Halloween Stories reviewed

The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories edited by Stephen Jones. Skyhorse $14.99

Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

As with all anthologies, the contents reflect the ideals and tastes of the editor. It is inevitable that you, the reader, will discover a range of stories some of which may not be to your own preferences. I am glad to report that this reader discovered a book that met my appetite for fine fiction all round. And I’m sure it will meet yours, too. This is an anthology that will grace any bookshelf.

Click here to read the review.

 

Alchemy Press editors interviewed

Editors of The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors, Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards, have been interviewed by Jenny Barber:

Besides the very general theme ‘horror’ the book has no theme. I feel that stories in themed anthologies, especially tightly themed ones, can become too similar. I enjoy variety. I enjoy coming across something unexpected. In this I mirror the views expressed by Mark Morris, editor of the wonderful New Fears series.

I use the word ‘horror’ as a wide catch-all net. What you will find between the covers is 25 well-written yarns that will hopefully chill you, or at the least make you go: wow, I didn’t expect that. Weird stories. Creature features. There are stories that may have been at home in The Pan Book of Horror Stories, perhaps in New Terrors (edited by Ramsey Campbell), or in one of Stephen Jones & David Sutton’s anthologies. Other anthologies are available.

Read the full interview on Jenny’s website.

 

New crop of anthologies

The writer/editor Paul Finch covers a number of new and recent horror anthologies and short stories:

For whatever reason, these dull, dark and soundless days in the autumn of the year start to make us think ghosts and goblins. I’ve addressed the possible explanations for this many times before on this blog, so I won’t try to get all scholarly on you now. Who knows why we do it? Deep fears of the unknown embedded into us from time immemorial and rekindled by the withering of the land and dwindling of the light? The undying pagan myths wrapped about the season’s most ancient and beloved festivals, Halloween, Christmas etc? The mere tradition of it – the fact that our ancestors had nothing to do once the crops were all in except sit around fires and tell each other tall tales?

Visit Paul’s blog to read the full article.

 

 

Horror stories

I publish books as The Alchemy Press. This month sees the launch of The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors, edited by Jan Edwards and me. This is the first volume in a projected annual series.

Twenty-five tales of horror and the weird, stories that encapsulate the dark, the desolate and the downright creepy. Stories that will send that quiver of anticipation and dread down your spine and stay with you long after the lights have gone out.

Who is Len Binn, a comedian or…? What secrets are locked away in Le Trénébreuse? The deadline for what? Who are the little people, the garbage men, the peelers? What lies behind the masks? And what horrors are found down along the backroads?

Discover who has written super all-new stories between the covers here.

 

Compromising the Truth

With my another hat on I publish Alchemy Press books. 2017 was a very quiet year due to moving house and illness and so in 2018 I crept back into the bullpen — slowly. I have two books due out this year. The first, already available, is Compromising the Truth by Bryn Fortey: eighteen stories plus two dozen poems of the weird and wonderful: a touch of science fiction, a tidbit of horror, a sprinkling of the strange.

From Adrian Cole’s introduction: “His stories reflect a clear understanding of the human condition and he imbues his characters with knowing insights. The tales vary from stark, unnerving urban horror, to blackly humorous, almost preposterous fantasy, although even these hugely entertaining yarns are seated in reality. “

 

Blind Voices reviewed

 

Blind Voices by Tom Reamy

“In that long-ago summer afternoon in southern Kansas, when the warm air lay like a weight, unmoving and stifling, six horse-drawn circus wagons moved ponderously on the dusty road.”

1930s Small Town America. It’s summer – it’s hot, dry and so hot. Into this town the freak show arrives, enticing residents to become voyeurs for an evening, to view the Snake Queen, the Medusa, the Minotaur, Tiny Tim, and Angel, the Magic Boy. With this kind of set up you’d expect things to go wrong – and they do. A teenage girl is raped and murdered, and further deaths soon follow.

Continue reading here.

