Books Out in 2016

So, to clarify, this is most definitely not one of those "stuff eligible for awards" posts that have been kicking about, because I don't do those.  I was raised to believe that if you have to ask for something then that something isn't worth having, which is probably why no one ever gives me anything and I get dirty looks in the queues at sandwich shops.

Wait, that's not true.  Well, maybe the bit about sandwich shops.  Still ... not an awards eligibility post.  More a "2016 was a rough old year and I could do to remind myself that I accomplished a few things" post.  And while, between you and me, it was all down to timing and weird luck and coincidence and I certainly wouldn't have chosen to have four (three and a half?) books come out in one year, it's definitely a thing that's happened.

Patchwerk

The first - but by no means the last - of my longer works to get a bit experimental, Patchwerk was a big old risk, and one that in retrospect I only took because my brain was at that time just as exploded as its reality-skipping, genre-hopping, gender-flipping, rules-ignoring narrative.  It was a tough book to write on any number of levels, born out of a particularly difficult time, and in retrospect it's kind of amazing that, somehow, I not only got it finished but managed to sell it to the impressive Tor.com, as one of first titles in their then fairly new novella line-up.

Sadly, that was as far as the very good news went.  Despite some strong reviews, Patchwerk hasn't altogether found its audience, and Tor.com declined the follow-up novella I wrote for them, which is if anything weirder, wilder and more ambitious.  Here's hoping I can find a home for it elsewhere in 2017, because I do like writing these novella things and I'd hate to have to give up on the format.

The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories

Thanks to the ruptures and shenanigans at Spectral Press that took up such a disproportionate amount of my attention in 2015, I was more or less certain that my much-delayed debut short story collection would never happen - until it did, thanks to Michael Wills and Digital Fiction Publishing.  And Michael proved to be an absolute powerhouse, picking up a stalled project and kicking it into life in what felt like no time at all.

Which was awesome, undoubtedly.  Still, there was no way the deluxe hardback edition I'd dreamed of, the one that would really showcase the fabulous art Duncan Kay had produced, would happen - until Ian Whates and NewCon Press stepped in and suddenly we were talking about the most ridiculously lavish hardback I could have imagined.  That both editions have made it comfortably into profit is the icing on an already icy cake.  Now to figure out how to make the audiobook happen...


The Black River Chronicles: Level One

The jewel in the crown of my 2016, I'm still a little in awe of the fact that Level One is out there and finding readers at a rate of knots; thanks to my collaboration with Michael Wills, this book sprang from nowhere and then snowballed, going from conception to release in somewhat less than a year.

The result is a book I'm terrifically proud of, and one I could never have come up with on my own.  At a point when my own projects were getting increasingly dour, Michael's input and concepts were a handy reminder that books could be cool, fun, exciting things.  And I don't think it's a stretch to say that that's precisely what Level One ended up being: cool, fun and exciting, with the warmest heart of anything I've written and characters I fell in love with almost from the moment we came up with them.  That readers seem to be finding our party of hopeless heroes-in-training pretty lovable as well is a huge relief.


C21st Gods #1

Another book that spent so long in development hell that I'd essentially given up on it by the time it finally shuddered into life, C21st Gods found its artist and publisher pretty much simultaneously - and suddenly my poor, deceased comic book project was alive and kicking.  And not only that but the publisher was Rosarium, one of the boldest, most exciting indy presses out there, and the artist was Anthony Summey, who turned out to be the perfect fit: not many people could nail both the horror and science-fiction elements of a comic that's called C21st Gods for very good reasons.

Those reasons are going to become a great deal more apparent this year, when we get to the second two issues of the mini-series and start drifting further away from Lovecraft pastiche and nearer to - well, talking a little more about the twenty-first century, I suppose, its gods and its horrors.  But in the meantime, issue #1 is definitely the place to start, what with it being the first issue and everything.

-oOo-

I suppose that, while we're hear, it would be remiss not to mention the short stories I had out in 2016 - especially given that, now that I add it all up, 2016 was a heck of a good year for short fiction coming out.  New stories-wise, I had (in no particular order) my Lovecraftian military horror Great Black Wave in Nightmare, dark fantasy tale The Magpie of Souls in Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, weird SF story Team Invasion at Liminal, my crime debut Step Light in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and more horror in the impressive Mysterion anthology (Golgotha) and the most recent issue of Pantheon magazine (Knock, Knock.)  As for reprints, those were split nearly between Digital Fiction Publishing - Dancing in the Winter Rooms, Passive Resistance and Black Horticulture - and exciting new market Great Jones Street, who took Jenny's Sick, Great Black Wave, Ill-Met at Midnight and A Killer of Dead Men.

Phew!  That turned out to be more of a list than I remembered.  Okay, I feel a little better about 2016 now.

But only a little.

The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories, Finally Out

It lives and dies and lives again!  Beat it with sticks and it laughs maniacally at you!  Drive a stake through its heart and you'll only make it come back stronger!  Tickle its tummy and it will bite your fingers and try hard to scratch you with its back legs, in a way that seems awfully cute until you realise just how badly you're bleeding!

