Tales of Cotswolds terror - ready to order!

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the next volume in my new series of 'regional' horror anthologies, TERROR TALES OF THE COTSWOLDS is now available to pre-order direct from its publisher, GRAY FRIAR PRESS, to be unleashed on the world next month.

Hopefully those who enjoyed the first volume in this series, TERROR TALES OF THE LAKE DISTRICT, will need no further convincing, but for those who haven't yet read that one, and for those who don't know the UK too well, this anthology will concentrate on the Cotswolds, a beautiful, serene and very rural area of south-central England, which also happens to be steeped in folklore and mythology and has a very brutal history (stretching from the Roman invasion of Britain right through to the fearsome events of the English Civil War). But hey, why don't I just shut my mouth and let the back cover blurb do the talking ...

The Cotswolds – land of green fields, manor houses and thatched-roof villages, where the screams of ancient massacres linger in the leafy woods, faeries weave sadistic spells, and pagan gods stir beneath the moonlit hills …

The flesh-eating fiend of St. John’s
The vengeful spirit of Little Lawford
The satanic murders at Meon Hill
The ghastly mutilation at Wychavon
The demon dancers of Warwick
The cannibal feast at Alvington
The twisted revenant of Stratford-upon-Avon

And many more chilling tales by Ramsey Campbell, Simon Clark, Alison Littlewood, Reggie Oliver, Joel Lane and other award-winning masters and mistresses of the macabre.

The book contains 12 works of original horror fiction set in the Cotswolds, and two classic reprints. It also features numerous anecdotal tales concerning supposedly true incidents of Cotswold terror.

In case your appetites haven’t been whetted enough, here is the full table of contents:

In the Dark And In the Quiet by Alison Littlewood
Fury From Beyond
Straw Babies by Gary McMahon
A Bizarre And Terrible Event
Charm by Reggie Oliver
The Grimmest Castle In England
Hoxlip And After by Christopher Harman
The Undead Who Wander The Wye
The Shakespeare Curse by Simon Clark
Oxford’s Black Assize
The Scouring by Thana Niveau
The Cannibal Feast
Wassailing by Steve Lockley
Bloodbath Under A Spectral Sun
The Silent Dance by Joel Lane
What Walks In Ettington Park?
Waiting For Nicky by Antonia James
The Satanic Slayings at Meon Hill
The Horror Under Warrendown by Ramsey Campbell
Worcester’s Most Odious Relic
The Lurker by Gary Fry
The Beast Of St John’s
The Cotswold Olimpicks by Simon Kurt Unsworth
God’s Dire Warning
A Taste of Honey, A Horror Of Stone by John Llewellyn Probert
Lovell’s Long Wait
Bog Man by Paul Finch

Once again, I wholeheartedly thank these authors for their efforts, not to mention Steve Upham, whose artwork adds a new dimension to any project he's connected with, and Gary Fry of Gray Friar Press, without whom none of this would have been possible. (As a footnote, the book will be also be available from most good online retailers, AMAZON UK and AMAZON US for example, in a few weeks' time).

Well, what are you all waiting for ... enjoy!

AFTER the chill horror comes the SHOCK

More ebook news now for those keen to join the electronic reading revolution.

My first published collection of short stories, AFTER SHOCKS - which came out from ASH-TREE PRESS way back in 2001, and subsequently went on to win the British Fantasy Award in 2002 for 'Best Collection' - is now available on Kindle (courtesy of ASH-TREE EBOOKS), and may either be purchased at AMAZON UK or AMAZON US for the bargain basement prices of £3.92 and $6.79 respectively.

I'm absolutely delighted that AFTER SHOCKS will now live again. Partly because it's been out of print for so long - several readers have contacted me in recent times while seeking a copy, and I haven't been able to assist - but also because it neatly represents what I consider to be my first wave of supernatural and fantastical writing.

Though I was already classed as a professional writer back then, in the distant candle-lit years of the 1990s, my efforts were primarily in TV. Running parallel to this, though, was my interest in short fiction - particularly short fiction of the spooky variety - for which there were very few outlets save those in the independent press.

