And over on Horror Reanimated you’ve got until the end of the month to win a copy of the awesome Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill.

And if you REALLY want that John Connolly book, there’s also a chance to win it at Bookgeeks.

Maybe this change can be referred to as evolution, or as some might say, a devolution. But would anyone go so far as to think of the developing situation as an opportunity?

The future of the Borders book chain is looking less than rosy. This affects me on both a professional and a personal level. I for one will miss that particular quirky retail experience. There was always the possibility of finding something new and interesting on the genre shelves, and the magazine section, well, I’d regularly hotfoot it down to pick up the latest issues of HorrorHound, Fangoria, The Darkside, Rue Morgue and Death Ray, have a flick through Interzone (as I’m a horror boy and subscribe to Black Static), and generally nose about the imported titles until I sniffed out something new. That small high street pleasure is denied to me now, (and I’m sure there are others out there like me).

Will Waterstones start stocking imported magazines? I think not. Although, in some stores that I’ve visited, (Exeter and Kingston), there are encouraging stocks of imported genre books.

How will we obtain copies of Canada’s excellent Rue Morgue now? There’s the subscription option, which is actually great value, but the delivery has always been plagued by delays in my experience, with some titles arriving three months late. Maybe that has changed now. I hope so as I need my RM fix on a monthly basis.

HorrorHound is another favourite, a fanboygeek collector’s magazine of all things horror merchandise, plus some great articles on the 80s video invasion, classic films, and the like – a thoroughly modern magazine with a nostalgic editorial bent. No delivery issues here at all as far as I remember.

I stopped subscribing to these magazines a year or so ago – not because I had lost faith in them, far from it – but because I wanted to pop into a shop to buy them, (despite the high import prices). I enjoy that experience and Borders could pretty much guarantee they’d be there, all in one place.

There are other options for us paper-collecting genre geeks, at least in London. Forbidden Planet stocks all these titles, but not consistently as far as I can tell, and you can’t purchase magazines on their website. The Cinema Store stocks these titles and loads of others too. Outside London? Fab Press’ website stocks issues of Rue Morgue, but again it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pick up the latest RM there, as they have to wait to receive them, just like the rest of us. Although looking at their website today, they’re up to date with the November 2009 issue.

I think it might be time to return to the subscription option. But, will there be any (UK) magazines left for us to subscribe to?

Shivers died a year or so ago, and the inevitable demise of Borders has coincided with what are most likely to be the final death-throes of several magazines: The Darkside has not been seen since September. A wiki entry states it might return. Let’s hope so. A thread on the Frightfest Forum has a little more information. Although maligned by some, the magazine appealed to the pulp in me. In its lastest editorial Gorezone rather tastelessly claims some credit for the end of The Darkside, but as the discussion on Monster Kids Classic Horror Forum shows, other non-genre titles are dropping like flies too.

Black Fish, the publisher of Death Ray and newly-launched sister title, Filmstar, appears to be in trouble as both titles are on hold by the looks of things:

As some of you may have heard, and others who popped along the shops to pick up the latest issue of Filmstar may have feared, Blackfish’s two magazines, Filmstar and Death Ray, are currently ‘on hold’. What this means is that there will not be another issue of either of them along for a number of weeks – or, likely, months. Indeed, whether there will ever be another issue of either is a moot point, and at this moment in time impossible to answer. But we hope so.

Quite what the future holds for Filmstar, Death Ray – and, indeed, Blackfish – remains unclear, but we hope to have more definite news over the next week or so. Keep watching this space, because as of now quite literally anything (or nothing) could happen.

Who’s to say what the future holds for genre magazines in the UK, but I think there’s always been an element of uncertainty hovering around such titles, as finding the niche audience on the high street can be challenging regardless of which shop you can get yourself in.

What reassures me about this situation, and the worlds of genre in general, is that the brains behind these magazines have it in their blood, they must give life to their visions, and I genuinely hope they are able to resurrect their titles in one form or another in 2010.

And as John Gilbert’s comment here on The Great White Space states, there might well be life in an old dog yet…

This week a few thoughts of mine are featured in The Bookseller, the trade magazine for the UK publishing industry.

