Alt-Dead review

Mike Chinn gives Alt-Dead a nice review, doling out praise to all the stories. "Not a bad one amongst them – though I found Bacon's, McMahon's and Young’s the most affecting."

Guest Blog

Today I'm rambling on about something or other in a guest blog over at Steve Lockley's website.

Midnight Street interview and story

I've got an interview and story in the latest issue of Midnight Street

The magazine is free but if you go to the homepage there is an option to make donations if you happen to have some spare money lying around.

Lost in Austin

This time last week I was at the World Horror Convention in Austin, Texas. After fifteen hours travelling there and another fifteen hours to get back plus several late night parties the convention is a bit of a blur but I think at least some of the following things did actually happen and weren't just fatigue-induced hallucinations.

* Went sightseeing with Chris Teague. Chris suggested popping into San Antonio to see the Alamo as it was supposed to be nearby. But that turned out to be nearby in American terms; it was actually 15 million light years away. So instead we went to the LBJ Museum. We arrived at this choice as it offered an insight into the social, political and historical development of 20th Century America. Plus, it was free admission.

* Met up with Matt Cardin who I haven't seen for eight years. And who, after putting up with my jokes for the entire convention, is probably hoping that I won't see him again for at least another eight.

* Was struck completely dumb when I met Peter Straub. I think he walked away wondering, "Who is this mute that Simon Strantzas has just introduced me to?" And I don't even remember what I said to Joe Hill when I met him but he ran into the toilets to get away from me.

* Took my life in my hands by ordering a salad in a Texan restaurant. You should have seen the look of contempt the waiter gave me. When he brought our food over he refused to even look at me. He would ask Chris if he wanted a refill or dessert or whatever but blanked me completely. I was tempted to blow Chris's perceived manliness by revealing how he had wussed out of putting gravy on his breakfast that morning. But I decided against it as then the waiter wouldn't have been talking to either of us and we might have wanted to order more drinks later.

* Managed to remain blissfully unaware of the tornadoes raging across Texas until I realised there was a message on the phone in my hotel room from my mum asking if I was still alive. Fortunately the tornadoes were in another part of Texas. This cheered her up but not as much as if I'd checked the time difference before calling her back and avoided getting her out of bed in the middle of the night.

* Enjoyed the panels on Horror in academia, Horror in comics, Commonwealth Horror and How to Kill People. This last panel consisted entirely of martial artists, military personnel and gun aficionados. For some reason there were no hecklers during this panel.

* Cracked up at Matt describing Stephanie Meyers's prose style in hilarious manner. And then telling a joke that nearly reduced Chris to tears.

* Mike and Carolyn Kelly being charming company. The Canadian Nick and Nora Charles. All they needed was a murder to solve.

* Chatted to Mike Casto about Fantasy novels and martial arts. We got so into our discussion of how to generate punching power that he was one step away from giving me a private lesson in the hotel lobby. During this entire conversation Chris looked on in bemusement. The next day I apologised to him, explaining that I'm as big a geek for martial arts as I am for comics. "You're just lucky that I didn't combine the two and start talking about martial arts comics like Iron Fist." At which point Matt and I both cried out, "Like unto a thing of iron!" This made us seem cool and funny and not at all nerdy.

* Complained about having to miss all of the Sunday programming in order to catch my flight home only to bump into a WHC attendee at Houston airport and holding our own mini-convention in the departure lounge. A couple more hours and we would have set up a dealers room and started a book signing.

Anyway, thanks to everyone I met at the convention and who made my trip to Texas such fun. I would list all your names but I think a list that long might break the Internet. I just hope you all had as much fun as I did.

British Fantasy Awards

Three of my stories have been longlisted for the British Fantasy Awards in the Best Short Fiction category. Only 20 million other people were longlisted so I think I'm in with a chance.

One of the stories, Silent Night, is available to read here.

Go here to see the voting form.

And for the bribes I'm offering people to vote for me go to www.gulliblefans.com

Kimota Anthology

I'm in an eBook anthology reprinting stories from the '90s magazine Kimota. Tons of other authors in there as well, including top SF, Fantasy and Horror novelists such as Mark Chadbourn, Neal Asher, Mark Morris, Stephen Gallagher and Stephen Laws. So you don't just have to put up with my rubbishy stories.

Alt-Dead

I'm in the Alt-Dead anthology due out this Autumn.

