Body and Soul

My sixth novel, "Body and Soul", is published today via Elsewhen Press, an excellent independent publisher who have been great to work with and who I heartily recommend!

"Body and Soul" developed out of a simple idea which I realised would work well at novel length and which I wanted to write with a kind of old-style SF sensibility, whilst also ensuring it dealt with modern themes. I'm very pleased with the book, which sports stunning cover art from Alex Storer who perfectly matched and executed the brief.

Probably the best way to describe the concept is to quote the blurb on the back cover:

COME TOGETHER IN BODY AND SOUL

When a pregnancy occurs on Heart it is two-fold. The woman carries the body and the man carries the soul. Both have to be present at birth for the soul to enter the body, otherwise the body is born useless and the soul is left to dissipate.

Heart is a planet recovering from an unexplained catastrophe which occurred so long ago that the inhabitants are entirely unaware of their history. Most live in isolated settlements that are self-sufficient, thinly populated, and generally happy; their only source of outside information limited to encounters with travellers, lone nomads who have chosen a life of hardship in order to find artefacts, tell stories, and gain wider experiences. Following an encounter with one such nomad, Calvin, a boy on the verge of puberty, harbours a secret desire to travel; but it will take an unexpected act of violence to encourage him to leave everyone he knows and to strike out on his own.

What he discovers is not only unexpected, but will shock him to his core.

Whilst there are no reviews as yet, it has been described as spiritual dystopian fantasy SF which, if you know my predilection for genre-bending, will come as no surprise. Levity aside, the novel explores themes of identity, gender-roles, isolation and love.

Published in both e-book and paperback from the usual outlets, purchase information can be found here on the Elsewhen Press website.

Mont Blanc

My short story titled "Mont Blanc" was recently published online at House Magazine (Salt Publishing) and as usual I'm blogging a few words discussing how the story came to be written. There may be spoilers within.

"Mont Blanc" is one of twelve recently written stories which takes French New Wave cinema as a starting point and then runs with an alternative version of it. In this case, the film in question is François Truffaut's "Jules et Jim" (1962). I've seen the film many times but it wasn't until I read the source material - a novel by Henri-Pierre Roché (a very poor novel, it has to be said) - that I noticed how much the character of Catherine (played by Jeanne Moreau) is little more than a 'manic pixie girl' trope and a cipher for the characters of the Frenchman, Jim (Henri Serre), and the Austrian, Jules (Oskar Werner). I wanted my story to readdress this balance and to be written from the perspective of Catherine; a feminist retelling of the tale, if you will. I can't remember now why I chose this title, but it fit. And as usual, once I had the title, I could begin to write. Thematically, the collection as a whole (still seeking a publisher) plays on French New Wave as much as my previous collection, Candescent Blooms, played on Hollywood.

Here's an extract: 

They swallow my independence like Evian water. Then seek to bottle it.

The compartment in which I am squeezed is designed by men. It is Baudelaire who said that a woman is natural, that is to say, abominable: the greatest idiocy combined with the greatest depravity. The Austrian and Frenchman make this debate in my presence. I light a cigarette, the smoke from the Gitane curling around my smile. These two consider themselves free thinkers, yet my thoughts spiral in my head without their knowledge. Together they impose stereotypes onto unconventional lifestyles. They pour glasses of wine.

These men – with their shielded homoerotic tendencies, with their belief in a ménage à trois on the condition that there are only two in a bed– these free radicals who are no more than horrors, monsters, assassins of the arts, little fools, little sluts – these men.

Regular readers of this blog will know I usually listen to music through headphones whilst writing, and this entire story was written to - of course - Jeanne Moreau's "La Tourbillon" on continuous repeat.

To reiterate, "Mont Blanc" is available to read online for free, at House Magazine published by Salt Publishing. Do so here. 

