short story, Withered Souls.

They Had Goat Heads

2010-08-29T13:32:00.000-04:00

They Had Goat Heads, D. Harlan Wilson's latest collection of stream-of-consciousness short stories, combines elements of humor and horror with hints of madness and a touch of brazen brilliance rarely seen in this style since, perhaps, Moorcock's Cornelius Quartet. You can read my review of They Had Goat Heads in the current issue of Horror Bound Magazine. Although I am not a fan of stream-of-consciousness stories per se, Wilson has joined Moorcock as an exception to that rule. My personal favorite in this, his most recent collection, is "The Arrest" in which seven men attempt to arrest one another. Humour and dread are mixed with such adroitness that you will laugh while you read the stories, and then, once you've finished the final word wonder what you found to laugh about in such a darkly disturbing collection. If you aren't a fan of stream-of-consciousness, I would still recommend this one, although I would suggest patience, perhaps a second run-through with a close eye on Wilson's wonderful word choice and subtle (yet swift) imagery. Your patience and care will be well-rewarded once you recognize the deeper meaning.

Our English Roots

2010-08-14T15:03:00.001-04:00

English is the product of many other languages. As such, it provides the writer with an extraordinary range of possibilities, because it contains multiple words for the same referents, offering the particular sensibility of the peoples who provided the root words. Words of Germanic, Latin, Greek, Norse, and French origin have different tones and connotations, in part because of the differing roles played by the various root languages in British history. The Old English-based word "sweat" has coarser connotations than the Latin-based word "perspiration," though both name the same thing. Latin and French were used by higher orders of the societies, Old English by the lower. Writing that favours words from Old English over words from Latin and French will have a distinct stylistic effect.

Withered Souls

2010-07-30T15:29:00.000-04:00

Late last century I began writing stories about a battered old rogue named Edgar Tully. I considered Edgar practice. I put him through the worst, most unusual, and possibly the dumbest tests imaginable. I became a better writer through his adventures in various locals as distant and distinct as the Evil Monkey and the Doom Lounge, from the science fiction stories of the late 90's to the dark fantasy stories written for and about the Doom Lounge, Edgar has become more than just a creative punching bag, he's become my fictional muse. When in doubt, I write about Edgar. That said, I am very pleased to report that 'Withered Souls', a dark fantasy short featuring Edgar, will be appearing in the Fall #8 issue of Silver Blade Quarterly. Here is a sample taken from that story:

He led his horse down to the river's edge. The gelding lowered its head and lapped at the cold water. Tool found a fallen branch and sat down. His eyes wandered the current while his mind sought solace in his cigarette. He left the City of the Seven Churches without a destination. The weeks that followed brought him northwest, to a river the Crowfoots called the Father of Waters, and The Town of the Large Canoes. The woodsmen living there called the small trading post by another name. They called it Misery.

The entire world west of the Father of Waters felt miserable to him. The vast grasslands that lay before him seemed muted by autumn, the clouds above bloated harbingers of inevitable winter. He shivered and shrank within his wool toggle coat. "I don't know how you can stand it."

The Stonewight ignored him.

"The cold," he said. "The miserable flatness of this godsforsaken land, the lack of sunlight, the blandness of it all; it's simply miserable." He pulled the cigarette from his mouth, rubbed his eyes, and sighed. "Ignore me all you want, sweetheart. I haven't spoken a word in weeks, so I'll talk your bloody ears off anyway."

"She is not ignoring you."

Tool jumped at the sound of the Woodwight's voice. He dropped his cigarette, drew his sword, and turned to face the figure further up the steep riverbank.

"She has no tongue..."

The Haunt Box

2010-07-13T19:15:00.000-04:00

I am very pleased to announce that my short story, The Haunt Box, will be appearing in the next issue (lucky number 13) of Horror Bound Magazine.

Horror Bound was nominated for several British Fantasy Awards, and has included interviews with writers as varied and talented as Joe R. Lansdale, Ramsey Campbell, Jonathan Maberry, Paul Kane, Nancy Kilpatrick, and David Wellington.

The twelfth installment included an outstanding short story by Paul Kane, and continued to display the passion and talent that helped make Horror Bound's first anthology - also nominated for several British Fantasy Awards - a resounding success.

Needless to say, it is very exciting to see my name - and The Haunt Box - published in a magazine that has included the words and works of those mentioned above.

Here is a small excerpt from The Haunt Box:

Ten minutes slipped by, filling his mind with absent thoughts. He began doubting Professor King's sanity, questioning Danielle's. But then he began seeing and hearing things. He glimpsed faces both foreign and familiar, heard words whispering through his conscious mind so quickly they were gone before he understood their meaning.

He heard someone screaming, begging him for help, calling him by name. He knew the voice. His eyes snapped open and he saw her there, naked and nailed to the wall, her body a bloody patchwork of torn flesh.

