Morpheus Tales Reviews Supplement July 2016 by Adam Bradley

THE HAUNTING OF BLACKWOOD HOUSE By Darcy Coates .............................................................................. 2 Edmund Glasby Interview .......................................................................................................................................................... 2 WIND-UP TOY By David Owain Hughes ........................................................................................................................... 6 MONSTROUS LITTLE VOICES ........................................................................................................................................... 8 THE FOREST ................................................................................................................................................................................ 8 NINEFOX GAMBIT By Yoon Ha Lee .................................................................................................................................. 9 #HORROR .................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 UNCAGED ................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Morpheus Tales Taboo Special Issue Editorial By Sheri White ................................................................................... 11 RIDDLE ROOM ......................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Paul Kane Interview ................................................................................................................................................................... 13 NAILS By Fiona Dodwell ........................................................................................................................................................ 19 POD ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 19

Edited By Stanley Riiks. Written By Paul Kane, Stanley Riiks, C.M. Saunders, J. S. Watts, Sheri White. Proof-read By Sheri White. Â© Morpheus Tales July 2016. Morpheus Tales Back Issues and Special Issues are available exclusively through lulu.com: http://stores.lulu.com/morpheustales For more information, free previews and free magazines visit our website: www.morpheustales.com Morpheus Tales Review Supplement, July 2016. COPYRIGHT July 2016 Morpheus Tales Publishing, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reviews can be used, in full or in part, for publicity purposes as long as Morpheus Tales Magazine is quoted as the source.

THE HAUNTING OF BLACKWOOD HOUSE By Darcy Coates http://candlebreak.com/ I’m turning into quite a fan of Darcy Coates. It’s refreshing to stumble across a relatively new indie horror writer who doesn’t feel the need to go overboard on the sex and violence in order to make a splash. Despite the growing desensitisation of our generation, there’s still a lot to be said for good, solid plots, relatable characters, building tension, howling winds, and creaking floorboards. Like a lot of Coates’s work, the story is quite clean, with minimal swearing and even less gore. With the emphasised love interest, this particular book even takes a meandering journey into YA territory. If you haven’t been there before, it’s not such a bad place. The Haunting of Blackwood House deals with a young girl called Mara from a spiritualist background, who moves into a new house. Yep, haunted. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone given the title. There are more than a few occasions that call for the reader to suspend disbelief (e.g., an unemployed 22-year-old having saved enough money to buy a house. I think even in Australia, this would be unlikely. Just as unlikely would be that house never having been linked to any electricity supply.), but this is a ghost story, so we’ll let that slide. Barely six months after being released this book has already picked up 300+ overall Amazon reviews. The people have spoken. By C.M. Saunders Edmund Glasby Interview Your latest book, Death After Death, is out now from Shadow Publishing. Tell us about the book. Death After Death comprises eleven short supernatural/horror stories. Some are straightforwardly creepy, such as “Hour of the Witch,” “Ghouls of the Undercity,” and “Where Dead Men Scream,” whilst one or two possess a certain macabre humour, notably “Pale Lilac” and “Angels of Death.” For some of the other stories I’ve taken obscure nightmarish creatures from mythology and worked them into modern scenarios, avoiding the vampire, werewolf, zombie stereotypes. I write the kind of stories that I would like to read. They are fast-paced, escapist, a little gory and more often than not, fairly bizarre. I’d certainly never claim them as ‘great literature’ but I hope that readers will find them entertaining. A lot of horror fans will be familiar with the 1982 Stephen King/George Romero film Creepshow – my short stories are firmly in that vein.

You’ve been writing for a while now. What inspired you to start writing? In late 2000, after completing my studies at Oxford, I decided to try my hand at writing fiction and eventually produced a dark fantasy novel, Disciple of a Dark God which, like most first novels, has certain autobiographical elements. The idea of writing and certainly the genres I prefer, horror and dark fantasy, came naturally enough as my father, John S. Glasby, wrote hundreds of supernatural novels and short stories throughout his life. Indeed, he could lay a fair claim to having been one of the world’s most prolific authors and has been credited as having been the first British author to bring Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to the UK, before Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley. What other writers have influenced you? First and foremost, my father and the dozens of early (1950-1960s) Supernatural Stories which were published by John Spencer. I have also read a lot of Stephen King (his early works in particular), James Herbert, H.P. Lovecraft, and Clive Barker. What are your other influences? I grew up with Hammer Horror posters plastered around my room courtesy of one of my brothers, so it’s no real surprise that I write what I do. I must have watched hundreds of horror and fantasy films which have undoubtedly influenced my rather visual and visceral style.

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There is always a starting point or concept, usually a scene I have in my mind, and I will write a few thousand words to see where the idea might take me. The planning stage comes later and I will rough out the main points, which frequently change as I get further into the story or novel.

You’ve written a number of crime novels, as well as mysteries. Tell us about those. The crime novels and mysteries have been a bit of a departure for me and I find writing these more challenging as I have to stick to the strictly possible, however unlikely! Even so, I do my utmost to incorporate as much weirdness into them as I can get away with. My first, A Murder Most Macabre, begins with an illegal mummy-unwrapping party held by a pseudo-Egyptologist. The ‘authentic’ mummy he has bought turns out to have the perfectly genuine head of an ancient scribe but the rotting body of a recently killed man. In The Postbox Murders a madman is butchering his victims and stuffing their bodies into rural postboxes. The Doppelgänger Deaths is about a psychopath whose victims bear a resemblance to a set of antique dolls in his possession and my latest, Where Blood Runs Deep, coming out sometime next year, revolves around a missing person and an isolated village whose residents follow an unusual religion. Imagine a cross between H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Wicker Man.

