Things Of The Week: 4th November 2016

Me, Nightmares, and early morning bed hair

Well, Offline October wasn’t as offline as I intended – social media’s a definite addiction of mine, and one I need to address as it’s been eating into my writing too much. I was worried that I might have writer’s block, but once I unplugged the wireless router (downstairs), fired up the laptop (upstairs) and made myself write I found the prose still came easily enough. So, basically, it was simple laziness.

I’m still not underway on the first draft of Wolf’s Hill, and that needs fixing – I’m hoping to get rolling in the next week or two, and try and finish the first draft, at least, by year’s end. At the moment I’m working on a couple of short stories; once those are gone, it’ll be the book’s turn. The Lowdown will resume next week: meanwhile, here are some things that have been going on.

credit: www.blakefriendmann.co.uk

The first piece of news is a sad one: the sudden and unexpected passing of literary agent Carole Blake. Although I never met Carole personally, many other writers have spoken of her with great warmth and affection in both professional and personal terms. Along with Julian Friedmann, she co-founded the agency that represents me; she also wrote 29 Ways Not To Submit To An Agent, which was handy (although I was relieved to note that I didn’t do most of them anyway) and I know that her book, From Pitch To Publication, was a big help to many writers. My thoughts go to her family and to her friends and colleagues at Blake-Friedmann.

With the run-up to Halloween, it seemed a good time to catch up on horror movies (as per my recent posts. I have a tendency to buy books and DVDs which then sit around for months or even years before I finally get round to watching or reading them, and I caught up with a few titles in October. In the book stakes there was Ramsey Campbell’s The Seven Days Of Cain (great title!)*, while in the realm of movies there were two corkers: Oculus and The Babadook.

Oculus centres around a mirror with demonic properties. By controlling the perceptions of those who own it, it drives them to suicide. Kaylie (Karen Gillan) and her brother Tim (Brenton Thwaites) lost their parents to it, and Tim was incarcerated in a mental institution for years; now, Kaylie has tracked the mirror down and sets out to prove there’s a genuine supernatural force present. The narrative cuts back and forth between the events of their childhood and the present day; if it has a weakness, it’s that this format means the parents’ psychological deterioration feels as though it happens a little too quickly. Cate and I found this seriously unsettling: there are a few jump scares, but that’s not where it’s at.

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The Babadook: wow. Amelia (Essie Davis) was widowed in a car crash the night her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) was born. Now, her son is plagued by nightmares of a monster coming for him, building weapons to fight it; as his behavioural problems place Amelia under ever-increasing strain, she finds a pop-up book called The Babadook, after the shadowy monster it centres on. Soon, the creature from the book begins to invade their lives, and Amelia’s own sanity begins to crumble. Original and very, very disturbing.

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We’ve also started watching the new E4/Netflix series Crazyhead, starring Cara Theobald and Susan Wokoma. The trailer looked as though it could be good or terrible; we only needed to watch about five minutes to know we liked it. Amy (Theobald) has just stopped taking anti-psychotic medication to suppress the hallucinations she keeps having. Except that they aren’t hallucinations: she’s one of a tiny number of people who can see those possessed by demons. One of them nearly kills her till she’s rescued by Raquel (Wokoma), another ex-mental patient with the same gift. Crazyhead manages to be both genuinely funny and full of genuine scares, and has real heart, especially in the relationship between the two leads. There’s also a strong supporting cast – Amy’s flatmate and best friend Suzanne (Riann Steele), her amorous work colleague Jake (Lewis Reeves), Raquel’s brother Tyler (Arinze Kene) and head demon Callum (Tony Curran) – plus a willingness to bump off supporting characters that helps ramp up the tension among the humour. Crazyhead’s only downside is that, being a British series, it’s only six episodes. Here’s hoping it gets a second series.

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Three really nice things happened this week.

Nice Thing No. 1: My contributor’s copy of Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror arrived. Nightmares has been very well received, with a host of excellent reviews appearing, including a starred review in Publishers’ Weekly. Not many of them mention my own tale, ‘Hushabye’, but I can live with that – I’m happy to be published in that company!

Me with The Feast Of All Souls, plus yet more bed hair.

Ellen Datlow’s latest anthology collates stories from between 2005 and 2015 that have had a ‘lasting impact’ on her. Authors such as Mark Samuels, Laird Barron, Livia Llewellyn, John Langan, Gene Wolfe, Margo Lanagan and many more appear within; I’m proud and delighted to see ‘Hushabye’ included.

Nice Thing No.2: My author copies of The Feast Of All Souls, published next month by Solaris, turned up too. Complete with that beautiful cover art by Ben Baldwin. Please get in touch if you’d like to review the book. Which brings me on to…

Nice Thing No.3: Gill O’Rourke recently started reading my stuff, starting with Tide Of Souls, which she raves about on her blog here. She also co-presents the radio show Lifestyle MK, where she continues the rave-age, and solicits a few words with me on reviews. You can listen to me blather on here. Many thanks, Gill!