"Help me, Christopher. For the love of God, help me. Oh God it hurts. Make it stop, Christopher. Please God make them stop."
Chris shook his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed. He tore the helmet from his head and ripped out the EEG leads.

Danielle opened the door and ran inside. "What happened? What did you see?"

Chris wiped the tears away while his eyes wandered the empty room. He shook his head and looked up at Danielle uncertainly. "My mother," he whispered. "I saw my mother"

Mark E. Rogers

2010-06-13T18:50:00.001-04:00

I revied The Dead, by Mark E. Rogers for Horrorbound Magazine. The review caught the author's attention. He sent me the following email:

Jason,

I really appreciated that review of The Dead...it didn't get any reviews at all when it came out back in '89, so I'm finding the present response pretty gratifying...at least the positive stuff. in any case, my son and i threw together a slide show of the illos, and we published it on Youtube a couple of weeks ago...thought you might be interested.

Here's the link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt2Nr96gxP4

Thanks a lot.

Mark E. Rogers

It's nice to hear back from the authors whose books I review.

Call for Submissions

2010-03-19T15:48:00.000-04:00

Fear of the Dark: An Anthology Published by Horror Bound Magazine Publications

Horror Bound Magazine Publications seeks short stories for an upcoming anthology entitled Fear of the Dark (Temporary Title). The point of the stories should be to investigate the human fear of the unknown, the dark, and the common themese found in nightmares.

For more information, visit www.horrorbound.com.

The Dead

2010-02-28T08:21:00.000-05:00

My review of Mark E. Rogers' apocalyptic classic, The Dead is currently featured at www.horrorbound.com.

First published by ACE in 1989, The Dead is the standard by which all apocalyptic fiction should be measured. Rogers utilizes the sub-genre the way it should be utilized - it screams social commentary. Both satirical and spiritual, it remains "one of the very best books in the genre."

You can read the review here. While visiting Horror Bound Magazine, check out all the reviews, articiles and short stories. Once again, Maria has done a wonderful job.

Charnel Harbor

2010-02-28T08:16:00.001-05:00

My review of the S.D. Hintz novella, Charnel Harbor can be found at www.horrorbound.com.

Hintz has demonstrated his strengths as a writer with this short piece, seemlessly stitching together setting and scene to create a very believable world populated by real characters.

You can read the review here. Read through the stories and additional reviews as well. Maria has put together another excellent issue of Horror Bound Magazine.

A Dream of You

2010-01-15T22:15:00.000-05:00

My short story, A Dream of You, can be found in the current issue of 'The Absent Willow Review'. The artwork accompanying the story, entitled 'When the Bough Breaks', is by Chris Houtchen.

A Dream of You is the second story I've written involving Blackwood Manor. The first, The Watcher at the Gate, appeared in 'Horror Bound Magazine' last year.

Another interesting tidbit, at least I think so, is that the idea for this 'Dream' stemmed from a dream both my sister and I had regarding the house we grew up in. Like Alex and his sister, we shared a dream about a blue bag buried in the back garden.

Here is an excerpt from A Dream of You:

My sister told me things I’d never heard before that night. She spoke with a certainty that tore the tears from my eyes, revealing events and details with a clear sincerity that still haunts me to this day. The house Krupp lived in was little more than a shack, four walls with an old tin roof and a single door. The glassless windows had been boarded shut and any paint that once coloured the shanty had faded, peeled, and fallen years ago.

“He brought the children there,” she said. “He did unspeakable things in the darkness of that shack. In the end, when he was finished with them, he would take their broken bodies away and bury them.”

To read the entire story, click here.

2009-12-28T14:35:00.000-05:00

My review of Paul Kane's short novel, Of Darkness and Light, can be found in the current issue of Horror Bound.

I found Kane's style reminiscent of Ramsey Campbell both in tone and character; a mix of classic and contemporary and well worth the read.

National Novel Writing Month

2009-11-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

It began on November 1st. 72,870 words later I successfully finished my first National Novel Writing Month. I must admit that I thought I would crash and burn somewhere between 6,000 and 20,000 words, so imagine my surprise when I flew past the 50,000 word goal with time to spare.

I might be biased, but I think the novel has potential. It needs about 11 months of work, but the story is down on paper, and that is definitely something. What I enjoyed the most about the experience was the time I spent writing without the company of my internal editor. I managed to shut him off completely and simply write for extended periods of time. It was a very liberating experience.

And it was fun. I tortured and tormented my poor characters for 30 days. Now I'll give them a rest before putting them through it all again...and again...and again in numerous future drafts.

A Dream of You

2009-11-09T22:07:00.001-05:00

The good news is my short story, A Dream of You will be appearing in the January, 2010 issue of "The Absent Willow Review".

The bad news is my short story, A Dream of You is the last short story in my stockpile. Time to start writing those shorties again!

