2022 so far...

Well, the New Year is already no longer so new, rushing by at a rate of knots; we're already a week into the second month of it.

Various things are in motion at this end; I finished one novel on New Year's Eve and have a few last revisions to do, and am about 30,000 words into what will hopefully be a new one. 

The new issue of Phantasmagoria magazine is out, featuring my story 'Nemesis Of Wire' alongside new fiction by Caitlin Marceau, Evangelia Papanikou, Mike Chinn and many others. 'Nemesis Of Wire' is a Christmas-themed chiller (the issue was originally slated for December) set in a trench on the Western Front in World War One, where amid all the state-sanctioned slaughter, the legacy of one heinous act still lingers...

Reviews of Ellen Datlow's body horror anthology Body Shocks continue to appear, including
this one from Anthony Cardino, which concludes: "If I had to choose the most disturbing story in the anthology in terms of body transformation and trauma, it would be a three way tie between Simon Bestwick’s “Welcome to Mengele’s,” which involves bodily abuse of clones; Cody Goodfellow’s “Atwater,” which contains both the most disturbing birthing scene I’ve read and a scene reminiscent of the climax of the movie Akira which made me physically ill the first time I saw it on VHS; and Michael Blumlein’s “Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report.”" 

I still haven't settled down to read Body Shocks, believe it or not, but I'm looking forward to it, and I'm inordinately pleased that a story I wrote all the way back in 1998 is still disturbing the hell out of people.

Reviews of Devils of London have shown up thick and fast, with Linda Nagle raving over it at Ginger Nuts of Horror and more qualified, though generally positive, reviews from the Future Fire and Horrified. I suspect they're right that there maybe should have been more to this story than there was; maybe I need to return to the theme in a novel. Or maybe I'm just too quick to believe every criticism. Even if I am, though, I kind of like the idea of exploring the premise at greater depth and in greater detail...

Finally - and I've been meaning to blog about this all year! - I was delighted to find I'd made two people's 'top ten' list for 2021.

On Twitter, Ian Duff listed 'ten books I read for the first time in 2021 and really enjoyed', which were:

1) Last One At The Party - Bethany Clift
2) Roth-Steyr - Simon Bestwick
3) One Day All This Will Be Yours - Adrian Tchaikovsky
4) Never - Ken Follett
5) Tidepool - Nicole Willson
6) The End Of Men - Christina Sweeney-Baird
7) The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
8) Zero Day Code - John Birmingham
9) The Burning Girls - CJ Tudor
10) Nine Ghosts - Simon Bestwick

Making the list twice is brilliant enough, and even better when I'm sharing it with the likes of Margaret Atwood, CJ Tudor, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Ken Follett...

And last but far from least, Tony Jones published his Top Ten Reads of 2021 at Horror DNA, in which A Different Kind Of Light leads the list, alongside work by Adam Nevill, Ronald Malfi and Philip Fracassi:

"A Different Kind of Light is top-heavy with genuinely standout creepy scenes which leave a lasting impression once the final page is turned... Out of the blue Ash receives a message from Danie, an old university friend, who is seeking help in authenticating a piece of vintage sports film footage, which features the aftermath of the 1955 Le Mans Disaster. In this crash, the driver Pierre Levegh swerved into spectators, killing 84 and injuring 120 in the deadliest accident in motor racing history. The pair agree that there is no way this footage could have been faked and investigate further, buying the oddity on behalf of a third-party collector.

Building horror novels out of real historical events is a tricky business and A Different Kind of Light totally nails it. When Ash realises there is something very dodgy with the film, his research takes the story into unpredictable directions, with the balance of the developing supernatural storyline convincingly interconnected to the dynamics between the two main characters, and an enticing investigation into the origins of the film.This haunting novella will remain with you long after the killer ending."

All of which makes me a happy man, as we forge ahead into the uncharted waters of 2022.... 