I'm talking, of course, about my short story collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories, which has been under construction for the sort of time periods normally reserved for medieval cathedrals.  For a very long time indeed it was supposed to be coming out from Spectral Press, and there was a point where that seemed awfully close to happening - until suddenly it wasn't, because I'd withdrawn it after one missed deadline too many, and then because Spectral had closed its doors with the announcement of considerable unpaid debts.

This was gutting, but it was also probably the single best thing that happened to the book, all told.  Because if it hadn't been for that, it would never have found its way into the hands of Michael Wills and Digital Fiction Publishing, and the levels of effort and commitment that Michael has put into getting this project shipshape - in a fairly trivial amount of time, mind you - are just about incalculable.  In early January it appeared that Sign in the Moonlight might finally have breathed its last, and now here we are, it's not even the end of February, and lo and behold!  We have us a book.

What sort of a book, you might ask?  At least if you've somehow missed all of my dozen posts talking about it before now.  Well, it's the first collection of my short fiction, focusing entirely upon horror and dark fantasy and for the most part a particular brand of those genres, at that.  These are weird tales full of ghosts, monsters and eldritch horrors, heavily influenced by the likes of Machen, Poe, Lovecraft and Wells - though with some distinctly modern twists, because after all it's me writing it and not a bunch of guys who've been dead for decades.  So, for instance, we get a haunting in the shadow of one of the great tragedies of the twentieth century, some distinctly black humour at the expense of the poor, beleaguered child who thinks Innsmouth might make an ideal holiday destination, an off-page cameo from a certain Mr Aleister Crowley, not to mention a brand new novelette treating upon the real-life horrors of the First World War.

Moreover, all that is elegantly illustrated by Duncan Kay, he of that-cover-up-there fame, not to mention ably introduced by Fantasy superstar Adrian Tchaikovsky.  The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories ... it's been a long time coming, but it's out now, and you can buy it in e-book or print in the US here and in the UK here.  Oh, and it's heavily discounted for these first few days, which means that you can pick it up for the practically nonexistent price of 99 cents or 99 pence until this time next week.

Here's the TOC:

• The Burning Room
• The Facts in the Case of Algernon Whisper's Karma
• The Desert Cold
• War of the Rats
• The Sign in the Moonlight
• My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy Aged 7
• Prisoner of Peace
• The Door Beyond the Water
• Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams
• A Twist Too Far
• The Untold Ghost
• A Study in Red and White
• A Stare From the Darkness
• The Way of the Leaves

The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories Withdrawn From Spectral

It's probably no secret by now that there have been some long-standing problems in regards to mine and artist Duncan Kay's collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories and its release from UK small press Spectral; it's no secret by now, either, that Spectral has been having some significant difficulties which have culminated in it falling under the banner of another UK small press, Tickety Boo, as an effort to get to grips with its considerable debts and outstanding pre-orders.

Just before that happened, Duncan and I made the final decision to withdraw our work from Spectral.  This wasn't related in any direct way to the wider turmoil, though I suppose in retrospect that it was all part and parcel of the same thing.  At any rate, the chain of events was this: after a series of delays since the book's intended release date of August last year, we had agreed a final release date, which it became apparent wasn't going to be met.  Given the choice between delaying the book yet again and hunting another home for it, Duncan and I decided that it would be in everyone's best interests to go with the latter.  It wasn't an easy or a fun decision, just as the months of discussion, doubt and worry that had led up to it hadn't been easy or fun.  But we felt it was the best move for us, both personally and professionally, and after that there really didn't seem to be much of a choice.

Spectral publisher and owner Simon Marshall-Jones has asked me not to go into detail about the problems that led up to that point, and out of respect for Simon and his ongoing health problems I'm happy to accede to that.  Frankly it's not something I'm desperately eager to talk about anyway; this has been a tough experience for everyone and the best thing now is undoubtedly for all involved to start picking up the pieces.  Duncan and I are hopeful of having another publisher take up the paperback and e-book editions, and I'll be trying to figure out something for the hardback, which was the original point of the collection.  We certainly haven't, and won't, give up on this book; for me that comes down to the fact that Duncan's illustrations are tremendously wonderful and deserve to be seen.  Likewise, I'm hopeful that Simon will find ways to pick Spectral up and get it back on its feet, and - though I feel there are certain details that warrant more thought than they've perhaps been given - the move to Tickety Boo is hopefully a first step towards that.  Small presses have come back from worse, and at its best Spectral was a valuable force in the industry.  It deserves another chance.

On a final note, however, I feel obliged to point out that I'm absolutely not okay with the criticism and abuse that's been addressed by certain adherents of the Marshall-Jones camp towards fellow writers who've decided to withdraw their work or their financial backing from Spectral.  Nor am I impressed by the people who've condoned or made excuses for such behaviour based on only a narrow and one-sided sliver of the facts.  Whether or not it happened out in the open, mistakes were unquestionably made here, people got hurt both professionally and financially in ways that could certainly have been avoided, and even if none of that were the case, those involved in commercial relationships have every right to defend their livelihoods in whatever ways they deem appropriate.  None of that warrants being sworn at and insulted; and I think we all basically know that, right?

Anyway, when I last looked it appeared that apologies were being tentatively made and barricades taken down, so hopefully we're past the ugly, recriminatory phase and into something more positive.  And that's about all I have to say on the matter, except to thank those who've been supportive of this project, of me, or of both over the last few months.  It's been an ugly mess, all told, but hopefully the worst is behind us, and one way or another you'll get to see The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories, even if I have to publish it myself on my own flayed skin.