Titles like ALL HALLOWS, THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE, GHOSTS & SCHOLARS, KIMOTA, PEEPING TOM, TERROR TALES, NASTY PIECE OF WORK, ROADWORKS, UNREAL DREAMS, STRIX, etc - and many others too numerous to mention (all the product of literary folk whose imaginative work within the genre was matched only by their determination to keep it going despite the lack of interest shown at the time by the mass-market) comprised the main horror and fantasy magazines wherein I first honed my skills as a teller of short stories and novellas.

I owe a lot to the many editors I worked with back then, not to mention those fellow writers who followed that same route at roughly the same time (many of whom went on to have great careers of their own, of course).

I particularly owe a lot to Chris and Barbara Roden of ASH-TREE PRESS, who thought so much of my work that they voluntarily showcased it in the beautiful hardbacked tome that was the original AFTER SHOCKS. Now that they're showcasing it again in this electronic version, I owe them doubly as it may entice a whole new generation of readers.

The book contains 18 short stroies, some of them originals and some of them reprints. Its full TOC is pasted in below, but I've interrupted the list here and there to include a couple of choice extracts, which hopefully will whet people's appetites to read more.

AFTER SHOCKS

The Knock At The Cellar Door
The After Shock ... he was clad in dark, badly stained overalls and was massive of build, with huge shoulders and great forearms covered in oil and coal-dust. He was also wreathed in black smoke, which seemed to be streaming up around him, so his face was hidden, but I didn't need to see it to know that he was peering directly at me and in no friendly way ...
Devils Of Lakeland
The Magic Lantern Show
The Wolfman’s House
Eleanor’s Garden
A Night on Dragon Rock
February
Teresa’s Torment
To The Castle
The Altar
August
The Hotel On The Borderland ... beneath the visage of this feral monster, there lay another kind of fiend. One he was far more familiar with; one whose preferred hunting ground was the urban wasteland rather than the marsh, the tenements and alleyways rather than the forest; whose weapons were bombs and bullets rather than claws and teeth. Yet all that, it seemed, had changed ...
The Punch And Judy Man
September
The Dandy Dogs
Enemy Ours
The Fimbulwinter

Get hold of MEDI EVIL 1 absolutely FREE!

For anyone who hasn’t yet read any of my MEDI-EVIL historical horror and fantasy trilogy, released on ebook last April, and is strongly tempted to go for it – now would be the time.

MEDI-EVIL 1 is on promotion this weekend, on Kindle. That means you can download it absolutely FREE OF CHARGE for two days: today (Saturday) and Sunday.

In case you need further temptation, MEDI-EVIL 1 contains three novellas of our turbulent past.

In the first, THE BLOOD MONTH, two Viking brothers, recently converted to Christianity, flee the vengeance of their king and take refuge with their aged uncle in a remote corner of northern Greenland. Unfortunately, they arrive during morketiden, when the midwinter sun never rises, and find a long-hall and village under siege by a terrible something, which moves faceless and silent through the darkness and the frozen mist, and one by one, is killing people in the most personal and hideous ways …

In the second, FLIBBERTIGIBBET, we travel back to the chaotic days of Elizabethan London, where guilt-stricken secret agent Robert Urmston is brought out of voluntary retirement – not to catch heretics or spies of the Spanish king – but to track down a new kind of enemy, an unknown maniac who is terrorising the teeming slums south of the River Thames with a series of ghastly, ritualistic murders, which have the potential to bring down the entire government of England …

In the third, THE GODS OF GREEN AND GREY, a young Roman officer takes a small cohort of men into the misty and unexplored swamps of eastern Britain, and there commences to build a series of bridges. Very quickly, however, he and his troop find themselves under attack – not from local tribesmen or dangerous animals, but from a family of cannibalistic ogres, who are determined to ensure that knowledge of their existence is not taken back to civilisation …

If you fancy picking up a copy of this ebook – absolutely FREE – call in at AMAZON UK or AMAZON US and download it right now. Remember, the offer runs out at the end of tomorrow (Sunday, Feb 12th).