Another frickin' year - 2021 in review

So, here we are again, after twelve more months hunkering in the bunker while waves of plague, insanity, hate and plain economy-size stupidity swept back and forth across the globe (to say nothing of the stuff Cate and I were going through closer to home.) And by the look of it, with the arrival of the Omicron variant, it ain't over yet. Here's hoping 2022 is better - or at least, that we get through it in one piece. 

I often find myself looking at this video by Idris Elba around the end of a year. I genuinely find it inspirational, because it has two important lessons: stay out of your own head, and keep going. Don't keep second-guessing yourself over taking risks as an artist or comparing yourselves to others' results and techniques; don't keep obsessing over where you are, how close to your goal.

Just do the work. Show up. Get your head down. Whatever works best for you, however it works: do it, and keep doing it. Don't give up.

Over the last couple of years, I've done my best to take Elba's advice to heart, and while I haven't conquered the world, it has paid dividends. Some of those, hopefully, you're going to hear more about in 2022. Some of them I can share with you today.

I had multiple false starts in terms of writing a new novel throughout this year. A lot of it was not being able to get out of my own head and trust my writing instincts. I turned to shorter forms for a big chunk of 2021 instead, and completed two novellas - including a follow-up to Roth-Steyr - and a bunch of stories.

I finally managed to get a novel going in September, and - touch wood - I'm close to the end. I hoping I'll be able to complete it within the next couple of days, so I can say I managed to write on in 2021.

So this year's creative output has been:

17 short stories,

11 pieces of verse,

5 flash fictions,

2 novellas,

And hopefully a novel!

On the acceptance front, one novel, a novella, a short story collection, and eleven individual stories. Plus some other cool news I can't announce yet.

As for actual publications in 2021:

Novel:

Black Mountain (Independent Legions Publishing) 

Novellas:

A Different Kind Of Light (Black Shuck Books)

Devils Of London (Hersham Horror Books)

Story Collection:

Nine Ghosts (Black Shuck Books)

Short Fiction:

'In The City In The Smog' (Horrified Magazine)

'In the Service of the Queen' (Horrified Magazine, reprinted from Patreon)

'And You Heard The Rattling Death Train' (Railroad Tales, Midnight Street Press)

'The Hungry Dark' (Out of the Darkness, Unsung)

'Redwater' (Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 3: A Miscellany of Monsters, Alchemy Press)

'Tonight the War is Over' (Nine Ghosts, Black Shuck Books, original to collection)

'The Cage' (Nine Ghosts, Black Shuck Books, original to collection)

Work published on Patreon:

Short Fiction:

Danielle

We Pray

Bone Street Blues

The Harvest Of Efriam Drazer

Beneath The Crust (Written for and read out on The Tiny Bookcase podcast) 

Flash Fiction:

A Bottle Of Ink

Osaka Jones

Ermenonville

The Mayan Ships

Brokerage

Verse:

Go Get It, Girl

The Book Of Angels

Below Decks On The Morro Castle

The Book Of Nightmares

Oubliette

The Whispered Song Of Anton Probst

The Call

Whaleback

Goliath’s Song

Steel City Blues

The Ghost School

Grandmother’s Footsteps

Stalin’s Gun: The Daze Of Vasili Blokhin

The Andragathius Doctrine

I Don’t Wear A Poppy Anymore

Jarman’s Ghost

On top of that, two of my short stories were reprinted in mass market anthologies: 'A Treat For Your Last Day' in Best Horror of the Year #13, and 'Welcome To Mengele's' in Body Shocks. Huge thanks to Ellen Datlow on both counts.

So, all the best the coming year to all of you.

And here's that Idris Elba video to finish off with. He's a lot better-looking than me. :)

Things Of The Week 2nd April 2021: Best Horror Of The Year #13, Nine Ghosts Launch Video, Out Of The Darkness, Body Shocks Advance Review

So, two nights ago I got an email from Ellen Datlow, about a short story of mine called 'A Treat For Your Last Day,' letting me know she wanted to publish it in The Best Horror of the Year #13.