Wait, no, not that.

The Sign in the Moonlight: The Desert Cold & The War of the Rats

I suppose the main thing I have to say about The Desert Cold is that it was my first ever professional sale, almost seven years ago now, and to the then fairly new web-zine Flash Fiction Online.  Needless to say, I was still finding my way in those days, perhaps a little blindly, and this slender tale came together by a long and awkward route: it began as a vignette, more of a scene-setting exercise that a story, that would become the core of the first two thirds of the finished piece.  Strangely, though, I think that benefited it, ultimately; it still basically ended up being a mood piece, but one with a nasty little sting in its tail.

As for the The War of the Rats, the one new story in the collection and the longest, it came directly out of the research for my recently finished novel To End All Wars, and my frustration at the fact that there was so much I wanted to say about its subject, the First World War, that I knew I wasn't going to be able to find a place for.  Principally, I didn't have an outlet within the novel for all the anger and revulsion I felt at reading so many stories of lives cut short and disfigured, or for the sheer grotesqueness of much of what I'd come across.  It was ideal fare for a horror story, but not so much so for a science-fiction novel set largely away from the trenches.

So all of that got poured into The War of the Rats, a novelette that dived deeply into the most hellish aspects of WW1 and found there, to my surprise, a love story of sorts.  I think the responsibility for that came from one particular book that I was reading at the time, the memoirs of a soldier named Harold Chapin, released as One Man's War.  Which, thinking about it, also led to one of my greatest fears in writing both novel and novelette, which was that I'd inadvertently end up trivialising the whole subject.  The conclusion I came to was accepting how to an extent that's unavoidable; the more you research, the more the awfulness of the First World War defies imagination, and any work intended as entertainment is going to be trivial by comparison.  All I can say is, I did my best.  And on the plus side, I can guarantee that nothing I wrote is more repellent than the reality - which given how repellent things get is saying something.  It's certainly fair to say that The War of the Rats is the closest the collection comes to pure, unadulterated horror.

On that note, here's an extract:

A rat.  A rat!  The word chimed in my mind.  It was all the sense I could make of the situation.  There is a rat, my hysterical thoughts protested uselessly, crawling up my leg.  Yet behind that immediate, enormous fear - so huge that it seemed to eclipse even the possibility of sensible thought - there lay another, deeper terror.  I just couldn't, wouldn't admit it to myself.

The motion stopped.  The whiskers gave a slow, exploratory twitch.  I knew what it had found; what it had been seeking all along.  Oh god ... I'd have given anything for the strength to just kick my leg.  Here was that profoundest fear, which I'd been unable even to acknowledge until then.  For he was at my bandage.  Sniffing.  Nuzzling. 

I've seen the way they get at dead men, Emily.  A wound to them is nothing but an entrance to somewhere warm and safe, or else a place to eat.  That was the terror I could hardly let myself think of.  Whenever I'd seen rats scurrying about the dead I'd gone profoundly cold, averted my eyes and clammed up for a while, sinking into a sort of stupor.  I'd always counted myself lucky it had gone unnoticed.

Now there was no hiding.  No stupor would protect me.  I heard his teeth before I felt anything, a tender chatter interspersed with pauses that seemed almost thoughtful.  As he continued to work, however, I could feel the pressure of his head, as when a dog pushes for attention.  He toiled with steady determination.  He knew what he was looking for, and knew that with patience he'd have it.

The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories: The Facts in the Case of Algernon Whisper's Karma

I'm not proud to admit that I wrote The Facts in the Case of Algernon Whisper's Karma on a dare.  And I'm even less proud to admit that it was a dare I dared myself.

Yet that's about the size of what happened.  The core concept - of a man who takes it upon himself to direct the course of his own karmic rebirth, with one very specific goal in mind - came out of a chance remark I made, followed by some bloody-minded part of my brain pointing out that it might just conceivably work as a short story, and hey, wasn't that just the perfect reason to give it a go?

Probably not.  But as it turned out it wasn't an altogether terrible one either.  Perhaps the reason for that was that it came together with another, equally odd concept that was then batting around my brain, though I'm not sure I quite realised it at the time.  Looking back, though, and put briefly, it was this: what if Sherlock Holmes was only a genius in John Watson's mind?  What if all the crazy was real but the rest of it less so?  What if - and I can't be the first Holmes fan to suspect this - it was Watson who was the real brains of the operation, or at least the only one with the requisite number of marbles?

From all of that came a story about friendship and sanity, and the toll that the years can take on both.  For something conceived as a joke, it also wound up as being quite serious, though of all the stories in the collection this one probably has its tongue wedged most firmly into its cheek.  It was originally published in a magazine called The Willows for very little money, at which point I'd imagine it was read by all of about a dozen people who weren't my mum.  One of the nicest things about the existence of this collection is that these older tales get to reach a (hopefully!) wider audience than they did the first time around.