As a mark of its quality, MEDI-EVIL 1 is currently positioned 14th in the ‘Kindle Fantasy and Historical’ section and is in the top 100 for ‘Kindle Horror’.

The Devil's work is never competely done

Just time for a few unrelated bits and pieces this week, as I'll shortly be off to the SFX Weekender in Prestatyn, where I'll be sitting on a panel or two, and signing anything anyone cares to put in front of me.

First of all, we are slowly but surely moving up through the gears with our sequel to THE DEVIL’S ROCK. The above shot was taken in my living room last week, where I spent a couple of days with director Paul Campion (also pictured) as we thrashed out the final storyline for the sequel.

I can't give too much away, but as I said, there'll be more Nazis, more demons and many more grisly deaths.

The image on the right, meanwhile, accompanied a recent American review of the original film - the Wolfman writing on THE WOLFMAN COMETH - who opened his assessment in that pleasingly straight-to-the-point American way, with:

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! How can anyone, ANYONE, see this poster and not want to fucking see it? THIS LOOKS INSANE. Lady with sharp teeth. Nazis. Not much clothing. Blood. Brass knuckle/stabby knife combo thingy. The word 'DEVIL' in the title. I had to fucking see it!"

Yep, that's pretty much the kind of enthusiasm we'll be seeking to evoke with the second film. Meanwhile, in another review, Rob Morrish, columnist at legendary US horror mag, CEMETERY DANCE, has now given us his views regarding KING DEATH, and most generous he is in them.

Writing about the book on his TWILIGHT RIDGE blog, he describes the tale as "a picture-perfect period piece of historical horror set during the time of Europe’s Black Plague", adding that it is "both atmospheric and authentic, a rewarding exercise in medieval madness".


Still on the subject of KING DEATH, I've now received a copy of the cover for Paula Guran's YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR, 2012, in which it will be appearing.

Check it out left.

As I say, folks, it's just a quick one this week. However, to whet your appetites for future installments, work on TERROR TALES OF THE COTSWOLDS has progressed much more quickly than was anticipated. Definitely watch this space for forthcoming announcements on that project. And shortly before I put this post to bed, I received some very interesting news regarding my back-catalogue of ASH-TREE PRESS books - hopefully I've have more to tell you about that next time.

Pestilence of the past, plague of the future

I’m very chuffed to announce that KING DEATH – my story published in stand-alone chapbook form by SPECTRAL PRESS at the end of last year – has been selected for the next edition of Paula Guran’s annual YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR anthology, to be published later in 2012 (pictured left is the 2011 volume).

There’s no point my going into any more detail about KING DEATH here as I’ve blogged about it frequently in the past, except to say that it’s a tale of real-world horror – in the form of the medieval Black Death, meeting fantastical horror – in the form of … well, if you haven’t already read the chapbook, I guess you’ll just have to read Paula’s anthology and find out for yourself, won’t you?

But I’m very pleased for various reasons over this, not least because it’s something of a feather in the cap for Simon Marshall-Jones’s SPECTRAL PRESS , the relatively new and self-styled publishing outfit, who had sufficient faith in KING DEATH to release it last December.

In fact, the YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR will be something of a double-whammy for Simon and his team this year, as another of the authors who’ll be appearing in its line-up, Angela Slatter, will also soon be writing for SPECTRAL PRESS .

It’s always nice to see people’s efforts get deserved recognition, and the efforts of guys like Simon Marshall-Jones are still the lifeblood of the horror/dark fantasy genre in my opinion. Anyway, here’s the full table of contents, from which it’s pretty plain to see that we’re in good company:

