Cumulative Quote Story (2023)

 

During 2023 I read 80 books. Following each reading, on both Twitter and Instagram, I would post a picture of each book together with what I felt to be a pertinent quote from the contents. As I was devising my end of year list, it struck me that putting all these quotes together might form a short story, so - entirely without embellishment and wholly in the order in which the books were read - here it is. I think there's some really fluid segues! For those interested - which I imagine to be only a few - the titles of those 80 books (together with a list of favourites) is included in my 2023 summary of reading/watching/listening which I previously posted here.

 

Untitled

 And it was she who took his gun out of his pocket. She put it in his hand. I heard, "Shoot...Shoot while you're kissing me."

And if everyone believed that the boy was their son, of course there was no reason not to take him into their house.

The corridor was dark and smelt of too much disinfectant for concrete.

A photograph could never hold the shape of a sound.

It takes you strange digging up a littl dead kid like that. From so far back and dead for so long and all the time they ever had ben jus that littl.

The story of my life was a novel whose missing chapters included empathy and kindness and tolerance.

Maigret could not move. He lay inert, in a puddle, at the edge of infinite space.

The flower stared at Emily, then swayed from side to side until it seemed to haemorrhage into a cockerel with deep red plumage and a scarlet crest.

To these young men opportunity beckoned constantly, drawing them ever southward towards Los Angeles and, of course, Hollywood, where, eventually, all the adolescents in the world will be congregated.

I sobbed, and heard a loud ringing in my ears. My entire body throbbed; I felt huge, elephantine, as if I had become bulbous with inflamed limbs and grotesque deformities.

For good or evil you are yourselves, poised for a brief and dazzling time between two annihilations.

We live in the void of our metamorphoses.

You remember the urogi, the night runner you saw. The naked woman dancing alone in the blackness, then gone in a sprint. She could be a bad spirit.

It was such a feeble moan, at such a strange pitch, that, although it filled the house, it was hard to pinpoint its source, as if it were uttered by a ventriloquist.

I crouch by the wall until the night smudges into another grey day, half hoping the wolphins won't come. I've never touched even a sliver of wolphin meat, but how will they know that?

“Is that it?" asked Nicholas. “Is that your big plan? We're about to burn for all eternity and you're going for cocktails?”

Ducrau took a step forwards, perhaps to kiss the dead boy, but he did not do so. He seemed frightened. He looked away, at the ceiling, then at a spot by the door.

I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent.

Overhead, as the darkness became complete, the aurora appeared: a long arc of reddish light stretching from east to west, quivering, as if eager to expand.

We're not sorcerers. We can't have started anything.

She reached into the dress and pulled out a leaflet. It was crudely reproduced, like most of the human population.

I might be indiscreet, but I'll try not to offend. I may occasionally go into slightly bewildering detail, but I'll try not to be boring.

Just then a shot rang out, the room was filled with the smell of burnt gunpowder and a bluish cloud hung in the sunlight.

We walk into any room, and as expected, we catch Patty trying to bring the doll back to life.

Home was suddenly bright in his mind. Annika, Eva, he wanted to get back to them more than anything else.

Home was suddenly bright in his mind. Annika, Eva, he wanted to get back to them more than anything else.

What makes something art is the intention behind it.

I had no idea that I'd come to miss the decay and the danger.

He heard the whisper of a kiss close to him. He had a taste like someone else's saliva in his mouth.

I saw her in front of me and it was like I was speeding along a motorway with a car crash happening way up ahead, but instead of slowing down I was accelerating into it.

Manchester already had enough history for me, enough secret stuff buried away. Hidden rooms at the backs of houses. Moments sinking in the quicksand of time.

Trees are like recording devices, you just need to learn how to read them properly.

When watching foreign films, I was convinced that the words the actors were saying didn't match the subtitles, and that the characters had a direct message to me I couldn't understand.

I'd wager that the only reason he married you and spent so many years with a horror like you, with all due respect, is because you had a hold on him.

So here I am, a ghost in a world of zombies.

I do not know how dangerous the dust is now or in what quantities it is drifting over the hotel.

It's night work that lets something creep in.

Unless you have been inside a sanatorium you do not know that madmen are made there, just as criminals are made in our reformatories.

What do you think the crime rate is in your neighbourhood?

She wants me to think she gets pleasure from degrading herself.

It was an extraordinary moment, and Maigret would never forget the taste of it

I may be wrong, but I think in truth, we never really directly see, rather we imagine a fraction of a second later, what extends before our eyes.

The snouts were as long as human arms and seemed to have shapes at their ends serving as mouths.

Always dead-eyed and looking right through the observer, they resembled a team of assassins, each of whom specialised in a different means of killing.

Her hand, heavy with fake diamond rings, kept landing on the knee of the inspector, who looked glaucous-eyed at this frothing creature.

No operation could ever improve a woman's intellectual skills.

The world stilled, and then changed around her.

Dreams that apparently only last a few seconds can leave their mark on us for a long time, sometimes our whole lives.

No one had broken in. Someone had written in my diary.

Rock 'n' roll is bigger than just records, it's a way of life - you don't even need music to have rock 'n' roll.

I have become the swing of the fire iron.

I got a theory a person ought to do everything it's possible to do before he dies, and maybe die trying to do something that's really impossible.

Burn. Burn. Burn.

…he did seem to have the knack of framing what was essential...

It's hard to understand other people, to know what's hidden in their hearts, and without the assistance of alcohol it might never be done at all.

Surely a man could be forgiven almost anything if he could do this and get it right.

But it has begun and there is no stopping the process, which scans, unloads, associates and empties out in a welter of fact, heresay, and invented memory.

In paradise there are no desires, no pity, no love.

I'm milking the Zanzibar cows.

It was strange and barely understandable, but right here in the midst of love and hate, right at the fracture, the balancing point, this was his place in the world.

She has rediscovered her sharp voice and that disdainful look.

We are so often wrong about those we love, slowly debasing ourselves,, so gradually we barely notice we're doing it

Just then he looked at her and wondered, without knowing why, whether she really wanted him to have found out something.

Yes, the centre of everything is empty. That's how it must be.

He now wished he had started destroying people much earlier in his life.

Always the same song and dance to begin with, the same nervousness, the clenched fists, the darting sidelong glances...

Ginger Rogers said that she did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in heels, but I wouldn't go that far.

Often he thought of death, of himself gone and the great dark shoulder of the world for ever turning away from the nothingness of him forever in the blackness.

There was the sound of a door being slammed and the screeching of tires.

In this box-shaped windowless room, all the girls are named Natasha.

What a lonely place.

Her first night had not been a good one. Too many bad dreams, some of them true.

From the harbourside follow the promontory that stretches out to sea.

I would rather not go into details, but I noticed that there was something violently sexual about her feelings for me.

She had a much delayed wee: a nice yellow flow, then green, then flecks of orange. Lovely.

It was an obvious step to go from the man commuting to his office to the man remaining in his own environment and conducting his business through the use of advanced electronics.

Temperatures soared in the city and melted pear blossoms coated with frost.

Oh my God, Dahmer...what have you done?

Hell is a man's shadow printed on the side of a building.

