Horror

Guest Post: “What’s in a Name?” by Simon Bestwick

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bestwicks-authorpicI have the devil’s own luck when it comes to titles, at least as far as that there Jonathan Oliver at Solaris is concerned.

The new book, The Feast Of All Souls, is the third I’ve written for Jon. The first, for Abaddon Books, is the only one where the title wasn’t an issue: Tide Of Souls.

Tide was published in 2009: fast forward to 2011, when I pitched Jon a novel called Ghosts Of War. He liked the story and commissioned it, but suggested a different title, quite reasonably pointing out that Ghosts Of War gave away the plot. Continue reading →

Interview with JASON ARNOPP

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arnoppj-authorpicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Jason Arnopp?

He’s an author and scriptwriter, with a background in journalism. I started out as a rock journalist and spent over a decade in that field, which set me in good stead for presenting a music journalist as my titular character in The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. I mainly write supernatural fiction, hopefully with an edge and also the odd laugh. On a more personal level, I love horror movies, thrash metal, collecting old VHS videos and other fun stuff like gaming and conjuring.

Your excellent debut novel, The Last Days of Jack Sparks, was recently published by Orbit. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but how would you introduce it to a potential reader?

Thanks – I’m really glad you liked! I’d tell a potential reader that the book’s about an arrogant celebrity journalist who sets out to debunk the supernatural with his latest non-fiction book, only to end up dead. And on a more pretentious, thematic level, it’s about ego, certainty and belief, and how those three things intersect in the social media age. Oh, and death. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “New Voices” by Mark Morris

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morrism-authorpicThe horror genre is in fine fettle at the moment. In fact, I can’t remember a time when the work being produced has been more wide-ranging, inventive and exciting. This is not only due to the fact that established names like Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Tim Lebbon, Joe R. Lansdale, Adam Nevill and Stephen Volk are continuing to produce excellent work, but is also because a huge influx of new writers has ensured that if the genre was a bar or a club, then it would be the coolest, most vibrant place in town in which to hang out.

Some of the genre’s newer writers seem to have become instantly successful, and it’s wonderful to see the likes of Josh Malerman’s BirdBox, Andrew Michael Hurley’s The Loney, Catriona Ward’s Rawblood, Nick Cutter’s The Troop and The Deep, and Sarah Lotz’s The Three and Day Four on sale in supermarkets and piled up on promotional display tables in Waterstones.

What’s also heartening is that writers who have been around for a while, their work illuminating the small presses and gaining praise, honours and fans along the way, now seem to be breaking through into the mainstream too. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Writing Strong Women” by M.R. Carey

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My latest novel, Fellside, had its UK release in April and it’s just come out in paperback. To commemorate this fact I’m spending the week running around on other people’s blogs (thanks, Civilian Reader!) shouting “look at me.”

It’s a time-honoured tradition, and to keep you from saying the same thing ten times over your publisher will usually come up with a list of possible themes or titles. On the list in front of me right now, about two-thirds of the way down, the following phrase appears:-

“Writing Strong Women”

It immediately made me wonder whether or not that’s something that I do. Continue reading →

Upcoming: DEFENDER by G.X. Todd (Headline)

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ToddGX-1-DefenderUKThis is one I’m really looking forward to: G.X. Todd‘s upcoming debut, Defender, has been described as including “nods back to Stephen King’s The Stand“, and also influenced by Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. That’s a pretty impressive SFFH pedigree to which it’s being tied. The first in the four-part Voices series, in which “your inner voice might kill you”. Defender is due to be published in the UK by Headline in January 2017. Here’s the synopsis:

The primal battle between Good and Evil plays out in a new arena…

‘On the cusp of sleep, have we not all heard a voice call out our name?’

In a world where long drinks are in short supply, a stranger listens to the voice in his head telling him to buy a lemonade from the girl sitting on a dusty road.

The moment locks them together.

Here and now it’s dangerous to listen to your inner voice. Those who do, keep it quiet.

These voices have purpose.

And when Pilgrim meets Lacey, there is a reason. He just doesn’t know it yet.

Defender pulls you on a wild ride to a place where the voices in your head will save or slaughter you.

For more news about Todd’s writing and novels, be sure to check out the author’s website, and follow her on Twitter and Goodreads.

Review: THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM by Victor LaValle (Tor.com)

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LaValleV-BalladOfBlackTomUSA nice twist on Lovecraftian horror

People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn’t there.

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father’s head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?

I’m rather late to the party on this one, but I was certainly intrigued after I first read the synopsis. The Ballad of Black Tom is a really interesting, well-written twist on Lovecraftian horror. I really enjoyed this, and I think it will appeal to a wide swathe of SFFH fandom. Thankfully, you also don’t need to have read any Lovecraft to enjoy it. Continue reading →

Upcoming: M.R. Carey Returning to the World of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS!

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CareyMR-GirlWithAllTheGiftsM.R. Carey’s next novel will be The Boy on the Bridge — a prequel of sorts to the story in his best-selling and critically-acclaimed The Girl With All the Gifts (which was also a CR favourite in 2013).

Here’s what the author has to say about the new novel:

“Returning to the world of The Girl With All the Gifts felt like coming home in a weird way. And every time I visit I find something I didn’t know was there. The Boy on the Bridge is very much its own thing, not a continuation of Melanie’s story but a new journey with a new cast of characters. But it answers a lot of questions that The Girl With All the Gifts implicitly asked.”

Carey’s The Girl With All the Gifts is published by Orbit Books in the UK and US. His latest novel, Fellside, is also published by Orbit Books in both the UK and US. I highly recommend them both. Carey is also the writer of the original, superb Lucifer comic series, which spun out of Neil Gaiman’s groundbreaking Sandman series.

You can watch a video of Mike discussing the new book on his Facebook page, here.

Also on CR: Review of The Girl With All the Gifts

Quick Shot Reviews: Catching up on Graphic Novels

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Despite the near-total-silence on the graphic novel/comics side of things, I have continued to read a whole bunch of new and old collections. Generally speaking, though, I haven’t been overly impressed. Here are mini-reviews for ten stand-out collections I’ve read recently. [I’ll hopefully do a few more posts like this in the not-too-distant future, as I try to catch up with recent titles.]

Featuring: All-New X-Men, American Vampire, Black Magick, Daredevil, Extraordinary X-Men, Huck, Justice League, Lazarus, Lucifer, Sheriff of Babylon Continue reading →

Review: THE LAST DAYS OF JACK SPARKS by Jason Arnopp (Orbit)

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ArnoppJ-LastDaysOfJackSparksUKA fantastic, creepy mystery

Jack Sparks died while writing this book.

It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he’d already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed. 

Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account.

Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed — until now.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks was definitely one of my most-anticipated novels of the year, and I’m very happy to report that it did not disappoint. It is entertaining, chilling and addictive. I really enjoyed this. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “If You Like Servants…” by Paul Kane

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KaneP-SherlockHolmes&ServantsOfHellMy new novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, is out now. In it, Holmes and Watson are flung headlong into Clive Barker’s Hellraising universe to confront his most famous villains, the Cenobites. It’s the world’s greatest puzzle-solver up against the world’s greatest puzzle, not least in the form of the Lament Configuration puzzle box. Hopefully, it should appeal to fans of both franchises – but I also wanted the book to be a standalone, something that you could dive right into even if you know nothing about either. But I don’t want to spend the whole of this blog just talking about my work; instead I want to point you in the direction of a few publications you might enjoy if you pick up and like Servants. If you haven’t already read them, of course… Continue reading →