Everyone okay? Just a brief post to mention I've been interviewed about The Other Room by Darcia Helle on her A Word Please site - you can read it here.

The interview contains the words: 'inertia', 'abomination', 'curry', 'George Osborne' (sorry) and 'stuntman', among others, although not unfortunately in the same sentence.

Review: The Faceless by Simon Bestwick

Having dabbled with a few of his short stories, The Faceless is the first complete Simon Bestwick book I’ve read. And, like the whisky I'm drinking while writing this, it sure hits hard. 

The book seems to me to be divided into three acts, and it’s almost impossible to guess how it will end from its measured, creepy start. It initially reads like Ramsey Campbell transplanted from Merseyside streets to small town Lancashire. In this 'act' the three principle characters are introduced, as well as the setting: the town of Kempworth, which is subject to a spate of disappearing and sightings of the mysterious ‘Spindley Men’. 

The second 'act' tells of a police raid on the abandoned psychiatric hospital Ash Fell and it ups the action and the tension; and the third... well, that would be telling. Suffice to say, the scope of the tale has expanded dramatically. This three act structure allows Bestwick to show off his adept handling of differing styles of horror – from the creeping paranoia at the start, to the full-blown, panoramic terror of the final scenes. 

The modern-day setting dovetails with a story of the past come back to haunt us – specifically WW1. One of the book’s real triumphs is the way it shows how the effects of this conflict lingered long after 1918, particularly for those areas of Britain where the local men had all been recruited into ‘Pals battalions' - men conscripted from the same area, with the promise they'd be able to fight alongside their neighbours. The idea was to increase moral, but where a Pals Battalion suffered heavy losses it could result in local communities where almost an entire generation of their men-folk were wiped out or injured in a single battle… But Bestwick doesn’t idealise WW1 soldiers as others might; while recognising the enormity of their sacrifice he recognises, also, that the Pals of WW1 were no saints by today’s standards, and were motivated by bloodlust and jingoism as much as protecting our freedoms... And The Faceless also dares imagine that, looking at our liberal land today, those soldiers might feel their sacrifice was not worth it…

This review only scratches the surface; there’s a lot going on here. Suffice to say this is a belter of a novel, aware of the genre’s traditions but original and unique. The local detail and dialogue of the “bastard North” is done well without over-doing it, and the book certainly doesn't shy away depicting horrors both supernatural and realistic. It’s safe to say the ending is bravely uncompromising as well: fitting, but hardly uplifting. Looks like Bestwick is one to watch...

Strange Stories #17: THYXXOLQU by Mark Samuels

Strange Story #17: THYXXOLQU 
Author: Mark Samuels
Collected In: The Man Who Collected Machen & Other Weird Tales



“Please,” she said, “let’s not jhjkzz, there’s no juxxchu fzzzghal..."

We don't really stop and think about words very much, do we? Which is odd because we rely on them to think about everything else. We rely on them so much it would be pretty scary if words went wrong... which might sound ridiculous, but is it really any more a ridiculous concept than others in horror fiction: more unlikely than ghosts? less plausible than vampires?

Of course writers have extra special reasons to be wary of words; I've written about how the loss of words might lead to the loss of self in my story A Writer's Words; my fellow Abominable Gentlemen Alan Ryker's story The New Words deals with the same theme but showing the external fall of society (it's my favourite story of his). And those two examples illustrate an important point: words are both internal and external to us; they are the bridge between inside and outside.

The author Mark Samuels seems drawn to the theme too; his excellent collection The Man Who Collected Machen & Other Weird Tales from Chomu Press contains the stories A Contaminated Text and the utterly captivating and disorientating THYXXOLQU.

The story starts with a character called Barclay on his daily commute, observing some writing on a billboard that he can't read:


...the characters were not in Western, Arabic, Cyrillic, Mandarin, Japanese nor any other type of alphabet that he recognised... Although he didn't recognise the language, it seemed somehow distantly familiar...

The unknown languages preys on Barclay's mind all day; and also his ability to concentrate on correspondence in English and other languages appears to weaken. His attempts to find out about the unknown language prove futile. The next day he sees it in a newspaper article and on a T-shirt worn by a colleague... which he claims to have bought in a country called 'Qxwthyyothl' whose native language is 'Thyxxolqus'

Barclay continues to research the language, finding somewhat disturbing references in De Quincey. But this is no ordinary language, and Barclay starts to see and hear it more and more, replacing English and other languages. He also starts to see more and more people with decayed mouths full of rotten teeth...