Anything like that is always great news, but this was particularly great for two reasons: firstly because it'll mark the first time I've appeared in Best Horror of the Year for two years running - it only seems like last week that I received my contributor's copy of Best Horror of the Year #12, the incredibly cool Reiko Murakami of which is pictured on the left - and secondly because 'A Treat For Your Last Day' was first published on my Patreon page.

I've had a Patreon account for a couple of years now, and my biggest challenge has been making it both something I can sustain and something that's worth looking at. I'll talk a bit more about my Patreon in another post some time. For now, I'll just say that I post new work there every fortnight and that you can read it for as little as a dollar a month. So there we go. 

In other news, the Kickstarter for Unsung Stories' Out Of The Darkness anthology still has five days to run, although it's already massively outstripped its original target of £2500. I'm one of a host of authors - including Laura Mauro, Aliya Whiteley, Georgina Bruce, Gary Budden, Tim Major - who've contributed horror and dark fantasy fiction inspired by the theme of mental illness. All author fees and royalties will be donated to Together For Mental Wellbeing.

Having hit its first stretch target of £5000, the anthology will now include an additional story by Malcolm Devlin; if it hits its second stretch target of £7000, a further story by Gareth E. Rees will be added to the table of contents. The total amount pledged currently stands at £6840, so things are looking pretty healthy there.

Ginger Nuts Of Horror has been hosting a series of articles in which the anthology's contributors talk about their own inspirations and experiences. Contributors Aliya Whiteley, Tim Major and Anna Vaught disucss their stories here; Alison Moore, Verity Holloway and Eugen Bacon talk about theirs here, and you can find Sam Thompson, Richard V Hirst and myself on our own contributions here. 

The first advance review of another Ellen Datlow anthology, Body Shocks - which includes my story 'Welcome To Mengele's' - is now up at HellNotes, and seems to be a rave. Hopefully the first of many for this book. 

Finally, Nine Ghosts, my new mini-collection from Black Shuck Books, was released on March 25th, and March 26th saw a live-streamed launch via YouTube. 

See! A fat beardy man wittering on!  

Hear! The two lucky winners of free copies of the book!

And tremble! At readings of two of the stories from the collection, 'The Cage' and 'Dab and Sole.'

If you missed (or if you didn't, and for some insane reason actually want to put yourself through that again,) here it is.

Have a good weekend, folks.

Simon. 

Nine Ghosts

I have a new mini-collection coming out from Black Shuck Books.

It's called Nine Ghosts.

There are nine stories.

There are nine ghosts.

Two of the stories have never been published before.

Two others have only appeared on my Patreton.

You can find more details here.

I meant to do a live launch on Facebook, as I did for A Different Kind Of Light. Unfortunately Facebook has currently blocked me from livestreaming. I have no idea why.

Luckily I can livestream through my YouTube channel. So that's what I'll be doing at 7.00 pm GMT on Friday 26th March.

There'll be a live reading, a Q&A and a chance to win a couple of copies.

So be there or be square.

The nine ghosts await you. 

(PS: I've invited as many people to the event via Facebook as I can, but I was only able to send a limited number of invites. So do please spread the word if you possibly can, or if you know anyone you think might enjoy this.)

Things Of The Week: 16th January 2021 (Horrified Magazine, Nine Ghosts and A Different Kind Of Light)

The main event of the last week has been my first appearance in Horrified Magazine! 'In The City In The Smog', a dark and hallucinatory tale inspired by the 1952 London Smog Disaster, was published last week. You can read it here.

I'm going to have two new books out this year, both from Black Shuck: another novella, A Different Kind Of Light, and a mini-collection called Nine Ghosts.

Nine Ghosts won't be out till nearer the end of the year, so I'll say more about that closer to the time, but A Different Kind Of Light will see print in February. I won't say anything about A Different Kind Of Light just yet, but I will leave you with a quote from the novelist Sarah Lotz, who very kindly agreed to read the novella and provide a blurb:

"Compulsively readable, original and chilling. Simon Bestwick's witty, engaging tone effortlessly and brilliantly amplifies its edge-of-your-seat atmosphere of creeping dread. I'll be sleeping with the lights on."

More details to follow: stay tuned....