 

 

2017 BFS Awards – short list

The nominees for the 2017 British Fantasy Society Fantasy Awards has been published. As usual, it’s  list of many categories, of which The Alchemy Press features in three of them: Best Independent Press; Best Anthology (Something Remains, a tribute to the late Joel Lane, edited by Peter Coleborn and Pauline E Dungate); and Best Short Story (“Charmed Life” by Simon Avery from Something Remains). Fingers crossed.

The winners will be announced at FantasyCon at the end of September. The full list is available here.

 

 

Invaders

The way I read collections and anthologies is to pick and mix. I may read just one story from a book before looking elsewhere – and I have many, many books on the go at any one time. In order to share my reading pleasure I will, from time to time, highlight a particularly strong story in a thread I’ve termed Tell Tales.

“Invaders” by John Kessel begins in November 1532 and the Incas are about to face the force of a superior European army lead by Pizarro. Then it’s 2001 and we are in the modern world, albeit one in which aliens have landed, bringing their superior technology. The story then continues in alternating sections, following the two eras, the two invaders – the first bunch stealing Inca gold, the second offering wonders. Such as time travel.

Continued here…

 

Hekla’s Children reviewed

 

Hekla’s Children by James Brogden. Titan £7.99

Reviewed by Peter Coleborn

Quite simply, I was captivated by this novel almost instantly. I admit that some may think I’m somewhat biased: I’ve known James Brogden for many years and have included some of his short stories in the magazines I edited for the British Fantasy Society, as well as publishing a collection of his finely crafted short stories (Evocations, The Alchemy Press). However, and trust me in this, if I hadn’t enjoyed Hekla’s Children I wouldn’t have read it so quickly and you wouldn’t be reading this review.

Nathan is a teacher who has a simple task, guide four teenagers round Sutton Park as part of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. Except that he’s too infatuated with Sue and hangs back observing them from a distance. As the children cross a stream and continue trekking, he sees the terrain alter. The stream is now a river, the ground becomes a wooded hill. Yet within moments the real world returns – all except the four kids.

Helen’s Story reviewed

Helen’s Story by Rosanne Rabinowitz. PS Publishing 2013

A retro-review by Peter Coleborn

I read Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan a long, long time ago and sadly I can’t recall the details. Having just read Helen’s Story I think I should find my copy and re-read it. This is because Rabinowitz takes Machen’s novella as her starting point and looks afresh at one of the characters in Pan – Helen Vaughan – and tells her story. The good thing is, you can read Helen’s Story without prior knowledge because the writer so ably immerses you in her tale, dipping into the now and the then with consummate ease.

Helen lives in London, an artist of massive canvasses, painting landscapes that tell her story, attempting to capture everything that happened to her, attempting to find a way to join her companion – a creature that morphs into whatever shape or gender it chooses, including a certain being that is – well – Pan. She stages showings in her studio, using some of the raw responses the paintings cause in the viewers to embellish, enhance and further her work. Among the audience is a man who bears an uncanny history with hers.

Helen’s Story is so well written the novella flows effortlessly through the reader’s mind, subsuming him or her into this exotic and very erotic tale. Helen Vaughan is a strong character yet at times suffers from self doubt – a result of her strange upbringing, in a house with a cold scientists, in boarding schools in which she is the outcast, and in the woods with the creature who becomes her life-long companion, even if it neglects her for decades at a time. Helen is a timeless woman, born in the 19^th century, her appearance evolving to remain youthful. The final scene in Helen’s studio is a set piece in which she and the audience become subsumed into her work, chasing the elusive companion.

This novella is another exemplary publication from PS, beautifully produced and designed, from the gorgeous cover art (by Erika Steiskal) right through to the final endpapers. Helen’s Story is a tour de force of one woman’s fight to understand her nature – and is quite simply a masterpiece. I’d place it in the same class, the way it mixes the real and the myth, as Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock, Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce and Among Others by Jo Walton. I saw a post online that the book is now out of print. Let’s hope some other publisher picks it up so everyone can read and enjoy it

 

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