If you could go back in time to when you started writing and give yourself one piece of advice what would it be? Don’t get hung up on perfectionism at the beginning of a piece of work. There’s plenty of time to polish it once you have the whole framework in place. Do you read reviews of your work? How do you deal with criticism? Sometimes. They can be helpful, but in some cases the reviewer is just not the right kind of audience and it’s better to get feedback from people who know the genre. Judging writing is by its very nature highly subjective. I know there are many well-respected works that I don’t rate and vice versa. Where do you get your inspiration? Certain stories come from very specific experiences. For example, a few years ago I visited Edinburgh and took a late-night ghost tour in the underground vaults. The city has a truly fascinating past and that tour led directly to me writing the short story “Ghouls of the Undercity.” Most of the time it takes a lot of hard thinking to come up with ideas, most of which will get discarded.

You’ve published short story collections and novels. Which do you prefer writing? I’ve written about fifty short stories and six novels so far. Overall I prefer writing short stories as I can really tailor the length and style of the story to the idea. Novels are great for exploring things in greater depth but some concepts are just perfect in the short form.

What book are you reading now? The Whispering Horror by Eddy C. Bertin.

Do you have any rituals or routines when you write? I don’t know that I have any rituals as such but I often write in long-hand first and I go through a lot of false starts before I find the right angle.

What is your proudest moment as a writer? Seeing the first copies of Disciple of a Dark God was a stand-out moment but I think more satisfaction comes from continuing to write and get published.

How do you put a book together? Do you just sit down and write, or do you plan chapter by chapter? 4

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What is the most important thing when becoming a writer? Perseverance and having plenty of free time. A warped imagination helps as well. Do you write for a particular audience, for yourself? Predominantly for myself and hope that other people like it too. What do you like to do when you’re not writing? I’m the captain of a local longbow society and get out twice a week to shoot arrows. What parts of being a writer do you like best? And least? Without stating the obvious – when it’s going well and the story more or less writes itself then things are good. Conversely, writing some stories can be like wading through tar. It’s good being able to let my imagination run wild at times, even if it doesn’t make it to the final cut. Another benefit is being able to turn frustration into fiction – we all know people we’d like to see come to a grisly end.

Are you disappointed with any of your work when you look back on it? There are some things that I would write differently now as my style has slowly evolved but overall I’m pleased with all my published work. The ones that I haven’t been happy with I tend not to finish. In general, looking back can give me ideas about where to go next. In one case, a short story I wrote about fifteen years ago called “Dark Harvest” had two characters that I really liked – a stuffy, self-important professor and a self-possessed government employee charged with sorting out supernatural problems. The story was a good one but I felt that I hadn’t finished with the characters. I began to wonder what might have happened next and so I brought them back in their own novel, The Weird Shadow Over Morecambe, and tried to do them justice. What’s the best piece of feedback that you’ve had from your audience? When I started writing I had a tendency to be verbose. The advice to cut out some of the unnecessary words was very helpful. Probably the most complimentary feedback was being told that my writing is reminiscent of Robert Bloch. Quite a high accolade. 5

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stories, even with the limitation of 8000 words or so, I try to have all three. Personally, I think it’s important to have a certain dynamic to a story, some action to enhance the narrative. Some people like very cerebral stories and these have their place but I like larger-than-life, grotesque characters and situations. In a way, what makes a story good is what the reader brings to it themselves.

Who are your favourite authors and favourite books? As I said earlier, I like Stephen King’s early works, particularly The Stand, Salem’s Lot, The Dead Zone, etc. Clive Barker’s Books of Blood and most of the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

WIND-UP TOY By David Owain Hughes http://david-owain-hughes.wix.com/horrorwriter There are some unfortunate bi-products of human existence that leave such a bad taste in the mouth, or carry such a social stigma, that most writers steer well clear. You know the kind of thing - they go far beyond the usual murder, mayhem, and dismemberment. We’re talking such nastiness as incest, child abuse, rape, necrophilia, paedophilia, sadism. Pretty much anything that would make your top lip curl in disgust. Add to all that a thick layer of debauchery, mental illness, and general weirdness, and you have WindUp Toy, what is certain to be one of the most original works of fiction to be published this year. Or possible any other year. The main story arc focuses on Simone, an abused and neglected child who grows up in the Welsh seaside town of Porthcawl with, er, issues. His only real friends, apart from Chaos, his demented dominatrix, are his collection of toys with which, over the years, he develops an unhealthy relationship with. His closest ally is a clown called Mr Tickles which, let’s face it, is creepy enough in itself. Simone struggles with violent impulses and lustful urges, and let’s just say that sometimes he loses the battle. I have to admit, I’m generally pretty sceptical about ‘extreme horror.’ Like musicians who play too loud, too many writers use explicit sex and gore as mechanisms to cover gaping flaws in their skill set. That isn’t the case here. Wind-Up Toy is a wellplotted, fast-paced story and, despite a few editorial fluffs like the odd missing word and common usage error (gluttonous not glutinous, for example), it heralds another new voice in British horror. It is positively nightmarish in places, and makes the Saw franchise look like Fiddler on the Roof. At times, you can’t help but worry for the sanity of the poor guy who wrote it. Definitely one for adults only, and only adults with strong stomachs. As the blurb says, read at your own risk. By C.M. Saunders