With that in mind, here's a brief extract:

As I said, I've known Algernon since early childhood, since our schooldays.  Even in his youth, he was markedly eccentric; but perhaps these things pass unnoticed more easily in a child.  For my part, if I observed any signs of strangeness it was only as further evidence to justify my commitment to my friend, for I regarded Algernon with endless approval.  He was a source of constant fascination, of ideas both unique and, it seemed to me, impeccably wise.  He was also charismatic, witty and remarkable in appearance; he viewed the school’s drab uniform with contempt and chose to dress instead, from about the age of seven, in the manner of a man in late middle age.  It didn’t concern me in the least that I was his only friend, his only sympathiser.  Though Algernon's classmates and even his teachers viewed him with evident distrust, I reasoned that this was nothing more than further proof of how detached from the common herd my companion was.  

Of course, I could never have imagined then that he would go on to prove me right in so spectacular a fashion.

The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories: The Burning Room

I'm a sucker for ghost stories.  Simon Marshall-Jones is also, I suspect, a sucker for ghost stories; after all, he is running a publisher called Spectral Press.  So it's probably appropriate that there are (depending on which edition you buy) potentially three of the things in my forthcoming Spectral collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories.

The first of those is our opening tale, The Burning Room, originally published some years back in the excellent Bull Spec.  I have a theory that most ghost stories are essentially mysteries, and that's certainly true of this one: it plays out, basically, as a detective story, with the principle difference being that the crime in question is dramatised night after night, as a female tenant finds herself confronted by the tragic history of the suspiciously cheap room she's begun renting.

One impetus with many of these stories was to take a traditional genre - say, the Victorian ghost tale - and try and modernize it or otherwise upend it in some way that I found particularly interesting.  In this case, that meant giving my female protagonist a little more voice and leeway than she might have had in tales from the period.  The estimable Miss Taversham isn't one to be frightened away by things going bump in the night; instead she'd rather interpret the horror she encounters as a problem to be solved, one to be seen through to its decidedly bitter end.

Oh, and the title was meant as a reference to H. G. Wells's The Red Room, a big tonal influence and perhaps my favourite ghost story of all time.

Here's a brief sample of The Burning Room:

For all her strangeness, Mrs Faraday seemed like a blessing.  She interviewed me in a small, drab kitchen, claustrophobically gloomy with the heavy curtains drawn.  There were indications of poverty, but signs of former comfort also: the tablecloth, though faded, had once been fine; the chipped crockery in the cabinet was china of a more expensive sort. 

"I wouldn't let it," she said, "if I weren't very desperate.  I've put it off these past years since I lost my Daniel, Lord knows I have.  But times are hard."

So she was widowed.  That explained the odd mixture of penury and luxury.  "I'll be quiet, and no bother," I replied.

She stared at me.  I couldn't have hazarded a guess at her age.  Her hair was grey, her eyes seemed washed of vitality, but her skin was unlined and seemed to belong to a much younger woman.  She ran her fingertips down the swathe of crimson scarring that ran from her cheek to beyond her collarbone, and said, "Miss Taversham, it isn't myself I'm worried for.  Do you sleep deeply?"

"I imagine so.  It isn't something I've considered."

"Then probably you do.  Will you see the room?"

"I’d like to."

The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories: Coming Soon

I've been a little quiet on the subject of my forthcoming short story collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories, what with one thing and another, but that all changes as of now.  Because not only do we have a finalised cover - see? - but we have a release date, and it's soon.  Like real soon; like beginning of December soon.

As such, I won't be shutting up about this book - my first ever collection! - for the next few weeks.  My plan is to talk through each of the stories in turn, to give a little taste of what it's all about, but in the meantime, here's the basic table of contents:

• The Burning Room
• The Facts in the Case of Algernon Whisper's Karma
• The Desert Cold
• War of the Rats
• The Sign in the Moonlight
• My Friend Fishfinger by Daisy Aged 7
• Prisoner of Peace
• The Door Beyond the Water
• Caretaker in the Garden of Dreams
• A Twist Too Far
• The Way of the Leaves

I say basic because it's set to vary a little depending on which edition you get, the idea being that there should be some reward for splashing out on the paperback over the e-book edition, or - for the ultimate Sign in the Moonlight experience - on the sure-to-be-delectable hardback version.  So the paperback comes with The Untold Ghost as an extra, and the hardback includes both A Stare From the Darkness and the seasonally (in)appropriate A Study in Red And White, all of which also are accompanied by their own unique illustrations.

Because, oh right, illustrations!  See that gorgeous cover there?  That's by superstar artist-stroke-Scotsman Duncan Kay, and he's produced something equally spectacular for every single story.  We also have an introduction from one of the finest Fantasy writers writing today, Mr Adrian Tchaikovsky, because why do things by halves?  I mean, who knows, maybe I'll get eaten by termites tomorrow and this will be the last short story collection I ever get to do, and while that remains even the tiniest risk, I wanted to throw everything at this book.

So there we have it: The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories, by me, with art by Duncan Kay, edited by Simon Marshall-Jones and due for release in early December from award-winning publisher Spectral Press.  Expect to hear me talking about it a whole lot between now and then.

Announcing The War of the Rats

As their officially delegated spokeshuman, it falls upon me to announce that the rat populace of the world is - as of this date, the 18th of January 2015 - declaring total war upon the human population of the Earth.  They've had enough, frankly, and they're just not going to take it any more.  Pack your bags, people, and start looking for another planet with more placid rodents, because as of tomorrow this one is officially Ratworld Prime.