As you can see from the cover illustration the theme is horror stories about feet. So you get a story about a murderer who kills people with the overpowering stench of foot odour emanating from his hosiery in 'Sock It To Me.' Then there's the tale of a lady who accidentally sprinkles her toes with voodoo dust instead of talcum powder, turning her feet into deadly zombies in 'My Feet Are Killing Me.' A powerful mediation on the nature of suicide in 'Toe Be Or Not Toe Be.' And my own tale about a psychotic army of geriatric shoemakers in 'A Load of Old Cobblers.'

There's a slim chance I may be making this all up.

Estronomicon Christmas Special

Only just realised that my story Silent Night appeared in the Estronomicon Christmas special. My stories are so popular that even I don't keep track of when they come out.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Jarly and Grarg, the comic strip characters created by Dave Bezzina and yours truly. My poem's rubbish but Dave's picture makes up for it:


The world shrugs on a frosty coat of snow,
And a cold wind whispered and cried,
It’s not just nippy, it’s thirty below.
Fortunately it’s warm inside.

Despite the late hour Jarly chooses to study;
The room’s cosy snugness makes it less of a chore.
The glowing fire makes his cheeks warm and ruddy,
He can concentrate so long as Grarg doesn’t snore.

Like any sensible creature at this time of night,
The sleepy little dragon lies all tucked up in bed.
Yet even lightly dozing he has an appetite,
His tail a makeshift toasting fork for a slice of bread.

Jarly ponders the worn ancient, arcane pages,
He seeks to gain the book’s hidden knowledge,
Become as wise as wizards, warlocks and sages,
Even though he never went to college.

In his pursuit to be powerful and bold
He ponders rune and sigil and glyph.
The hot fire prevents him feeling the cold,
His nose doesn’t run, nor does it sniff.

He could use these spells to confound his foes,
But as the candlelight elegantly flickers,
He feels content; no need to tread on toes.
This doesn’t feel the time for taunts, sneers or snickers.

Any old idiot can be a thug, hooligan or bully,
He should try to soothe and try to help.
Roll away people’s troubles with a magic lever and pulley,
Not try to hurt them or make them yelp.

As he arrives at his big decision
Emotions, desires and thoughts all align,
Concepts more complex than long division.
Magic grows within him and begins to shine.

Twelve Days

My story, Ten Lords-a-Leaping, appears in the TWELVE DAYS audio anthology from Dark Fiction Magazine.

Jarly and Grarg

Character sketch by Dave Bezzina for a comic strip we're working on.

Catastrophia review

Tangent Online has just described my contribution to the Catastrophia anthology as "An out-there story with a completely unexpected ending."

I think that means they liked it.

HP Lovecraft -- Action Hero

Interesting piece on HP Lovecraft over at Matt Cardin's Teeming Brain focusing on HP's fantastical imagination rather than his reputation as a master of horror. Now I'm not overly familiar with Lovecraft's work and do tend to think of him as a cosmic horror tentacle-monsters purveying misery guts. So I was quite surprised when I read one of his Dunsany-inspired pieces earlier this year -- I forget the title offhand, the story involved something about going up a mountain -- as it showed his range was wider than I'd realised.

Something else I noticed in the last couple of Lovecraft stories I read -- Dreams in the Witch House and The Dunwich Horror -- was the way the climaxes veered into action-adventure territory. But in a very perfunctory way as though Lovecraft either didn't have the talent or the inclination to dwell on that side of things in any detail. So the hero might wrestle with a knife-wielding assailant or rush up a hill armed with an ancient spell to tackle a demonic entity or do something else that wouldn't look out of place in an episode of Buffy but that stuff will just get mentioned in passing. I think there's a similar thing in The Call of Cthulhu -- "Cthulhu's free! He'll lay waste to all before him, the word is doomed, we're all going to -- oh, he's gone."

Maybe it's just because I've been reading some Robert E Howard lately but it seems to me that in the cited stories at least, Lovecraft is more action-oriented, in a teasing kind of way, than he's given credit for. In fact, as I was saying to a Howard fan the other day, it seemed to me that Lovecraft was actually doing the kind of action scenes that Howard is famous for but Lovecraft, deliberately or otherwise, just didn't do it so well.

Just a thought. Probably completely wrong-headed and ill-informed but those are the thoughts that I tend to have the most often.