The article is reproduced here, and the paper version also includes a ‘baker’s dozen’ of my viral marketing tips for UK publishers. The cover of this week’s issue is nice and gory, and within the article I managed to sneak in the words ‘vampire’ and ‘zombie’ and namedrop the ongoing Stephen King Under the Dome viral campaign. A tiny victory for the genre…

Speculative Fiction Junkie has written a little piece and seems to like it; as does Sharon Ring, who gave it a great review over on Science Fiction and Fantasy Enthusiasts, and Highlander’s Book Reviews.

Let us know what you think!

The eerie illustration is by my friend and conspirator Owen Priestley. This is the colour version of the accompanying illustration – Necrography printed a monochrome version which is pretty effective too. Thanks again to Owen for coming up with something so atmospheric and representative of the story.

Shaldon’s a quaint fishing village on the South West coast of Devon and my parents have a house a little way up the estuary in the hamlet of Ringmore. (I’m writing a series of tales set here and the second story, Low Tides, is forthcoming in All Hallows). As you might envisage, the majority of the residents are quite elderly and there’s always some work going if you take the time to look for it.

For several summers between the ages of about eleven and fourteen, maybe even fifteen, I filled my holiday time doing odd jobs around the gardens of my neighbours. The Gardener was inspired by an experience that has stuck with me all these years; and a little feeling of regret that I have from one summer in particular.

Mrs Merchant asked me to put a mouse out of its misery after what might have been a close encounter with a cat. I couldn’t stamp on it, or put any wieght on it, so I chose an easy option, or so I thought. And it has stayed with me since then. And a year or so later, the same lady passed away before I was able to fulfil a very simple promise I’d made to her: cut the grass around the grave of her husband. The next time I visited the grave was at her funeral and somebody else had cut the grass – that made me feel guilty, and still does, a little.

I combined these what I believe to be gently formative but very memorable events with the graveyard setting of the St. Nicholas Church in Ringmore (which I can see from my parent’s house), and the flow of people, (or grockles as we call them) that cause most coastal tourist destinations to shrink and expand over the seasons, to form what I hope is a dark and very personal take on the undercurrents that swirl around such communities during the summer months. Lacking  a bit of confidence I speculatively emailed Gary A. Braunbeck, a writer whose work I greatly enjoy, and he was kind enough to make some suggestions on the structure and tense of the story.

Here’s an excerpt from The Gardener:

It was the day between the end of spring and the beginning of summer; the second summer that Howard spent in Shaldon. Just like last year the air was still and the birds silent, as he weeded the flowerbeds in old Mrs Merchant’s tiny back garden. It was so small it barely required any tending, but she insisted he come twice a month.

He sensed Mrs Merchant hovering behind him in her own silence. Her presence was always there when he was crouched over this one small flowerbed in particular. He felt she was watching him closely, for this was where she had buried her dog, Stroud, several years ago. Howard twisted his neck and looked up at her.

“The weather is waiting for the change!” he shouted at her, breaking the hushed spell. “It’ll be a lovely day tomorrow!” She had been completely deaf for three years, and it was too late in her life to learn how to lip read. But still, she appeared to understand everything he said. Sometimes, she even seemed to hear his thoughts.

Mrs Merchant didn’t reply; she wasn’t looking at him. He noticed that she didn’t look at him at all since her husband, Oliver, had died three months ago. She was staring at her feet, her head bowed, influenced by the hunched fragmenting bones in her spine. She didn’t say much any more either. When her husband was alive, she shouted enthusiastically due to her deafness, oblivious to the din she was making, Oliver listening with a smile playing just behind his lips and eyes.

“Look at that mouse.”

It was more of an observation than an instruction and Howard paused a moment before realizing she had spoken, whispered without moving her lips. Maybe he’d heard her thoughts this time. But Mrs Merchant spoke again, indicating with a gnarled hand, the fingers frozen into the wooden clump of a walking stick handle.

“In the corner over there, Howard. Please help it.”

Howard walked to the end of the garden where some cherry red Rhododendron bushes dominated. A tiny field mouse was lying on its side in the grass. Its brown body was shuddering sporadically as it lay there in shock.

“Something must have attacked it,” he said, not sure if Mrs Merchant could hear him.

“Howard will you put it out of its misery please? Then I need to talk to you.” He heard her footsteps recede behind him.

All your energy has gone, he thought.