Civilised men fear wild creatures, especially wild creatures of their own kind who remind them of life in the primeval forests of past ages.

The Best and Worst of 2023

Well, it's that time of the year when everyone is doing their 'best and worst of' lists, so here is mine. I'm going to list the books and movies and records I read/watched/listened to in 2023 and then pick my favourites. This isn't restricted to what was new in 2023, but what I actually watched and read and heard - some of these items might be very old indeed.

Books:

I read the following in 2023:

Georges Simenon – The Madman of Bergerac

Tim Major – Shade of Stillthorpe

Ian Whates (editor) – La Femme

Claire Dean – Middleton Sands

Russell Hoban – Riddley Walker

Rhys Hughes – The Long Chin Of The Law

Georges Simenon – The Misty Harbour

Anna Taborska - Shadowcats

John Steinbeck – The Wayward Bus

Andrew David Barker – Dead Leaves

Rex Warner – The Aerodrome

Jean-Luc Godard – Alphaville

Eugen Bacon – Serengotti

Georges Simenon – Liberty Bar

Giselle Leeb – Mammals, I Think We Are Called

Christopher Fowler – Hell Train

Georges Simenon – Lock No.1

Henry James – The Turn of the Screw

Carmelo Rafala (editor) – The Immersion Book of SF

Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Silver Nitrate

Chris Kelso (editor) - Slave Stories: Scenes From The Slave State

Nicholas Royle – White Spines

Georges Simenon – Maigret

Kristine Ong Muslim – Butterfly Dream

Terry Grimwood – Interference

Jonathan Carroll – The Ghost In Love

Sophie White – Where I End

Chris Stein – Point of View

Georges Simenon – Cécile is Dead 

Graham Joyce – The Year of the Ladybird

Nicholas Royle – Manchester Uncanny

Nina Allen – Conquest 

Camilla Grudova – Children of Paradise

Georges Simenon – The Cellars of the Majestic

Noir – Olivier Pauvert

Sven Holm – Termush

DH Thomas – Imber

Andre Breton - Nadja

Fearsome Creatures – Aliya Whiteley

Thierry Jonquet – Tarantula

Georges Simenon – The Judge’s House

Gareth Jelley (editor) – Interzone #294

The Doom That Came To Whitby Town – Gary Fry

Phil Knight – Strangled

Georges Simenon – Signed, Picpus

Haruki Murakmi – Men Without Women

Andy Cox (editor) – Black Static #82/83

Georges Simenon – Inspector Cadaver

Livi Michael – The Lake

Dick Porter – Journey To The Centre Of The Cramps

David Frankel – Return

Patricia Highsmith – Strangers On A Train

Jim Gibson – A Symbol of a Memory

D.F. Lewis – The Birthday Presence

Michel Houellebecq – Submission

Jean Sprackland – Death Cookies

Will Eaves – Styx 

Yevgheniy Zamyatin – We 

Michael Morpurgo – The Wreck of the Zanzibar

Jeff Noon – Slow Motion Ghosts

Georges Simenon – Félicie 

Sophie Mackintosh – Cursed Bread

Georges Simenon – Maigret Gets Angry

Allen Ashley – Journey to the Centre of the Onion

Adam Nevill – Lost Girl

Georges Simenon – Maigret In New York

Gary Couzens/Ralph Robert Moore – Roads Less Travelled Vol 1

Russell Hoban – The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz

Jacob Louis Beaney – The White Car

Yelena Moskovich – The Natashas

Seichō Matsumoto – Tokyo Express

Ray Cluley – All That’s Lost

Sophie Essex (editor) - At The Lighthouse

Jeff Noon & Steve Beard - Gogmagog: The First Chronicle of Ludwich

Georges Simenon – Maigret’s Holiday

Fred & Geoffrey Hoyle – Seven Steps To The Sun

Black Moon (& pamphlets) – Eugen Bacon

My Friend Dahmer – Derf Backderf

Ellery Queen – The Glass Village

Georges Simenon – Maigret’s Dead Man

That's worked out at exactly 80 books this year, up ten from last year's 70, so I'm happy with that. I should mention that I also proofread and copyedit and adding those novels into the mix would increase the number by about 20 books this year (those which were exceptional also making the above list).

Thankfully there weren't many books that I read this year that I absolutely hated, with most of the books attaining either three or four stars in my Goodreads round-up which is equivalent to 'I liked it' and above. I just couldn't engage with Nightjar Press chapbooks' "Styx" by Will Eaves or "A Symbol of a Memory" by Jim Gibson, but no doubt other readers will disagree. I admit I thoroughly disliked "Tarantula" by Thierry Jonquet from which the excellent movie "The Skin I Live In" was adapted by Pedro Almodóvar. Unfortunately I considered the source material to be flat and unengaging and persistently unbelievably ludicrous. Sven Holm's much-praised "Termush" elicited a curt "This soft apocalyptic novel is ok but nothing special." review from me, so clearly I wasn't keen on that either. I also wasn't enamoured by Anna Taborska's short collection, "Shadow Cats", but perhaps I need to like cats more in order to appreciate it.

I continued ploughing through George Simenon's Maigret novels, reading fifteen of those this year and enjoying all of them (with one more than the others...). As stated, there were also a plethora of books I gave three Goodreads stars too, with the most notable being the SF/horror novel, "Lost Girl", by Adam Nevill, which I'm still thinking about, likewise Jeff Noon's straight detective novel, "Slow Motion Ghosts", "Where I End" by Sophie White - another one still stuck in my head, "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James where the final passages bumped the whole book up by one star, Andrew David Barker's "Dead Leaves", which I didn't love as much as "The Electric" but was still entertaining, and the rollicking, if deliberately genre-obvious, "Hell Train" by the late Christopher Fowler.

Whilst the above 3 star books were edging 4, at the other end of the scale there were a few books I was hoping would be 4 stars (or above) but ended up at the lower end of 3. I include amongst these "Men Without Women" by Haruki Murakami, a collection of underwhelming short stories, "Children of Paradise" by Camilla Grudova which wasn't as stimulating or engaging as previous favourite, "The Doll's Alphabet", "Conquest" by Nina Allen (one of my favourite authors whose books have twice topped my reads of the year, but I just could not get a handle on this novel), Jonathan Carroll's "The Ghost In Love" which I found very formulaic for this author and not dissimilar enough from other books of his rendered better, and "Silver Nitrate" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia which - whilst having some excellent characterisation - was a romp without circumstance and not quite what I was expecting.

