Saturday 28 July 2012

Review: Nowhere To Go

*** I thought I'd already reviewed Iain Rowan's Nowhere To Go when I read it initially, but obviously that was in the universe outside the other room and not this one. Anyway, I recently bought this one as a paperback and read it again, so here's a review... ***



This was the artwork
 when I originally read it, which
I still quite like...
... and this is the spiffy new cover.
I first read Rowan's short fiction in his superb collection Ice Age, a book of stories in the horror/weird fiction mode. The stories in Nowhere To Go are more fimrly rooted in the crime genre, and without exception they are all expertly plotted and stylishly written: Rowan's prose is always clear-cut and effective, and never more so than here.

Of the eleven stories here, my favourites were:

'One Step Closer' - great characterisation in a piece so short, and Rowan's sympathies with the victims of crime rather than the criminals themselves is on display in a story of a robbery gone wrong...

'One of Us' - the short story from which his excellent novel of the same name grew. Interesting to read it again now I know the novel. Like the novel, Rowan really shows is skills at first-person character building here.

'The Chain' - quite simply because I did't predict the twist...

'Moths' - a side-order of Ice Age-esque weirdness in amidst the crime. The closing imagery is to die for.

'The Remains of My Estate' - a masterful description of a sink-estate and the loan-sharks who bleed it dry.

'Nowhere To Go' - another one with a hint of the supernatural; possibly my favourite and a great closing story to a great collection.

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Strange Stories #16. The Little Dirty Girl by Joanna Russ

The hidden side of the moon: StoriesStrange Story #16: The Little Dirty Girl
Author: Joanna Russ
Collected In: The Hidden Side Of The Moon
Anthologised In: The Weird 


She said sleepily, 'Can I stay?' and I (also sleepily) 'Forever.'


The Little Dirty Girl by Joanna Russ is a great example of how the trappings of weird fiction can be used for effects other than generating horror. There is a sense of unease running through this story (as there is in so many stories that I like) which is generated by the reader’s uncertainty about who the titular little girl is and what she means. But this unease doesn’t climb an arc into fear and outright terror, as it does in many a horror tale; instead it is a steady-state doubt, a distant but distinct thrum in the background of the story, and one that continues after its ‘resolution’.

The little girl in question starts appearing in the life of a prominent, childless academic, first in a supermarket, then at her home. The girl seemingly has no family, no friends, and there are hints that the girl exists only in the narrator’s story (which she is telling in a letter to unnamed friend). 

'What's your name?'
'A.R.' Those are the initials on my handbag. I looked at her sharply...
'I don't believe that,' I said finally.

But the girl is seemingly too physical to be an ambiguous ghost: dirty and grubby as the title suggests, and boisterous, hungry, energetic and uninhibited. She dirties up the bath (the main character ends up caring for the little girl more and more as the story progresses) and runs around naked and full of energy and an appetite for unhealthy snacks afterwards. As I said, there’s little threatening or scary about the mysterious girl in herself, at least in the main body of the story. The worrying things are where the girl has come from; where she goes to when not with the narrator; whether she gets any maternal affection from anyone else… Is there anything supernatural about her, or is she ‘weird’ only in the sense that all children are weird to those unused to them?

This, surely, is what we mean by strange fiction – to take something normal and make its inherent strangeness obvious by context and implication?

There is a sort of denouement that hints at the supernatural, at a needy, vampire-like being:

'Tell me what you need!' I said, and A.R. raised her horrid little face to mine, a picture of venomous, uncontrolled misery, of sheer, demanding starvation.
'You,' she whispered.

(I love the control of this writing, the word-choices making you veer between pity and fear.) But there's nothing so obvious as vampirism here, nothing violent or even fully comprehensible - both the dirty little girl and the narrator end up crying and bawling and the next morning it is only the narrator who remains, for the girl has vanished.

I said "sort of denouement" because this isn't actually the end to the story either; indeed there's a sudden detour (or seeming detour, because no good short story actually deviates from its chosen path) where the narrator meets her mother for lunch. She's never had a good relationship with her mother, and a reason for this is revealed, and a tentative understanding reached. And obviously the little girl, and what she in fact represented about the narrator's own childhood, has something to do with this and again the thought - was she just a figment of the narrator's mind, a symbol of something repressed? A ghost of something that never was?

 But then you remember the raw physicality of the shouting, precocious, little dirty girl, and begin to doubt your doubts...

Next Time: Strange Stories #17: THYXXOLQU by Mark Samuels

Friday 20 July 2012

When (Headington) Sharks Attack...


I still remember the first time I saw the Headington Shark - I was in my first year at Oxford Brookes university (for the uninitiated, an ex-poly and not part of the Oxford University) whose main campus is in Headington, where I lived in halls.

