The Mask Behind the Face competition

Chris Teague has just informed me of this competition over at the Pendragon Press site:

Ten copies of Stuart Young's The Mask Behind the Face up for grabs if you can answer the following question: who wrote the introduction to this collection?
First ten folk to join the Pendragon mailing list by this Friday and confirm their answer via email to chris at pendragonpress dot net will receive a copy – unfortunately, I'll have to invoice folk from overseas postage costs.

The  book was short-listed for a British Fantasy Award for Best Collection and the title story won Best Novella.

THHHB review

Rather spiffing review of The Mask Behind the Face at The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog courtesy of Gary Swindley.

Posting about a poster

Just been informed that the first person to buy a copy of the British Fantasy Award-winning The Mask Behind the Face wins a free poster of the cover signed by me, cover artist Ben Baldwin and Pendragon Press head honcho Chris Teague.

The Mask Behind the Face WHC edition

Just had it confirmed that there will be a special limited edition of my British Fantasy Award winning novella, The Mask Behind the Face, on sale at the World Horror Convention 2010.

This edition comes with a new cover quote from legendary horror author T.E.D Klein. "Wow, what an impressive story ... ambitious, in fact downright audacious"

This goes along with the previous quotes from bestselling novelists Mark Chadbourn and Brian Keene so I'm a litle bit chuffed right now.

All Hail the New Madness

Keep forgetting to mention that Simon Strantzas made some nice comments about Mask recently.

As well as praising Mask he's also a comics fan. Obviously a man of good taste.

Fucking Hell!

The title of this post quickly became my catchphrase on Sunday because that was the reply I gave every time someone asked me how I felt about winning the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.

That's right -- I won!

No, I don't know how it happened either. Presumably a whole bunch of people forgot to vote for the other nominees and are now kicking themselves.

The whole thing was a total shock. Leading up to the awards people kept asking me if I was getting nervous and I kept saying, "There's no point me getting nervous, I know I don't stand a chance of winning."

Even as the envelope containing the winner's name was torn open I was thinking, "Thank God, I haven't won because now I don't have to give a speech and make a twat of myself."

And then I won. And had to ad-lib a speech. In front of a couple of hundred people. Whilst being filmed.

Which pretty much explains why the speech started like this:

"Um...

"Um...

"Um...

"Well, that's the skilful way with words that allowed me to write this novella..."

The speech kind of went downhill from there.

Anyway, I was planning to write about FantasyCon in more detail but I have pretty much bugger all free time this week so I'll take the lazy option and point you towards Chris Teague's FantasyCon report instead.

BFS Shortlists 2006

Just in case anyone's interested here's the shortlists for the BFS Awards. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order and when there's more than five nominees you know at least two of the runners-up have received an equal number of votes.

Best Novel
Ramsey Campbell, SECRET STORIES
Mark Chadbourn, THE HOUNDS OF AVALON
Hal Duncan, VELLUM: THE BOOK OF ALL HOURS 1
Neil Gaiman, ANANSI BOYS
George R. R. Martin, A FEAST FOR CROWS
Mark Morris, NOWHERE NEAR AN ANGEL


Best Novella
Guy Adams, DEADBEAT
Jeffrey Ford, THE COSMOLOGY OF THE WIDER WORLD
Joe Hill, VOLUNTARY COMMITTAL
Paul Kane, SIGNS OF LIFE
Paul Meloy, DYING IN THE ARMS OF JEAN HARLOW (THE
COMING OF THE AUTOSCOPES)
Sean Wright, DARK TALES OF SPACE AND TIME
Stuart Young, THE MASK BEHIND THE FACE

Best Anthology
Allen Ashley, THE ELASTIC BOOK OF NUMBERS
Peter Crowther, FOURBODINGS
Gary Fry, POE’S PROGENY
Stephen Jones, MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR 16
Stephen Jones, DON’T TURN OUT THE LIGHT


Best Collection
Leigh Brackett, SEA-KINGS OF MARS & OTHER WORLDLY STORIES
Simon Clark, HOTEL MIDNIGHT
Joe Hill, 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS
Andrew Hook, BEYOND EACH BLUE HORIZON
Tim Lees, THE LIFE TO COME
Stuart Young, THE MASK BEHIND THE FACE AND OTHER STORIES

Best Short Fiction
Ramsey Campbell, JUST BEHIND YOU
Joe Hill, BEST NEW HORROR
Paul Kane, HOMELAND
John Lucas, APPROACHING ZERO
Will McIntosh, SOFT APOCALYPSE
Marie O’Regan, CAN YOU SEE ME?
Sean Wright, THE NUMBERIST

Best Artist
Clive Barker
Randy Broecker
Les Edwards
Dominic Harman
Richard Marchand
Robert Sammelin

Best Small Press
Andy Cox, TTA PRESS
Peter Crowther, PS PUBLISHING
Andrew Hook, ELASTIC PRESS
D. F. Lewis, NEMONYMOUS
Christopher Teague, PENDRAGON PRESS

Somebody Pinch Me

God knows how this has happened but somehow I've managed to make the shortlist for two categories in the British Fantasy Awards. I'm up for Best Novella and Best Collection. Both nominations are for works entitled The Mask Behind the Face.

I think I need a lie-down.