RIPPED GENES: THE BIOPUNK SPECIAL ISSUE Edited By Samuel Diamond................................ Diamond .......................................................................... 2 APOCALYPSE ISLAND By Mark Edward Hall................................................................................................ Hall ............................................................... 2 THE CORPSE-RAT RAT KING By Lee Battersby................................................................................................ Battersby .................................................................... 3 RACHEL RISING ................................................................ ................................................................................................ .............................................................................. 3 B-MOVIE ATTACK By Alan Spencer ................................................................................................ ................................ .............................................................................. 4 GREAT EAT NORTH ROAD By Peter F. Hamilton ................................................................................................ ................................................................. 4 FADING LIGHT: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE MONSTROUS Edited by Tim Marquitz ................................ ............................................................... 5 EYES OF WATER By Alison Littlewood................................ ................................................................................................ .......................................................................... 6 Matt Leyshon Interview................................................................ ................................................................................................ ...................................................................... 8 Ramblings of a Tattooed Head By Simon Marshall-Jones Marshall ................................................................................................ ............................................... 16 LAST DAYS By Adam Nevill ................................................................................................................................ ................................ ......................................................... 18 THIRTEEN – VOLUMES 1 AND 2 Edited By Andrew Hannon................................................................ Hannon .................................................................... 19 RESET ................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ .............................................................. 19 BESIGNED: BOOK ONE OF THE OUTCAST CHRONICLES By Rowena Cory Daniells ................................ ......................................................... 20 Violence as Entertainment By Tommy B. Smith................................................................................................ Smith .............................................................. 22 STORMDANCER By Jay Kristoff................................ ................................................................................................................................ ................................................... 23 MIND MGMT ................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ .................................................. 24 Ripped Genes Preview By Samuel Diamond................................ ................................................................................................ .................................................................... 26 ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! FIGHTBACK Created By Stephen Jones................................................................ Jones ............................................................. 26 SURVIVAL HORROR: A ZOMBIE STORY By Paul Johnson................................................................ Johnson ...................................................................... 27 THEY’RE BACK!!… By Trevor Wright ................................................................................................ ................................ ......................................................................... 29 MONSTERS ANONYMOUS By Theresa Derwin ................................................................................................ .......................................................... 29 Greaveburn Comes to life By Craig Hallam ................................................................................................ ................................ ..................................................................... 31 EVIL STALKS THE NIGHT By Katherine Meyer Griffith ................................................................ ............................................................................ 32 THE HUNGER GAMES ................................................................................................................................ ................................ .................................................................. 32 From the Catacombs 11: Periodic Horror By Jim Lesniak ................................................................................................ ............................................... 33 DON’T STAND SO CLOSE By Eric Red ................................................................................................ ................................ ....................................................................... 37 Simon Bestwick Interview................................ ................................................................................................................................ ................................................................ 38 A Journey y to Publication By Nathaniel Connors ................................................................................................ .............................................................. 45 WINDIGO SOUL By Robert Brumm Jr................................. ................................................................................................ .......................................................................... 47 Alan Spencer Interview................................................................ ................................................................................................ ..................................................................... 49 SURVIVAL HORROR: A ZOMBIE STORY By Paul Johnson................................................................ ...................................................................... 54 HOFFMAN’S CREEPER & OTHER DISTURBING TALES By Cameron Trost................................ Trost .......................................................................... 55 ASH By James Herbert................................................................ ................................................................................................ ..................................................................... 55 Brittney Scalf Interview From Women in Horror................................................................................................ Horror ............................................................. 55 The Function Room: The Kollection By Matt Leyshon - Preview ................................................................ ................................................................... 59 The Rape Waved Yellow ................................................................................................................................ ................................ .............................................................. 60 Who Begat Crow Man ................................................................................................................................ ................................ .................................................................. 61 The Function Room ................................................................ ................................................................................................ ...................................................................... 62 The Butcher’s Confirmation ................................................................................................................................ ................................ ......................................................... 66 The Butcher’s Progress ................................................................................................................................ ................................ ................................................................. 67 Sac................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ ................................................................. 68 The Butcher’s Scat................................................................ ................................................................................................ ........................................................................ 69 The Blood Promise ................................................................ ................................................................................................ ....................................................................... 70 A Worrying of Sheep ................................................................ ................................................................................................ .................................................................... 71 The Earth is a Drinker of Blood................................ ................................................................................................................................ .................................................... 72 Leech................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ ............................................................. 73 A Development ................................................................ ................................................................................................ ............................................................................. 74 The Estate of Things ................................................................ ................................................................................................ ..................................................................... 75 Disc Eyes ................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ ...................................................... 76 Zombie Ho!................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ ................................................... 77 GODsWILL ................................................................ ................................................................................................................................ .................................................. 78 Edited By Stanley Riiks. Written By Adrian Brady, Nathaniel Connors, Samuel Diamond, Craig Hallam, Jim Lesniak, Simon Marshall Marshall-Jones, Ryan David Muirhead, Stanley Riiks, Charles D. Romans, C.M. M. Saunders, Saunders Tommy B. Smith, Alan Spencer, Brett Taylor, Trevor Wright Wright. Proof-read By Sheri White, Samuel Diamond. © Morpheus Tales October 2012
www.morpheustales.com remarkable story by Dev Jarrett; and “Legacy” by Richard Farren Barber, who gets better with every story. Picking four out of the thirteen stories on offer had me tearing my hair out; it’s so difficult to pick out just a handful of these exceptional stories. The creators of these stories are all in top form. I hate that I’m not a part of this magazine. I’m gutted. I wish I had a time machine, then I’d go back six months and sit down and write. Of course, I’d probably steal some of the brilliant ideas contained in this magazine if I did. Ripped Genes is an SF magazine that demands you read it. Check out the free preview and then go buy yourself a copy. You will not regret it. Cutting edge SF at its very best! Devilishly good stuff! By Stanley Riiks