Do you get writer’s block? How do you cope with it? Yes! Sometimes for months at a time but then something will just come into my head - literally at some times, for instance, the short story “Death After Death” came from a nightmare I had. I don’t think writer’s block is something you cope with so much as endure and try to get through. If you could meet anyone, fictional or real, dead or alive, who would it be? Sam Neill. He was in two of my favourite films, The Final Conflict and In the Mouth of Madness. If he’s not available, Ozzy Osbourne. What are you working on now? I generally work on a couple of short stories and a novel at the same time, but I’m in the very early stages. Do you have any advice for other writers? The main thing is to keep on writing. It’s also advantageous to attend some of the conventions for your genre, such as FantasyCon as you meet a lot of like-minded people. Also try and get friends and family to read your work and let them be as critical as they want. What scares you? Fiction does not really scare me. I have never read a book or seen a film, certainly not as an adult, that has had that effect on me. Whereas reality… What makes a good story? Define good. It’s a personal thing but I think there has to be at least one really strong element, whether it’s plot, characterisation, or setting. In all of my short 6

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whole and its surprisingly emotional denouement in the final story. The final element of enjoyment for me was playing “Spot The Shakespearian Reference,” both overt and implied. A knowledge of the plays referenced, and therefore the storylines that preceded these five tales, broadened and deepened the impact of this book as far as I was concerned. All in all, I found this to be a very satisfying short story anthology. I enjoyed the combination of literature with fantasy, but the literary element was so strong that I was left wondering whether the stories would feel a little one-dimensional for a reader without a broad working knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays. By J.S.Watts

MONSTROUS LITTLE VOICES Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of five substantial short stories by five different authors. Each story stands on its own, but contributes to the broader tale of an alternative Shakespearian fantasy world populated by fairies, witches, magicians, and a deathless darkness. It is fantasy, rather than horror, but there is a growing sense of malignancy as the stories progress. It is also very literary. All the action takes place after the Shakespearian plays the stories reference have concluded. For example, the opening story, “Coral Bones,” begins in Naples after the end of The Tempest. Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, is now married to her prince, but has discovered her “brave new world” is not all she had hoped it would be. Taking drastic steps to escape her unhappy life, her battle to find her true self is aided by the fairy spirit Ariel and characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The story stands on its own, but a working knowledge of the two original plays its characters come from gives it greater depth and poignancy. Nearly all the stories are based in an althistory Mediterranean arena, mirroring the location of many of Shakespeare’s plays. The area is braced for war between factions from across Shakespeare’s plays, primarily Titania, Queen of the Fairies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Orsino, Duke of Ilyria (Twelfth Night). Drawn into the growing tension are “Dramatis Personae” from plays as diverse as All’s Well that Ends Well, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and Macbeth (to name just a few). It is the ancient and murderous character of Macbeth, and the death-hungry dagger linked to him, which introduces a growing thread of doom and darkness into the linked narrative. This culminates in the final story of the collection, “On the Twelfth Night,” which explores the possibility of multiple, overlapping, alternative worlds, the mutable and uncertain history of Will Shakespeare himself and, I suspect, is also a riff on the old adage that an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters could write the works of Shakespeare. If an infinite number of monkeys are capable of so much, what could an infinite number of Shakespeare’s accomplish? I found the individual stories totally enthralling. The fantasy elements of the book are cleverly imagined, as well as drawing on both Shakespearian and folk traditions. I also liked the growing sense of darkness within the collection as a

THE FOREST Director: Jason Zada

At the foot of Mount Fiji in Japan lies the deeply mysterious Aokigahara Forest, widely known as a popular suicide destination. In 2010 alone, there were 54 confirmed cases. Nobody is quite sure what draws people from all over the country, and even further afield there to end their days, but it has a long association with the Yurei of Japanese mythology, similar entities to what we would call ghosts. Yurei 8

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By C.M. Saunders

pray on the sad, lonely, and vulnerable, using their own negative emotions against them. Sounds like the script of a horror movie, right? Well, now it is, thanks to producer David S Goyer (the Blade franchise, Da Vinci’s Demons, and cult naughties TV show FreakyLinks) stumbling across an article about the forest on Wikipedia. Game of Thrones star Natalie Dormer plays an American woman who receives a phone call from the Japanese authorities saying that her identical twin sister has ventured into the Aokigahara Forest and has not been seen since. Obviously, she gets on the next plane to the Land of the Rising Sun and rocks up to the very same hotel her sister was staying, where she meets a Western journalist who seems just a little too eager to help. Together with a guide, they head into the forest in search of the missing sister. All in all, it’s a good premise for a film. It’s atmospheric, wellproduced, and for the most part, well executed. It’s just a pity the film lets itself down in other areas. The plot kinda drifts off and cannibalizes itself toward the end, and there are some mildly annoying oversights. For example, when Dormer’s character first meets the journalist (Taylor Kinney, aka Mason Lockwood of Vampire Diaries fame) she tells him how the sisters lost both their parents in a car accident caused by a drunk driver who was never caught. But... if the driver was never caught, how did anyone know they were drunk? They could just be a really shit driver. You would think with all the untold millions lavished on film production these days, somebody somewhere along the line would notice such a gaping plot hole. Evidently not. Sigh. As you would expect, the film is laced with the kind of creepy, unsettling horror you associate with something so Japan-centric, though it has minimal input from anyone actually Japanese apart from a few actors, which is the minimum requirement. For the most part, it wasn’t even made in Japan. The Japanese government don’t allow filming in Aokigahara Forest so apart from a few scenes shot in Tokyo, the bulk of the movie was filmed in a warehouse in Serbia. I shit you not. The forest/warehouse is suitably creepy, though. On its release, The Forest was met with an avalanche of criticism and almost universal bad reviews. It has an overall rating of 9% on Rotten Tomatoes and let’s face it, it doesn’t get much more rotten than that. Even the regrettable Rocky V managed 28%. Does that mean the film most Rocky fans refuse to acknowledge is more than three times better than The Forest? Not at all. It’s not perfect, but plot holes aside, I actually enjoyed it. It’s a crazy world.

