Author and Scriptwriter

'Among the most important writers of contemporary British horror.' -Ramsey Campbell

Saturday 7 January 2012

Look Around, Leaves Are Brown, And The Sky...

A couple of days ago, I posted about what a dizzyingly great start to the year I'd had. But nagging away at the back of my head was the strange conviction that I'd missed something out. It didn't seem likely- I mean check out the bloggage in question. If that's not enough to make anyone very happy, then I don't know what is.

But yup, there was something. This:

A Hazy Shade Of Winter was my first book; my first collection of short stories, published by Chris and Barbara Roden's excellent Ash-Tree Press imprint over in Canada, all the way back in August 2004, with this bloody gorgeous cover by Paul Lowe.

Jesus. Nearly eight years now. Like all Ash-Tree books, it's a beauty to hold and to behold. It garnered some good reviews, and the title story, best of all, was picked by Ellen Datlow for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #18.

At £28.00, though, the collection might well have been outside the pain threshold of some readers. So I'm delighted to announce that A Hazy Shade Of Winter is now being released by Ash-Tree as an ebook. A lot of their back catalogue is be reissued in this way- I've already been filling up my Christmas Kindle with collections by Steve Duffy, Reggie Oliver and A.M. Burrage- and as of yesterday they also reissued Joel Lane's brilliant first collection, The Earth Wire (take note: no lover of weird fiction should be without it.)

It should be out shortly- believe me, I'll be telling the world and his dog when it is- but anyroad, that's the other piece of good news I had to share, and I wanted to give a shout-out to Chris and Barbara for giving the book what'll hopefully be a new lease of life.

Now, of course, there's only one song to end on. But which version? Well, heretical though it may be, I always liked this one best...





4 comments:

Deborah Walker said...

Congratulations, Simon. I'm loving that cover.

Simon said...

Thanks, Deborah. Paul's a fantastic artist. :)

Anonymous said...

BERRIRO and CK..they are the bees..isn't that right SIMON?
You are SIMON ASSARO?
Or do you just work with him in the mob and exchange names?
SOMELY is talking about REMEL.
And SOMATIDS is speaking of CHIPSYMN.
And there 's one helluva hot OVENE with RISA and explosives and JAGGER- CROW names her as
" GREAT DAME".
ZETAS do , too.
MAINE - MASSACHUSETTS.
You do know BALDWIN has your books?
And that's SYSPUR DYSICA.
NESSPA?

Cate Gardner said...

I shall of course download it to my kindle.

The Bangles version is the only version I know so I'm going to agree that it's the best.