Thankfully, I also read many great books this year. Seichō Matsumoto's "Tokyo Express" a short detective novel, with succinct, sparse prose, was a solid read, as was "Cursed Bread" by Sophie Macintosh which I loved almost as much as "The Water Cure" and was certainly better than "Blue Ticket". I must make mention of the final issue of Black Static magazine, edited by Andy Cox, which as well as containing a story from myself included great fiction from favourites Ray Cluley and Simon Avery amongst many others. Short fiction chapbooks from Nightjar Press which I thoroughly enjoyed were "The Return" (David Frankel), "Death Cookies" (Jean Sprackland), "Imber" (D H Thomas) and "The Birthday Presence" (D F Lewis), as was Nightjar's proprietor, Nicholas Royle's own collection, "Manchester Uncanny", in addition to his non-fiction memoir "White Spines: Confessions of a Book Collector". Continuing the theme of non-fiction, the music books "Journey to the Centre of the Cramps" (Dick Porter) and "Strangled: Identity, Status, Structure and The Stranglers" (Phil Knight) were each pushing towards five stars for being both thought-provoking and entertaining. Graham Joyce's "The Year Of The Ladybird" was a brilliantly rendered story from this much missed writer; "Interference" by Terry Grimwood was a great SF novella packed with ideas; John Steinbeck's "The Wayward Bus" had me re-reading bits back to myself and out loud to my partner, as the writing was spot on; Tim Major's novella, "Shade of Stillthorpe" maintained a delicious sense of ambiguity which went beyond the last page; and Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker" was a compelling, engaging work, despite - or perhaps because of - the language used in the telling.

Also fixated on language as a character rather than simply a propulsion is Eugen Bacon, and her novel "Serengotti", was just shaved out of my top three this year. It’s an examination of culture and displacement, of what happens when things turn sour and how to right yourself; a story of truth and consequences, a puzzle enough to puzzle, yet not to confuse. And another book with startling imagery and an intelligent approach was "The Natashas" by Yelena Moskovich, which came exceedingly close to being my best book of the year, but faltered at the final hurdle when some resolution might have been useful. I will definitely be reading more by her, though. Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers On A Train" was in my top three up to a couple of weeks so, but it's been pushed out of third place (as will soon be evident).

Ultimately, however, as usual I default to Goodreads for those few books which I rated 5/5 during the year, and on this occasion there were only three which makes my final selection much easier. So, without further ado, here's my third place and then my top two favourite reads of 2023:

In reverse order:

"All That's Lost" by Ray Cluley

This is a truly tremendous collection of short stories. Each is a world in itself, with engaging characterisation, complex motivations, and where any horror is much more an internal observation rather than some malevolent exterior force. There's a restraint here not to fall into genre trappings, led by the quality of the prose, which elevates these stories into 'literature' rather than pulp fiction (each style has its place, but there is a quality here which is raw in the characters rather than the prose). Set in a variety of locations, Cluley inhabits them: there is never anything other than a sense of authenticity. I won't go into each story because this would turn into an essay, but "The Wrong Shark", for example, where a man recollects his childhood living in the town where the film "Jaws" was shot, is superlative. These stories run through with the skill of the telling and there are new angles on horror to be found within each one. This collection is highly - and unreservedly - recommended.

"Lock No.1" by Georges Simenon

I've read quite a few Maigret's now with many of them almost hitting the top spot but I think this is my favourite so far. As a detective, Maigret is the opposite of Columbo. There's never "just one more thing". In fact, there's rarely any questioning at all. By his very presence Maigret seems to invite confessions, for the 'villains' (for want of a better descriptor) to bottle everything up in fear of interrogation only for themselves to let everything out. It's a tour de force of sustained suspense, to keep a novel at that bubbling point, and the plot here is intricate and tragic; essentially a man who has worked his way up to have everything, but through egoism and happenstance can't find the right people to share it with. And even more tragic, finds himself harking back to those simpler times, undoing his status. There's much to relate to here and the prose is knife-edge sharp. Whilst I've enjoyed almost all the Maigret's, this is one I'd happily read again. Loved it. 

And the winner is:

"Submission" by Michel Houellebecq

I thoroughly enjoyed this speculative fiction novel, set in a near future (well, past now - 2022) France where Islamic Law comes into force following a surprising, but logical, electoral vote. Houellebecq presents a compelling argument for the inevitability of change, for an assumptive willingness for inertia to be ridden roughshod through inaction. He skilfully remains non-judgmental over this outcome - which I think is important. Not quite plus ça change for everyone, of course, but the personal angle of the protagonist is an intriguing one and I'm glad Hoeuellebecq held back on violent outcomes. What remains is an introspectively personal character subjected to a changing political situation which will affect him whether he wants it or not, whilst simultaneously he balances his own decisions and judgments and reflects on a meaning in life. The prose here is succinct and clearly put: whilst my general knowledge of French politics is minimal and I wouldn't know if any figures here are real, my knowledge of our protagonist's object of study - Husymans - is also vague (I cannot recall if I have read "Là-Bas" or not and that's the only one I have), so Houellebecq's transparent summaries of both were welcome and not too heavy. This ensured the novel was engaging. Some might say it is too light, but not me. Some novels get under your skin, often for unknown reasons, but I tore through this in wonderment.

Movies:

I watched the following in 2023:

Daguerréotypes (1976, Agnès Varda)

When Darkness Falls (1960, Arne Mattsson)

Decision To Leave (2022, Park Chan-wook)

Let The Sunshine In (2017, Claire Denis)

Men (2022, Alex Garland)

Paris, Texas (1984, Wim Wenders)

Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996, S. S. Wilson)

Knives Out (2019, Rian Johnson)

Bhaji On The Beach (1993, Gurinder Chadha)

Planet Of The Apes (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)

The Producers (1967, Mel Brooks)

Matinee (1993, Joe Dante)

The Menu (2002, Mark Mylod)

Love Is Colder Than Death (1969. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

Shopping (1994, Paul W. S. Anderson)

Mad Max (1979, George Miller)

Identification Marks: None (1964, Jerzy Skolimowski)

The Element of Crime (1984, Lars Von Trier)

Vesper (2022, Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper)

Aftersun (2002, Charlotte Wells)

Beware of a Holy Whore (1971. Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

Horror Express (1972, Eugenio Martín)

The Castle of Purity (1972, Arturo Ripstein)

La Ricotta (1962. Pier Paolo Pasolini)

Fall (2022, Scott Mann)

Aphotic Zone (2022, Emilija Škarnulytė)

The Sisters Brothers (2018, Jacques Audiard)

Story of Women (1988, Claude Chabrol)

The Client (1994, Joel Schumacher)

Holy Spider (2022, Ali Abbasi)

Stowaway (2021, Joe Penna)

The Capsule (2012, Athina Rachel Tsangari)

Mustang (2015, Deniz Gamze Ergüven)

Saw (2004, James Wan)

An Elephant Sitting Still (2018, Hu Bo)

Ava (2017, Léa Mysius)

The Deep House (2021, Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo)

The Turin Horse (2011, Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky)

The Unholy (2021, Evan Spiliotopoulos)

The Traitor (2019, Marco Bellocchio)

Only The Animals (2019, Dominik Moll)

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989, Bruce Robinson)

Agent Elvis (2023, series)

Please Baby Please (2022, Amanda Kramer)

The Handmaid's Tale (1990, Volker Schlöndorff)

The Limey (1999, Steven Soderbergh)

Of Human Bondage (1934, John Cromwell)

Blazing Saddles (1974, Mel Brooks)

Nope (2022, Jordan Peele)

Elvis (2022, Baz Luhrmann)

The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Christopher Nolan)

Summit Fever (2022, Julian Gilbey)

Last Night In Soho (2021, Edgar Wright)

She Will (2021, Charlotte Colbert)