The Fall (and Rise) of the Mutants

I've been rereading some of my old X-Men comics written by Chris Claremont. Nostalgia heavily tints my reaction to his writing, I can easily overlook some of the clunkier dialogue and the way plot strands are started in X-Men but resolved in completely different comics or sometimes even forgotten altogether. But being as objective as possible I would say that for me a lot of his best work on the mutant superheroes is in the issues I've just reread: Uncanny X-Men #212-227. He still has the verbose dialogue and captions for which he's famous but here they're stripped down to their dramatic and poetic essence. The two-page description of a crashing jumbo jet that opens #215 is astounding, as is the tense, hallucinatory chase sequence that follows. And Claremont has a knack for nailing the heart and atmosphere of a new locale in a few well-chosen sentences, be it a New York nightclub, a Scottish pub or a New Mexico desert.

"Darlin', how can anyone be an X-Man and not be a romantic?" Wolverine
Emotion is what drives Claremont's writing, an unabashed romanticism. He makes us care about the characters, putting us inside their heads, letting us know them as well as we know ourselves before destroying their lives and breaking our hearts.

Some wounds are physical. Others spiritual. No less cruel. No less mortal.
Tragedy overwhelms the X-Men during this set of stories: Colossus spends most of the run paralysed, Nightcrawler lies in a coma and Kitty Pryde is being slowly killed by her own misfiring superpowers. Even those who escape physically unscathed have other problems to deal with: Wolverine has a breakdown, his rational side collapsing, leaving his animal instincts in ascendance. Dazzler frets that her former life as a pop star has left her pampered and weak, traits that could get herself and her teammates killed. Plus, there's the small matter of humanity hating mutants and wanting them dead.

"Every path, every option seems to end in blood." Storm
Storm has a particularly bad time of it. Stripped of her powers in an earlier storyline she continues to lead the X-Men against foes who could kill her with a flick of a finger. Grief-stricken over the injuries sustained by those under her command. Conflicted over her oath never to take a human life versus the increasing need for lethal force in order for the X-Men to survive. Shocked by the revelation that the only way to save the world from a mystical apocalypse is to kill the man she loves. Forget Halle Berry's anaemic portrayal in the X-Men films, here is Storm as she should be: a woman of great honour, dignity and passion.

"You ever wonder sometimes whether we even deserve to be saved?" Crimson Commando
Moral ambiguity lurks behind the drama and the pulse-pounding action scenes. A trio of superpowered vigilantes hunt criminals for kicks while rationalising it with talk of honour and Storm fears the only way she can stop them is to resorting to murder herself. Former criminals become government sponsored superheroes while the altruistic X-Men are branded outlaws. The X-Man Rogue is herself a former supervillain seeking redemption for past crimes including the attempted murder of her teammate Dazzler. Meanwhile many of the humans the X-Men save want them dead, baying for blood no matter what sacrifices the mutants make to save them.

"If we gotta go either way might as well make it mean something." Wolverine
But there is hope too, an idealism that may be battered and tarnished but never vanquished. The X-Men keep fighting, striving for equality and acceptance no matter what. Moral victiores are achieved -- Collosus and Kitty Pryde prevent a rampaging mob from killing an injured Nightcrawler not by blasting them with superpowers but by making them confront the immorality of their actions. On occasion humans even stand up for the X-Men, judging them by their actions not by the fact that they're mutants. Speeches abound, a Claremont speciality, imploring everyone to live in harmony.

"I beg your pardon. But don't you know it's impolite to shoot people?" Longshot
But it's not all moralising and speechifying. There's fun to be had as SF and fantasy blend together with the odd bit of horror thrown in for good measure. Humour and quirkiness sneaks in too with Dirty Harry and the Brigadier from Doctor Who making sly cameos. And when Dazzler tackles the unstoppable powerhouse Juggernaut he turns out to be a fan of her records and is more interested in getting her autograph than engaging in an epic super-battle.

So, classic superhero action. Superbly handled romance and drama. A plea for tolerance and an end to prejudice. Not to mention fantastic artwork from John Romita, Jr, Rick Leonardi, Barry Windsor-Smith, Alan Davis, Jackson Guice and Marc Silvestri.

No wonder I love Claremont's X-Men.

FantasyCon 2010

Everybody else in the universe seems to be doing a blog about FantasyCon so I suppose I'd better do one as well.

Friday

Arrived in Nottingham with my friends Pam Creais and Lilly Ibelo.

Went with Pam, Lilly and Mark West to an Italian restaurant around the corner. Lily and Mark were taken aback to find that the pizzas they ordered were only slightly smaller than the Isle of Wight.