Writers Workshop of Horror

2009-11-01T19:09:00.000-05:00

My review of Michael Knost's Writers Workshop of Horror is the Featured Review at Horror Bound Magazine for November's Issue #9. With contributions from Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker, Joe R. Lansdale, Jonathan Maberry, Mort Castle, Brian Keene and others, Writers Workshop of Horror is a must for those of us who write, or attempt to write, horror and should be kept within arms reach at all times.

You can read the review at Horror Bound Magazine.

The Best Horror, Fantasy, & Science Fiction of 2009

2009-10-30T19:37:00.001-04:00

The Absent Willow Review anthology, The Best Horror, Fantasy, & Science Fiction of 2009 will be available for purchase on Saturday, October 31st. Among the stories chosen for this anthology by the fine editors at AWR, is my own short tale entitled, In the Valley of Dry Bones.

I'm pleased with Dry Bones, and proud that it should be associated with the Absent Willow Review and this, their first anthology. You can purchase the anthology at Amazon.com, or via the Absent Willow Review, here.

I would also highly recommend visiting AWR online, here. I've been a regular reader since January and have yet to be disappointed by the work they publish.

Thanks again to the editors at AWR, and to those who read through earlier drafts of Dry Bones with kind hearts and critical eyes.

National Novel Writing Month, November 2009

2009-10-09T08:41:00.001-04:00

November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. I didn't think it would be possible to write anything good in such an abbreviated timeframe, but then I read the following:

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap.

So I signed up. It averages out to about 1,667 words a day for 30 days. My goal (I have done it before) will be to write 2,000 words a day. I don't expect a masterpiece, but I do anticipate a rough draft that, with work (in December and beyond) can become a marketable piece.

One of my biggest problems as a writer is the internal editor. To give you an idea, he's even bugged my three times about this post already. NaNoWriMo should allow me to practice shutting him up while I write. He can always nitpick during December.

I've planned out a Science Fiction story based upon the characters and concepts I touched on in Nightfall. I've tentatively called it Synthetic Saints. I think the story's a good one. I just need to pull it off.

Nightfall has been Published at Hypersonic Tales

2009-10-05T13:08:00.000-04:00

Nightfall has been published in the October, 2009 issue of Hypersonic Tales.

According to the editors, "Nightfall...will give those of you with a theological bent (or mechanical guilt) — pause to think."

At less than a thousand words, Nightfall is considered Flash Fiction. It's my first published Science Fiction piece. I am very pleased it found a home at Hypersonic Tales.

You can read the story, listen to it online, or download an mp3 version at Hypersonic Tales. Special thanks to Pamela Perkins for the wonderful reading!

Nightfall

2009-09-20T20:14:00.001-04:00

Nightfall has been accepted for publication in the October, 2009 issue of 'Hypersonic Tales'. They publish original speculative fiction stories, but they also create audio readings for each story, so that you can hear them via the player just over the text. Their stories will soon be available as podcasts as well. Hypersonic Tales mainly features the science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and the macabre genres in flash fiction.

Special thanks to Karla Lammers for the very helpful critique, and to Nate Burleigh for the kind words regarding this short piece. I am very pleased that Nightfall has found a home at Hypersonic Tales.

Hellbound Hearts

2009-09-20T09:16:00.000-04:00

My review of Hellbound Hearts is the Featured Review at Horror Bound Magazine for September's Issue #8. With contributions from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, Kelley Armstrong, Steve Niles, Tim Lebbon, Mike Mignola and Steve Golden, Sarah Langan, Peter Atkins and others, Hellbound Hearts is an impressive tribute to Clive Barker's novella, The Hellbound Heart, and the Hellraiser movies it inspired.

You can read the review at Horror Bound Magazine.

Issue #8 of Horror Bound Magazine also includes the artwork of Nick Rose, great new short fiction, the continuation of Dan Omega's eNovella, Phantasmagoria, and a spotlight on Southwestern Ontario's own New York Times bestselling author, Kelley Armstrong.

The Suitable Surroundings

2009-09-10T09:47:00.001-04:00

The following is taken from The Suitable Surroundings by Ambrose Bierce. In the story, the writer has encountered a friend while riding the street car. His friend is reading the writer's recently published story in the morning paper:

'The proof is stronger than you seem to know,' replied the man addressed: 'so keen is your eagerness to read my story that you are willing to renounce selfish considerations and forego all the pleasure that you could get from it.'

'I don't understand you,' said the other, folding the newspaper that he held and putting it into his pocket. 'You writers are a queer lot, anyhow. Come, tell me what I have done or omitted in this matter. In what way does the pleasure that I get, or might get, from your work depend on me?'