However they have a second campus at Wheatley and I had to get the university bus there for some lectures - the bus goes up London Road and I was vacantly staring out the window, somewhat hungover (okay, very hungover - this was Fresher's Week after all) and looking down the side streets as we passed. Down one of the streets I saw this:



To be honest I wasn't used to being so massively hungover (I am now) and it was one of the few times in my life I genuinely thought I might be hallucinating. Understand I only saw it for a second at most as the bus passed the top of the road.

All these years (and hangovers) later it's still one of my favourite things about Oxford, and recently I read The Hunting Of The Shark by Bill Heine, the chap whose house has the shark crashing into it. It's an interesting story, both about how the shark come about, and about the years-long battle with petty bureaucracy to keep it in place. It went almost all the way to the top of the Tory Government of the time, where bizarrely Michael Heseltine saved it, with these words (which remain the most sensible words I've heard from a Conservative MP): 
"...it is not in dispute that the shark is not in harmony with its surroundings, but then it is not intended to be in harmony with them. The basic facts are there for almost all to see. Into this archetypal urban setting crashes (almost literally) the shark. The contrast is deliberate... An incongruous object can become accepted as a landmark after a time, becoming well known, even well loved in the process..."
 “It is beautiful, it’s surprising, it’s funny, it’s poetic; it cheers me up whenever I go past it.” Phillip Pullman
And so it came to be. When I lived in Headington, giving directions was always done in relation to "the shark"; local shops and pubs sold postcards and key-rings of it, and some tourists even came to see it first rather than the dreaming spires... Despite all the dire predictions about house prices at the time, they actually went up a good few percent more on this street then others around, and local Estate Agents proudly mention  if a property is in view of the shark now...

I won't give the book a proper 'review' as let's face it, unless you've seen the shark in the flesh, you're unlikely to want to read it. But if you have and it's stuck with you as much as me, rest assured - it's everything you'd want a book about the shark to be.

(I created the Headington Shark Appreciation Society on Facebook, back when Facebook was cool, if anyone is interested.)

Thursday 19 July 2012

Take The Death Trip...

 Marion Stein's Loisaida - A New York Story was one of my favourite novels of last year - The Death Trip is a novella and a very different beast to it's predecessor.

The Death Trip is a more tightly focussed story than the cast-of-thousands Loisaida and unlike that book's unflinching realism and period detail (being set in the 80s Lower East Side) this one introduces a sci-fi, almost metaphoric element - the titular Death Trip. This is a new drug that is used to ease the suffering of terminally ill patients, by taking it they enter an unconscious state that feels like years spent living in their own version of paradise, but in fact takes place in minutes before the person dies.

The central character is investigating the drug and the corporation that manufacturers and administers it, and Stein uses the drugs existence as a starting point to throw lots of ideas into the mix. And this is very much a novel of ideas, and if the thought of characters debating ethics and ideas puts you off a book then this isn't for you (although there's plenty of intrigue, spot on characterisation, and even some romance too). Stein creates a pleasant moral ambiguity around proceedings - the question of whether The Death Trip drug really is a miracle or something sinister is left tantalisingly unclear. As such this is a book that requires some intellectual investment from the reader - I was reading this whilst the Tony Nicklinson right to die debate was in the press, and that very much coloured my response.

Fortunately whilst it might be up in the air about whether The Death Trip drug is good or bad, there's no such debate needed about whether The Death Trip book is good or not - it's another great read. And it's free - what more do you need?

Sunday 15 July 2012

Some Thoughts on Edge-Lit

Yesterday I went to Edge-Lit, a one-day convention of horror, science fiction and fantasy writing. I've never been to anything like this before, but this was just down the road (well, train tracks) in Derby, and I'd met the organiser Alex Davis at a writing course before, so I bought a ticket.

I went on my own and didn't know anyone there personally; I recognised a few name badges from Twitter and probably should have plucked up the courage to say hello. But I'm really not the type who can just walk up to strangers and introduce myself, despite the fact that I know from experience if I just forced myself people would probably have loved to say hello & shared a beer, just as I would have in their shoes. So there was a bit of drinking on my own in the bar. Nevertheless I did chat to some people during some of the events, and have got in touch with a few of them on Twitter since (internet socialising I'm fine with...)

As for the event itself it was tremendous and my brain was buzzing with ideas all day, and well into the night until my thoughts were blunted with a glass of wine or two. All the authors on the various panels were excellent, but naturally the words of some of them stuck with me more than others:

Obviously I went to the What Makes a Great Story? panel chaired by Marie O'Regan. The answer to the question seemed to be pretty much 'that indefinable something that we can recognise but not pin down' which I'm sure we all knew really, but the discussion around it was fun and interesting. Particularly where Simon Bestwick starting ranting about haunting "fucking copy editors" from beyond the grave if they started messing with his work after he died.