Howard quarter filled a bucket with water from the outside tap. He gingerly picked up the mouse by its tail and softly placed it into the water. It lay under the surface on its side, held down by the twig in his hand. Howard stared into its glassy black eye and he couldn’t tell if the mouse was looking back at him, or looking at something far away, maybe something deep inside itself. Its body gasped for air for a surprisingly long time and he kept it submerged until it was still. Its eye looked no different in death, impenetrable.

What do you see?

I wrote Seems Only Right for entry into the 12th  Chiaroscuro short story contest back in 2006, which was won by Gemma Files. Chiaroscuro, or Chizine, is a great online horror and weird fiction magazine sponsored by Leisure Books in the US. There were first, second and third placed stories, and Seems Only Right was given an Honourable Mention along with five others, out of a total of 307 entries, so I was pretty pleased. For a moment; until I realised it wouldn’t be seen by anyone, as only the first 3 stories were published. So near and yet so far!

The story sat on file as I considered what to do with it until I joined the BFS last year. I decided to enter the annual competition. Then silence. Then a congratulatory email from Andrew Hook of the BFS. I immediately went about finding an illustration to accompany the story, and artist Robert Elrod came up trumps for me. A big thanks again to him.

In May I attended the first couple of dates in London on the Horror Reanimated tour with Joseph D’Lacey and Bill Hussey. I read Seems Only Right in front of REAL people for the first time. I re-wrote the story for the readings, shortening it, leaving certain details out, whilst keeping the chronological chain of events, and making the decision to change the sex and name of the main character – as I am not a girl, seven years of age, or American…

Then it occured to me that I’d written the story taking liberties with the accurate grammatical way of doing things, and tried to develop a more phonetical representation of how the character would think – okay, I dropped the ends off some of the words. But this did mean I had real difficulty reading the story aloud, so they had to be reinserted for the readings.

Here’s a picture of us at The Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, North London on May 6th. From right to left: Lee Casey (who designed the Horror Reanimated: Echoes chapbook we gave away); Joseph D’Lacey, me, and Bill Hussey.

The next evening we read in front of a whole bunch of people at Borders on Oxford Street in London. Nerve-wracking, but we think it went pretty well.

So now Seems Only Right will be in the third issue of New Horizons, out this month. I hope you can track down a copy and let me know what you think of it.

Here’s an excerpt from Seems Only Right:

We’re like mice hidin up here inside the walls. Louisa talks to me in whispers, like she don want her pop to hear us talkin together. Talkin in whispers is plain silly cause he can be inside her head if he wants to. I hear him walkin around downstairs, peein, walkin around again. Louisa’s House is always quiet and the walls we’re in are paper-thin and us mice can be heard if we talk too loudly. So I whisper to Louisa, even though it is silly. “Why don we talk outside?” Louisa looks at me like I’m stupid, which I am. I’m only seven so I must be. Only grown-ups aren’t stupid. That’s what they tell us in class. Louisa, who has a bit of green pokin from her nose and who is in my class, tells me what she knows. “It’s because they say so.” Louisa looks happy she’s got that straight with me and she whispers some more, “it’s because grown-ups do what they want and we do what they want.” And she’s right. I know the answer before I ask the question and I am trickin her. None of us talks outside our Houses. The bible class makes that rule. I decide not to tell her about the green on the end of her nose, which makes her look stupid in another way, but she must be able to feel it cause she picks it and eats it. To me, it seems only right that Louisa is as stupid as me: she is seven too. When I’m grown-up I’ll make lots of rules and do whatever I like, pee a lot. If I can I’ll look into the heads of my children to see if they’re happy. I want to ask Louisa if her pop can be in her head like my daddy and mommy. But I don. First I need to get my question right, cause mommy can see in my head, but daddy is inside my head, and sometimes he ain. If I’m ready I will ask Louisa next bible night. Or I won, cause then she will know my secret, and she will most likely tell on me. Louisa is the Teacher’s pet.

Mommy and Elizabeth say nothin to me or to Louisa’s pop. He stares at all of us until we have left him alone on his porch. Louisa is upstairs bein a mouse cause she don like Elizabeth’s hair. Mommy’s face is red. The road is dusty with no rain. There is William Reed standin by the side of the road. Mommy and Elizabeth don spot him. If they did they would stop and take him home. As we go by I look at William Reed and he looks away. He ain in my class so he ignores me, as he always does. His hair is yellow as the fields we go past. He don care about that dust in his face or on his baggy clothes. William Reed shouldn be outside and alone like he is. We don go out alone, not near the woods.

