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!

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 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.

D’Lacey’s second novel, Garbage Man, takes us straight to the seeds of an impending environmental apocalypse, allowing us to watch as its roots spread intractably throughout the town of Shreve, a town that is just like any other in today’s United Kingdom.

Mason Brand is an outsider, a man who turned his back on society and his once successful career as a photographer. Living in the deepest countryside, with an old farmer as his guide, Brand learnt about himself, about the nature of nature and its relationship with man. He understands nature evolves to survive, that its processes cannot be predicted and that it simply doesn’t sit back and take abuse. He’s heard and responded to ‘the calling’. Now, giving society one last chance before he retreats forever into the wilds, he lives quietly in Shreve, shunned by almost everyone in the town, the town eccentric.

Shreve sits next to a massive landfill site, a noxious influence when the wind blows in the direction of the town. This influence is spreading, the land unable to cope with the rubbish and the poisonous chemicals being pumped into the earth. And when this brew also contains unwanted human matter, and is imbued with malicious intent, guilt and greed, it shouldn’t be surprising that a strange hybridised life-form, the fecalith, emerges from the sticken ground. Mason Brand has seen the signs; once again he’s heard the calling, and this time it’s right on his doorstep, it has a message and a command he cannot deny.

I loved Brand’s character, a figure I immediately found myself able to associate with during these harsh concretised times. After a solid week’s work, go for a walk, out of earshot of traffic if possible, and feel that money/work/time focus flow out of you to be replaced by whatever you allow… It’s a simple thing to do, but there’s certainly the ability for all of us to hear ‘the calling’ in one form or another, no matter where you live, or what your feelings are for the countryside.

D’Lacey’s especially adept at showing us the everyday stresses that afflict Shreve’s teenagers, their blossoming but untrusting relationships, their already jaded world-views, the parental and peer pressure that blinkers their thoughts, reducing their aspirations to the mundane. This frustration and jealousy threatens to overwhelm at times, (but isn’t that just how the real world works anyway?), but D’Lacey manages the trick of energising his characters through these emotions, making us care for them, or at least stay interested in them.

As the garbage crawls and spreads throughout Shreve the lives of the protagonists draw closer together through Mason Brand, the only one who understands what is about to happen, the man who is mainly responsible for that vital evolutionary stage of the fecalith, the struggle for sentience. Geoff Nelder’s already suggested that Garbage Man should have been called Gaia’s Revenge as it most definitely shares an outlook with James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis: the earth as a single organism, everything affecting everything else. As with MEAT, there is a strong moral message; a message of caution that D’Lacey interweaves seamlessly with solid horror plotting, without stinting on the gore and cleverly paced action.

Fast becoming the master of contemporary eco-horror, D’Lacey’s voice is absolutely unique in the field; and the final chapters, depicting an evolution of almost biblical proportions are simply stunning.

Garbage Man is published on May 7th 2009 by Bloody Books.

Joseph D’Lacey and Bill Hussey (The Absence) are celebrating the publication of their second novels with a tour of some haunted locations around the United Kingdom; and with readings and signings at the Wood Green Bookshop on May 6th, and at Borders on Oxford Street in London on May 7th. They’ll also be promoting the Horror Reanimated website, as well as giving away a limited edition Horror Reanimated chapbook, Echoes, to anyone who attends.

Note: I work with Joseph D’Lacey and Bill Hussey on the Horror Reanimated website.