FantasyCon quiz. The problem with the quiz these days is that only the real hardcore fans attend. The kind of people who can answer questions such as, "To the nearest footpound of pressure how strong did William Shatner's girdle need to be for Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Gut?" People like me who can barely spell K-9 don't stand much of a chance. Fortunately our team had Jay Eales and Selina Lock who could not only tell you the exact combination of sandworm excretions, water, sun and air needed to create melange but could also draw you a diagram of the molecular structure of each component. Just as well as Mark revealed a hitherto unsuspected competitive streak as he sat there muttering, "Don't let us come last. Don't let us come last." Finally the results came in aaaand ... we came last. It took the fire brigade three hours to talk Mark down off the top of the hotel.

Get Real panel. Bit disappointed with this one. The participants were eloquent and erudite but they all seemed to have been booked for the wrong panel. Instead of discussing the way real life issues impact on genre fiction the panel quickly digressed to talking about the writing process.

Consoled Gary Greenwood about Ryan Reynolds' costume in the upcoming Green Lantern film while non-comics fan Paul Meloy looked on in bemusement trying to work out what all the fuss was about.

Saturday

Visited Nottingham Castle and its museums. They had exhibits from the Russell Crowe Robin Hood film. Reminded me of Lord of the Rings but without the elves and magic.

Chatted with John B Ford who I haven't seen for ages. John published my first collection, Spare Parts, but don't hold that against him, he's a really nice bloke.

Catastrophia signing. I had to keep apologising to all the people who asked me to sign the book as my signature looks like that of an epileptic dyslexic writing while onboard a plane experiencing severe turbulence. Also, no one told me that photos would be taken of the contributors; I hate having my photo taken and my attempts at a casual, relaxed pose resembled someone about to have a circumcision without the aid of an anaesthetic.

Went for a curry with Pam, Lilly, Paul Meloy, Gary Greenwood, Gavin Williams and Roy Gray. Great food, great company. Funniest moment came when Pam casually asked, "So are you guys up for anything?" Turned out she was talking about the awards.

BFS award ceremony. My leg cramped up halfway through and I was sitting on the far side of the room from the exits so I couldn't just sneak out and shake off the muscles. By the end of the ceremony I was in agony. Consequently I wasn't giving the awards my full attention but there was much clapping and cheering so presumably everyone was happy with the results. Apart from the losers, obviously.

At the bar Paul Finch regaled a croup of awe-inspired listeners with tales of his time on the police force. Then I chatted with John Travis, Andrew Hook and Terry Grimwood about noir books and films; the pros and cons of The Mist (both the film and the novella); the way the media encourages unhealthy body images for women; and why, despite what Gary McMahon thinks, Cary Grant and James Stewart are great actors. John also became obsessed with figuring out as many sports as possible for decomposing zombies to play. And at some point Allyson Bird wandered over and discussed how men often ignore what women are saying. Or something like that, I wasn't really listening.

Sunday

Chatted with David Price and Gary Greenwood. Jonathan Oliver nearly fainted when I told him that I actually quite liked the latest series of Dr Who. Well, apart from the Daleks and Spitfires episode. Obviously.

Robert E Howard panel. Passionate and informative discussion of Howard's works that makes me long for a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Or maybe to just read some of Howard's books.

Got Ramsey Campbell to sign my copy of Night Visions. Yay! Failed to track down Lisa Tuttle to sign the same book. Boo!

Bryan Talbot slide show on the history of anthropomorphic animals in comics. Fascinating lecture.

Chatted to Bryan Talbot as he signed my copy of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. Think I avoided coming across as a total idiot. No small feat.

FantasyCon raffle. Hosted by the hilarious Guy Adams. I won a copy of Stephen Volk's multi-award nominated novella Vardoger which he graciously signed even though he knew I'd blagged it in the raffle rather than actually bought it.

Allen Ashley and Andrew Hook collared me for a photo of Catastrophia contributors. I was forewarned about the photo this time so I managed to dial down my look of discomfort from recipient of medieval circumcision to, "Christ, someone just gave me a wedgie!"

Then it was time to go home. Thanks to everyone at the Con: Simon Bestwick, Gary Couzens, Chris Teague, Carole Johnstone, Martin Roberts, Helen Hopley, Jenny Barber, Tim Lebbon, Adele Harrison, Nina Allen, Mick Curtis, Debbie Curtis, Gary MacMahon, Emily MacMahon, Gary Cole-Wilkin, Soozy Marjoram, Gary Fry, Lord and Lady Probert, Ray Russell, Gwilym Games, Trevor Denyer, Steve Upham and Stephen Bacon. And to everyone else who I've forgotten to mention.

And of course a special mention to London Underground and National Express who, thanks to their hard work and dedication, were able to turn a ten minute detour on my return journey into an extra hour of travelling time.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu

And so we bid a fond adieu to Quentin S Crisp as he continues on his blog tour. But as a farewell gift here's my first attempt at interviewing him from a few years back.