NINEFOX GAMBIT By Yoon Ha Lee www.rebellionpublishing.com I don’t know, maybe it’s me, maybe it’s the craziness of Brexit (which was going on while I read this book), but I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t get into this book; the first fifty pages just seemed a jumbled mess, and I had no idea what was going on. Then I started to see get the gist of what was going on in this futuristic battle of wits and intrigue. In a world split into several factions similar to those in Divergent, where the Kel are warriors, the Harai are mathematicians, the Shuos are strategists (?), and the world is calendar-based somehow (forgive me for being vague but I’m still trying to understand it after reading the entire book), one of the Fortresses is overtaken by a rogue element wanting a different calendar. Captain Kel Cheris is given the task of capturing the Fortress, and she asks that a long-dead, and immortal Shuos General (who has never lost a battle but went a bit mental and killed over a million of his own soldiers) goes along as her guide. Will he try to trick her and take over? Can she trust him to do his best and work with her? What sounded like a war thriller in space from the blurb, turns out to be a complicated, intriguefilled mess, played out against the backdrop of a fairly uneventful siege. And just when you think it’s over and you’ve escaped, the final forty-odd pages are a further torture as Cheris searches through the General’s memories to find the truth. Does she find it? I’m not entirely sure. I didn’t get it. I really didn’t get it. There were several times towards the beginning of the book when I wanted to throw it across the room. After the first fifty pages things suddenly started to make a bit of sense, not much, but more than before. And then I wanted to find out what would happen. There are some good things about this book; the world that Lee has created is complex and interesting, but not enough time or effort is given to explain it. The plot and the tension of both the siege and the internal siege within Cheris (she hosts the Shuos General) have potential for great drama and conflict, but just seem to fail at every turn. I really don’t know about this book. I certainly didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t hate it either. It confused me, more than anything. It’s not often that I don’t get a book, but I definitely had problems with this one. Maybe it’s just me. By Stanley Riiks 9

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#HORROR Director: Tara Subkoff

Morpheus Tales Taboo Special Issue Editorial By Sheri White

Probably the most horrific thing about this film is the disturbing insight it provides into the secret lives of pre-teen girls. Their cruelty, selfishness and sheer evilness toward each other is unwavering, and will strike fear into the hearts of anxious dads everywhere. In that aspect, it is certainly believable. Given that they are all so flat-out mean, it’s difficult to feel any sympathy for any of the characters. When the killing starts, it’s not before time. By C.M. Saunders

For most people, the word “taboo” brings to mind such things as forbidden love (for example, interracial marriage and same-sex relationships, which should not be taboo, but unfortunately still are to some people) and certain religious practices (for example, dietary restrictions, clothing dictates, fornication). Some families may even have their own taboos, passed on through generations. While many examples of taboos now seem antiquated and innocent, such as requiring a woman to isolate herself during menstruation, some make a lot of sense. The harming of a child is never okay; yet it happens, sometimes thrilling the perpetrator. Which is, of course, the main reason taboos are broken. When Morpheus Tales put out the call for taboo stories for this special issue, I was worried we’d be inundated with weird sex stories. And some of those did come through. But I was pleasantly surprised with the quality and imaginative stories sent in. I had the bittersweet dilemma of having a lot of great stories to choose from, but not being able to accept all of them. In this issue there are several “familiar” taboos, and a few cleverly imagined ones. The stories will make you cringe, laugh uncomfortably, and perhaps even offend you. But that’s why you’re reading this magazine, right?

UNCAGED Director: Daniel Robbins Yay, werewolves! With a few notable exceptions, our lycanthropian friends have been strangely absent from the horror landscape for a few years now. It’s about time they made a comeback. Over time, werewolves have commandeered a unique and diverse corner of the film market, with efforts usually traversing slightly into weird horror/comedy territory. This tradition started with the classic An American Werewolf in London, and continued with such gems as The Howling, Teen Wolf, Dog Soldiers, and Ginger Snaps. To both its benefit and its detriment, Uncaged follows a similar path. It opens with a six-year-old Jack experiencing a traumatic event which culminates in his mother apparently killing his father. She then tells him that when Jack reaches the age of 18, everything will change. Cut to Jack at the age of 18. He is now a typical teen, partying, chasing girls, getting stoned, and making dick jokes. He and his two best friends decide to take a vacation at a secluded cabin, which is when things start getting weird. Jack begins waking up outside, cold and naked, which is never a good thing. Yup, things are changing. The group then befriends a drug dealer’s moll for no reason whatsoever other than to give the wafer-thin plot some depth. It doesn’t work. Given the pretext, the werewolf stuff is obviously a metaphor for the changes teenagers go through when they reach ‘that age,’ and a pretty effective one at that. Unfortunately, despite a promising start and some worthy comedic moments, Uncaged loses its way and fizzles out long before the end. By C.M. Saunders

The free preview of the magazine is available here: https://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/taboo_special _issue_preview The ebook in various formats is available here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/648109?r ef=morpheustales The printed digest size edition is available here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/stanley-riiks-and-kengoldman-and-adrian-ludens-and-sheri-white/taboospecial-issue/paperback/product-22778122.html The printed perfect-bound edition is available here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/stanley-riiks-and-kengoldman-and-adrian-ludens-and-sheri-white/taboospecial-issue-perfect-boundedition/paperback/product-22778129.html

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the sound of it. Solaris picked it up and we were away… As for the story itself, the blurb explains it perfectly: “Late 1895, and Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr John Watson are called upon to investigate a missing persons case. On the face of it, this seems like a mystery that Holmes might relish – as the person in question vanished from a locked room – and something to occupy him other than testing the limits of his mind and body. But this is just the start of an investigation that will draw the pair into contact with a shadowy organisation talked about in whispers and known only as ‘The Order of the Gash.’ As more and more people go missing in a similar fashion, the clues point to a sinister asylum in France and to the underworld of London. However, it is an altogether different underworld that Holmes will soon discover – as he comes face to face not only with those followers who do the Order’s bidding on Earth, but those who serve it in Hell: the Cenobites. Holmes’ most outlandish adventure to date, one that has remained shrouded in secrecy until now, this launches him headlong into Clive Barker’s famous Hellraiser universe…and things will never be the same again.’”