No, wait, that's not at all what this post was supposed to be about.   (Shuffles notes.)

Hum.  Okay.  So, I mentioned a few incoming projects in my round-up of last year, and it was a huge relief, because all of them were things I've been getting horribly excited about for ages now and not been able to talk much about.  And, thinking about it, a couple of them still fall into that category - though hopefully for not too much longer - but there's one at least that I can finally announce, and so this is me doing just that.

Here's one of the illustrations we DIDN'T use.

The War of the Rats and Other Tales, as it's tentatively known, is my first single-author collection of short fiction.  It's coming out from Spectral Press, (you know Spectral, they get nominated for British Fantasy Awards with alarming reality and have or are due to publish work by most of the top writers in British horror,) in August of this year, in e-book, paperback and super special, limited edition hardback.  And all of those editions will include illustrations by my artist mate and long term collaborator Duncan Kay, who seems to get better by the month and is currently sending me stuff that, frankly, would make your toes curl.  Seriously, there's a reason I've wrangled Duncan into two of my major releases for this year, and that reason is that he's shockingly good at this illustrating lark.  Whatever else The War of the Rats and Other Tales is, it's going to look beautiful.

That possibly means that I run the risk of my stories being upstaged in my own first short story collection; still, if readers manage to tear their eyes from the pictures, I'm hopeful that some of my all-time best fiction is going into this thing.  I mean, we have stories that have appeared in some of my favourite markets: places like Nightmare, Bull Spec, Flash Fiction Online.  We've got a tale that was in a Stoker-nominated anthology, another that was in last year's Stoker winner, (which, by the way, also happens to be my personal choice for the best horror story I've written.)  Maybe most exciting for me, we have my Spectral novelette, previously only available in very limited edition, and a new novelette written at the end of last year especially for the collection.

That one's called The War of the Rats, funnily enough.  And it isn't about rats declaring war on humanity.  I just made all of that up.

Or ... did I?

No, I did.

2014: Year One

I'm pretty certain I've never put as much weight of expectation on a year as I did 2014.

I mean, as the year when I gave up my old, safe career in IT for my new, hazardous career in professional Authoring, the pressure on these last twelve months has been absurd.  Almost all of it self-imposed, it has to be said, because everyone I know without exception has been completely supportive; but for my own sanity, I needed to know for sure that I had a chance of making this thing work and that I hadn't just driven my life off a cliff in some fit of self-delusion.  Not only that but my health, social life, home and pretty much everything else were in shabby condition indeed at the start of the year, and I wasn't about to let them stay that way for a day longer than I had to.

That basically left me fighting on three fronts.  I had to produce enough work, and enough of an increase over what I'd been able to do around a full-time day job, to feel like I'd done the right thing; I needed to try and sell some stuff if at all possible, since otherwise I'd be that bit closer to running out of money; and somewhere amidst all of that I needed to sort out basically all of the rest of my life.

I won't dwell too much on that last one, except to say that things are vastly better now than they were twelve months ago.  And number two, that's kind of tricky to quantify, so we'll come back to it.  But as for getting the work done, yeah, that's definitely been a success.  Frankly, I even shocked myself a bit.  After years of making grand plans only to have them sabotaged by cold, hard reality, it was easy to assume I was expecting far too much.  I wanted to get drafts down of three novels: World War One-set Sci-Fi novel To End All Wars, post-apocalyptic thriller (and part-rewrite of earlier project War For Funland) Degenerates and my first hesitant step into Crime writing, The Bad Neighbour.  On top of that, I wanted to finish a few short stories, comics and such, and I had a great deal of research to get through.  With all of that ahead, and however much it looked doable on paper, I couldn't but go in with the assumption that I was basically doomed to failure.

So to be sitting here with everything I wanted done done is a strange feeling.  Beyond the fact of having it all finished, and given that Degenerates ended up being such a strange hybrid of revamping and reinventing my unfinished second novel War For Funland, it's difficult to put an exact number on how much I wrote in 2014; but guesstimating that half of Degenerates was essentially new work, I'd say I've produced about 260'000 words of new novels, plus some 55'000 of shorter work over seven short stories, one comic and a novelette.  With the second draft of To End All Wars, two redrafts of my first novella Patchwerk and much polishing work on some of some older stories, I'd be surprised if I've done less than 200'000 words of editing on top of that.  All of which is heartening, because it means I can comfortably write and edit two novels a year, plus a few other bits and pieces, and I figure - based on little real evidence - that that's about what I need to be doing to make some kind of a living.

Which brings us neatly to the topic of selling things.  On that front, things were going appallingly until late in the year, and though I hadn't expected much (I had no novels to pitch, after all) I'd still hoped to do much better off short fiction than I did.  That never entirely turned around, but a few other things - arguably much more exciting things - did come together in the eleventh hour.

First up, I have a buyer agreed for Patchwerk.  I can't say who yet, but I can say that they were my absolutely first choice and are a publisher I'm hugely excited to be working with.  Both of which are also true for my graphic novel C21st Gods, which went from a long-talked about dream project between myself and artist Duncan Kay to a concrete reality, by such a bizarre chain of events that it's a story in itself, and one I'll probably share here in the not-too-distant future.  Then lastly - and the one thing I can officially announce - there came the contract signing on my long-gestating short story collection The War of the Rats and Other Tales, which will be coming out from my absolutely favourite Horror small press, Spectral, in August of this year.