'In many ways. Let me ask you how you would enjoy your breakfast if you took it in this street car. Suppose the phonograph so perfected as to be able to give you an entire opera,-singing, orchestration, and all; do you think you would get much pleasure out of it if you turned it on at your office during business hours? Do you really care for a serenade by Schubert when you hear it fiddled by an untimely Italian on a morning ferryboat? Are you always cocked and primed for enjoyment? Let me remind you, sir, that the story which you have done me the honour to begin as a means of becoming oblivious to the discomfort of this car is a ghost story!'

'Well?'

'Well! Has the reader no duties corresponding to his privileges? You have paid five cents for that newspaper. It is yours. You have the right to read it when and where you will. Much of what is in it is neither helped nor harmed by time and place and mood; some of it actually requires to be read at once-while it is fizzing. But my story is not of that character. It is not "the very latest advices" from Ghostland. You are not expected to keep yourself au courant with what is going on in the realm of spooks. The stuff will keep until you have leisure to put yourself into the frame of mind appropriate to the sentiment of the piece-which I respectfully submit that you cannot do in a street car, even if you are the only passenter. The solitude is not of the right sort. An author has rights which the reader is bound to respect.'

'For specific example?'

'The right to the reader's undivided attention. To deny him this is immoral. TO make him share your attention with the rattle of a street car, the moving panorama of the crowds on the sidewalks, and the buildings beyond-with any of the thousands of distractions which make our customary environment-is to treat him with gross injustice. By God, it is infamous!'

The speaker had risen to his feet and was steadying himself by one of the straps hanging from the roof of the car. The other man looked up at him in sudden astonishment, wondering how so trivial a grievance could seem to justify so strong language. He saw that his friend's face was uncommonly pale and that his eyes glowed like living coals.

'You know what I mean,' continued the writer, impetuously crowding his words-'you know what I mean, Marsh. My stuff in this mornings's Messenger is plainly sub-headed "A Ghost Story". That is ample notice to all. Every honourable reader will understand it as prescribing by implication the conditions under which the work is to be read.'

The man addressed as Marsh winced a trifle, then asked with a smile: 'What conditions? You know that I am only a plain businessman who cannot be supposed to understand such things. How, when, where should I read your ghost story?'

'In solitude-at night-by the light of a candle. There are certain emotions which a writer can easily enough excite-such as compassion or merriment. I can move you to tears or laughter under almost any circumstances. But for my ghost story to be effective you must be made to feel fear-at least a strong sense of the supernatural-and that is a difficult matter. I have a right to expect that if you read me at all you will give me a chance; that you will make yourself accessible to the emotion that I try to inspire.'

When I first read The Suitable Surroundings, I found the writer's argument a funny one. But then I started thinking about the best horror stories I'd read, the ones that evoked the most fear, filled me with the strongest sense of supernatural dread, and I realized that Bierce was absolutely right. Curled up in a dark room, armed with a flashlight and the short stories of Bierce or Blackwood, James or H.P. Lovecraft, I have been far more terrified than when I've read stories by these same authors on the living room sofa or outside in the yard on a Saturday afternoon. I read horror fiction because I want to feel that fear, that sense of dread. A horror story, novel, or movie that doesn't generate these emotions is, in my mind, an abject failure. At the very least it is a disappointment. But if I can enhance that fear by finding the suitable surroundings, of course I'll do it. Why wouldn't I? Fear is, after all, what horror is all about.

Book Reviews

2009-08-04T14:53:00.000-04:00

I reviewed two new David Wellington Books, 23 Hours and Frostbite for Horrorbound Magazine. The reviews can be found here.

I am pleased to say I've joined the editorial staff at Horrorbound Magazine as a reviewer. My bio can be found here.

JR

In The Valley of Dry Bones

2009-08-03T18:44:00.001-04:00

My short story 'In the Valley of Dry Bones' has been selected to appear in the Absent Willow Review's 2009 'Best Of' anthology, tentatively scheduled for publication this coming October. The book will be available through Amazon. According to AWR's CEO/Editor/Publisher, Rick DeCost, they were 'extremely pleased with the quality of the stories [they] have recieved throughout the year." I am very happy that 'Dry Bones' was chosen for this anthology.

How R.J. Astruc Hacked my Brain

2009-07-06T11:13:00.000-04:00

Harmonica and Gig by R.J. Astruc, Lilley Press, 2008

The term ‘cyberpunk’ was first coined back in 1983 by Bruce Bethke, and has since been applied to writers as varied and visionary as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Pat Cadigan, and ultimately to post-cyberpunk writers like Paul Di Filippo and my personal favorite, Neal Stephenson. I would definitely include RJ Astruc’s Harmonica and Gig amongst the later.

The classic cyberpunk stories of the 1980’s generally took place in dystopian futures adversely affected by invasive technological changes, (think cybernetic augmentation or in-depth virtual reality). The stories symbolized, much like Shelley’s Frankenstein, the underlying fear that maybe, just maybe, science has come too far too fast.