In the Earth (2021, Ben Wheatley)

White Noise (2022, Noah Baumbach)

The Black Phone (2021, Scott Derrickson)

Batman Begins (2005, Christopher Nolan)

Prince of Darkness (1987, John Carpenter)

Ad Astra (2019, James Gray)

Blade Runner (1982, Ridley Scott)

Drugstore Cowboy (1989, Gus Van Sant)

The Cement Garden (1993, by Andrew Birkin)

Planet Terror (2007, Robert Rodriguez)

Jaws 2 (1978, Jeannot Szwarc)

The Earrings of Madame de… (1953, Max Ophüls)

The Boss of It All (2006, Lars von Trier)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Steven Spielberg)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984, Steven Spielberg)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, Steven Spielberg)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008, Steven Spielberg)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976, John Cassavetes)

Hannibal (Season 1)

Oppenheimer (2023, Christopher Nolan)

Hannibal (Season 2)

The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales (1960, Rogelio A. González)

The Batwoman (1968, René Cardona)

Hannibal (Season 3)

Frogs (1972, George McCowan)

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, Val Guest)

Paparazzi (1964, Jacques Rozier) (short)

Way Out West (1937, James W. Horne)

King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack)

The Witch’s Mirror (1962, Chano Urueta)

Arctic Void (2022, Darren Mann)

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (short film) (2023, Wes Anderson)

The Reckoning (2022, TV series)

Stark Fear (1962, Ned Hochman)

The Jungle Book (1967, Wolfgang Reitherman)

Race to the Summit (2023, Nicholas de Taranto & Götz Werner)

Nothing Sacred (1937, William A Wellman)

Talk to Me (2022, Danny and Michael Philippou)

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976, John Carpenter)

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007, Sidney Lumet)

The Killer (2023, David Fincher)

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998, Guy Ritchie)

My Friend Dahmer (2017, Marc Meyers)

The Innocent (2022, Louis Garrel)

Guilty Bystander (1950, Joseph Lerner)

Murder in Mississippi (1965, Joseph P. Mawra)

Snowpiercer (2013, Bong Joon-ho)

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023, James Mangold)

The Deepest Breath (2023, Laura McGann)

Un Beau Matin (2022, Mia Hansen-Løve)

The Dive (2023, Max Erlenwein)

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010, Jalmari Helander)

Butcher's Crossing (2022, Gabe Polsky)

Christine (1983, John Carpenter)

Hercules (1997, John Musker & Ron Clements)

In 2022 I watched 132 movies and this year the list comes to 109. There's a good reason for this: the streaming service Mubi changed it's one movie a day on / one movie a day off policy, so that there isn't the same impetus to watch films in fear of them disappearing. Couple this with us listening to more vinyl records this year in the evening, and the drop is understandable. It's still quite a long list to narrow down to my top three, and unlike books I don't have a site equivalent to Goodreads with which to guide my memory. And just to add a note that unlike previous years I've chosen to add the year of release and director's name which might make this list more interesting and avoid any confusion over similarly named films.

As usual, however, I'm discounting movies I've previously seen. So this knocks out the brilliant "Paris, Texas", Wim Wenders finest film which I've seen a couple of times since release but which I couldn't wholly remember; the 1968 original "Planet of the Apes" for which I feel my affection has only increased and the make-up effects are equally as good today as they ever were; Mel Brooks' "The Producers", an exercise in excess; John Carpenter's fantastic "Prince of Darkness", a film which defines the very essence of creeping dread the ending of which has defined the terrifying quality of a recurring nightmare of mine; Laurel and Hardy's superb "Way Out West" which I love every single time I watch it and which also contains a defining scene for me - eroticism, this time rather than terror - when Laurel is tickled mercilessly by Sharon Lynn; the original "King Kong" (which bizarrely I saw as a 'support act' for Siouxsie Sioux this summer); and the original "Jungle Book" which remained as entertaining as ever.

Those movies which I found annoying or awful are easy to chronicle, and thankfully these were few and far between this year, however they included "Matinee" directed by Joe Dante, which I thought a real misfire. Riffing off William Castle movies, the film is all over the shop and doesn't know what it wants to be.  The black and white "Mant! - the film within the film - goes some way to redeeming it and there are some great lines and laugh out loud bits. But it's "Mant!" we want to see, and despite Goodman playing his role well, the rest of "Matinee" falls by the wayside. Also misfiring repeatedly whilst trying to shoot itself in the head was "Men", in which director Alex Garland mansplains toxic masculinity in the belief of appealing to a female audience. Own goal! What might have been interesting becomes risible. Not a fan. I also hugely disliked "The Menu" (directed by Mark Mylod). I thought the first act was well-played, but as soon as we reach the first 'shock' then suspension of disbelief falters and it's downhill from thereon in. It makes a meal of its targets of celebrity and privilege and is rather overcooked. And it's about as subtle as the gags I just used. I was wholly disappointed by was Edgar Wright's "Last Night In Soho" which I also thought misfired on every conceivable level. It was also one hour and fifty-two minutes too long. Bong Joon-ho's "Snowpiercer" felt like Wes Anderson crossed with Terry Gilliam but taking the worst elements from both directors, and Gabe Polsky's "Butcher's Crossing" was a snorefest of epic proportions, where what should have been lengthy moments were condensed into minutes and vice versa - the pacing was atrocious and undermined what could have been a good - if overly polemic - film.

Whilst there weren't many films that I vehemently loathed this year, unfortunately there were also very few which came even close to making my top three, with the vast majority of them eliciting no more than a box-ticking exercise in adding them to the watched list. Whether this is a residue of Covid, with a paucity of films being shot a few years ago, or simply the fact that I've seen much of what I already want to watch from my favourite directors I have no idea, but reviewing the list the lack of great films is quite saddening. Those which did stand out though include "Decision To Leave" directed by Park Chan-Wook which took a few surprising turns and where the ending was sublime; "Let The Sunshine In" directed by Claire Denis (Juliette Binoche is brilliant in this film about relationships due to fail from the outset and how we are drawn to wrong choices, and poor decisions. The acting is wonderful throughout, the long conversations authentic.); "Love Is Colder Than Death" directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, which I thought to be an excellent, nihilistic, deconstructed crime film; "Horror Express", an absolute blast of a movie; the similarly so-cheesy-its-good Mexican film "The Witch's Mirror" which went through a surprising number of plot changes; "Holy Spider" by Ali Abbasi, a somewhat brutal depiction of male violence and a powerful film, well-acted; and "Stowaway" directed by Joe Penna, a what-if scenario on board a spaceship where there were no histrionics, just a problem to be solved, which made it highly believable. I also enjoyed "Of Human Bondage" (great starring role for Bette Davis); "Drugstore Cowboy" (which I remember liking but now can barely remember); "In The Earth" (I find director Ben Wheatley to be hit and miss, but this certainly hit); "Blade Runner" (which somehow I had never seen before but was worth 41yrs of hype); "The Killer" (David Fincher's slow-burning, under-your-skin thriller), John Carpenter's "Christine" which was much better than I expected, and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (Guy Ritchie's fast-turning, in-your-face thriller).