RIDDLE ROOM Director: Bryan Binder A woman (Erika Hoveland) wakes up, gagged and tied, in a strange room. She finds a note with a date written on it, and a man wearing a mask pops in periodically to give her food and water and ask her questions about the date on the piece of paper. He’s obviously the person holding her captive, and takes great delight in messing with her. The question is, why? It doesn’t help matters that the woman can’t remember anything. Oh, and there’s a TV in the room which randomly shows scenes from her home life and a clock counting down on the wall, which you feel is pretty important. The fun in films like this is trying to solve the puzzle before the victim does as it works toward the big reveal at the end. I didn’t quite get there, but I was damn close. Truth be told, I was disappointed with the ending. The disappointment began to set in about half way through, but by then I was so invested I had to see it through. For a film that promised so much, when all is revealed it just feels a bit empty and redundant and instead of a big ‘Eureka’ moment you do a little tut and an eye-roll instead. Apparently this was inspired by the Saw films, and there are certain obvious similarities. However, there’s much less gore in Riddle Room and it lacks Saw’s originality and creativity. Decidedly average. By C.M. Saunders Paul Kane Interview Your latest novel Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell is out now. Tell us about the book. Servants is the first book to place Sherlock Holmes into the Hellraiser world that Clive Barker created in the 1980s. I came to both Clive’s fiction – and especially his novella The Hellbound Heart, then his movie Hellraiser – at the same time I started reading the Conan Doyle Holmes stories, and began watching the Granada TV series, so the two have always been linked in my mind. When I was co-editing Hellbound Hearts with my wife Marie O’Regan, an anthology of Hellraiser tales, I was itching to write some of that kind of fiction myself, inspired by these great writers and tales. I was also dipping my toe into Holmesian Horror fiction, trying to get into the Gaslight anthology series from Edge, edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec; I eventually snuck in there with a story called ‘The Greatest Mystery’ which appeared in Volume 3, Gaslight Arcanum. So the notion of doing a crossover returned and luckily Clive loved

You’ve been writing for a while now. What inspired you to start? Incredibly – well, it’s incredible to me – this year marks my 20th anniversary as a professional writer. I began in journalism after uni, then tried my hand at fiction after that; and towards the end of the year SST Publications – who published my novel last year, Blood RED – are bringing out a collection of my best and most loved stories called Shadow Casting to celebrate. Of course, I’ve been writing a lot longer than that, ever since I was little – and even before, making up stories with drawings or acting them out with toy figures. I discovered horror fiction quite early on in life, when someone handed me a copy of James Herbert’s The Rats at school, which kicked off a life-long love of the genre. It was reading lots of this kind of material that inspired me to start writing 13

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Littlewood, Stuart MacBride, Paul Finch, John Connolly, Steve Mosby, Adam Nevill, Neal Asher, A.K. Benedict – I’ll stop right there, because I could go on all day and I’ll still miss someone. I will say that getting to know writers like this and becoming friends with them has been the one of the greatest inspirations you could ask for. Just being around other authors makes me happy, and I always come away from conventions and gatherings feeling truly inspired.

horror stories myself, and they were complete stinkers. I still have some of them and drag them out if I fancy a laugh; there’s one in particular called Night Beast, which has this alien monster roaming the Moors being chased by a cop in a helicopter, who for some reason has a Magnum… I think there was more than a hint of Eastwood’s Dirty Harry in that protagonist! Discovering Clive’s Books of Blood was a revelation to me, if you’ll pardon the pun. Like most folk who read them for the first time back then, it was clear he was a one-off – and I loved the range of different stories all in one place, from a full-on horror like ‘The Midnight Meat Train’ to a comedy horror like ‘The Yattering and Jack’ to cosmic horror in ‘The Skins of the Fathers.’ Incredible… And the style of writing was just so brilliant. If horror books in general inspired me to start writing horror fiction, Clive definitely inspired me to get better – and quickly!

What are your other influences? I’m a massive film fan, as you’d expect of someone with an MA in Film Studies – so I count a lot of directors as influences on me. Again, way too many to mention, but people like Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, George A. Romero, Steven Spielberg, Kathryn Bigelow… The list is endless. TV has also had a massive impact on me and my writing, starting with Dr Who and Star Trek in the 1970s when I was a kid, right up to some of the fantastic shows on now like Kirkman’s The Walking Dead and Outcast, as well as Preacher, Arrow, The Bridge… I’m a huge fan of anything Whedon or Abrams-related, I’ll watch or read anything by the wonderful Stephen Volk – Afterlife is simply stunning – and I think what John Logan did with Penny Dreadful was nothing short of phenomenal. Comics and graphic novels have also influenced me greatly, from picking up copies of 2000 AD and Batman in my youth, through Alan Moore and Frank Miller, to more recent fare like Mike Carey’s The Unwritten and Joe Hill’s Locke and Key. Again, I could go on forever just listing excellent films, TV shows, comics and their creators, but I’ll stop there…