Harmonica and Gig is not a classic cyberpunk story. Had it been a classic cyberpunk story I would have been disappointed. If one were to sit down and attempt to write such a story it would, in my mind, contradict the cutting-edge ideals that spawned the genre. What RJ Astruc has done, is write an excellent post-cyberpunk tale.

While post-cyberpunk stories, like Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age, continue to focus on omnipresent technologies like cybernetics and virtual realities, they tend to lack the dystopian visions of the near-future that defined their predecessors. Harmonica and Gig, like all good cyberpunk tales, deals with hackers, manipulative mega-corporations, and an artificial ‘Qverse’ that serves to blur the boundaries between actual and virtual reality.

The blurring of reality is at the very heart of Astruc’s novel. When an employee dies whilst connected to the Qverse, rival hacks Harmonica and Gig are approached by Intromet to investigate claims that he may have been murdered via the Qverse. In short, they are asked to either prove or disprove the assertions that a person’s brain can be hacked using ‘Q’ code.

Harmonica and Gig is essentially a mystery. While I wouldn’t call it ‘hard-boiled’, Astruc does deal with Gig in much the same way writer Robert Towne dealt with private detective J.J. Gittes in Chinatown. Throughout the course of his investigation, Gig is followed, harassed, spied upon, lied to, abducted and nearly killed. Mistreatment of the protagonist is common in cyberpunk. Gig is Astruc’s anti-hero, a rebellious hacker who does bring to mind malcontent detectives and private-eyes like J.J. Gittes. These misfits and malcontents put the ‘punk’ in ‘cyberpunk’. Gig fills this niche nicely. In my mind he’s a mix of Stephenson’s Hiro Protagonist and Y.T. (short for Yours Truly), and really exemplifies one of Astruc’s strengths as a writer – her ability to create individuals. Harmonica and Gig are two very unique, very real characters. The story aside, these two people drew me into Astruc’s Qverse. They were the code that Astruc used to hack my brain and convince me to love the tale she wrote.

Harmonica and Gig remains faithful to all the elements of cyberpunk fiction. It is a true testament to the classics of the genre, not by emulating the stories that have been told before, but by pushing the very boundaries of that genre.

In the Valley of Dry Bones

2009-06-16T09:56:00.000-04:00

My short story "In the Valley of Dry Bones" can be found in the current issue of the Absent Willow Review. As I mentioned in a previous post, this story is near and dear to my heart. I feel that this story conquers my weaker tendencies as a writer, so I am quite pleased with it. I would love to hear other opinions on the story, so please feel free to post them here!

The Watcher at the Gate

2009-06-13T21:02:00.000-04:00

"The Watcher at the Gate" has been published in Horror Bound Magazine. I encourage everyone to take a look.

I wrote 'Watcher' in one sitting on a Sunday afternoon when I probably should have been doing a dozen other things. I'd fallen asleep the night before reading a short story collection entitled 'Nameless Places' (Arkham House, 1975). I must have dreamt the story because it came very easily once I started writing.

I am very pleased its found a home at Horror Bound. The editor, Maria Grazia, has been an outstanding person to work with, both on "Watcher" and on "That Which is Hidden". Along with the 'ahem' excellent stories they publish over at Horror Bound, they've had some outstanding interviews in recent months, including Joe R. Lansdale and Ramsey Campbell. Please take a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.horrorbound.com/readarticle.php?article_id=99

Why I Am Afraid of Chuck Palahniuk

2009-06-10T21:43:00.000-04:00

'The night before she disappeared, Cassandra cut off her eyelashes.'

So begins "The Nightmare Box", a brief chapter and a short story within the pages of a painfully disturbing novel by Chuck Palahniuk. You might remember him as the author of Fight Club, but you should know Chuck Palahniuk as the author of Haunted.

I must clearly state that I have never before been so disturbed or disgusted by a book. Never before have I been more terrified by a writer. In Haunted we meet an eclectic collection of would-be writers, men and women who have been given an opportunity to leave everything behind. "Abandon your life for three months" the invitation says. "Just disappear. Leave behind everything that keeps you from creating your masterpiece."

As a writer I know how tempting that offer would be. As a reader I know it can't possibly be as good as it sounds. When I read Haunted I was not overly familiar with Palahniuk's work. What I had read struck me as...reflective. Palahniuk's work is a mirror - a carnival mirror that twists and distorts even while it reflects darkly subtle hints of truth.

In Haunted Palahniuk is at his satirical best. The twenty-three stories that combine to form Haunted are at times both humorous and utterly horrific, but they give life to thought. They are told by the people who have answered an ad entitled 'Writer's Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months'.

'Your job and family and home, all those obligations and distractions - put them on hold for three months.'