Other than the above which are all recommended, there were only a few more films that really got under my skin, and here are those recommendations: "Mustang" (a Turkish film directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven about five orphaned Turkish sisters who are gradually found husbands through arranged marriages and the psychological effects that this has. Very well-acted.); "She Will" (a masterful, measured, atmospheric, horror(?) film which said just enough and not too much. Startling); "Oppenheimer " which was worth seeing at the cinema and which I think handled the subject matter very ably; "Talk To Me" (an interesting spin on a horror film which slipped away into the more obvious towards the end), and especially "Arctic Void", a low budget, really neat slipstream film which played to a satisfying conclusion without needing to explain itself and which is still hanging around in my head.

Anyway, whilst as usual I get the feeling that another day might produce marginally different results (certainly over the number three spot), today here are my top three movies that I saw for the first time in 2023.

Again, in reverse order:

"An Elephant Sitting Still" (2018) - Hu Bo

This four hour feature is set over the course of a single day, where poor decisions, assumptions, and a kind of nihilistic ennui dog the protagonists from seemingly inescapable fates. The slow pace greatly enhances the subject matter, allowing tensions to build and characterisation to breathe. I thought it excellent. Unfortunately this was Hu Bo's first and only feature. He took his life shortly after the film was completed, aged only 29.

"The Turin Horse" (2011) - Béla Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky

Tarr grabbed my top spot last year with "Sátántangó" and like much of Tarr's work that I've seen "The Turin Horse" is also a slow repetitive existential piece of cinema, where gradually something happens. In this case, the encroach of nothingness in the mundane lives of a potato farmer and his daughter. It's beautifully shot and raw and wonderful.

And the winner is...

"Aftersun" (2022) - Charlotte Wells

A masterclass in saying just enough and knowing what not to say. This film about a daughter's relationship with her estranged father over a holiday in Spain has haunted me since I watched it close to the beginning of the year, and that soft power still hasn't let me go. It's an absolute no brainer for this to be my top film watched in 2023. So good it could easily have also taken the second and third slots as the same time as being my number one. An engaging, thoughtful and blessfully unsaccharine movie with the naturalistic acting and direction key to making those connections. Emotionally devastating. 

Records:

I listened to the following albums in 2023:

Bow Wow Wow – See Jungle!

Taylor Swift – Midnights

Modern Woman – Dogs Fighting In My Dream

Polly Scattergood – In The Absence of Light

Taylor Swift – Lover

Paul Smith & The Imitations – Contradictions 

Viagra Boys – Street Worms

Viagra Boys – Welfare Jazz

Maximo Park – Nature Always Wins

Jean-Michel Jarre – Oxygene

Viagra Boys – Cave World

Portishead – Dummy

Charlie Megira – The Abtomatic Miesterzinger Mambo Chic

The Residents – Duck Stab

Danielle Dax – Jesus Egg That Wept

The Residents – Not Available

The Residents – Triple Trouble

The Residents – Eskimo

The Residents – Diskomo

Taylor Swift – Folklore

Miles Davis – Lift To The Scaffold

Cocteau Twins – Victorialand

The Residents – Mush-Room

Lande Hekt – House Without a View

Goldfrapp – Felt Mountain

Blonde Redhead – La Mia Vita Violenta

KAZU – Angel Baby

A Void – Dissociation

Paramore – This Is Why

Lande Hekt – Going To Hell

Nancy & Lee – Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood

Siouxsie & The Banshees – Peepshow 

Jah Wobble – Metal Box (Rebuilt In Dub)

Flaming Lips – Oczy Mlody

Mattiel – Georgia Gothic

Maximo Park – Quicken The Heart

Aldous Harding – Aldous Harding

Bjork – Vulnicura Live 

New Found Glory – Make The Most Of It

Aldous Harding – Party

Blondie – Parallel Lines

The Cure – Three Imaginary Boys

Mark E Smith – The Post Nearly Man

Aldous Harding – Designer

They Might Be Giants – Flood

The Damned – Machine Gun Etiquette

The Cure – Staring At The Sea

The Cure – Japanese Whispers

The Damned – The Black Album

Sparks – Annette (Cannes Edition – Selections from the Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The Damned – Damned Damned Damned

Aldous Harding – Warm Chris

B52s – Mesopotamia

BIS – New Transistor Heroes

The Damned – Evil Spirits

The Stranglers – Dark Matter

Flaming Lips – American Head

Au Pairs – Playing With A Different Sex

Snapped Ankles - Blurtations

The Damned - Darkadelic

The Cure – Faith 

Dry Cleaning – Stumpwork

Iggy Pop – Every Loser

Bedouin Soundclash – We Will Meet in a Hurricane

Death and Vanilla – Flicker

The Undertones – The Positive Touch

Blondie – Pollinator

Hotel Lux – Hands Across The Creek

Supergrass – I Should Coco

Chastity Belt – Time To Go Home

Sparks – The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte

Blondie – Eat To The Beat

Blondie – Plastic Letters

Deborah Harry – Def, Dumb & Blonde

Blondie – Against The Odds: 1974-1982

Sparks – A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip

Lambrini Girls – You’re Welcome

Renaldo & The Loaf – The Elbow Is Taboo

Hermanos Gutiérrez – El Bueno y el Malo

Broadcast – Work and Non Work

The xx – xx

Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material

Paramore – After Laughter

Habibi – Anywhere But Here

Swans – The Beggar 

New Found Glory – Radio Surgery

Taylor Swift – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

Blonde Redhead – 23

Blonde Redhead – Misery Is A Butterfly

Le Tigre – Le Tigre

Various Artists – BIPPP French Synth-Wave (1979-1985)

Sabina Sciubba – Toujours

New Found Glory – Nothing Gold Can Stay

New Found Glory – New Found Glory

New Found Glory – Sticks and Stones

New Found Glory – Catalyst

New Found Glory – Coming Home

Taylor Swift – Evermore

New Found Glory – Not Without A Fight

Maximo Park – Too Much Information

Felix Laband – Deaf Safari

New Found Glory – Resurrection

New Found Glory – Make Me Sick

Devo – Freedom of Choice

B52s – Bouncing Off The Satellites

Devo – Duty Now For The Future

The Cramps – A Date With Elvis

B52s – Cosmic Thing

William Onyeabor – Who is William Onyeabor?