What other writers have influenced you? Oh, way too many to list here. I’ve mentioned Herbert, but in the first wave were also Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Graham Masterton, Anne Rice… I read everything and anything SF, Fantasy, and Crime-related as well. One of my favourite books of all time is Dune by Frank Herbert, for example. Wyndham has been a massive influence on me, as you can see in some of my post-apocalyptic fiction and in particular my short novel Sleeper(s). Moorcock, Tolkien, and George R.R. Martin are definitely in there. Richard Matheson certainly inspired books like Lunar, Robert Bloch similarly with some of my more psychological stuff. Thomas Harris and his Lecter novels. Through to writers like Neil Gaiman, Christopher Fowler, Simon Clark, Poppy Z. Brite, Mark Morris, Michael Marshall Smith, Kelley Armstrong, Muriel Gray, the two Nancys – Holder and Kilpatrick… And right up to date with some more recent authors, like Sarah Pinborough, Mark Billingham, Tim Lebbon, Alison

You wrote the Arrowhead trilogy featuring a postapocalyptic Robin Hood a little while ago. Tell us about the trilogy and how it came about? 14

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Shorts are fun and quick, while novels let you flex your writing muscles and get your teeth into issues that have a bigger and long-term impact on your characters. It’s a bit of a cheat for this question, but I actually prefer the happy medium of novelettes and novellas these days, which gives you the best of both worlds. They’re relatively quick to write, but give you a bit of leeway with spreading your wings. I’ve just done a new novella for Horrific Tales, another post-apocalyptic tale coincidentally, called The Rot, which will be launching at FantasyCon in Scarborough this September.

I did, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! Basically, I just answered a call to pitch for books in the Afterblight Chronicles series by Abaddon and sent in a handful of ideas. Jon Oliver, who was the commissioning editor there at the time – he has since moved to Solaris, another Rebellion company and the one who picked up Servants – liked the pitch for Arrowhead. I can remember the day back in 2007 when he rang and said to me: “So, do you fancy writing a novel for us?” It was one of those moments that change the course of your whole life, leading to the writing of my first mass market novel – and two more that made up the original trilogy after the first one did so well. All three – Arrowhead, Broken Arrow, and Arrowland – were collected together in the Hooded Man omnibus back in 2013 and that sold out of its original print run really quickly. This, in turn, led to my doing a novella for the new editor at Abaddon, David Thomas Moore, and that title Flaming Arrow came out last summer as an ebook. It caught up with the characters of Robert, Mary, Jack and company a few years later, confronting them with new villains and different problems. That’s about to appear for the first time in mass market paperback format in The End of the End for people who want to catch up.

You’ve followed/worked with Clive Barker, and your latest book features his Cenobites. Tell us how you came to know him and how you’ve woven his universe with Holmes’. I’ve been a fan of Clive’s stuff since the 1980s, as mentioned – and had wanted to write about Hellraiser since I first saw the original movie. My intention was to do one of those BFI style books like Mark Kermode’s one on The Exorcist, but that didn’t really pan out. So I ended up writing about all the movies and comics for McFarland’s The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy. That, and my work as Special Publications Editor for the British Fantasy Society sort of put me on Clive’s radar and that was that. We became friends and ended up working together on a few projects, including Hellbound Hearts which he not only did an introduction for, but created a brand new cover image in the form of the Cenobite Vestimenti. As I say, Clive loved the idea of slotting Holmes into the Hellraiser world and was very enthusiastic about it all, offering some great insights and comments – like changing the original couple who come seeking Holmes’ help to make them ‘The Cottons’; we’ve left it very open as to whether these are ancestors of the Cottons we already know, or whether it’s some kind

You’ve published short story collections and novels. What do you prefer writing? I started off my career with short stories, simply because they were quicker to write and you could target more markets with them. I gradually built up to writing novels, but it’s a completely different discipline with a very different mindset – I plan more for novels, mainly because it helps to sell them and also helps me when it comes to writing them because they’re a bit more complex. Nowadays I write shorts in-between doing novels, but I enjoy doing both. 15

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by Brad Watson, who adapted my short story “Wind Chimes” into a movie – and then a graphic novel. It makes you think that you must be doing something right.

of parallel universe or whatever… Strangely, or maybe not that strangely when you think about it, Holmes fits right into that universe. He’s the world’s greatest puzzle solver and the mythos represents the world’s biggest mystery, not only in terms of a locked room disappearance, but also with the Lament Configuration puzzle box. Once I started to think about what elements of each to include, it seemed to just come together quite organically.

How do you put a book together? Do you just sit down and write, or do you plan chapter by chapter? If we’re talking about a novel, or even a novella, I do plan it all out, yes. It just helps me in the writing of it, like having a map when you’re setting off to a destination. More often than not, as well, a publisher will ask for a detailed synopsis and/or a chapter breakdown when they’re commissioning a book, especially if it’s a higher profile project. It’s fair enough when you think about it, because they want to know you’re on the right track with it if they’re paying you an advance. That’s not to say it won’t change as you go along, you’ve still got to be flexible – if it’s for the good of the story at any rate – but generally speaking it will be the tale you set out to tell. And I always, always have an end goal in sight. I’m not one of those writers who set off and likes to be surprised by the ending, or finds out when the characters do; that would drive me absolutely nuts. If I’m investing a great deal of time in something, often months if it’s a novel, then I want to know it’s going to be worthwhile.