The writers are locked together in a cavernous old theater, severed from the outside world by a man named Whittier and forced to fend for themselves in an environment where heat, electricity, food, and social conscience become increasingly difficult to find. As the writers become more desperate, their tales grow darker and their plans more devious as each plots his or her heroic ascent from the madness of their plight to the inevitable media stardom that will follow in the wake of their discovery.

Haunted evokes Poe's 'The Mask of the Red Death'.

"There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."

These words, though written long before Palahniuk's novel, perfectly describe this macabre collection of stories. Although told together as a novel, these twenty-three tales stand alone as among the most disturbing stories I have ever read.

The Subjectivity of Lists

2009-05-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

The Modern Library (http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html) has compiled two seperate lists concerning the 100 best novels of all time. The first list, assembled by the 'board' at Random House; the second list compiled by readers like you and I.

I can't say that I agreed or disagreed with any of their selections. These lists are always subjective. Reviewing these lists inspired me to think about my own 'best novel' list. What books would I include? Obviously, books I've read. I have never read "Atlas Shrugged" (#1 on the Reader's List) and could not stand "The Great Gatzby (#2 on the Board's List) so any list I came up with would be quite different. I also have to question the Reader's List a bit given that there were three L. Ron Hubbard books in the top 10. I did however, notice a strong Speculative Fiction theme there. George Orwell rang in at #6 with "1984"; Herbert appeared at #14 with "Dune"; Robert Heinlein claimed #'s 15 and 16 with "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Stranger in a Strange Land" respectively. Huxley took #18 with "Brave New World"; Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" came in at #23 while fellow Canuck Margaret Atwood found #53 with "The Handmaid's Tale". Somewhat surprising (at least as surprising as Hubbard's multiple appearance on the Reader's List) were the appearances of Charls de Lint at #35 with "Moonheart", #44 with "Yarrow" and #50 with "Trader". I have nothing against de Lint. I enjoy his work, thought "Moonheart" was very good, and use his book reviews in SF&F like a suggested reading list. But the 100 best novels of all time? Hmmmm. Then again, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" appeared at #51 on the list, two above Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale", four above the Anthony Burgess classic "A Clockwork Orange", and six above the James Joyce masterpiece "A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man" (#3 on the Board's List).

Then, of course, I remembered the word "subjectivity". Readers picked their favorites. So good on writers like Hubbard and de Lint for garnering such a loyal fanbase. Besides, Lovecraft's "At the Mountains o Madness" appeared at #45 on the list, so I'm happy.

At any rate, here, with complete subjectivity, are my top five:

5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemmingway
3. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
2. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

My criteria? Aside from having read the book, I tried to put it into the "of all time" context. My top five "Favorite Books" list would be quite different.

5. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
4. The Ghormengast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
3. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkein
2. My Work is Not Yet Done by Thomas Ligotti
1. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

(with honorable mentions to Moby Dick by Herman Melville and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas)

That Which is Hidden (Notes on the Crypt & Bones of Clive Church)

2009-04-17T17:05:00.000-04:00

That Which is Hidden (Notes on the Crypt and Bones of Clive Church) has been published by Horror Bound Magazine.

Horror Bound Magazine is a literary magazine geared toward horror fiction. They feature short stories, poetry, art, book reviews and interviews.

The following is an excerpt from That Which is Hidden (Notes on the Crypt and Bones of Clive Church)...

There were other voices now, a hushed chorus that seemed to find life in the shadowed corners and the cold drafts of the aging manse. “Who’s there?” I asked, but as quickly as they had come the whispered voices fell silent. I stood in the living room. I could feel my heart pounding. I could still hear the last three words spoken by the chorus – Deus habeo discedere. God has abandoned us...

To read the entire story, please visit Horror Bound Magazine. Mine is the featured short story for April.

In the Valley of Dry Bones

2009-03-10T19:12:00.001-04:00

I am pleased to announce that my short story "In the Valley of Dry Bones" has been accepted for publication in The Absent Willow Review. "Dry Bones" will be appearing in the June, 2009 issue of AWR.

Under the submission guidelines for AWR the editors indicated a passion for "character driven" fiction. The characters in "Dry Bones", Genevieve in particular, really drove that story for me. I felt the story would be a good fit. And those of you who know me certainly understand that "In the Valley of Dry Bones" has been near-and-dear to me since it was first written.

I could not be more pleased with the news that "Dry Bones" will be appearing in The Absent Willow Review. As an aside, the artwork for the logo seen here was provided by Rado.

Dead Hands in Crossed Genres

2009-03-01T17:29:00.000-05:00

Issue #4 of Crossed Genres has just been released. You can read "Dead Hands" on the other end of this link, or you can support the magazine (and my writing) by purchasing a print copy here.

The wonderful cover art for Issue #4 was provided by Sallamari Rantala. To view more of her artwork, please follow this link.