Siouxsie – Mantaray

Magazine – Secondhand Daylight

Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

Blonde Redhead – Penny Sparkle

Echo & The Bunnymen – Ocean Rain

Siouxsie & The Banshees – The Scream

Blonde Redhead – Barragán 

Kraftwerk – Autobahn

The Cure – Pornography

XTC – Skylarking

Polly Scattergood – Polly Scattergood

Romy – Mid Air

Let’s Eat Grandma – Two Ribbons

The Monochrome Set – Allhallowtide

The Monochrome Set – Volume, Contrast, Brilliance

Sparks – Terminal Jive

Sparks – A Woofer In Tweeters Clothing

Blonde Redhead – Sit Down For Dinner

Paavoharju - Yön Mustia Kukkia

Poly Styrene – Translucence

Bjork – Homogenic

The Cramps – Psychedelic Jungle

Sabina Sciubba – Sleeping Dragon

Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version)

Knower – Knower Forever

Hallan – The Noise of a Firing Gun

The Stranglers – The Raven

Sultans of Ping F.C. – Casual Sex In The Cineplex

Nadine Shah – Holiday Destination

Kumisolo & Joe Davolaz – Kabuki Femme Fatale

Sonic Youth – Washing Machine

Dinosaur Jnr – Where You Been

Danielle Dax – Inky Bloaters

Cocteau Twins – Head Over Heels

That's exactly 142 albums which is 31 more than I listened to last year which I'm pleased with. A large number of these were played on vinyl, us having purchased a record player last year really kicking in (including the compulsion to buy vinyl at ridiculous prices!), either playing new records or going through my back catalogue. As I've done with my book and movie list I will discount anything previously listened to. And unlike movies and books (which - even with favourites - I rarely read/see more than a handful of occasions in a lifetime), music is an entirely different kettle of fish and predominantly most of these will be re-listens. I haven't done a count in previous years, but I note approximately 25% of these records were new to me which isn't too bad a percentage I feel. 

Revisits this year included old favourites such as Sparks, The Cramps, Blondie, and Bjork. And as I attended 19 gigs this year quite a few of the re-listens revolved around preparing for those: so large numbers of Viagra Boys, Aldous Harding, Blonde Redhead, Devo and The Residents to name but a few (actually, for eight months of the year I was working on a short story project for which I played the individual songs on The Residents' "Commercial Album" over one hundred and twenty times on repeat, each, but as I didn't hear it from start-to-finish it's not included on this list). My 11yr old daughter also 'discovered' The Cure at the start of the year, and as such I've also listened to their records more frequently as a result, mostly individual songs rather than full albums. I also bought Polly Scattergood's eponymous first album on vinyl: a pivotal and emotional record for me. Hearing it again on such a pure format had me in floods.

Special mentions to the following: Kazu's "Adult Baby" (a solo album from one third of Blonde Redhead which has some gloriously breathy moments); Jah Wobble's version of "Metal Box (Rebuilt In Dub") which could have been much more dubby but was very smart (and great to hear live); Bjork's "Vulnicura Live" which I found on Spotify and made me wish I was at that gig; Aldous Harding's "Party" with some intelligent, whimsical songwriting; new favourite band Hallan whose post-punk EP "The Noise of a Firing Gun" is listed here as their longest work to date; likewise Lambrini Girls' "You're Welcome". I 'discovered' Broadcast after their mention on several "What's In My Bag" YouTube videos, and whilst I need to delve deeper, the compilation (the only place I could find the sublime "The Book Lovers") "Work And Non-Work" seemed a good place to start. My 11yr old also turned me onto Le Tigre, with their eponymous album now a firm favourite, and I also enjoyed the softly-poppy, trippy "Deaf Safari" by Felix Laband, Siouxsie's solo album, "Mantaray", from 2007, and William Onyeabor's funky "Who is William Onyeabor?" (an album which should be far out of my box, but instead is just far out). Finally, I also loved "BIPPP French Synth-Wave (1979-1985)", a compilation that sounds exactly as it reads.

Taylor Swift continued her reimagining of her older albums by re-releasing "Speak Now" and "1989". This includes new tracks of the period, and whilst I found the former album's new material to be quite slight, those additional tracks on "1989" were all well worth hearing. I am looking forward to her concluding this project, though, as I see little value to the consumer in re-recording the originals (whilst it's just money in the bank for Ms Swift).

This year saw the release of some great albums, most especially "This Is Why" by Paramore which is a perfect pop-album, my favourite song being "Liar" which contains the best lyric of the year: "And, oh my love, I lied to you / But I never needed to / Oh my love, I lied to you / But you always knew the truth". That song is passably covered by Romy (one third of The XX), whose solo album, "Mid Air", was also worth a listen (even if it leans heavy on a 00s club vibe). Other new records include the limited edition Record Store Day mini-album, "Blurtations", by Snapped Ankles, reworking songs by Blurt, which I need to listen to more; also The Damned's "Darkadelic" which - though musically proficient, felt rather overlong and self-indulgent to me (instead, check out the previous album, "Evil Spirits", which was a glorious return to form); Iggy Pop's "Every Loser" was an interesting addition to his oeuvre, and I came to like it a lot. Another Sparks' record is becoming an annual event, and "The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte" didn't disappoint. I think it's my favourite of the last three albums (just to group a few together), and for sheer inventive exuberance it almost made my top three this year, but perhaps I'm so overfamiliar with them that another Sparks' album has become another Sparks' album, and so it didn't quite hit the spot this time around; equally inventive were Knower with "Knower Forever", a band I haven't encountered before, but through a recommendation the song "I'm The President" has been totally addictive. Sabina Sciubba's "Sleeping Dragon" was also interesting, but more on her later.

Other records that were from bands which were new to me but not necessarily new that I enjoyed included Lande Hekt's "House Without A View" (great poppy stuff), A Void's "Dissociation" (great live, too), Death and Vanilla's quite dreamy "Flicker", Hotel Lux's quirky (but perhaps not wholly satisfying) "Hands Across The Creek", Hermanos Gutiérrez's "El Bueno y el Malo" (melodic instrumentals), Nadine Shah's "Holiday Destination" and Habibi's "Anywhere But Here".

Ultimately, though, my top three new (to me) records played this year are as follows (in reverse order):

"The Beggar" (2023) - Swans

Swans have been on my radar for a while but it was when I noticed they were touring this year that I decided to give them a proper listen, and considering the length of their records that was no mean feat. I decided to concentrate on this, this new release, which is two hours in length and includes one song of 43 minutes duration! There's a mesmeric, uncertain quality to this quiet alternative rock music, quite orchestral in tone (borne out in the performance), underlined by the soft, simmering violence that is the threat of death. It's a solid, epic, record that I greatly enjoyed.

"Sit Down For Dinner" (2023) - Blonde Redhead

Blonde Redhead are one of my favourite bands (who I regularly listen to whilst writing stories), but I was less convinced by their last record and a little nervous regarding this one. Having never seen them live, however, I was lucky enough to do so twice this year in small venues (and they were fantastic), and the experience has certainly imbued this record with a quality that has elevated it close to the top of this year's list. Like Swans, the musicianship here is faultless (the drum break in "Melody Experiment" is deliciously anticipatory), and the songs feel effortless. "Sit Down For Dinner" is a great record and a real return to form, fragility to be found in strength.

And the winner is...

"Tojours" (2014) - Sabina Sciubba

I hadn't even heard of Sabina Sciubba at the start of the year, but a chance listen on YouTube's "What's In My Bag?" was intriguing, and this record - with a mix of poppy, world music, sometimes Gainsbourg-esque vocal delivery, and catchy, clever lyrics was a surefire hit. I can't stop smiling each time I play it, slipping under the covers of sound like being snuggled up with a perfect love. There's no doubt this is my favourite record listened to this year. And I think you should hear it too.