***

The chapbook features a piece of fiction from each of us, and is called Echoes. It will hopefully be the first of several we publish as Horror Reanimated.

My story is called Part of the Landscape, and is more of a novellette than a short story, coming in at just over 10, 500 words. The story is based on my walk to work, back when I lived in Islington in central London.

Walking from my flat in Devonia Road just off Upper Street, N1, and then Richmond Avenue off Liverpool Road all the way to Charlotte Road in Shoreditch, my route took me via Gibson Square, back streets, the Packington housing estate, over the Regents canal and across a main road or two. A bog-standard 30 minute route, one that I varied regularly over the couple of years I walked the route as per my moods and the weather, as one route was a few minutes shorter than the other.

These walks gave me an hour a day to lose myself and I would find I was almost walking without thinking, suddenly snapping into focus, becoming aware that I was nearly at work as I turned into Charlotte Road, EC2.

But I did notice things during that ‘lost time’: almost without fail, whatever the weather, old men sitting on benches on Murray Grove. And it got to the stage where I wanted to say morning to them, but I never did, mainly out of their apparent disinterest in me. They looked busy, lost in their own thoughts, and I didn’t want to disrupt this state.I noticed the rubbish and the decay, the graffitti and the animals snaffling out an existence in the urban grey. And I saw these animals, dogs, cats, foxes, pigeons in the same place at the same time, following their own rhythms and their own paths.

Time permitting, at lunch, I would walk for a few minutes to clear my head of work-stuff, always pausing at a burnt out factory that sat across from my office, on Great Eastern Street. The most interesting aspect of this place, for me, was the basement area that’s been boarded up and allowed to grow wild over the time I worked there (about 9 years). You could pop your head through a gap in the boards and get a glimpse of a tree, and undergrowth and loads of rubbish that had collected in layers. You can still see this factory, just wander along Great Eastern Street. I’ve always wondered why nobody’s bought the land and built yet another office block. But, I have to say, I like it just the way it is.

A couple of years later, now living in Surrey, I was walking back from the train station, down a path I call ‘Squirrel Lane’ as it’s one of those paths where the trees meet in an arch overhead and bushes surround you on both sides, allowing the inhabitants of the green to scamper up and down and all around you. It was dark, about 9pm, and the bushes rustled as I walked by; there was a growling and as I stepped back a little, something barked at me almost lunging from the darkness of the bushes. But it wasn’t a fox, it was a man, sitting hidden towards the back of the foliage, barking and laughing and growling at me. It sounds plain weird, but this is a true story. And it got me thinking about why he chose to ‘communicate’ with me; about those old men, the ageing, decaying buildings , the routes animals and humans take, and the influence we have on them, and they upon us, as the 9-to-5 grind goes on around them; and so Part of the Landscape came together…

Here’s an excerpt from Part of the Landscape…

City landscapes change quicker than any environment on earth, so walk to the end of this street and turn the corner; head south for five minutes and Howard entered a half-derelict estate. A blast of wind welcomed him, penetrating his clothes, skin, icing behind his eyeballs, settling in his bones.

Blocks of flats forced themselves upward, monstrous brick and beanstalks with black holes for windows; he couldn’t tell if there was glass in the frames, too high, the light gloomy this early autumn morning. On a balcony halfway up, three high-rises away, a wind he could not feel blew someone’s washing dry with someone else’s dirt. Had a figure stepped back from a window, hole, up there?

A plastic carrier bag wafted into his view, moving swiftly at head-height, a substance dripping from the flapping edges. Again he felt no breeze. He stopped and watched the bag’s silent progress: miraculously it avoided obstruction and drifted into the distance. Perhaps someone would meet it headfirst as it flew around a corner, picking up pace, escaping the estate.

