World War Cthulhu

World War Cthulhu: Darkest Hour is a new Second World War setting from game company Cubicle 7, a variant on their Call Of Cthulhu RPG. Which may not be of interest if, like me, you're not a gamer yourself. But Cubicle 7 have produced an ebook anthology of horror fiction to accompany the release, and asked the wonderful Jonathan Oliver to edit it.

Jon's a fine editor - I've had the great pleasure of working with him on both Tide Of Souls and The Faceless - and having a story in a previous anthology of his, End Of The Line. World War Cthulhu includes tales from James Lovegrove, Weston Ochse, Rebecca Levene, Robin D. Laws, Gaie Sebold, T.P. Pike, Sarah Newton, Greg Stolze, Paul Finch, John Llewellyn Probert, Jonathan Green, Archie Black and World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar. All fine writers.

Oh, and I'm in there too, with a tale called 'Now I Am Nothing.'

'They’d been crushed flat, but there was no blood... All the blood - all the moisture of any kind, it looked like - had been sucked or squeezed out of them. The bodies were punctured and perforated, and in places the dried, withered flesh was burned, as if by fire or some strong acid. Not all of them still had faces, but the ones that did were still screaming. Even in death...

The dead man stared up at him with the bloody, ragged sockets that had been his eyes. His hands were red claws, pieces of tissue still clinging to them...

 Its great, unending heap of a body glistened greasily; Its hide was smooth, pale and slimy, like intestine, like great sheets of gut. Pale and slimy except for dark, glistening patches that spotted it. Were there holes in the middle of those patches? And if so, what were they? More mouths? No matter. Under that hide things moved, like great armatures of bone. It was as if someone was trying to erect a tent from the inside; the great bulk of It rippled and shifted.' 

You can buy World War Cthulhu here. 

Black Mountain #2 - New Cover Art

The cover art for the second instalment of Black Mountain, The Ghosts Of Hafan Deg, has now changed. Here's a sneak preview: see what you think. 

Llyn Daioni, in North Wales, is a lake about a hundred feet long by fifty wide, hidden in a pine forest, away from the outside world. To look at, it’s as tranquil and picturesque a scene as you could hope to find in Britain.

But when you go to Llyn Daioni, what strikes you most of all is the silence. Not a single bird sings, as if they know not to come near.

Beside the lake is a cluster of strange-looking buildings, their bright colours already fading, symbols of a future that will never come to pass; they are the only surviving monument to a story of greed and ambition that ended in ruin and death.

 You can meet the ghosts of Hafan Deg yourself in just another three days. Watch this space.

Twisted Histories

Twisted Histories is a new anthology out from Snowbooks, edited by the steady hand of Scott Harrison. It features eleven tales that take some ancient myth or legend as their starting point. There's a great roll-call of authors, so I'm proud to be included.

My own contribution, Covenants, is based around the legend of the Ark of the Covenant, although it's a long way from Indiana Jones territory.

'When its body was tilted horizontally, its arms were bent at the elbows and its weight supported on its hands. It crouched on its four bent limbs, body suspended between them like a huge spider, and its head darted up and down and from side to side, twitching. Like a dog, sniffing for a scent. Then it stopped, went still, and its shrouded, sightless head swivelled smooth, like a mechanical part, till that face of blots and stains once more pointed directly at me. The eye-stains seemed to stare, the mouth-stain to scream.
I kept wanting to look away, seek witnesses or help, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off it, because I knew it would move the second I did; besides, there’d be no witnesses, not out on the beach at this hour. I’d wanted solitude; now I had it. The moment stretched out; the eyeless, faceless stare didn’t waver. When it scuttled towards me, dismayingly fast, it was almost a relief....'

You can buy Twisted Histories here.

The Ghosts Of Hafan Deg

With episode two of Black Mountain due out from Spectral Press at the end of the month, here's a sneak preview of Neil Williams' cover artwork for The Ghosts Of Hafan Deg.

'It wasn’t sunlight. The pale smudges against the glass were too uniform in shape, too exactly duplicated on each window, to be that.

Even through the magnifying glass, they were indistinct, but it was the same shape each time; a blurred white oval with two dark stains side by side, and a third, wider one below. They looked like faces, screaming. Or maybe laughing. And below them, were those hands, pressed against the glass?'

Black Mountain

I've been very tardy in updating this blog, I know, for which I apologise. There are various tales now out or due out soon that might be of interest, so I'll be posting about them over the next week or two to bring you all up to date.

I thought I'd start off with a new project of mine, Black Mountain, which is being brought to you by Simon Marshall-Jones and Spectral Press, and illustrated, as you can see, by the superb Neil Williams.

Black Mountain is a monthly serial about the 'Bala Triangle' in North Wales, an area plagued by disappearances, murders and mysterious deaths. Where the truth begins and the fiction ends is something you'll have to find out for yourself.

Episode One, The Red Key, has been posted on the Spectral Press blog to whet your appetites; the rest of the series will be coming out in ebook form every month, with the final episode due on Halloween. Episode Two, The Ghosts Of Hafan Deg, will be out at the end of January, and I've just finished the third instalment, The Strange Death Of Britt Nordenstam.

So click the link and prepare to explore the darkness around Mynydd Du, where the dancers in the pines are waiting.

And so we say farewell... ending the year on a high

2013 hasn't been the nicest of years. I lost one of my best friends and the world as a whole lost a lot of good people and gifted artists. Okay, we lost Maggie Thatcher as well, and good riddance, but that doesn't really make up for it.

On the other hand, something really good happened yesterday.

I sneaked up to Liverpool on a day return ticket, and with a little help from the ever-reigning Cate's work colleagues Lucy and Jill (thanks ladies!) was hiding behind the Christmas tree in the foyer of her office when she came downstairs, supposedly to sign for a package. Except that it was the end of her shift, and she was heading out the door.

So I stepped out from behind the tree and called her name. Cate then did the most perfect double-take I've ever seen in real-life, gawped and said 'What the fuck are you doing here?' (I will tell our grandchildren of this.)

I explained that I'd been missing her a great deal and couldn't wait another day to see her - oh, and by the same token...

I went down on one knee (with a brief mental prayer for the integrity of my trousers) and took out a small hinged box. At which point Cate saw her work colleagues watching and with a cry of 'not in front of everyone!' ran outside in a fit of mortified embarrassment. (Yes, I'll be telling our grandchildren about this too.)

After a short chase, I asked her properly, on the Pier Head at Liverpool: 'Cate Gardner, will you marry me?'

She said yes.

Happy 2014, everybody.

Joel Lane

Today is a very sad day.

I'm going down to Birmingham to attend the funeral of Joel Lane - a brilliant writer, and one of my best friends, who died suddenly in his sleep on 26th November.

I've written about Joel elsewhere, and don't feel able to go on at greater length, but just wanted to remember him, however briefly, here.

Goodbye, mate. We love you.

Other remembrances can be found here:
Nina Allan
Rosanne Rabinowitz
Conrad Williams
Mark Valentine
Des Lewis
Andrew Hook
Nine Arches Press
Jonathan Oliver
Pete Coleborn
Martin Sketchley
Lynda E. Rucker
Steve Jones
Mat Joiner
Mike Chinn
Thomas Ligotti
Martin Roberts
Gary McMahon
Simon Strantzas