So that's it, my summary of what I read, watched and listened to in 2023! Drop back in next year, but as has become usual I'll end with a song that's captivated me during the year and is sufficiently quirky to deserve the final note to send off this long post. In some ways totally out of my wheelhouse, in others perfectly within it, here's the previously mentioned "I'm The President" by Knower. Enjoy!

My Writing Year 2023

As has become annual I thought I'd write a quick blog post as to my literary achievements during 2023.

Starting with short fiction, I wrote forty-eight short stories: "Elevator Pitch", "Some Pastel Morning", "Sundowning", "Betaville", "Inversion Layer", "The Good Men", "Water In The Wrong Light", "The Aspect", "An Absence of Ghosts", "Easter Woman", "Perfect Love", "Picnic Boy", "End of Home", "Amber", "Japanese Watercolor", "Secrets", "Die in Terror", "Red Rider", "My Second Wife", "Floyd", "Suburban Bathers", "Dimples and Toes", "The Nameless Souls", "Love Leaks Out", "Act of Being Polite", "Medicine Man", "Tragic Bells", "Loss of Innocence", "The Simple Song", "Ups and Downs", "Possessions", "Give it to Someone Else", "Phantom", "Less Not More", "My Work is So Behind", "Birds in the Trees", "Handful of Desire", "Moisture", "Love is...", "Troubled Man", "La La", "Loneliness", "Nice Old Man", "The Talk of Creatures", "Fingertips", "In Between Dreams", "Margaret Freeman", "The Coming of the Crow" and "When We Were Young". This is a huge leap over the number of stories I normally write over the course of a year, but I should mention that forty of these stories were of exactly 1000 words each in length (intended for a collection I'll mention later), so the word count isn't as much as you might think. I haven't written any longer works this year, so in total I've written around 70-75,000 words.

I sold one short story this year. "Some Pastel Morning" to IZ Digital. This is mostly because I haven't submitted much for publication as most of the stories I've written this year are earmarked for collections.

The following six stories were published this year: "An Absence of Ghosts" in Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #73, "Some Pastel Morning" in IZ Digital (click story title to read), "So Close To Home" in the anthology Languages of Water, "The Enfilade" in Black Static, "The Natural Environment" in the anthology Reports From The Deep End, and "Keepers" in the anthology At The Lighthouse.

This year also saw me shortlisted for a British Fantasy Society Award for my collection, "Candescent Blooms" published by Salt Publishing. My collaborative novel, co-written with Eugen Bacon, "Secondhand Daylight", was published in October 2023 by Cosmic Egg and has been getting some good reviews. And the forty 1000 word short stories mentioned above will appear in a collection I'll be announcing next year. I've also been co-editing a free Arts magazine for Norwich with Thomas Jarvis called Tangerine, in my spare time.

With my publishing hat on, Head Shot Press published one book in 2023 which was the anthology, "Bang!", edited by myself, featuring noir stories from twenty-two writers. The dedicated website for the press can be found here.

Unlike previous years, I currently have no short stories awaiting publication and am completely up to date. As usual, there are a few longer projects that are under consideration by various agents/publishers.

So that's it for 2023. I have a few things in mind already for next year and am looking to see where they take me. Onwards!

Keepers

My short story titled "Keepers" has just been published in the anthology At The Lighthouse edited by Sophie Essex for Eibonvale Press, and as usual I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

Before I go ahead, I should say that the editor, Sophie, is my partner, but for the submission process she read all the stories without bylines so there is no favouritism when it comes to selecting my story for this book.

As the title of the anthology suggests, each story here features a lighthouse as it's central theme. I had been amassing a list of interesting female names to use within a story (Juska, Candelaria, Ottile, and Cosmina), and it felt natural that I could tell a story from each of their individual viewpoints as to how they might work together for a lighthouse to be restored. Their names - and the meanings of their names - felt a good fit for this piece and they are - therefore - the keepers of the title. The actual nature of the lighthouse itself is revealed - perhaps ambiguously, perhaps shamelessly, depending on your reading - at the end of the story, so much so that I don't feel I can add much more to this blog without it becoming too much of a spoiler.

Here's an extract: 

The island is - inevitably - windswept. When Juska - the refuge giver - steps one foot from the boat her sense of home is evident. Two steps anchor. The Captain has a gruff sensibility, the bonhomie during the two hour journey rough and frank. Now he hauls her suitcases from the deck to the shingle. It's a long way up to the shack which abuts the lighthouse. She accepts his offer to share the weight. Gorse prickles against the thin cotton material of her leggings as she moves from stones to dunes, until eventually this shades into moorland and she sees that the coarse vegetation which surrounds the base of the lighthouse will require cutting back to allow an easier access to the entrance.

Regular readers of this blog will know I usually listen to music through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written to three different albums by Blonde Redhead: 23, Penny Sparkle, and Barragan on continual repeat.

To reiterate, "At The Lighthouse" is published by Eibvonvale Press, and in addition to myself features stories from the following: Jason Gould, Terry Grimwood, Rory Moores, Pete Sillett, Ariel Dodson, Julie Ann Rees, Matt Leyshon, Damian Murphy, Tim Lees, Rhys Hughes, Brittni Brinn, Charles Wilkinson, Tom Johnstone, Douglas Thompson, Ashley Stokes, and C.A. Yates. Buy it here. The book comes in paperback, hardback, and a limited photo paper edition to best display the interior images of lighthouses taken by Sophie.

The Natural Environment

My short story titled "The Natural Environment" has just been published in the anthology Reports From The Deep End edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Rick McGrath for Titan Books, and as usual I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

The byline for this anthology is 'stories inspired by J G Ballard'. I enjoy Ballard's books, particularly when he explores the correlation between technology and human interaction (in that regard, "Crash" is my favourite of his novels), and for quite a while I had a title, "The Natural Environment", which I then realised would probably suit the remit. As usual when I think of titles, my first consideration is to reverse them. What might be an unnatural environment? Perhaps uploaded consciousnesses existing in a technological state long after physical humans have ceased to exist. And what if those consciousnesses hankered after the 'old days', held nostalgia for the past which was never theirs. How might they return to the natural environment, and how might the passing of time have both coloured and confused what they think that actually might be. Additionally, how might love then exist. Here, I had my story.

I believe most of the stories for the anthology were commissioned, but there were a few slots for open submission and I took a chance and thankfully both editors liked it. I therefore find myself in quite a stellar line-up of talent. And in hardback, too!

Here's an extract:

Janet had initiated her transformation prior to informing Ned. He had been annoyed that she had done so without consultation. They were supposed to be one organism, after all, yet her unilateral decision had forced his own hand - two hands, even - in the matter. It irked him that whilst she had maintained a degree of communication that she hadn't allowed him to view her modifications. What if Ned didn't like what he saw?

Regular readers of this blog will know I usually listen to music through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written to the soundtrack of the film Naked Lunch on continual repeat. No direct connection with Ballard, of course, but the sensibility of the film / music also seemed to complement the story.

For those local to London, quite a few of the contributors, including myself, will be at a signing session at the Forbidden Planet megastore next month. Details are here:

To reiterate, "Reports From The Deep End" is published by Titan Books as a reasonably priced hardback and can be purchased here.  A list of contributors is very handily printed on the reverse.