He became aware of the estate’s acoustics, temperature. It was a raw place: the air turbulent but secretive; wind whistled around corners, bringing hip-hop music, at 7am?, on unseen currents that also carried tainted moisture from the nearby canal. A dull thud: somewhere close someone kicked over a half-full can of something. The thud was followed by a yelp, or was it a bark? Startled, he looked around, nobody about that he could see; on an estate like this the sound of a can being kicked was like a battle cry. He was sure curtains were twitching up and down the rows of windows that surrounded him. Was it the wind again, a wind inside buildings? Streetlamps winked off one-by-one as the morning grew. The buildings looked uncomfortable, embedded on gradually disintegrating foundations of mouldy brick. Litter scraped and crawled across the cracked concrete, pinning itself against pointless knee-high fences of thin wood protecting muddy, well-trodden verges and patches of thinning, unhealthy grass.

A muscular dog pissed against a wall, looked over, smiled, waddled off, claws skittering on the pavement like teeth. Steaming terrier urine puddled in a shallow hollow, not enough volume to reach a nearby drain. Howard wondered if the dog used the same place as a toilet every day, eroding both the wall and pavement. All those dogs; all that piss. There was a prodding at his ankles, he was forced to wade through a mound of fast food boxes. He hadn’t noticed them earlier; urban cardboard tumbleweed blown across the City, waiting for the next pedestrian to trip over them, then moving on. Their bright red and white packaging was a shock to his monotone-accustomed eyes; but it wouldn’t be long before the elements drained the colouring into the uneven pavement, like the entire estate, that dog’s piss. The whole City is bleaching into the ground. Fucking dump. He wouldn’t miss this City if it fell off the face of the planet, nor any of the people in it.

Through a doorway he glimpsed an ethereal figure flitting from right to left in the half-light, crouching at low-level, from one high-rise to another: a paperboy, perhaps. He quickened his pace and walked towards the little humpback bridge that traversed the canal, marking the end of the estate. He wanted to check over his shoulder, the squat figure’s twisted gait had unsettled him, but he wouldn’t let himself. His tired mind was working overtime in an attempt to avert apathy.

He passed several sorry benches on his approach to the canal. Of course they were unoccupied at this time of day, broken-backed and empty with a thick coating of graffiti, or bird shit, or both. Their emptiness seemed appropriate; this route was too quiet, eerie. At least there were people on his usual walk to work. Like that old man who sat on the bench; he was slightly more animated than the gaunt buildings in this part of the City, casting their heavy shadows that made Howard stoop unconsciously whenever he was out and about, but certainly less so than the streamers of rubbish that twisted in the wake of countless cars: paper, chicken bones, sticky messes curling and choking, cooking in exhaust fumes.

The water in the canal was heavily coated with an oily grey-white weed. A shopping trolley protruded from the mixture, the weed thick enough to prevent it sinking to the canal’s bed. Polystyrene chunks and several pieces of wood adhered to the crust like croutons. This City’s soup was sluggish, almost stagnant, rich in flavour and odour. The surface undulated imperceptibly. Howard waited for a minute or so, but nothing broke through the weed.

He wouldn’t come this way again.

***

Part of the Landscape is currently only available in Horror Reanimated 1: Echoes, limited to 200 illustrated, signed copies.

The chapbook will hopefully be the first of several and we hope it’ll prove to be a nice little collector’s item in the future, when our careers reach heady heights, ahem…

I thought it would be nice to share the cover, which was designed by Lee Casey, and contents with you as a teaser.

Horror Reanimated 1: Echoes contains 3 pieces of fiction totalling 25,000 words; one from each of us:

• Joseph D’Lacey’s Rhiannon’s Reach – the victim of a diving accident conquers his fear of the water
• Bill Hussey’s A Room Thus Stained – a Victorian vigilante loses himself in the streets of Whitechapel
• Mathew F. Riley’s Part of the Landscape – a disenchanted worker is drawn from the everyday into an underworld of memories which form the fabric and structure of London

The night on May 7th at Borders kicks off at 6.45pm and then we’re all off to the pub – upstairs at The White Horse on Newburgh Street for around 8.30pm. A customer review on Beer In The Evening states: “Great sausages, great red wine. I’m happy.” Can’t say fairer than that I guess, and hopefully they’ll be selling some nice ales too.

It’d be good to see you there.

These two nights in London kick off The Horror Reanimated Tour – more information here.

It’ll be published in New Horizons in June, but I wanted to show you the illustration that will accompany the story – as I’ve only just received it today and am incredibly happy with it.