I would like to thank the editors at Crossed Genres for publishing "Dead Hands". I am quite pleased the story found a home with them.

As some of you are aware, I am currently working on my first novel. The setting in this story - the City of the Seven Gates - will also serve as the setting for that novel. There are elements of this story that will appear in the novel as well, so it is very gratifying (and encouraging) to see them appear in print here.

Thanks, as usual, to all those who reviewed, re-reviewed, critiqued and commented on the various incarnations of this story. Joe Miley, Suzie Kahn (my fellow Doom Lounge Irregulars), Loretta Sylvestre (check out Worlds Well Written, it will make her very happy), my big sister Andrea, and of course my editor-in-chief/wife, Nicole.

Now would somebody please get on my case about "Tycho" and "The Hidden Chapel (Notes on the Crypt and Bones of Clive Church)". I've had these two short stories on my plate for far too long. Time to get them out there!

Dead Hands

2009-02-07T18:56:00.000-05:00

I am very pleased to announce that my short story, "Dead Hands" will appear in the March, 2009 issue of 'Crossed Genres'. The editors had very nice things to say about the story.

"...a very intelligent story, with compelling characters."

"You did a wonderful job of crafting the settings and situation."

"Disturbingly creepy."

"Dead Hands" will appear in the March, 2009 issue, an issue that will cross the genres of Science Fiction/Fantasy and Crime.

More information forthcoming...

The Graveyard of Unwritten Books

2009-01-04T08:28:00.000-05:00

The Graveyard of Unwritten Books, a vast complex of galleries beneath the Hotel de Sens in Paris. Visitors enter a courtyard at the back of the building, where a small passage opens in a mossy wall. This leads to a narrow, gloomy gallery which in turn leads into an inner, subterranean courtyard. In this courtyard stands a well; a rope ladder allows the visitor to descend into its depths. Upon reaching the bottom of the well, the visitor will find a vaulted gallery dripping with damp; this gallery must be followed to an iron door. Visitors must knock to be admitted inside what appears to be a vast storeroom for books. Uniformed attendants move about in all directions, securing books under lock and key. Here, in what is known as the Graveyard of Unwritten Books, or the Well of Locks, all books banned by authorities throughout the world are shut away. Some of these books were published and then forbidden; others were stillborn; many never reached the written page. Visitors are advised to bring a flashlight and not to be seen with a book in their hands.

(Nedim Gursel, Son Trammway, Istanbul, 1990)

Sadly, I discovered the Graveyard as an entry in Manguel & Guadalupi's "Dictionary of Imaginary Places".

The Problem With the Real World...

2008-12-08T18:07:00.000-05:00

The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly, Attria Books, 2008.

Fantastic Worlds: Myths, Tales, and Stories, edited by Eric S. Rabkin, Oxford University Press, 1979.

"The problem with the real world..."

The problem with the real world, according to Eric Rabkin, "is that it is the only one we have." Perhaps this very problem serves as an explanation for the appeal of other worlds in speculative fiction. As a child I was constantly searching for other worlds. I think I was five when I first wandered through the looking glass with Lewis Carroll, six or seven when I travelled through the wardrobe with Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. I know that I was in sixth grade when I first saw Middle Earth through the eyes of a Hobbit named Bilbo. In eighth grade I found myself in a dying empire named Melnibone, and knew then that I wanted to write. I suppose the fantastic worlds of men like Carroll and C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and Michael Moorcock, became a means of escape. For a shy little boy the real world can often be a cold and uncaring place, which might explain why John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things was so appealing to me.

"This was Elsewhere."

Elsewhere, for David, is a world that is both foreign and frighteningly familiar. David is a twelve-year-old boy, grief-stricken by the death of his mother. When his father marries Rose, and has another son, Georgie, David seeks solace in the books that line his bedroom wall. The books soon begin to whisper in the darkness. Only David can hear them. The line between the real and the fantastic is further blurred by the appearance of the Crooked Man. David soon finds himself in a land inhabited by brave woodsmen, Marxist dwarves (seven of them), alienated knights and monsters both sickening and horrific. Once he learns that he is trapped in this fantastic world, David begins his journey. The journey is heroic, something Baggins, or Joseph Campbell, would enjoy. Accompanied by a man known only as the Woodsman, and pursued by the dandy man-wolf, Leroi, David sets out to find an aging king whose secrets lay hidden within the pages of a book - the Book of Lost Things. David's journey is one we've all taken. His is the journey from innocense to adulthood, the journey from loss, through grief, to ultimate acceptance.

"The real world is a messy place..."

Walt Disney once said that people "don't want fairy stories the way they were written. They were too rough". I disagree. Connolly has recovered the dark, dangerous, and morally complex essence of the fairy tale with The Book of Lost Things. There is a harshness hidden in his prose, a cruel reminder that, as Rabkin says, "The real world is a messy place where dust accumulates and people die for no good reason and crime often pays and true love doesn't conquer much."

