Hark to the Sign in the Moonlight

Implausible as it might seem, I can be a bit sneaky on occasions!  Like when it comes to news; I've been sitting on this particular piece for over a year now, even though it was a subject I was craving to discuss.  But I can also be sly when it comes to getting my books out in cool formats.  Today's case in point occurred somewhere around last Christmas, when, due to a contract mix-up, it turned out that my story The Shark in the Heart had been included in an audiobook adaptation of the Sharkpunk anthology though I'd omitted to sign over the relevant rights.  Editor Jonathan Green was immensely nice about the confusion (as he tends to be nice about everything, unless you're unlucky enough to find yourself up against him in a live version of Just a Minute at a convention, in which case he's a git) and offered to have my story removed.  But I'd already heard the recording of The Shark in the Heart by then, and it was a terrific take on the story, so that was the last thing I wanted to happen.  Instead, spying an opportunity, I asked if he would mind making introductions to the team who'd produced the audiobook version, studio Circle of Spears?

My goal, of course, was to talk them into producing an audiobook of my own short story collection The Sign in the Moonlight, which had been a cherished dream basically from the moment I started putting the anthology together.  And fortunately they didn't need a lot of persuading; in fact, they were flat-out enthusiastic.  The results, somewhat over a year later, are everything I could have hoped for, and something I suspect only a smaller, independent production house could have concocted.  For a start, Sam Burns and Tracey Norman split the male and female narrators up between them, which is a brilliant touch; but more than that, their deep roots in drama mean that these are more than mere narrations.  They've gone the extra mile to build on the characters I wrote, and to capture the period atmosphere that's crucial to so much of the collection.  Stories such as The Burning Room and The War of the Rats really do have the air of historical diary accounts read aloud; The Desert Cold really does have the sinister overtones of a criminal's confession; let your mind drift a little and it really is possible to believe that the teller of The Facts in the Case of Algernon Whisper's Karma is recounting from the distant past.  Sam and Tracey have found the bloody hearts of these stories and ripped them out for anyone to hear, and the result is something as special, in its own way, as the beautifully illustrated original or its lavish hardback cousin.

Anyway, no need to take my word for what a fine job Circle of Spears have done!  You can grab a digital copy here, or a physical copy here.  And full details of the collection, including the story listing, can be found on my website here.

Tales of Damasco: Update 5

It seems a while since I've done a Tales of Damasco update, and I'm tempted to say that that's because not a lot's been happening, but actually that isn't entirely true.  I guess it's more than the news has been trickling in in dribs and drabs, and until now it hasn't quite added up to enough to warrant a full blog post.

Closest to my heart right now is that I'm finally entering the last leg of the first draft of Prince Thief.  I'm five chapters from the end, and those five chapters are all conclusion ... the conclusion not only of this book but of the wider story I started in Giant Thief.  That means that in the remaining twenty-five thousand words or so, I have to clear up once and for all the fates of not only the ever-scoundrelish Mr Damasco himself, but Saltlick, Marina Estrada, Alvantes, Castilio Mounteban, a host of secondary characters, two or three new and major characters you haven't met yet unless you're me, and ... oh, lest we forget ... the entirety of the Castoval.

So.  No pressure, right?  Or at least - right now anyway - only the self-imposed kind that involves a bit of my brain constantly screaming, "don't screw this up, Tallerman, it's taken you five bloody years!" But you know what?  Five chapters and a month and a half to go until the end of this first draft, and I'm still feeling good about Prince Thief.  I only hope I can say the same in six weeks time, as I oh so slowly and melodramatically finger-type THE END.

Meanwhile, Crown Thief has gone off to the typesetters, which means that from my point of view, it really is truly and completely and finally done at last.  It even has a finished (well, a provisionally finished) cover, which is that bit of loveliness over on the right there.

Last up, there have been a few more reviews of Giant Thief trickling in since the release of the audiobook.  And funnily enough, they all come to fairly similar conclusions, though with varying degrees of positiveness.  Focusing specifically on the audiobook, The Guilded Earlobe says that "Giant Thief won’t distinguish itself as a modern classic of the Fantasy genre, but it’s a fun, clever adventure tale full of reluctant heroes and outrageous situations," and praises James Langton's reading in particular: "I felt instantly comfortable with [Langton], and I think he handled the characters and pacing of this novel just right."  Meanwhile, Fantasy Book Critic thought that "overall Giant Thief is an entertaining fantasy novel, with a strong enough main character to make me look forward to the next volume in the series," and Ryan Skardal from Fantasy Literature, agreeing but not enjoying the experience so much, felt that "Giant Thief is an amusing, if familiar, fantasy novel."