So, about that:

One thing I’ve become very aware of recently is the importance of reviews in driving book sales. The algorithms on Amazon (and let’s face it, this is where a lot of people are buying their books now) give you more visibility if you’ve had more reviews. 50 is usually the magic number that means you show up near the top of the search results in your chosen category.

So, if you’ve read my stuff and liked it, please leave a review. Or just leave a review (honest ones are better any day of the week!) I’ve certainly decided to start doing this more with books I’ve read and liked. It’s a simple and direct way to show your appreciate for a writer, and something concrete you can do to help them out.


* ETA: And yes, I'll be writing an Amazon review!

News Roundup #2: BIG Love for The Faceless

One book I've loved since I first read it in the early 1990s (Christ, has it really been nearly twenty years?) is Antony Sher's Year Of The King, his memoir of the twelvemonth leading up to his performance as Richard III for the RSC in 1985. Drawn from his diary and sketchbooks (he's a gifted writer and artist as well as actor) it's often funny, sometimes touching, and fascinating if you want to an insight into how a great actor works. One thing he'd done at the time was to give up reading reviews of his performances.

Anyway, towards the end of the book, the show has opened and Sher has various Big Names coming backstage to congratulate him. Among them is Michael Caine, who asks: 'Well, what about the reviews?'

'I don't read them,' explains Sher.

'Don't read them? You wrote them didn't you?'

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I hate blowing my own trumpet. I honestly do. I was brought up not to brag. But there've been quite a few reviews of The Faceless, and they've all been a bit good. So much so that I'm almost too embarrassed to quote them here.

Almost. :)

So- deep breath- here goes:

One print review so far, from Gareth Hughes in SciFiNow magazine, who gives it four stars out of five:

'It's refreshing to read something as original as The Faceless... Despite some heavy themes it never seems exploitative, tapping into a very modern, almost post 9/11 fear... Bestwick has produced a piece of work streets ahead of his peers.'

Online, Theresa Derwin at Terror Tree says:

'...proof positive that Bestwick is a strong new voice in British horror... The Faceless is a genuinely creepy, classic book.'

Over at This Is Horror, Ross Anthony Warren has this to say:

'The Faceless contains a level of craft and execution that, alongside the work of Ramsey Campbell, Conrad Williams and Gary McMahon, goes a long way in restoring the reputation of the horror novel... a name to watch out for in the future.'

From Anthony Watson at Dark Musings:

'Simon is one of the best writers of horror fiction currently plying their trade. In fact scrap that... Simon is one of the best writers - of any genre - currently plying their trade. This is a great book, one that I thoroughly enjoyed (if that's the right word) reading. It has everything...

The book is beautifully written, yes. It has a great plot, yes. Most importantly though, it's scary as hell...'

And from Jim McLeod over at The Ginger Nuts Of Horror:

'In this day and age it takes a lot of skill, and perhaps a truly deranged mind to come up with a monster that will terrify a reader, as much as The Spindly Men. The Faceless is a modern masterpiece of British horror... the must read horror novel of the year so far.'

From Spooky Reads:

'The Faceless is an edge-of-your seat read, and definitely needs to be read by any fan of the supernatural horror fiction genre. If you like Ramsey Campbell, Gary McMahon, and Adam Nevill’s work, then you’ll likely enjoy what Simon Bestwick has created here. It’s a compelling read; decently paced, its greater underlying themes, and messages, linger on after the tale itself has been told.'

All of which actually isn't so much receiving love as being gang-banged. In a good way. As it were.

Off for a lie down now.

Loss of Separation by Conrad Williams

It was about time that I wrote something about someone else, so having finished this novel recently, here goes:

I’ll admit it- I was looking forward to this one. Conrad Williams has been around for a while now, and there isn’t another author quite like him in the horror genre right now, blending the visionary and poetic with the visceral on the one hand and the language of technical precision on the other. It’s like a mid-air collision between Clive Barker and J.G. Ballard had taken place, creating a grotesque, impacted-together hybrid that still manages to fly…

Which is more or less the opening image of Loss Of Separation, if you replace ‘Clive Barker and J.G. Ballard’ with ‘Boeing 777 and 747’. The nightmarish image of Flight Z, flown by a dead captain and with its passengers burning alive inside it, haunts the dreams of Conrad’s protagonist, Paul Roan. As well it might; Paul quit his job as an airline pilot after a ‘loss of separation’ occurred- i.e. when he came perilously close to a mid-air collision. Paul decamped to the Suffolk town of Southwick with his girlfriend Tamara to start a new life, only to be almost killed in a hit and run accident that put him in a coma for six months. He woke to find Tamara gone, no-one knows where. Ruth, a nurse from the hospital, takes him under her wing, but she has her own damage to consider; she’s pregnant as a result of rape.