White Alabaster

2008-09-27T08:41:00.000-04:00

"White Alabaster" can be found in the current issue {July/August, 2008} of The Willows.

"The Willows is an atmospheric horror and dark fantasy magazine with an emphasis on the traditional weird tale, in the classic style of Blackwood, Dunsany, Hodgson, Machen, and other macabre fantasistes of the 19th and early 20th centuries." - http://www.thewillowsmagazine.com/

If you haven't read The Willows I would definitely recommend it - and why not start with the July/August 2008 issue!

Thanks to everyone who provided running commentary on "White Alabaster". From first draft to seventh this one wouldn't have found print without the help of Loretta, Karla, Carl, Joe, Suze, Beck, Andrea, and of course my lovely wife (and editor-in-chief), Nicole.

I would also like to thank Ben Thomas for publishing the story.

When I began writing White Alabaster, I had in mind a man overcome by remorse and the mad hope that the grievous wrongs he had committed might somehow be undone. I came across a painting of a private house in Cairo while researching another story. That painting, combined with Everard's 1650 translation of the Asclepius, and Edward William Lane's Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians inspired White Alabaster.

Camille Flammarion & The Foundations of Science Fiction

2008-09-13T08:43:00.000-04:00

"You promised, dear Lumen, to describe to me that most supreme of moments which immediately succeeds death, and to tell me how - according to natural law, odd as it may seem - you relived your past life and penetrated a long-standing mystery."

- Camille Flammarion; Lumen, The First Conversation -

Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) was a French astronomer and writer who earned success as a popularizer of science during the late 19th century. Although popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the work of Camille Flammarion began slipping into obscurity following his death in 1925. The 1945 edition of Nouveau Petit Larousse containted the following simplistic entry on Flammarion's career:

"seduisant vulgarisateur."

Seductive Popularizer. But Flammarion's contribution to the history of science fiction and fantasy should not be overlooked.

Born on 25 February 1842 at Montigny-la-Roi in the Haut-Marne, Camille was something of a child prodigy. He developed an interest in astronomy at age five. At the age of eleven he began recording his astronomical and meteorological observations. He began writing vigorously in his teens and by sixteen had produced the unpublished Voyage extotique aus regions lunaires, correspondence d'un philosophe adolescent, and the 500-page manuscript Cosmologie Universelle, published in 1885 as Le Monde avant le creation de l'homme.

Cosmologie Universelle led Flammarion to Urbain Le Verrier and a job at the Paris Observatoire. Flammarion found the routine work he was assigned at the Bureau des Calculs tedious and felt frustrated by the lack of opportunity. With the publication of La Pluralite des mondes habitees in 1862 he saw an opportunity to make his living as a writer.

La Pluralite des mondes habitees saw thirteen editions in thirty years and became one of Flammarion's most successful works. As a result, Flammarion began contributing to various periodicals, but soon found that he could not support himself as a writer and found work in the Bureau des Longitudes.

He refused to allow his duties at the bureau to interfere with his literary production, and in 1862-63 published Les Habitantes de l'autre monde; revelations d'outre-tomb (2 vols.) as a companion piece to La Pluralite des mondes habitees.

Work on alleged revelations from beyond the grave damaged his scientific credibility. His next book on the subject, Des Forces naturelles inconnues (1865) was originally issued under the pseudonym Hermes. Although he soon abandoned the pseudonym, he was careful to clarify that he treated psychic phenomena with the open-mindedness of a scientific researcher. He was not a follower of the spiritualist faith and clearly stated that the texts he produced during his experiments in automatic writing were the product of his own imagination.

Perhaps his greatest success came in 1875 with the publication of Astronomie populaire, a guidebook for amateur astronomers. Flammarion founded L'Astronomie, the definitive journal for amateur astronomers. In 1887 he helped establish the Societe Astronomique de France, an organization that is still active today.

Following the First World War, Flammarion spent much of his time and energy on psychical research. He began holding regular seances at his estate in Juvisy-sur-Orge, many of which coincided with his astronomical observations and included such guests as Italian medium Eusapia Palladino and American scientist Percival Lowell. The majority of the work published by Flammarion following World War One dealt with psychical research. La Mort et son mystere (3 Vols. 1920-22), and Les Maisons hauntees, en marge de la mort et son mystere (1923) exemplify the focus Flammarion placed on psychical research at the time. Flammarion, like English speculative writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had been deeply affected by the war. A shared interest in spiritualism formed the foundations of friendship between Flammarion and Doyle.

Camille Flammarion worked tirelessly to make scientific knowledge accessible to ordinary readers. His success, his flights of fancy, and his endless attempts to fit what we would call the 'paranormal' into the rationalistic confines of the scientific method helped lay the groundwork for modern science fiction.