Do you have any rituals or routines when you write? I used to write short stories on a desktop and novels on my laptop sitting on a recliner – I just couldn’t do it any other way. But now I just do a lot of stuff on my laptop because it makes it all more flexible. Not really a ritual, but something I’ve grown comfortable doing. If she’s not too busy with her own stuff, I like Marie to read what I’ve done, and I do the same for her; that’s a ritual we’ve been doing since we first got together. Other than that, not really. You’ve written original novels and those set in universes created by others. Which do you prefer? I love everything I’d done, whether I’ve come up with it or not. If I’ve played in other people’s sandpits it’s usually because I’m a fan of their universes, as with Hellraiser. I read and adored those original Afterblight novels, so it made me up my game to pitch and try and get my own book within that world. Obviously, it gives you a buzz when something you’ve written from scratch connects with people – like the stories in my RED series. Blood RED got some fantastic reviews last year when it came out through SST. But even then, that uses Little Red Riding Hood as a jumping off point, so there’s nothing new under the sun… I have to admit I was really chuffed by how well Lunar did for me, not just the novel, but selling it as a film script – to be made

If you could go back in time to when you started writing and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? That’s a tough one, because I think things have worked out pretty much the way they were supposed to – and I’m happy enough with how my career has panned out up to this point. I guess what I might say is keep an eye on the markets more and see what’s selling, as I’ve had times when I’ve written something, stuck to my guns with it, and then had to wait until the market changed before I could sell it. Having said that, I always advocate writing what you really want to write anyway, otherwise you don’t do 16

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I just finished Stephen Volk’s wonderful Leytonstone, his follow-up of sorts to Whitstable – but this time focusing on Hitchcock as a young boy. For a student of film like me, you can imagine how exciting this was for me. I went straight from that to Mark Billingham’s new thriller Die of Shame, which is about the murder of a member of an addicts’ support group – I’m really getting into it. After that, I quite fancy Jason Arnopp’s The Last Days of Jack Sparks; I recently caught up with Jason at Edge-Lit, a great guy and a terrific writer.

your best work. Maybe don’t get sucked into petty arguments, especially early on in my career, because it only takes you away from your work? Simon Clark’s advice when I was starting out was absolutely brilliant, which was just get on with the work, keep putting one foot in front of the other, and by the time you look back you’ll see just how far you’ve come. He was totally right. Do you read reviews of your work? How do you deal with criticism? I think you have to; if you don’t, you get told about them anyway at some point. The good ones you can use for PR, and the bad ones you have to just shrug off knowing that you did what you wanted to do – and, more importantly, you did the best you could at the time. You have to develop a bit of a thick skin when it comes to criticism, because peoples’ views are all subjective. You get a bit down when you read them, and move on, throw yourself into something else.

What is your proudest moment as a writer? There have been a few: the acceptance and publication of my first short story, ‘Facades’ in the small press publication Planet Prozak; the acceptance and publication of Arrowhead, which we’ve already chatted about; meeting Clive and getting to know him; and I have to count the publication of Servants, only the third long-form Hellraiser fiction book ever published. For a fan like me, of both Holmes and Hellraiser, it doesn’t get any better than that – and I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive response to it so far.

Where do you get your inspiration? Inspiration’s all around us all the time: snatches of conversation you might hear; news and documentaries; reading books, watching film and TV. I’ve never really suffered from writers’ block thankfully, because my mind is always buzzing with ideas. I’ve filled dozens of notebooks with them, sometimes a line or two or even just a title. Other times I just get pre-occupied with a subject and simply have to write about it. The Rot, for example, is a thinly-veiled observation of where we’re going as a species and especially my concern about unchecked STDs on the rampage. The main protagonist is wearing an environment suit called a SKIN, which should give you some idea of what I’m talking about. So I guess the simple answer should be: life is my inspiration, from your loved ones to travel, to just looking out of your window or going for a walk to the shops. It’s all grist for the mill.

Are you disappointed with any of your work when you look back on it? I think there’s always a danger looking back on anything that you could have done something differently or better. I was recently putting together Shadow Casting, going through stories from the last couple of decades and editing them. I’ve had to resist the urge to fiddle with them too much, in particular the early ones, because I’ve changed so much as a writer in the meantime. But then Shadow Casting wouldn’t be representative of my career as a whole if I did that. What's the best piece of feedback that you've had from your audience? I think some of the reviews of Servants to be honest, and that’s not just because the book is out and I’m doing publicity for it. One reviewer called it a ‘Masterwork,’ which is pretty damned fantastic – I

What book are you reading now? 17

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actual process of sitting down and writing really… I was chatting to some other writers about this recently and we all agreed that we love the ‘fugue state’ you sometimes go into and then come out of it having written a chunk of your story or book, when you realise it’s lunchtime and you’ve worked all morning, but it’s been on autopilot. For me, the best things about being a writer are you get to work from home, and can please yourself – but the flip side of that and being your own boss is that there’s no safety net; you have to push yourself to work, otherwise it doesn’t get done. That’s hard, particularly when you’re tired or don’t feel very well, but you’ve got 3,000 words to finish that day. I also really like getting out there and meeting readers; I’ve got a bit of a book tour coming up for Servants and am really looking forward to that, nattering to readers, signing copies of the book for them. That’s definitely one of the highlights for me.

never thought anyone would say something like that about my work. What is the most important thing when becoming a writer? I used to teach creative writing and always said the three ‘P’s were the most important thing: perspiration, patience, and persistence. They speak for themselves really. You have to put the work in, be willing to play the long game, and never, ever give up. Do you write for a particular audience, or for yourself? I think it depends on what you’re writing. First and foremost you should always write for yourself, write what you want because it’s what interests you and so on. But if it’s for a market that enjoys postapocalyptic stories, for example, you have to bear in mind the kinds of beats they’re going to be expecting to see, the tropes. If it’s a Holmes-Hellraiser crossover, then there will be certain things people will also be expecting: a mystery, the puzzle box, Cenobites. It’s up to you to find some kind of balance between the two, I think.

