I’m delighted and flattered to report that I have a number of my published works from last year on the official ‘long list’ for the British Fantasy Awards in 2011.
These will now be voted on by the membership of the British Fantasy Society, and a shortlist of final nominees will be drawn up in time for the award ceremony at FantasyCon in Brighton next September.
They are, in no particular order (and apologies if I’m repeating myself in these thumbnail synopses, but it’s for the newcomers, ya know - so please bear with me on that):
In the capacity of Best Novella …
Sparrowhawk – published as an independent title by Pendragon Press.
In the 1840s, an embittered Afghan War veteran is released from the debtor’s prison by a beautiful and mysterious woman, and hired to stand guard over a house in Bloomsbury for duration of the Christmas period. An unnatural cold then descends on London, and a deadly supernatural entity emerges from the frozen mist …
The Tatterfoal – published in One Monster Is Not Enough by Gray Friar Press
The son of a pop star who disappeared back in the 1980s is invited to a ‘Resurrection Party’ in the home of his estranged step-mother. He doesn’t want to go, not least because the house occupies a bleak fog-bound moor where legends persist that a weird and murderous man-horse stalks the night …
Walkers In The Dark – published in Walkers In The Dark by Ash-Tree Press
Students excavate for Viking gold in the bowels of a derelict monastery in a part of town now overrun by gangsters and drug-addicts. But the lowlives they inevitably meet in this dangerous urban jungle are nothing in comparison to the demonic forces they are about to unleash from the pagan past …
In the capacity of Best Short Fiction …
The Doom – published in The Black Book of Horror #6
A medieval mural depicting the horrors of Hell is uncovered in an old church, and soon starts to attract the wrong kind of interest …
Fathoms Green And Noisome – published in One Monster Is Not Enough
Cryptozoologists investigate a Welsh lake which is reputedly bottomless and the home of an indescribable creature. But a greater danger lies much closer to home …
The Green Bath – published in The Black Book of Horror #7
A sexually active couple hire a Cornish cottage for the week, but the husband soon finds himself besotted by the almost impossibly alluring lady next door …
In the capacity of Best Collection …
One Monster Is Not Enough – published by Gray Friar Press
Walkers In The Dark – published by Ash-Tree Press
I’m also proud to have had stories published in the following horror anthologies, which have been listed in the capacity of Best Anthology: The Black Book of Horror #6; The Black Book of Horror #7; Where The Heart Is; Zombie Apocalypse.
But of course it’s not just about me (which you could easily be forgiven for thinking with the way I sometimes go on). The full ‘long list’ contains many other works by friends and rivals of mine inside the genre. To check it out in its entirety, go to:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEhyMFVVZ3JzTUh4S0JKM2JxYzdQY3c6MQ#gid=0
On a completely different subject, but as a treat, I’m illustrating this post with Paul Mudie's cover art for The Black Book of Horror #8, which will be published in the near future (alas, I can’t give you an exact date). It portrays a pile of severed heads, each one belonging to one of the contributing authors. Yours truly is located in the bottom right-hand corner. But I wonder how many other wordsmiths of woe you can spot?
As far as readers like us are concerned, you are always in the "short-list" of 'books for essential purchases' and 'stories for essential reading'. Now that you have deservedly found your place in the BFS long-list, and definitely expected to go up higher in the longer run, I raise a toast to all of us, the readers and admirers of your fiction!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for those generous words, Riju.
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