The invading language is explicitly compared to Samuels to an infectious disease, one which has disturbing physical manifestations:


...the mouths of the patients listening were the same; like a soggy hole in a crumpled sheet of paper...

This mingling of body-horror revulsion and the metaphysical horror of the 'new words' of Thyxxolqus is one of the real triumphs of Samuels' story; another is the way that everyday sayings come to have double meanings: "let's find somewhere we can talk".

I won't reveal any more of the story, but suffice to say that the final scene is a dizzying one set in the British Library (where else?)

Intelligent, scary, and profound, THYXXOLQU is a stunning example of a 'strange story'. It alone it would make Samuels one of my favourite authors, and I look jhjkzz to reading more of his fzzzghal in jkzz hjkfffhj.


Next Time: Strange Stories #18:  Objects In Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear by Lisa Tuttle

Weird Tales; PD on Smashwords; BIG Skeleton

Book Review: The Modern Weird Tale by S.T. Joshi

I do enjoy books about the theory of horror fiction, particularly those that focus on newer authors - most academic textbooks are slanted towards older, 'gothic' works. There are few books around which deal with modern horror in an intellectually robust way, but S.T. Joshi's are among the best of those that do.

The Modern Weird Tale is the follow up to The Weird Tale and The Evolution of the Weird Tale, and it is mainly concerned with authors from Shirley Jackson onwards. Joshi basically groups the writers into two camps - those he likes (people like Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, and TED Klein) and those he doesn't (mainly 'bestseller' authors such as King, Anne Rice etc.) There are also some writers discussed that it is downright odd to classify as 'weird' - Thomas Harris?

The main flaws in the book show when Joshi discusses writers he doesn't like - he seems to think he is skewering them with objective barbs, whereas viewed from the outside the subjectivity of his tastes is obvious. Thus Stephen King is castigated, in part, because his characters are middle-class people with middle-class woes. "Who cares about people like this?" Joshi says, without every wondering how that sentence would sound applied to any other social group... Similarly The Exorcist and its explicitly Christian viewpoint doesn't square with Joshi's atheism, and so by his logic must be a flawed book... Of course Joshi is quite entitled to like what he likes (and often I agree with him) but his apparent belief in his objectivity is annoying.

The most aggravating issues occur when Joshi critisizes an author he doesn't like for a 'flaw' that he is happy to ignore when applied to writers he does like. So some of Stephen King's stories come under fire for not explaining how and why the supernatural in them came to be - a claim that could be made against no end of weird fiction, including lots of those featured here.

Fortunately, Joshi is far, far better at explaining why he loves writers he loves - the chapters on Ramsey Campbell, TED Klein and Shirley Jackson alone are worth the price of the book. Here he really shines, highlighting themes and connections that I missed even on books I've read loads of times. I've never read any Thomas Tyron, but Joshi's discussion of The Other and Harvest Home really makes me want to - his writing is infectious in these sections, erudite but not dry, pointing out strengths (and weaknesses) of books with clarity and accuracy. (Only the chapter on Robert Aickman is somewhat disappointing, largely because Joshi seems unsure quite what to make of him...)

So - a good book to argue with, but a better one to be inspired by.

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In other news, Penny Dreadnought: Omnibus! Volume 1 is now available from those good folks at Smashwords (as well as Amazon UK | US). Rejoice!

And finally.... is this the best set for anything ever?

Zombies: New Rules

I'm sure I'm not the only one dismayed by the rash of bad zombie fiction that's been released recently; stories that only seem to exist to rip-off Romero, The Walking Dead, or Twenty-Eight Days Later (yes I know they're not technically zombies, but they are zombie-esque). I'm sure there's some good books in amidst them all, but it's hard to tell them apart from their descriptions: each and every one seems to tell of the gradual spread of the zombies, whether by a virus or whatever, and of survivors banding together and... etc. etc. You know the rest I'm sure.

I know of a number of 'literary horror' readers (a dreadful term, but it will do for now) who've vowed never to read another zombie book, and I know authors who'd turn their nose up at writing a zombie story nowadays... old-hat and déclassé, old boy.

But I'm a bit perverse sometimes, so I've decided to force myself to try and write some zombie stories, but with a few rules in place to make sure they're not just generic toss. I've got two ideas worked out (but not written) that meet my rules, although they aren't consistent with each other (i.e. the two stories can't be said to exist in the same fictional universe) and I'll probably have them finished at exactly the point the commercial zombie bubble bursts.