If you could meet anyone, fictional or real, dead or alive, who would it be? I would have loved to have met Peter Cushing, that would have been amazing. I did get the chance to meet Christopher Lee briefly at Chillerfest, which I’ll never forget, so it would have been nice to have met the Van Helsing to his Dracula. I think I’m fortunate in that I’ve met a lot of my heroes, whether writers, actors, or directors. When Marie and I were doing the interview book Voices in the Dark we consciously targeted some of our favourite personalities in the genre for exactly that reason. Sitting with George A. Romero in his hotel room while he told us stories about Night of the Living Dead and drank rum is one of those ‘pinch me’ moments I’ll take to the grave. Fictional? Well, I’ve met Doug Bradley and like to count him as a mate, but I think it would be very cool to meet Pinhead – as long as he wasn’t able to torture me for all eternity, that is. Him and Sherlock Holmes, of course.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Relax with the family mainly, and my lovely wife Marie. At weekends when we’re at home we like to do movie marathons and have themes; for example we had a giant monster weekend recently before things got really busy and we spent the last few weekends at publisher events or conventions. I try to exercise as much as I can, when I have the time – watching TV shows while I’m on the cross-trainer for example; I got through the entire run of Batman: The Animated series on Amazon doing that in the last year. And I like to read, obviously. I think it was Stephen King who said if you want to be a writer you need to do two things, read a lot and write a lot – which sums me up nicely.

What are you working on now? At the moment I’m hip deep in publicity for Servants, The End of the End, The Crimson Mystery – which is another Holmes story, a novelette this time from SST with a cover from legendary Jaws and Empire Strikes Back poster artist Roger Kastel – and The Rot. So I’ve

What parts of being a writer do you like best? And least? I like having written, when you have the material and you’re editing it and making it better. I don’t like the 18

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not really been doing much in the way of writing this summer so far… My next project is completing the script for the graphic novel of Lunar, then I have a commissioned SF/Horror novella to do, a feature script, and I’ve got an idea for another novel that I hope to get cracking on by the end of the year.

NAILS By Fiona Dodwell https://studyparanormal.wordpress.com Fiona Dodwell is often called an emerging talent on the UK horror scene. That isn’t strictly true. With a handful of releases under her belt, including the novels The Banishing, Obsessed, and The Shift, as well as some notable contributions to mainstream anthologies, it’s probably fair to say she’s already emerged, and is now beginning to spread her wings. She’s also a noted student of the paranormal, which could be why she writes about what can often be a difficult topic with such clarity and authenticity. This short novel is the story of Cara Bracken, a young woman who moves into a new house which may or may not be haunted. Well, okay, I don’t think it would be dropping too much of a spoiler to tell you it’s haunted, otherwise we wouldn’t have much of a book. But of course, there’s much more to the story than that. Why is the place haunted? And what is Cara going to do about it? One thing I found refreshing is the way Dodwell paints the lead character. Cara doesn’t know if she will keep her job, and has doubts about her boyfriend’s intentions. This adds a more depth, making her much more human and relatable. All we usually read about are strong, domineering leads that are frankly unrealistic. I read a lot of fiction, and I normally have a fair grasp of how a plot is going to develop long before I get to the finish line. However, I didn’t see this ending coming. Top marks. By C.M. Saunders

What scares you? I think the state of the world at the moment… Fictional horrors don’t really frighten me, I think I got desensitised watching too many video nasties and reading too many horror books growing up. For me now it’s more about something happening to the people I love, not to mention all our futures. We’re living in very strange times and I’m not sure fiction can match the weirdness of them at the moment. I made a comment recently when I was editing The Rot saying that as depressing as the tale is, it was taking my mind off what was happening in the world – and I think that just about covers everyone’s feelings right now. What makes a good story? I think an original idea – or even one that’s been done before, but putting an original spin on it. A good introduction, followed by a middle that keeps you on your toes and a satisfying ending, even if it’s not a happy one. And well-rounded characters. If readers don’t care about the characters they won’t care about what happens to them, good or bad. Then you’ve lost your readership and you won’t get them back. Paul Kane is the award-winning, bestselling author and editor of over sixty books – including the Arrowhead trilogy (gathered together in the sellout Hooded Man omnibus, revolving around a postapocalyptic version of Robin Hood), Hellbound Hearts and Monsters. His non-fiction books include The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark, and his genre journalism has appeared in the likes of SFX, Rue Morgue, and DeathRay. His work has been optioned and adapted for the big and small screen, including for US network television, plus his latest novels are Lunar (set to be turned into a feature film), the Y.A. story The Rainbow Man (as P.B. Kane), the sequel to RED – Blood RED – and Sherlock Holmes and The Servants of Hell from Solaris. He lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife Marie O’Regan, his family, and a black cat called Mina. Find out more at his site www.shadowwriter.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Dean Koontz, and Guillermo del Toro.

POD Director: Michael Keating After the deaths of their parents, a brother and sister stage an intervention for their army vet brother at the secluded family lake house in Maine. When they arrive they discover the gun-toting, severely strungout brother has apparently succumbed to some form of psychosis, believing the army carried out experiments on him in a bid to develop a race of super soldiers. He claims to have found ‘something’ in the woods, and furthermore, captured a monster in the basement. Okayyy. So is he batshit crazy? Or is he telling the truth? That would be telling, wouldn’t it? No spoilers here, my friends. Suffice to say that after a slightly slow start there are more than a few twists and turns in this claustrophobic little horror thriller to keep you entertained. By C.M. Saunders 19