Hair by Joan Aiken
Rakshashi by Kelley Armstrong
Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin by Adam Callaway
The Lake by Tananarive Due
Tell Me I’ll See You Again by Dennis Etchison
King Death by Paul Finch
The Last Triangle by Jeffrey Ford
Near Zennor by Elizabeth Hand
Crossroads by Laura Anne Gilman
After-Words by Glen Hirshberg
Rocket Man by Stephen Graham Jones
The Maltese Unicorn by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Catastrophic Disruption of the Head by Margo Lanagan
The Bleeding Shadow by Joe R. Lansdale
Why Light? by Tanith Lee
Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee
A Tangle of Green Men by Charles de Lint
After the Apocalypse by Maureen McHugh
Lord Dunsany’s Teapot by Naomi Novik
Mysteries of the Old Quarter by Paul Park
Vampire Lake by Norman Partridge
A Journey of Only Two Paces by Tim Powers
Four Legs in the Morning by Norman Prentiss
The Fox Maiden by Priya Sharma
Time and Tide by Alan Peter Ryan
Sun Falls by Angela Slatter
Still by Tia V. Travis
Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear by Lisa Tuttle
The Bread We Eat in Dreams by Catherynne M. Valente
All You Can Do Is Breathe by Kaaron Warren
Josh by Gene Wolfe

And now for something completely different … from the plague-ravaged rural wastelands of 14th century England, to the rationing-ravaged urban wastelands of 1950/1960s London.


It gives me great pleasure to finally reveal that I’ve written one of the pilot-episodes for a new DR WHO spin-off series, COUNTER-MEASURES, the first four episodes of which will be released in a CD box-set from BIG FINISH this coming July.

This series is set just after the classic 7th Doctor serial REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS, and concerns the formation of a special counter-intelligence group, whose job it will be to tackle strange phenomena and dangerous technology.

The elite scientific/military unit (who will actually be a forerunner of the official UNIT of a decade later) is comprised of several characters whom Who fans will instantly recognise from REMEMBRANCE, including Doctor Rachel Jensen, Group Captain Ian Gilmore and Doctor Allison Williams, all played by the same actors who portrayed them on television back in 1988: Pamela Salem, Simon Williams and Karen Gledhill.

My episode is the opening one, and is entitled THRESHOLD. It concerns ghostly activity in a Bermondsey warehouse, which leads to the disappearance of a leading scientist and the discovery of a science which should not exist.

Following this comes Matt Fitton’s ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, an investigation into a mysterious suicide and the uncovering of a devastating new weapon; Ian Potter’s THE PELAGE PROJECT, which tells the tale of a pollution crisis, at the heart of which lies something even more sinister; and Justin Richards’s STATE OF EMERGENCY, which features intruders from another dimension and treachery in the halls of Westminster

For those who think there might be a kind of Quatermass vibe going on here, you’re essentially right. This is definitely Britain of the Cold War, a black-and-white, bombsite-strewn landscape, with fear and paranoia abounding at every level of society: reds under the bed, flying discs, nuclear power, science out of control, etc.

But above all, it’s reminiscent of early DR WHO. Think of those evocative names – Totter’s Lane, Coal Hill School – and I surely need say no more.

How will you be able to resist it?

War, death, damnation and hanging guts!

I don’t get much opportunity to write short stories these days – time just doesn’t seem to allow it – so it’s always nice to be able to bring readers of this column a little bit of short story news. I was more than happy to be told this week that my festive horror story, THE CHRISTMAS TOYS, will gain its debut publication in the first SCREAMING BOOK OF HORROR (pictured left), due out next autumn from SCREAMING DREAMS PRESS.

This anthology will be the work of tireless editor Johnny Mains, who also happens to be an enthusiastic and skilled researcher in the dusty annals of this genre. I'm even prouder to be appearing in this book as, thanks to Johnny’s enviable ability to root out lost classics, I’ll be appearing alongside a previously unpublished tale by sci-fi legend John Brunner (1934 To 1995).

Here is the TOC for SCREAMING BOOK OF HORROR as it currently stands, though Johnny has advised me that it isn’t complete just yet.