Quentin S Crisp

Right, here's a mini-interview I've conducted with Quentin S Crisp, author of The Nightmare Exhibition, Rule Dementia! and Shrike. Quentin's going to be loitering around the blog for the next week so if anyone has any questions they want to ask him about his writing or being short-listed for the Shirley Jackson Awards or his new book Remember You're a One-Ball! please do so via the comments function. This is to make the interview fun and exciting in a hi-tech interactive kind of way and not just an attempt to cover up the fact that I couldn't be bothered to ask Quentin any decent questions.

Let's start with the important stuff. Your name is Crisp. But if you actually were a crisp what flavour would you be?

There can be no question but that I would be Worcester sauce flavour.

Your new book is called Remember You're A One-Ball! Does this have anything to do with the legend surrounding Hitler's lunchbox? Or with WWI flying ace Albert Ball who, due to his tendency to spend his free time by himself, found himself nicknamed by his fellow pilots as Solitary Testicle?

Now you’ve gone and spoilt the plot.

Hitler makes a kind of cameo appearance in the book. Kind of. Albert Ball would probably find much resonance in the novel. I suppose I’ve become more sensitive in recent years to the whole notion of spoilers. I’m not sure I cared that much about them when I was younger. I feel like I want everything about the book to be a surprise to readers, if possible, but I suppose if one is going to publicise the damned thing then something must be said other than simply, “Read this book!” So, I can at least reveal that this book does involve testicular surgical intervention of a kind. And I’m sure that, knowing that, you’ll all rush to buy it.

Go on, tell us some more about the book. Spare no detail. What type of paper is it printed on? What font was used, Times New Roman or Dutch Courier?

I think the typeface might be Palatino, but I wouldn’t swear to it. The design for the book was undertaken by Bigeyebrow, in consultation with Chômu Press. I think it looks very striking and unusual.

Someone told me recently that the book is a bildungsroman, and I decided this was a great way to describe it. Just add the epithet ‘macabre’ or perhaps ‘grotesque’, and you have a reasonable sound-bitey description: macabre bildungsroman/grotesque bildungsroman.

I really feel that this novel is a kind of definitive statement for me about certain aspects of my experience of existence, and it seems unlikely that I’ll need to cover the same area again. Having said that, they do say that most writers basically have one story that they write over and over again. I think I have at least two, but I may be wrong. “Remember You’re a One-Ball!” seems to go pretty much as far as I can go in following certain preoccupations of mine, but I suppose psychoanalysts might decide I was still writing the same story even after I’ve moved away from traumatised schoolboys with intimate injuries and passed on to depicting Utopian futures of holographic animism and the parasexuality of invertebrate aliens.

You write in a genre you call demented fiction. But doesn't that name apply to everything that Terry Pratchett has written since developing Alzheimer's? (This joke courtesy of Jonathan Ross's and Russell Brand's book How To Disguise The Fact That You're Not Actually Funny By Insulting A National Treasure.)

I realise that I’m using the word ‘demented’ in an inaccurate way from a medical point of view. People have asked me about this, taking it rather seriously, and I can see that you’re taking it a little too seriously yourself, but the term ‘demented fiction’ is really just something I made up. If dementia ‘goes viral’ at some point, that would be gratifying, but my invention of the term was really just my way of saying, “Girl Power!”

Finally, as an old school Dr Who fan what would you say if the BBC asked you to not only write the next series but also to star as The Doctor? But the entire series has to be done as a musical. Co-starring John Barrowman. And Bonnie Langford.

I’d say, “When do I start?”!
…

… Can you put a word in for me?

Video interview

Me making a twat of myself in my first ever video interview

And despite what the video description says I won a British Fantasy Award not a Stoker.

Don't work harder, work smarter

My copy of Where the Heart Is arrived yesterday. Just got to tear out all the stories by the other contributors so I can tell people that my story is the best in the book.

Where the Heart Is

I've got a story in
Where the Heart Is
But don't let that put you off, there's loads of other authors in there as well.

Here's what the publisher, Gray Friar Press, says about the book:

Take an alternative tour of Great Britain . . .

Writers are often told to write about what they know best . . . and what do they know better than their own homes? In this anthology, 19 fine authors of dark fiction reveal some of the less palatable elements of their native environments.

There's blood where the heart is.

Much blood.

So it's kind of like Bill Bryson. If he wrote horror. And if there were 19 of him.