Most interesting for me, though, was to hear the thoughts of Bull Spec editor Samuel Montgomery-Blinn; Sam published my story The Burning Room way back when and so I take his opinion a little more seriously than that of the average reviewer.  Sad to say, he wasn't exactly bowled over, finding some of the plot turns in the second half unconvincing and drawing unfavourable comparisons with the mighty Mr Scott Lynch.*  Sam also offers some interesting thoughts on the the cover art and its representation of Damasco; I won't repeat his thoughts here, as I suspect the subject he touches on warrants at the very least a blog post in its own right, but it's certainly a topic worthy of discussion.  So I'm glad someone raised it and I recommend taking a look and then following the links that Sam's put in there.



* But hey, sometimes just getting the comparison in the first place is enough, you know?  

One Sale, a Couple of Reviews

Just when it seemed that things were quieting down and all the eventful stuff for the year was done with, a couple of bits of good news and some other interesting odds and sods appeared to enliven my week.

Actually, that's a small fib, in that the particular bit of good news I'm typing about now arrived a week or two ago, but there were a couple of contractual doodads I wanted to clarify, and now that they're clarified I think it's okay to consider it a new bit of good news all over again.  The long and the short of it is that once print-zine, soon to be webzine Kaleidotrope have picked up my languishing horror story Fall From Grace. 

As I whimpered about here, Fall was going to appear in an exciting anthology from Northern Frights Publishing until Northern Frights enigmatically imploded.  That was decidedly sad, because they were great and so would the anthology have been, but from my point of view at least, it's cheering that Fall has found a new home so quickly.  And what a home!  Kaleidotrope introduces itself with the line, "...if you dig Martians, robots, and people with melting heads...", and who doesn't dig those things?  I mean seriously, who?  Find me the man or woman who doesn't dig those things and I'll tweak your ear and call you a liar.

Elsewhere and elsewise, I stumbled over a couple of reviews / write-ups of my stories that had somehow slipped under my radar.  Firstly, SFSite had some fairly positive things to say about The Burning Room, as published in Bull Spec:

In "The Burning Room" by David Tallerman, Miss Taversham is boarding in an attic room, and her landlady Mrs. Faraday whose odd behaviour is of deep interest to her as she surveys the room she will stay in for awhile. Mrs Faraday hides a secret about this particular room, though, and the new tenant must find out more about it, or risk losing her sanity. "The Burning room" is a haunting tale that seems to linger in the mind long after the reader moves onto another story.

Perhaps a bit more exciting - in that it really pins a few of the things I was trying to get at - is this extract on Jenny's Sick from Tangent's review of Lightspeed #7:

How do you stand out in a world where everyone is perfect? In “Jenny’s Sick” by David Tallerman, all disease has been eradicated, or so it would seem. When a college man intent on pursuing a career finds his roommate suffering from influenza, gastroenteritis, and other maladies, he discovers she’s been taking pills to make herself sick. He ignores her addiction and moves out rather than try to dissuade her from her self-afflicting tendencies. Troubled by guilt, can he find it in his heart to help his former lover and friend in her time of need, or will his life and career take precedence?

Science takes a back seat to the smooth prose and identifiable characters in “Jenny’s Sick.” Turn the disease-inducing drugs into modern illegal street drugs and the story wouldn’t change . . . much. But there is an underlying current that paints a scary picture of life where everyone can have a flawless body and the boundary between sane and insane is blurred. I recommend “Jenny’s Sick” based on the characters and its thought-provoking nature.

Many cheers to Rhonda Porrett for such a thoughtful commentary.

Bull Spec (Officially) Goes Pro

A really cheering bit of news from last week that got lost in the wash:

Anyone who's picked up an issue of Bull Spec, the multigenre, multiformat magazine just now entering its second year of life, or who's had dealings with its human dynamo of a creator, Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, will already know how downright professional both 'zine and editor have been right from day one.