One Of The Family – Bernard Taylor
Larva – John Brunner
Glory And Splendour – Alex Miles
What Shall We Do About Barker? – Reggie Oliver
Cut! – Anna Taborska
Old Grudge Ender – David A. Riley
The Christmas Toys – Paul Finch
The Quixote Candidate – Rhys Hughes
Helping Mummy – Kate Farrell
The Iron Cross – Craig Herby
The Baby Trap – Janine Wood
The Club – Sarah Brunsdon
Sometimes You Think You Are Alone – Alison Moore
The Tip Run – Johnny Mains

Back to the movie world now, and my fascination to learn that THE DEVIL’S ROCK, which will be the subject of a special feature in FANGORIA next month, was named by the TOP10LISTMOVIES website as being in the top ten war films of 2011.

I’m gratified of course, but I’m also surprised. Though set during World War Two, THE DEVIL’S ROCK is first and foremost an occult horror movie, with a strong emphasis on demonic fantasy. Possibly its realistic setting did it for the voters: the Channel Islands on the eve of D-Day, the grim bunker tunnels, the well documented Nazi quest to find and utilise unearthly weapons. Alternatively, perhaps it’s just a case that we don’t make too many straightforward war movies these days. Which is an even bigger mystery, if you ask me – because we make an awful lot of war.


On the subject of THE DEVIL’S ROCK, some rather nice new pix have come my way. The first one (right) ought to have you laughing, and maybe puking at the same time. It was taken on set during the actual shoot, and depicts make-up artist Dara Wakeley assessing Karlos Drinkwater on screen, oblivious to the dangling intestines all around her. But then it's a tough industry. You get hardened to that kind of thing.

This second shot has been inserted for more gratuitous reasons. I get an awful lot of hits on this blog from folk who are simply looking for images of Gina Varela, the ever-alluring star of the film. So here's another one, our lovely demoness accepting the accolades at the San Sebaastian International Film Festival in Spain.

The 'Black Wolf of the North' is unleashed

Here at last is the finished cover art for DARK NORTH, my next novel, which is due out from Abaddon Books in March this year.

As part of the Knights Of Albion series, DARK NORTH tells the tale of Sir Lucan, the infamous ‘Black Wolf of the North’, who held King Arthur’s northern frontier against the Celtic armies of Rheged and the Pictish hordes of Alba.

Forged in battle from his earliest days, Lucan was one of the most difficult characters for Arthur to manage at his Round Table, combining knightly beliefs and skills with a vengeful nature and innate ferocity, which made him almost unstoppable on the battlefield and a dominant warlord in the wintry wilds of northern Britain. Only the constant presence of good people – his older brother, Sir Bedivere, his idealistic squire, Alaric, King Arthur himself, and more important than any of these, his beautiful wife, Trelawna – kept Lucan on the chivalrous straight and narrow. In times of peace, he became as good a lord to his tenants and as loyal a subject to his king as anyone could ask for. But in times of war, a more sinister personality would emerge.

What then could Arthur’s court expect when a war to end all wars was suddenly declared on Camelot and its allies? When an army more colossal than any previously seen in Dark Age Europe was massed across the Channel, its intent to invade Britain and wipe out every last vestige of the Arthurian renaissance?

In Le Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Malory (1405-1471) writes tantalisingly about an attempt to reconquer Britain by the newly reinvigorated Roman Empire. Few real details are given, but he hints at prolonged and torturous campaigns, epic battles and astonishing death-tolls – he describes a war comparable with modern wars in terms of the numbers involved and the destruction wreaked. He talks of Albion (pre-Saxon England) as a nation-state suddenly battling for its very existence.

This is the backdrop to DARK NORTH. This is the theatre in which the Black Wolf of the North must finally come of age as a warrior and a man – because for Lucan there will be a war within this war.

Not long before Rome’s intentions are made clear, his beloved wife, finally seeking a better life than that she has known in Lucan’s rugged castle at Penharrow, absconds with a young Roman officer. Lucan thus answers his monarch’s call to arms with angry delight. For him, the coming battle, with all its resulting slaughter and devastation, will be very, very personal … but there are other forces at work here, not least the fearsome Malconi clan, to whom Trelawna has unwittingly attached herself: a ancient Roman dynasty with the power to raise demons!