Enfilades

My twelfth collection of short stories, "Enfilades", was published earlier this year by Raphus Press, however I've just realised I hadn't blogged about it before now. This mini-collection of six stories is a career retrospective of hand-picked tales from my previously published work. As Raphus Press are based in Brazil it seemed a good idea to showcase some of my stories for a different market. Hopefully anyone reading these tales will seek out my other fiction.

The book contains my first published story, "Pussycat" (which originally appeared in the Barrington Books anthology, The Science of Sadness in 1994) right up to "The Enfilade" (published in Black Static in 2023, and reprinted in Best New Horror #16). The other stories are all favourites of mine: "Old Factory Memories", "The Day My Heart Stood Still", "Vole Mountain" and "Drowning In Air". I would describe these as 'slipstream' stories - a genre that defines me.

Published in hardback with some beautiful interior images, purchase information for "Enfilades" can be found on the Raphus Press website.

There's Nothing Out There

My article on the film, Arctic Void, entitled "Fear and Loathing in the Arctic", has just been published in There's Nothing Out There, edited by Sophie Essex for Black Shuck Books.

This anthology contains 17 passion pieces about films that explore the sensation of being lost. When I was made aware of the premise of this book I naturally began wondering whether to write for it and if so which movie I might select. Having recently watched Arctic Void I had become intrigued by its audacious premise and also the bleak and unforgiving setting. Whilst certainly not one of the best films I've ever seen, it's certainly one that dropped its hooks into me and had me considering it long after I had watched it, and the scenario seemed perfect for working into this book. I won't say much more to it than that, as the film is available to watch on a variety of platforms and of course I go into it in greater depth in the essay, so I suggest you simply buy the book.

As a taster, however, here is the opening:

Some movies linger for reasons that initially appear unfathomable but which gradually take on substance. They tend to be those which appear with little fanfare, are low budget, and which need to be inventive because the central idea is all that they have to play with. I’m thinking here of such films as The Borderlands (2013, Elliot Goldner) where the dialogue-focussed relationship between Deacon and Gray dominates the film and supplies tension, but the absolute terror comes from the realisation of what they are descending into beneath the church. I’m also thinking of Hellhole (2022, Bartosz M. Kowalski), a Polish film that literally turns the standard demon-summoning trope on its head. The images at the conclusion of both films play repeatedly in my mind - despite having only viewed them each once – in a self-perpetuating cycle. Not to mention the final scene in John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (1987) where a glimpse of continuing evil has infused my dreams and frequently has me waking with a scream in my throat.

To reiterate, "Fear and Loathing in the Arctic" is published in There's Nothing Out There edited by Sophie Essex, and in addition to myself features articles from Jason Gould, Pete W Sutton, Darcy L. Wood, Dan Coxon, Gaynor Jones, Daragh Fleming, Adam Groves, Marcelle Perks, Benjamin Kurt Unsworth, Alex Ringer, Lisa Moore-Smith, Sarah R. New, Frank Schildiner, Gary Couzens, John G Austin, and Ashley Stokes. Buy it here.

The Best Horror Of The Year #16

My short story titled "The Enfilade" has just been included in The Best Horror Of The Year #16, edited by Ellen Datlow. Whilst the book came out in November 2024, due to a mailing issue I've only recently received my copy, which is why I've delayed posting about it til now.

The anthology contains 19 short stories all of which were previously published in 2023. My story originally appeared in the now defunct Black Static magazine (although check out Remains, a new publication by the same editor, Andy Cox), and so I'm going to repost part of my original blog about the writing of my story below:

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 republished in Best Horror Of The Year #16, and in addition to myself features stories from Christopher Golden, Carly Holmes, Adam L G Nevill, Ray Cluley, Priya Sharma, Ramsey Campbell, Steve Rasnic Tem, E Catherine Tobler, Tananarive Due, Stephen Graham Jones, H V Patterson, Caitlin R Kiernan, Patrick Barb, Brian Evenson, Helen Grant, Neil Williamson, Glen Hirshberg and Charlie Hughes. Buy it here.