Anyway, here are the rules I've set myself:

New Zombie Story Rule#1: no using the basic narrative structure of modern, civilised society being gradually swept away by a zombie outbreak. The setting can be post-apocalyptic (and is, in one case) but the story can't be about how that situation came to be.

New Zombie Story Rule #2: the story cannot be centred around a disparate group of plucky survivors.

New Zombie Story Rule #3: it is not original to have the same old story but with a 'zombie with a twist' (like fast zombies - for fuck's sake) or a different setting (zombies at Buckingham Palace etc.)

New Zombie Story Rule #4: neither can originality be gained by having a pseudo-scientific explanation for the zombie outbreak.

New Zombie Story Rule #5: zombie's are the risen dead, but they don't have to want to eat us (in one story I have planned they do, in another, no)

New Zombie Story Rule #6: symbolism - zombies as a symbol for mindless consumerism was an original idea when Romero did it. It isn't now. Nor is the idea that zombies are symbols (used consciously or otherwise) for our fears of super-flu etc.

New Zombie Story Rule #7: zombies don't have to hang around in big groups.

What about you? Any good, original zombie books to recommend? Any further rules you think I should be following? Any of you think I'm talking rubbish?

A quick note to see I am guesting over at Wag The Fox today, with a piece called Why I Love A Good Anthology. Enjoy.

Review: From Dark Places by E.J. Newman

From Dark Places is a book of twenty-plus short stories and is the first I've read by Emma Newman, a writer I heard speak at a few panels at Edgelit. I thought anyone who could be so engaging talking about short stories and monsters was someone definitely worth checking out...

Most of these stories are very short; I don't think one exceeds around 3k words in length. My only criticism of the book as a whole would be that a couple of longer, 6k plus tales might have made it more varied in terms of pace. As it is, this is a book to dip into and read the stories one or two at a time, rather than try and gulp them all down. And as such it's an excellent debut. Despite their similar length and style there's a great variety in the story's emotional punches: horror, comedy, romance. Most have a twist at the end, but few are predictable.

The writing style is clean and displays a lightness of touch - more Neil Gaiman than Ramsey Campbell. Newman is a writer who reminds you how close many children's stories are to horror.

My favourites were:

'The Tenth Lord' - a deliciously ambiguous modern fairy tale.

'The Letter' - what did happen to the dog?

'The Need to Create' - an interesting & compelling story with a fantastical take on history and certain historical figures.

'The Unwoven Heart' - beautifully written and compelling imagery - almost an extended metaphor rather than story. I'll say again: beautiful.

'Idolised' - an almost Wicker Man style horror story.

'The Best Pie In The World' - the best twist of the collection? One to immediately re-read after you know the ending.

But nearly all these stories are well-worth reading; there's a higher-strike rate than most short story collections. It's certainly an impressive advert for Newman's talents and I look forward to reading more of her work. Give it a go...

Not, Repeat Not, The Booker Prize 2012...

Just a quick note to say Iain Rowan's fabulous novel One Of Us is up for this year's Not The Booker prize (run by the Guardian as a trendy alternative to the Booker prize).

If you've read One Of Us and agree with me how brilliant it is, then you might want to vote for it - rules to do so here.

If you haven't yet read One Of Us then you have some catching up to do...

(My review of the book here.)

July...

Do people really like reading these kind of blog posts, where a writer details how much 'progress' they have made in the previous month? I'm really not sure. I'm not even sure if I like reading them, other than the warm glow when a writer I admire is obviously getting the recognition they deserve (the 'warm glow' may also be accompanied by gnawing jealousy, but hey).

So... July. An up and down month.

I sold more copies of The Other Room, The Shelter, and First Time Buyers in the UK than ever before; The Shelter in particular rose to the giddy heights of #2 in the Amazon/Horror/Ghosts chart and more importantly received some lovely reader reviewers.

By contrast, I'm selling about the same as I ever did in the US - I'm not quite sure why the disparity, but it's been going on for months now. Maybe my stories are just to 'British' in their sensibilities & tone?

In terms of new writing, this month just gone has not been great; various real-life events have taken their toll & eaten chunks out of my writing time. I do have one new story drafted out - it's either called Caligraphy or Handwritten and is about collective sin and the role of the scapegoat... (another cheerful tale!). It needs some serious revision though.

And I've had a story accepted for a new anthology which I should be able to tell you about soon (as well as the usual smattering of rejections). I'm such a tease.

So as I said, up and down. You?