Saturday 28 May 2016

Half-Remembered Nightmares - selected by Johnny Mains


Lined up for publication in the near future is a collection of stories chosen by award-winning anthologist Johnny Mains under the title Half-Remembered Nightmares. The stories chosen include:
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 
The Vampire Maid by Hume Nisbet 
The Wicked Voice by Vernon Lee 
The Striding Place by Gertrude Atherton 
The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe 
The Screaming Skull by F. Marion Crawford 
The Outgoing of the Tide by John Buchan 
The Dualitists by Bram Stoker 
Man-size in Marble by Edith Nesbit 
The Vampire by Jan Neruda 
The Were-wolf by Clemence Housman 
A Warning to the Curious by M.R. James 
Afterward by Edith Wharton 
The Uncanny Bairn by Louisa Baldwin 
The Bath-chair by E.F. Benson 
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot by Ambrose Bierce 
On the Brighton Road by Richard Middleton 
The Shadows on the Wall by Mary E Wilkins-Freeman 
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Wednesday 25 May 2016

Classic Weird 2 published

Classic Weird 2 is now available as a trade paperback and an ebook.

This 298-page volume contains weird tales by some of the classic authors of the genre, including J. Sheridan Le Fanu (An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street), E. F. Benson (The Judgement Books), Vernon Lee (Oke of Okehurst), Vincent O'Sullivan (When I was Dead), Edith Wharton (The Eyes), W. C. Morrow (A Story Told by the Sea), Irvin S. Cobb (The Unbroken Chain), Edith Nesbit (From the Dead), Robert Murray Gilchrist (Witch In-Grain), Amyas Northcote (The Downs), and J. H. Riddell (The Uninhabited House).

Paperback:
Amazon.co.uk  £8.99
Amazon.com  $11.99


Ebook:
Amazon.co.uk  £2.99
Amazon.com  $4.30

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Great Review for His Own Mad Demons on The Slaughtered Bird website

Dave Dubrow gave His Own Mad Demons: Dark Tales from David A. Riley a great review on The Slaughtered Bird website.

REVIEW: His Own Mad Demons

Review by- Dave Dubrow.
‘His Own Mad Demons’ is an anthology of short stories written by David A Riley, who’s been an active horror writer since he published a story in the eleventh volume of the legendary Pan Book of Horror Stories in 1970. The tales in Riley’s His Own Mad Demons are all set in the English moorland town of Edgebottom, where the supernatural lurks in every shadow. Riley’s gritty, descriptive prose and fundamental themes are timeless, making this collection a must-read for true fans of horror.
The first tale, His Own Mad Demons, follows the travails of petty criminal Nobby, who’s been given a relatively simple job to do. After things go pear-shaped, Nobby’s attempt to go on the lam is beset with obstacles both natural and supernatural.
In Lock-In, a group of old men calling themselves the Grudgers find that leaving their favorite pub isn’t anywhere near as easy as getting in. A gory piece of psychological horror mixed with Lovecraftian elements.
The Fragile Mask on His Face has a dream-like feeling to it in that the reader knows that something terrible is in store for the protagonist, but is powerless to stop it. A story with twists and turns and a most unusual antagonist.
For a slow burn building to a horrific climax, The True Spirit is a tale that shows you the face of evil, making you hope against hope that the poor characters catch on before it’s too late.
The anthology ends with The Worst of All Possible Places, as apt a title as you’d want. Though the prologue is a bit unnecessary, the remainder of the story is the most frightening in the entire collection, even with as unlikable a protagonist as Bill the drunk.
If you’re looking for message fiction, you won’t find it here. This is good old-fashioned horror, a collection of scary stories told well. It’s these kinds of tales that brought so many of us to horror literature in the first place, and it’s refreshing to see that they’re still relevant, still frightening.

Review by- Dave Dubrow

Wednesday 4 May 2016

A Saucerful of Secrets gets a 5-star review in The Zone

Andrew Darlington's A Saucerful of Secrets gets a five-star review in The Zone.

"Like entering a twilight zone for the loading of genre-literate humour, and unloading of predictability for tragedy and vivid lyricism, A Saucerful Of Secrets takes us across multiple thresholds between compelling realism and sophisticated imagination, with sublimely witty references and hefty riffs aplenty, adding a weight and philosophical depth few can match. This is a veteran writer's first collection of short fiction, and it's frequently steeped in traditional SF tropes but with post-modern twists and beguiling absurdism. Through the looking-glass, or down rabbit holes, these are stories penned with unusually poetical intent. The info-density and wordplay seems, at a first glance, like old lead, but, scratch the surface contours and it's revealed to be gold of a Brit-Lit wealth."  Read the full review here.