Meanwhile, the townsfolk treat Paul as a sin-eater, bringing him things to burn- mementoes of the things they can’t live with anymore. But Southwick has secrets; disappearances and murdered children. With the help of Amy, a young woman who, like Paul, has narrowly cheated death by accident, Paul starts uncovering them, and in doing so he finds out that Tamara might not, as he thought, have deserted him…

As you can see, there’s a lot going on here. There always is in Conrad’s work. But while in the past, in novels like The Unblemished, London Revenant or Decay Inevitable, there was so much going on that some aspects inevitably didn’t get the development they deserved, here the different elements are perfectly balanced and controlled, as in his BFA-winning 2009 novel, One (and if you’ve not read that yet, you really ought to.) And while there is no shortage of imagery both simultaneously beautiful and horrific, Loss is also Conrad’s most low-key novel to date. This is a powerful, slow-burning book that relies far more on suggestion, reticence and characterisation than his previous works, without ever losing its uncompromising modernity. This is the work of a writer at the top of his form, and not afraid to shift gears and move away from what people might have come to expect him. Paul is also a departure; Conrad’s protagonists may not be Hollywood action heroes, but they’re usually fairly handy, enough to run a reasonable distance or deliver a decent punch. Paul is physically as well as mentally scarred, made deeply aware of his own fragility by recent experiences, suffering from chronic pain and wondering if he’ll ever manage to function and have a life again.

As ever, the aforementioned characterisation is beautifully delivered, and the prose, as in One, has a perfectly-balanced synthesis between poetic language and narrative flow. It’s well-nigh impossible not to be moved by Paul’s plight, and Loss contains scenes that are genuinely disturbing as well (there’s one sequence in particular on a North Sea crossing which might well put you off ferries for life.)

All in all, this is a sterling performance from a writer who continues to go from strength to strength. If you’re a Conrad Williams virgin, this is a damn good place to break your duck; if you’ve read and enjoyed his previous works, then I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Buckle up and prepare for take-off; Flight Z is about to depart…

Houses On The Borderland

This is just a quick one, as I try to shake off the melancholia of both Rockworld and, a few days later, the inimitable Pete Steele of Type O Negative going west in the same week (c'mon, Death, couldn't you have taken Robbie Williams instead? Or how about Simon Cowell? Better yet- Michael Bay. Please take that soulless void of directing non-talent. And then flush. Don't forget to spray air-freshener)...

Ahem. Sorry. I said this would be quick, didn't I?

Some of you might remember the BFS anthology Houses On The Borderland, which came out back in 2008. It included some damn good stories from some damn good writers- Allen Ashley, Paul Finch, David A. Riley and Gary Fry- and also a novella of mine called The School House. All in all a very strong line-up of fiction, plus I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that this novella was, and is, very close to my heart, possibly one of the most personal things I've ever written, so it was a crying shame that the anthology seemed to sink without trace. As Oscar Wilde said, there's only one thing worse than being talked about, and that's not being talked about.

All of which is a long-winded preamble to the following: two reviews of Houses On The Borderland have just come out, one on Tales From The Black Abyss and another over at Hellnotes. Cheers to both Colin Leslie and Mario Guslandi for their kind words.

If any of the above piques your interest, you can buy the anthology here. It's always worth supporting the fine organisation that is the BFS.

And that's it from me. Have a nice weekend. Over and out!

Swine Flu, Reviews and Interviews

So here I am, confined to barracks for the next week or so. Here's how it went...

'Woke up this morning feeling fine', Herman's Hermits once sang. 'Woke up yesterday morning feeling poo', sing I, on the other hand. Sore throat, cough, and- more worryingly- general weakness plus achiness in the muscles and, it felt, the bones.

So I rang the National Pandemic Flu Helpline, fully expecting to be told I'm a whinging hypochondriac and to get my arse into work. As you've probably guessed from the above, that ain't what happened. 'No, it's not man-flu this time,' the nice woman at the other end said, and gave me an authorisation number for antiviral drugs.

Just taken my third of ten doses of Tamiflu and am very glad a friend has just lent me the final season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD. To be on the safe side, I've also just ordered a Blake's Seven box-set off Amazon... although by the time they deliver it I'll probably be a) dead or b) back to work. Most likely b). Of course there are these other, older artefacts called books, apparently used in the days before DVD and the Internet as a means of boredom control, and still apparently popular with the strange barbarian tribes north of Watford.

Another friend tells me that the Flu Helpline's telephone diagnoses aren't always accurate. So it's possible I don't have Swine Flu, but some other kind of minor viral bug. One way or the other, though, I'm laid up with the dreaded lurgey. And I'm not venturing out till it's cleared up- partly for my own health, and partly as if it is Swine Flu, I don't particularly want to give this to anyone else.

A couple of nice things have happened, though, since I last posted. There's my Book Launch, and I'll try to pop some photos up from that to give everyone a laugh. Also, a few reviews of Tide Of Souls are up- one from Graeme Flory and two more on Goodreads from Mark West and Richard Wright- all very complimentary. The really nice Des Lewis carried out a 'real-time' review of Pictures Of The Dark which you can check out here.

Also, my career as a media whore continues. Peter Tennant interviewed me as part of a series of interviews with this year's British Fantasy Award finalists. You can read it here. Go on, make a sick man happy...

Hope the rest of you are staying healthy and germ-free,

Simon x.