The Enfilade

My short story titled "The Enfilade" has just been published in Black Static and as usual, I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

Before I go ahead, however, I want to say a few words about this issue of Black Static, as it's the final one of a very long run. Andy Cox began publishing as The Third Alternative back in the early nineties. Once I'd discovered the magazine I not only found great new fiction, but also kindred spirits in that many of the writers published in those first issues were touching on the 'slipstream' genre that I hadn't even realised I was writing. My first acceptance in The Third Alternative was a story titled "Slender Lois, Slow Doris" and appeared in issue #6 in May 1995. Several other appearances followed. When Andy Cox took over Interzone magazine, The Third Alternative became Black Static and focussed mostly on dark horror. This final issue is a 'double issue' and is numbered 82/83. It's an incredible achievement and I'm proud to have had three stories in TTA and now eight in Black Static. Production values and accompanying artwork have always been superb, and the artwork for "The Enfilade" was created by Dave Senecal. A huge thank you, therefore, to Andy Cox for everything, for basically single-handedly defining the genre in the UK and championing weird short fiction for the past thirty years.

As for the story, I'm not entirely sure how I came about the word enfilade but I liked the sound of it and when I saw that one of it's meanings meant a suite of rooms with doorways in line with each other I became intrigued. The word doorway in itself then lead to thoughts of Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception, and his experiences with mind expanding drugs, and subsequently googling architectural examples of enfilades brought me to Mysore Palace, a magnificent structure in the Indian state of Karnataka. Often it's simple connections like these which grow a story. I envisaged a set of doorways as in an enfilade but as spiritual representations within the human mind. What if someone became so obsessed with finding meaning through such doorways that they attempted the impossible? And what if they succeeded?

This was one of those pieces which subsequently wrote itself. I sat down one morning at 9am and by 5pm I had an 8500 word story. I don't have to edit much nowadays, only a word or phrase here or there, rather than anything structural, so it more or less fell out fully formed. As if through an open doorway. Here's the opening: 

I first met Pryce on the grassy banks of the River Cam, although it was to be quite a different body of water that would signify his destiny. Pryce was a scraggy youth who stood with a dangled cigarette dropping ash into the water, as he gazed out towards Clare College Bridge with its three uniform arches. The structure was the oldest bridge remaining in Cambridge, and bore the oddity of a missing section of the globe second from the left on the south side. One story was that the builder of the bridge received what he considered to be insufficient payment, and in his anger removed a segment of the globe; another is that it was a method of tax avoidance, as bridges were subject to tax only once they were complete. Whatever the meaning, I was unaware of either back then. I was also unaware how the concept of completeness would be a major influence on Pryce’s life, to the point of obsession.

Regular readers of this blog will know I usually listen to music on repeat through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written to Coeur de Pirate's album of piano music, Perséides, on continual repeat.

To reiterate, "The Enfilade" is published in Black Static #82/83, and in addition to myself features stories, comment, reviews and art from the following: Richard Wagner, Lynda E. Rucker, Simon Avery, Ben Baldwin, Steve Rasnic Tem, Sarah Lamparelli, Warwick Fraser-Coombe, Ralph Robert Moore, Rhonda Pressley Veit, Jim Burns, Julie C. Day, Vincent Sammy, Neil Williamson, Richard Wagner, Peter Tennant, Gary Couzens, Josh Bell, Joachim Luetke, Françoise Harvey, Aliya Whiteley, Stephen Volk, Dave Senecal, Tim Lees and Ray Cluley. Buy it here.

Some Pastel Morning

My short story titled "Some Pastel Morning" has just been published online in IZ Digital, the online sister magazine to Interzone. Initially it is presented as an IZ Digital supporter exclusive (print IZ subscribers also get access), however from 12 July 2023 it'll be free-to-read. It's very cheap to become an IZ Digital supporter. As usual, I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

Unlike many of my short stories, "Some Pastel Morning" approached me in a variety of guises. I first had the idea when walking to pick my youngest daughter up from school. On a telegraph pole was a notice for a missing cat, complete with a picture. This led me to remember those instances where the faces of missing children were put on milk cartons in the United States in the early 80s, which further led me to think of what might cause children to go missing as frequently as lost dogs or cats. Like in much of my fiction, I then decided to reverse the idea. What if a childless woman who had seen such posters decided to invent one, a composite child that she might declare as her own. And then - of course - what if such a child were subsequently found and returned to her? How might that play out?

I had a title that had been kicking around for a while: "The Hello Station". I thought it might fit this story. Because I have to have a title in my mind before I write a story (and very rarely change it, maybe only four times over 170 published stories), I tend to let the story brew in my mind for a while. I'd booked a day off work to write this piece, and therefore had a self-imposed deadline. The pressure was on, but the idea wouldn't gel. A few days before I intended to write, I saw the word pastel. Obviously I knew this word, but my partner suggested it might be an evocative title. We'd also been listening to the Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood album Nancy & Lee, which contains one of my favourite songs, "Some Velvet Morning". A few days later I sat down to write "The Hello Station" which immediately became "Some Pastel Morning". It was this change which instanntly led to the story beginning as it does, and which is an integral part of the whole plot. This opening wouldn't have existed without the title change, literally a few minutes beforehand.

After the first disaster the air was thick with dust. Finely ground pigments stained the streets as though expelled from pastel-coloured puffballs or an explosion in a spice factory. Some of the surviving children made patterns on car windscreens, some even wrote their names, but mostly those names were appended to the posters which had begun to appear around the city, stapled to telegraph poles or pasted up in storefronts, usually accompanied by photographs which depicted poses they were unlikely to grow out of.

Heads up there's a spoiler in this paragraph. Once my protagonist's child is 'found' and returned to her I couldn't think where to go next. I tend to avoid explanations in my fictions, and I couldn't see how to progress without one. It was at this point that I realised another swap was necessary. I ended her story with the found child and began a new section from that child's point of view. Again, there is another soft apocalypse and this time it is his 'mother' who goes missing. I decided to explore the dynamic there. It is this second pastel morning which occurs at the child's school that Sumit Roy has captured so evocatively in his artwork that accompanies the piece.

After the second disaster Hemmingway remembered the air was thick with dust. Within the school the building darkened, as though Edgar Degas were decorating windows, transforming pastels from simple sketching tools into a core artistic medium that might dominate the art scene for many years to come. Some of the children ducked underneath desks. Hemmingway did too. He could see his teacher’s shoes – the brown brogues that they were – gradually attain a patina of filth. Yet when the sky lightened, his teacher remained present. This wasn’t the case with the parents of some of his classmates. When his teacher moved, the floor was clean where he had been standing: inverse footprints of inertia.

You have to allow stories to tell themselves in the best way, in the way that they demand, rather than force them elsewhere, and - for me - this piece is a good example of that. Regular readers will know I usually listen to music on repeat through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written whilst playing The Residents' instrumental album, Mush-Room.

To reiterate, "Some Pastel Morning" is published online in IZ Digital, the online sister magazine to Interzone. Initially it is presented as an IZ Digital supporter exclusive (print IZ subscribers also get access), however from 12 July 2023 it'll be free-to-read.