Emma Newan wasn't a writer I'd ever heard of before, but by chance I ended up seeing her on a number of panels, and a lot of what she said was really great, particularly talking about The Writer And The Internet. Her comments on drawing a line and social anxiety (see above!) struck a chord. Despite proclaiming she was afraid of "everything" she was also on the excellent Are We Still Afraid Of Monsters? panel, alongside    Simon Bestwick , Ian Culbard, and Paul Kane. Being a horror author this was the panel I was most looking forward and it didn't disappoint: lots of Lovecraft; The Birds; disdain for sparkly vampires; human monsters; whether right-wing governments cause a resurgence in the horror genre... - scattershot and marvellous.

The Ray Bradbury retrospective was also fun and a tad moving, although I most liked the part where Sarah Pinborough and Graham Joyce had a bit of a spat... But an good-natured and erudite spat, so it was all okay.

As well as the panels, I also went to a workshop run by Simon Bestwick  (yep him again) about Making Monsters. This was the best part for me, doing some actual writing, albeit rushed and in public. Obviously we had to create a monster and after staring at an empty page for what seemed like three quarters of the wriring time the idea I came up with seemed really solid, and I tinkered with it on the train on the way home. My monsters were The Men Who Value Everything In Money and I have a feeling in my gut that there's a good story of that name in me somewhere. I read out my piece to the group, which as you can imagine from the what I said above I found particularly nerve-racking, but people seemed to like it.

I asked Simon to sign a book after the workshop, and was really chuffed when he recognised my name from the interview I did with Cate Gardner recently (he being a big fan of hers) & signed my copy of The Faceless "from one Abominable Gentlemen to another".

Oh and I came home with a ton of books (many by the authors mentioned above who particularly impressed me). Huzzah!

So overall a great day, and hopefully I'll be back next year and be a bit bolder in the forcing myself on people in the bar department. Knowing me I'll probably wildly overcompensate and be the drunken twat everyone can't stand - the title of next year's shamefaced blog post no doubt.

Friday 13 July 2012

Earlier this week the amazing Cate Gardner wandered into the Jekyll & Hyde pub - either drawn there by mysterious, demonic forces or because she wanted to get out of the rain. Check out the results here.

Saturday 7 July 2012

Pulp Ink 2

Hello. Very pleased to be able to say today that the anthology Pulp Ink 2 is out now from Snubnose Press. It contains my story Snow as well as a whole load of brilliance from authors such as Julia Madeleine, Andrez Bergen, and Patti Abbott. Check out the fantastically pulpy cover below:



"Pulp Ink 2’s got beautiful killers, visions of the apocalypse, blood-thirsty rats, and one severed arm on a quest for revenge. No half-assed reboots here, just some of the finest writing in crime and horror today..."




You can buy it either in paperback (Amazon US) or as an ebook (UK | US) now.

The first Pulp Ink was a cracking read and really well-received, so as you can imagine I'm delighted Snow was picked for the follow up anthology, especially as I'm not naturally a crime writer. Snow is a blend of crime and my more usual messed up horror.

And it means the curse of Snow has finally been lifted! If you've no idea what I'm on about, see here.

So what with this, and the first Penny Dreadnought anthology being published, it's been a hell of a good week.

Thursday 5 July 2012

Penny Dreadnought Omnibus Volume 1 Out Now


Very pleased to say that the Abominable Gentlemen's diabolical plan is coming to fruition, with the release of the first Penny Dreadnought Omnibus!

(For those who don't know, Penny Dreadnought is a series of themed weird fiction anthologies from myself, Alan Ryker, Iain Rowan, and Aaron Polson).

It contains all sixteen stories from the first four volumes of Penny Dreadnought as well as a bonus gallery of cover art. Side effects may vary from reader to reader, but are likely to include: trembling hands; creeping dread; visions of the end times; speaking in tongues; existential doubt, and an intolerance to sparkly vampires.

Experience it at Amazon UK | Amazon US
 
The stories are:
 
‘Lilies’ - Iain Rowan
‘Cargo’ - Aaron Polson
‘First Time Buyers’ - James Everington
‘Invasion of the Shark-Men’ - Alan Ryker
‘Falling Over’ by James Everington
‘All the Pretty Yellow Flowers’ by Aaron Polson
‘Ice Age’ by Iain Rowan
‘A Face to Meet the Faces that You Meet’ by Alan Ryker
‘Precious Metal’ by Aaron Polson
‘Only the Lonely’ by Iain Rowan
‘The New Words’ by Alan Ryker
‘He’ by James Everington
‘Occupational Hazard’ by Iain Rowan
‘The Aerialist’ by Alan Ryker
‘Packob's Reward’ by James Everington
‘Poe's Blender’ by Aaron Polson