With three major projects and a ton of short fiction scheduled for the next twelve months, I'm starting 2015 in a stronger position than I ever anticipated.  And as if that wasn't enough, the belated discovery that Working Tax Credit is a thing has put my financial situation on a less tenuous footing than I expected it would be at this point.  With To End All Wars almost ready to go out and both Degenerates and The Bad Neighbour hopefully to be finished before the end of the year, the question now becomes, can I sell novels too?  And, perhaps the even bigger question, can I do it for enough money to live off?

Well, who the hell knows, right?  But at least I'm looking forward to trying, and twelve months ago I never thought I'd be saying that.

Unexpected Birthday Presents

One of the nice things about being a writer is that every so often, out of the blue, people send you exciting things in the post.  And statistically I suppose that the longer you go at it, the more of a chance there is that those things are going to arrive on your birthday.  Still, it was a nice surprise when not one but two parcels containing contributor copies arrived just in time for me to pretend that they'd been sent to celebrate my successfully surviving another year.

I've already talked plenty about 01 Publishing's anthology of Lovecraftian Horror Whispers From the Abyss - and rightly so, it's really good - but I tell you, however good it was as an e-book, it's a whole lot better in print.  And this isn't just my weird, old-man affection for books that are made out of dead trees talking, either; in fact, it's got a lot more to do with my weird, old-man affection for additional artwork and sexy formatting and books that are generally really nicely put together.  Honestly, I wish I could show you how great this thing looks on the inside ... and I could, quite easily.  But it would involve taking more photographs, or scanning or something, and honestly, I'm bored with both of those things right now.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, as exciting as getting print copies of Whispers From the Abyss was, it wasn't quite so exciting as what Spectral Press head honcho Simon Marshall-Jones sent me.  A little back-story: in 2012 I won a competition with small press Horror publisher Spectral to have a story produced as a chapbook, a competition I only entered because I'd had my eye on them for months as potential publisher for that particular story, The Way of the Leaves.  As well as getting tWotL chapbookised, my prize for winning was a copy of every chapbook Spectral put out henceforward, which was pretty cool because - more so that it has any right to have done for what's still a relatively new imprint - Spectral has become one of the lynchpins of British Horror over the last three years.

Actually it seems an age since I've talked about The Way of the Leaves, and perhaps when it was released it got neglected a little, falling as it did between Crown Thief and Prince Thief coming out.  (Though, that was also partly because it sold out pretty quickly.)  I don't remember even posting any  reviews, and it got some particularly solid ones: Morpheus Tales even reviewed it twice, with J. S. Watts calling it "...haunting, dark and lyrical..." and Stanley Riiks pointing out that it's "...a soul-chilling tale worthy of the Spectral name," that "...builds into a heart-wrenching urban fantasy..."

So, short story long, what Simon sent me was the gorgeous boxed set of the first eight Spectral chapbooks (including my own, obviously) pictured above, which is a pretty great birthday present by any definition.  I mean, look at it!  It's like someone painted the monolith from 2001 red and then it spewed chapbooks.

As a postscript, it would be great to end by mentioning that there were plans in motion that would mean more people got to read The Way of the Leaves, what with it being one of the better things I've written and only having appeared in a limited edition and all.  And maybe there are even plans afoot in that direction.  But if there were then I obviously wouldn't be able to talk about them.  
So I won't.

2012; or, My Damasco Year

At the end of 2011, I wrote about what a tough year it had been on a personal level, what an unexpectedly triumphant year it had been for my writing, and how everything had somehow ended in a weirdly positive place.  So I guess I can't just say the same again this year, right?  No?  Well, okay then.

Anyway, looking back, it feels a lot like stating the obvious.  Any year where you try and write a publishable novel from start to finish around a more-than-full time day job is never going to be easy, and any year where both your first and second novels are released is going to have its moments of pure unadulterated awesomeness.  It's almost impossible to look back at 2012 right now and believe that I managed to cram so much of either into it; that this time twelve months ago I was putting the finishing touches to Crown Thief, waiting for Giant Thief to come out, and getting ready to move to London to start my new job.

Now London is my second home, Giant Thief's release seems an awfully long time ago, even has been out for a while, and all my energy is going into finishing the second draft of Prince Thief and ending a story I started five years ago, with no idea at all of what I was getting myself into.  For me, 2012 has definitely been the year of Easie Damasco, and I'm deeply glad that for every reader who's failed to get on with the despicable reprobate there have been plenty more who've taken him into their hearts.  It's more than he deserves, frankly, but it's still pretty amazing to realise that my books are out there in the world and that Damasco, in however small a way, has broken and entered his way into the minds of complete strangers.  Hard work it may be, but this novel writing lark definitely has its rewards. 

But what's really surprising is all the other stuff that's happened.  I didn't expect to get much else done in 2012, all things considered, and I was reconciled with letting the other strands of my writing - all those many, many strands! - fade into the background for a few months.  What a nice surprise, then, to win my first writing contest, via This is Horror and Spectral Press, and as a result to have my first chapbook published, meaning I ended up with not two but three whole books out in one year.  And how unexpected it was that I managed to get a bit of short fiction out there, and even, just as the year began to expire, to make a few good sales. 