Due to the unavailability of a friend or two, I recently put up an announcement on LinkedIn that I was looking for an artist to have a go at illustrating the story, in a very traditional pen and ink style that suits the tone of the piece. I was fortunate enough to receive a great response from several artists, but I opted to go with Robert Elrod, and boy am I glad I did, as I hope you’ll agree.

Robert read the story and fortunately liked it and came up with a pencil sketch for my comment.

He then inked it and finished it off in Photoshop. Robert’s also written a little blog piece on the process.

It was a satisfying experience all round and I like to think that Robert and I will work together in the future. He also produces bespoke Monster Portraits…

And, thanks to Andrew Hook, Editor of New Horizons, for letting me share this artwork in advance of the magazine’s publication.

The cover of the magazine can be seen on the Stories page, but I though I’d share the accompanying illustration with you, which was inked by my friend and ex-colleague Owen Priestley, a great artist, illustrator and graphic designer whose work you can check out in the appropriate Links section. Owen’s also illustrated a couple of my other stories and I’ll pop those up too, when they see the light of day.

The story is the first of several that are inspired by the subway systems and tunnels beneath New York, employing them both as a location, and as a character. It also revolves around the idea that once the darkness of the tunnels has seen you, got inside you, it’s difficult to make the break and return to the surface of the City.

Here’s an excerpt from Everything He Touched, Burned:

“That, my friends, that is why we lives like we lives. Ain’t nobody giving none of us a ball contract. What we got is a complete lack of talent. That’s what God gifted us. What you waitin for? Go git it little man!”

Milton’s barked order awoke Julius from his sun-induced stupor. He jumped to his feet and went after the rogue basketball that bounced down the slope surrounding the decaying court.

“Hurry UP half-breed! It only a bit of plastic, it CANNOT be faster than you! Man that was one poor attempt…”

Julius heard these last words trailing off in disgust, thankfully aimed not at him, but at Will who’d made the awful shot. The other boys laughed and echoed their leader’s jibes. Julius sensed their impatience with the quality of their game, and with him. He was fourteen, a Latino, neither black nor white in a predominantly black neighbourhood: the youngest, newest, and smallest of the crew. These facts of his life meant he often sat out the game, reduced to the lowly task of ball boy. He hoped to earn their trust and respect gradually, on his own terms. He’d learnt his first lesson fast: do not argue with Milton, even when you are in the right. His arm was still bruised where Milton had proved his point the week before.

He scurried towards the broken concrete path that traversed the park’s baked mud flats. The ball was gaining speed, gravity and rubber outpacing him. If he’d been paying attention this wouldn’t be happening. The damn thing was rolling into the storm drain! If he let that happen he’d take another beating and be expected to come up with a new basketball in time for the next game. Which was something he knew he wouldn’t be able to do: he couldn’t ask his mom for a loan; she had other priorities these days, and he certainly wasn’t one of them.

The basketball bumped into the storm drain with a hollow thump. Julius reached it one second too late, but the ball didn’t disappear from view as he expected it to. Instead it wedged itself into the space between the discoloured concrete lips and sat there, waiting for him.

Please, please stay right there…

“Man you IS lucky.”

Julius ignored Milton’s distant observation, luck was something he was sure he’d never experienced, and bent down to retrieve the basketball. He linked his hands behind it, and felt something lick or breathe or both on the backs of his hands. He ripped the ball towards him, scrabbled backwards as fast as he could and fell onto his backside. He heard his crew laughing even harder behind him, but their merciless taunting quickly faded into the background ambience of the City.

Julius sat on the path with the ball in his lap, and stared at the face that watched him from the drain.

***

The story was partly inspired by reading The Mole People by Jennifer Toth which gave me a great deal of  ambience, which would otherwise have necessitated a trip down a sewer system. A viewing of the film Dark Days also helped set the tone once the story moves beneath the surface. Finally, I would like to thank Rick Kleffel and Kealan Patrick Burke for their advice and comments.

If you’re interested in reading more then I believe you can purchase Dark Horizons from the British Fantasy Society by emailing Helen Hopley at store@britishfantasysociety.org. The issue looks pretty good judging by the diversity and interests of the contributors, all of whom are detailed on this page.