Well now, it's official.  The SFWA, portal-keepers of pro, have given their thumbs-up; Bull Spec has been gifted it's shiny "SFWA qualifying market" hat and has one more thing to brag about when its trying to pick up lady magazines at the magazine night club.  Not that it needs the help, because frankly, it's already got brains and looks in abundance.  And probably even a good sense of humour too.

Obviously, this is (hard-earned) good news for Sam, and also for genre publishing in general, since it's not like we're exactly tripping over professional markets here.  But it's also particularly awesome news for me, because The Burning Room, as published in issue #4, is now a retrospective SFWA-qualifying sale.  As in, the one I've been waiting on to meet the membership terms for what seems about a million years.

Ironically - if only in an Alanis Morissette sense - I'd already met the criteria about a week earlier, on the back of the Angry Robot novel sales.  But hey, it's always good to have a backup plan, and there's an alternate universe somewhere where I'm still busily air-punching over this one.

A Fistful of Burning Room Reviews

I've come across three reviews of The Burning Room, as recently published in the January issue issue of Bull Spec, and thought I  might as well take a few minutes to share them.

All told, the response seems to be a general thumbs-up.  Firstly, here's one from fantasyliterature.com:

David Tallerman’s “The Burning Room” is a ghost story apparently set a few centuries ago in London.  A woman who is new to the city finds a room in a widow’s home for a suspiciously reasonable price, and learns why the room was available on her first night, when a specter appears. The new boarder — Miss Taversham, which necessarily gives us echoes of Charles Dickens — neatly unravels the mystery in a way that offers no surprises. It is a nice exercise in setting and mood, though, and Tallerman’s use of 18th century vernacular seems just right.

The ex-history student in me feels the need to point out that the The Burning Room is set around the beginning of the twentieth century, but "nice exercise in setting and mood" is pretty good, right?  Still, this one, from SFRevu, is probably a bit more positive on the whole:

David Tallerman's "The Burning Room" is a chilling little ghost story about a young woman named Taversham who rents an attic room from a widow named Mrs. Faraday. At night she feels a great heat, even though the embers on the fireplace have burned down. She sees a vision of a man. What is behind all this? All in all, like I said, a nice little ghost story.

Last up, and my favourite, since that last-line summary is pretty much exactly what I was aiming for, here's Lois Tilton from Locus Online:

Miss Taversham had expected to live with an aunt while she took employment as a milliner, but she unexpectedly died, leaving the younger woman with an urgent need for lodgings. The second floor of Mrs Faraday’s house seems quite suitable, but her landlady’s nervousness clues Miss Taversham to the fact that something there is quite wrong. And indeed, when the ghost appears, he is not unexpected. But our narrator is not afraid. In fact, she regards the ghost’s appearance as a mystery to be solved.

A nicely-done ghost story in the classic mode, with a tragic conclusion.

Bull Spec #4 Out to Buy (Or Read For Free)

I've mentioned at least a couple of times before now that there are plenty of things other than financial incentive that make me want to publish work with a given market.  Sometimes a good experience, such as knowing my work's in the hands of an editor who genuinely gives a damn about what happens to it, can make all the difference.

With Bull Spec, and editor Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, I've somehow managed to have both.  Bull Spec is a pro-rate paying market run like a fanzine, a really professional fanzine that's actually pretty much like a professional market in every way except for how damn nice Sam is, and how much he's willing to share his creative processes and apparently boundless energy.

My story The Burning Room was one of the first Sam accepted at the back end of 2010, when Bull Spec was little more than a twinkle in his eye.  Since then I've gotten to watch the magazine come together, often in ways I would have been hard pressed to believe possible.  Pretty much from the off, it was clear Sam had a vision of what he wanted to deliver - one definitely influenced by existing markets, but not entirely like anything already out there - and that he believed in it as far more than just a hobby project.  That impressed me from the beginning.  What's really startling, though, is how close he's come to bringing those ideas to fruition in the space of hardly more than a year.  Twelve months down the line, Bull Spec is as good as anything out there.  It's a genuine pleasure to have a story within its covers, an even bigger one to have watched the journey from its outset and even been allowed to have a little bit of influence in its outcome.