Now I get to look forward to 2013, and to think hard about where I go after Damasco and I finally part ways.  I know I should have at least two new books coming out, in the shape of Prince Thief and, (in some more not-entirely-expected good news), the first Endangered Weapon B trade paperback - not to mention the German edition of Giant Thief and the audiobook of Crown Thief.  But who knows what else might happen?  The same goes for my planned projects; right now, my agenda for the coming year involves finishing Prince Thief and the second volume of Endangered Weapon for the end of March, then writing a science-fiction novella, then writing at least one draft of a new, as-yet-untitled novel while simultaneously rewriting my second book War for Funland more or less from scratch,  plus putting together a short story collection and likely writing a second graphic novel that's been at the drawing board stage for a while now.

But good plans are made to be unplanned, right?  And really, I'm mainly saying this so that I can look back on this post in twelve month's time and feel stupid.  Because, as the bloke from Stingray so famously never said, anything can happen in the next twelve months.

The Way of the Leaves Out

A necessarily quick post this one, since I'm off on holiday in a couple of days and haven't even begun to pack yet, but that doesn't mean it's not a brilliant bit of news that I'm not really excited about.

Wait, is that a double negative?  Does that mean it is a brilliant bit of news that I am excited about?  Or that it's an exciting bit of news that I'm not excited about?  Or...

Oh, right.  Quick post.

So, the exciting news that I definitely am excited about is that my first ever chapbook, which also happens to be my first ever competition-winning chapbook, is now out in a very special signed and limited edition from the marvelous Spectral Press.

I talked a lot about the background of this here, and I hope to be talking in depth about where The Way of the Leaves came from in an afterword for the Spectral chapbook collected edition that Simon Marshall-Jones is planning.  So all that remains, really, is to say some thank you's: to Simon, of course, who's not only made my story look amazing but was nice enough to put a special preview copy together as a present for Jobeda's birthday; to Alison Littlewood, for writing a lovely blurb at very short notice, and to Mark West, who put together the nearby trailer for tWotL and somehow found a piece of music that nails its tone perfectly.



Last up, if you're considering a purchase of one of the very few and super-rare copies left, here's the blurb...

The barrow. The hill upon the hill. A place that was old when the Normans came to England. A place of mystery and secrets and uneasy truce.
 
Now, two children find themselves drawn to the ancient tor, caught in events beyond their understanding. And what they find in the darkness beneath will shatter the course of their lives forever.

... and there have been a couple of early reviews in too.   One from Mark himself on Goodreads, who says, "this is very good indeed, creepy and atmospheric, claustrophobic and quite terrifying at times," and another from Hellbound Times, who conclude that "Spectral’s quality work lends itself to excellent submissions and this contest winner is certainly no exception.  Mr. Tallerman is an experienced wordsmith ... and it shows in this atmospheric and heartfelt work."

Good stuff!  If you do fancy grabbing a copy, just drop Simon a line at spectralpress[AT]gmail[DOT]com and I'm sure he'll be glad to oblige.

Fantasycon 2012, Part 2: The Good

Crown Thief in all its glorious glory.

I wrote up some general impressions of this year's Fantasycon at the start of the week, most of them less than positive - but in fairness to the weekend, it has to be said that I had a pretty good time all told.  If I wasn't overwhelmed with the Con itself, there were still some terrific people there; one thing Fantasycon can always be relied on for is an opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones, mostly with the involvement of much reasonably priced liquor.

This time, though, with Crown Thief launching over the weekend, I was determined to prioritise work over propping up the bar into the ludicrous hours - at least a little.  I got to see Crown Thief in the paper for the first time on the Friday afternoon, a few days in advance of its official release date, and was blown away by the job Angry Robot have done.  Giant Thief was a great looking book, but I think Crown Thief is even prettier.  I hardly let a copy out of my sight for the rest of the weekend, and thrust it under the nose of anyone who didn't manage to run away fast enough.

Gav Thorpe, Adam Christopher, Me, Mike Shevdon

My actual official promotional duties were fairly light, however.  First up was a mass Angry Robot signing on the Saturday afternoon, where I got to catch up with Adam Christopher and Gav Thorpe, and to meet Mike Shevdon for the first time.  Unfortunately, we found ourselves up against a much bigger signing, not to mention hidden in the hotel's least accessible conference room, so attendance was more slender than it might have been.  Still, it was fun, and worth it to meet Ros Jackson from Warpcore SF - who, if my memory was a little better, I'd have realised had written an extremely positive review of Giant Thief - and who was nice enough to stop by and share some thoughts on promotion with me.

Mr Jonathan Green, rightly enthroned.

My only other scheduleded appearance was a reading on the Sunday morning, which I was a little nervous about since a) who goes to those things on a Sunday morning? and b) I've somehow managed to go this long without ever actually having to do a solo reading.  Mind filled with images of an audience consisting entirely of Jobeda, I decided to read a short story I'd recently finished instead of an extract from Crown Thief.  That proved a slight mistake, since it wasn't quite as finished as I'd thought, and nothing trips you up quite like trying to read around your own typos.  On the other hand, the attendance turned out better than I'd dared hope - mainly because most of Jonathan Green's audience, not to mention Jonathan himself, were nice enough (or maybe tired and hungover enough) to hang around for mine.  And despite my occasional stumblings, my nerves and a few technical difficulties, everyone seemed to have a good time, me included.