Lest this post begin to seem like sucking up or mere ranting, I should probably say something about how great The Burning Room is too.  Boy.  Well.  The The Burning Room, huh?  So, it's kind of my stab at a full-blown Gothic ghost story.  I think it probably owes a little to H. G. Wells's The Red Room, although I've never been entirely sure what except for the title.  And the fact that it's a ghost story.  Except that, if I remember rightly, there wasn't actually a ghost in the The Red Room.

Oh crap, I've just ruined a really great story for everyone who hasn't read it, haven't I?  Well, given the state of my memory, it's actually entirely possible that The Red Room contains a whole army of ghosts, including a ghostly wildebeest and an entire phantasmagorical cricket team.

Either way, The Burning Room definitely has a ghost in it.  Early in the last century, a young woman moves into a rented room, only to find that the previous tenant hasn't entirely vacated just yet.  Instead of doing what, let's face it, any sane person would do and getting on the next train for Anywhere Else, she sets about adjusting the room to suit its phantom visitor.

To find out whether that's a good move or a bad one, (hey, no guessing!) you should probably just go buy issue 4 of Bull Spec.  Or, you know, download it for nothing - since one of those many awesome ideas that Sam had from the off was that the 'zine should be free to anyone who wanted it.  Although it's perhaps worth pointing out that every time someone takes him up on this woefully generous offer, Sam shoots a kitten with a 12-gauge shotgun.

No wait, that's a lie.  A possibly libelous one, now that I think about it.

Bull Spec ... completely great, potentially free, and 100% kitten-friendly!

York-based Spookiness 2010

If all goes to plan and the trains don't get snowed off, I will be spending next Saturday in The Minster Inn in York, drinking beer and swapping ghost stories with a group of fellow writers.  This is how I've passed the last three first-Saturdays-of-December, and I hope I get to do the same for a fair few more, because it's become one of the high points of my year.  I mean, beer, ghost stories, more beer ... it's hard to go wrong with a recipe like that.

It also means that I've had to write a new ghost story - otherwise what would I read?  So far, the results have been pretty positive.  In 2007, I read The Untold Ghost, which ended up as the editor's pick in Pill Hill Press's Haunted anthology,and in 2008 I went with The Burning Room, which should be out in Bull Spec next month.  Last year's story, Knock, Knock, is still looking for a home, but it's a strong tale and I've faith that it'll make it eventually.  Meanwhile, this year I'll be debuting a tale I put together last month and literally just finished the first redraft of, called Prisoner of Peace.  I'm really pleased with it, I think it might even be the best of the bunch, and it'll be interesting to see if anyone else likes it as much as I do.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, I guess, depending on your perspective), I'll be trying to hold me own against some serious competition.  I'm not sure just who's going to be around for this one, but previous years have featured the likes of author / editor David Stuart Davies, the excellent Mark Valentine and my friend Mr Rafe McGregor, who introduced me to the whole thing, (and gets mentioned in this blog almost more than I do!)

So if you happen to be in the vicinity six days from now, around one in the afternoon, why not drop in and listen to a bunch of ghost stories?  Did I mention there's going to be beer?

Second Try for The Burning Room

A couple of bits of news this week, I'll get to the other one over the weekend. First up, I'm immensely pleased to announce that new professional-rate market Bull Spec have picked up my ghost story The Burning Room, which has been languishing ever since short-lived magazine The Willows accepted it and then promptly expired.

Harking back to my last post, the version that finally got okayed is some 500 words longer than the one that would have appeared back then. Editor Sam Montgomery-Blinn felt that the end was lacking a certain something and asked for a couple more lines, and me being me, I got a little carried away. It's easily done when there's the promise of being paid by the word, and it's a lucky coincidence that the new ending is a huge improvement.

I guess it's always a gamble staking work on a new publisher, but I've been hugely impressed by the passion and enthusiasm Sam's shown, both in regards to my own tale and on the Bull Spec blog. So while it would be kind of appropriate that The Burning Room should be cursed to never see the light of day, I'm hoping it's going to have a bit more luck this second time out.

Lastly, here's yet another glowing review of The Living Dead that picks out Stockholm Syndrome for special comment. Cheers to The Cimmerian for the thumbs up.