There ended my Fantasycon "work".  Elsewhere, though, I got to have lunch with my comic collaborator mate Bob Molesworth and to celebrate the tremendously exciting thing that we have to celebrate that I can't talk about just yet. I caught up with Stephen Theaker - who published so many of my short stories back in the day - for the first time in a couple of years, met his mysterious alter ego John Greenwood for the first time ever, and teamed up with them to win the quiz on the Friday night (okay, there might have been one or two other people on our team too.)  I briefly met Spectral Press publisher and editor Simon Marshall Jones to chat about my forthcoming chapbook The Way of the Leaves and try and peak his interest in another, grander project.  I managed to briefly smuggle in my friend Dan Scrivener and introduce him to Strange Chemistry editor Amanda Rutter to talk up his recently finished YA Fantasy novel.  I was approached by Cavan Scott to see if I'd be up for writing something for the BFS magazine (I would, and will be.)  And I met many, many other brilliant people, some new, some industry acquaintances ... people I rarely see outside of Cons but that I'm starting to think of as friends, and to consider catching up with in the "real" world.

And I guess that paragraph illustrates the good about even a disappointing Fantasycon.  Being that bit smaller, it's also that bit more intimate, making for a fantastic venue to just chill out and meet with lots of like-minded folks that would never normally be in the same place at the same time. If the committee could only find a way to combine those elements with a more ambitious, inspiring programme, here's hoping we might yet see a brilliant FCon 2014.

Slow Drowning at This is Horror

What is it with me and gnomes, eh?  Well, they're clearly evil, that's what.  I mean, look at them.  They're like clowns, but worse.  How anyone would want those things in their garden is beyond me.  You might as well just stick an upside down crucifix next to the pond and be done with it.

Awww, isn't it cute how he gazes into the depths of your soul?

My first story exploring the terrifying phenomena that is gnomes was called King Gob's Warcry, and it was about how the terrifying little buggers are plotting to take over the world.  From my point of view, it was only a little bit fiction. Unfortunately, it's vanished from the Internet along with the webzine that published it, so I can't put up a link to it; the world will just have to keep blundering along in ignorance until the fateful day arrives and we all find ourselves staring down the business end of a miniature fishing rod.

My second story about how messed-up and fundamentally homicidal gnomes are is called Slow Drowning, and it just went up at This is Horror.  After I won that whole Spectral chapbook competition thing (he says, as though it were a mere soupçon!) Simon Marshall-Jones got in touch to see if I could cough up a story for the This is Horror site as well.  I had a bit of a think, but all I had that was of a suitable length was a story I'd always considered one of my more mainstream, non-genre efforts, a tale I'd been slowly hacking down from about three thousands words over a period of years, until the whole endeavour had become a weird exercise in masochistic editing ... the way I was going, I'd have finally finished it aged 83, it would have been exactly twelve words long and my brain would have exploded not long after.

Anyway, after a bit of a think, I realised that Slow Drowning was neither mainstream nor non-genre.  It was, in fact, obviously a horror story.  The evidence was overwhelming.  It was about death and abominable violence; in fact, of the two main characters, one of them spends the entire story dead. And what could be more chilling that the steady, soul-destroying corrosion of a loveless marriage?

Gnomes, that's what.  Because gnomes are scarier than anything.

Simon was quick to grasp this obvious truth, and came up with a suitable illustration. So if you don't want to read the story, you should still go and take a look at what a Simon Marshall-Jones picture of an evil gnome looks like.  You won't be disappointed.

The Way of the Leaves Goes Spectral

It's safe to say that I don't win things on a very regular basis.  In fact, the only things I can specifically remember winning anything in were a drawing contest when I was about seven (prize: a copy of Born Free - the book, not the film) and a raffle I went to with my gran at around the same age (prize: a bottle of shampoo, which she was nice enough to swap for her own slightly less rubbish prize.)

So it was a bit of a surprise to find out I'd taken first place in the recent competition run by Spectral Press and This is Horror - prize: every book Spectral puts out between now and the heat death of the universe and my competition-entering novelette, The Way of the Leaves, becoming one of those future releases.

Neat, right?  Leaves is another a product of the (very long) phase where I was drawing a lot of influence from early twentieth century authors like Lovecraft and Conan Doyle.  Only in this case, the reference points are more like Machen and Dunsany ... which is funny, thinking about it, because I don't think I actually read either author until after I'd written it.  Still, at least I got to the latter in time for The King of Elfland's Daughter to give me a title, so I figure that's good enough reason to claim him as a retroactive influence.

 The funny thing is, I'd been hoping for a long time to place Leaves with Spectral, ever since they started up and I read their mandate, really.  The trouble was that submissions were invite only, and since I didn't quite have the gall to ask owner / editor Simon Marshall-Jones for an invitation, matters had more or less stalled while I weighed up the odds of breaking into his house and discreetly planting torn pages from Giant Thief in the most unlikely of places.  Probably a good thing for both of us that this competition came along when it did, then!

The Way of the Leaves is booked to come out this December, making it, astonishingly, my third single-author release of this year.  Huge thanks both to Simon and to Michael Wilson of This is Horror for both coming up with the competition and then picking Leaves as the winning entry.