RIPPED GENES: THE BIOPUNK SPECIAL ISSUE Edited By Samuel Diamond www.morpheustales.com I really wanted to hate this issue. For completely selfish and nasty reasons, I wanted to hate this magazine. I wanted to submit to it, I had some amazing ideas. Ideas that never made the transition from brain to page. For whatever reason (that thing some people call writers’ block and I call life), I didn’t make the deadline, although I had determined months before that I’d write something. In the end I wrote nothing, and because of that I didn’t want to like this issue. And you know what? Now I feel even worse. Because this is not just a good special issue, this is the kind of magazine that excites me (ok, not in that way, you perve!). It inspires me, it makes me want to write, it wakes up my brain! Filled with ideas, and bursting with sparkles of brilliance, the editor, Samuel Diamond, has delivered a treat. This is SF as it should be! There are far too few SF magazines out there. Morpheus Tales delivers a good share of horror, but the SF is sadly lacking. The small press for SF seems to have mostly dried up (forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’ve looked and I can’t find much). Which is why magazines like Ripped Genes: The Biopunk Special Issue are so important. It doesn’t just deliver, it delivers by the bucket load. There is not a bad story in this diverse bunch, but highlights for me were “Fishing the Life in Notochords” by Matt Leyshon, a writer who never fails to amaze me; “Baby Boom” by Alan Spencer, another writer I’m familiar with who shows time and time again that he’s more than just a blood and guts horror writer (although he does it so well); “Screaming Monkeys,” a
Free preview: http://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/rippedg enes Buy the printed magazine: http://www.lulu.com/shop/samueldiamond/ripped-genes-the-biopunk-specialissue/paperback/product-20364897.html Buy an ebook: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2 24661?ref=morpheustales APOCALYPSE ISLAND By Mark Edward Hall http://www.markedwardhall.com/ The opening scenes of this book are some of the most harrowing I have ever read. No joke. Hall manages to get inside the mind of someone in a bad, bad situation, and doesn’t shirk the responsibility. But I digress. The main narrative of Apocalypse Island follows Danny Wolf, a musician recently released from prison where he served time for a 2
www.morpheustales.com crime he did not commit. Now he has a new problem. In his dreams he sees murder in graphic detail. Are they memories? Premonitions? In his waking life Wolf also falls victim to terrifying blackouts, during which he is prone to violence and memory loss. All in all, things are turning a little strange for Danny. And then the murders begin: a long series of merciless, gruesome killings in which all the victims are young women, all of whom are past acquaintances of Danny. Soon he begins to doubt his own sanity. A young female detective is assigned to the case with instructions to ‘get close’ to Danny in order to discover the truth. However, the truth turns out to be much more shocking than anyone could have ever imagined. As one of the stand-out talents in the modern dark fiction arena, Mark Edward Hall is maturing nicely and seems to be getting better with each book. He is at his best when peeling back the skin of the human psyche to expose the inner-workings beneath, the things most sane people try to avoid at all costs. This novel must rank amongst his most accomplished work to date. It encapsulates many genres, sliding through the gears and shifting effortlessly from hard-boiled detective story to psychological thriller to supernatural mystery. The characters are vivid, believable and well-fleshed out. This is Mark Edward Hall at the top of his game. By C.M. Saunders
with two of the most convincing and charming characters you are ever likely to read about. Battersby has a unique writing style that immediately draws you in. The world Marius and his apprentice, Gerd, inhabit is every bit as exciting and ingenious as the characters that inhabit it. Picked from the slush pile of an open-call for submissions, Angryrobot have found a true gem. Battersby promises much straight from the start of this amazing adventure, and he never fails to delight. Brilliant in every sense. By Adrian Brady RACHEL RISING Celebrated alternative comics creator Terry Moore’s latest series, Rachel Rising, is a tale of the supernatural run amok in small-town America. Best known for his trailblazing success self-publishing the series Strangers in Paradise, Moore remains steadfast in his independence, and so puts out Rachel Rising through his own company, Abstract Studio. Rachel Rising should appeal to Moore’s usual fans, as well as general readers of horror fiction, since this comic infuses his usual character-driven drama with tales of witchcraft and the undead. In particular, anyone on the lookout for a fresh take on zombies should give this series a shot. While the dialogue, characters, and plots are reminiscent of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise or, closer to home, the comic book series iZombie, Rachel Rising dials down the repartee, hipness, and reflexivity for the sake of reader immersion, and the result stands among the darker entries into the feminist supernatural horror canon. The eponymous lead character of Rachel Rising is a young woman resurrected as a zombie soon after her murder. Fully conscious of the gruesome experience of
THE CORPSE-RAT KING By Lee Battersby www.angryrobotbooks.com Marius and Gerd are stealing from dead bodies on a still-warm battlefield when Marius is taken to hell to become the King of the Dead. This is just the beginning of a fantastic, action-packed fantasy adventure 3
www.morpheustales.com undeath, although a bit hazy on the details of her actual demise, Rachel turns to her family and friends to help her suss out the whys and wherefores of her resurrection, and they soon discover other eerie goings-on linked to their town’s history as a hotbed of the Colonial-era witch hunts. Although there are some standouts, most of the supporting cast leaves something to be desired, and a few come off as stock, so fingers crossed that Moore brings his talent for characterization to bear on the flatter roles in coming issues. His masterful portrayals of facial expressions and body language draw the reader into the emotions of the story nonetheless. The stark black-and-white artwork is set off with very spare use of flat grey. In tandem with his restrained use of brushes, Moore’s fine pen-work allows for highlydetailed compositions that still have a sketchy look. The series might have benefited from washes or gradients, since some of the cross-hatching looks unappealing. As expected from such an experienced comics storyteller, the panelization and page layouts are crystalclear and well-paced. While the interior artwork is solid throughout, the covers are hit or miss. The flat reds and greens used on some of the earlier covers make those issues eyesores best left at the bottom of the stack, and a couple of the compositions are a bit weak, too. The series seems to have found the right approach to cover art by the seventh issue, with striking pencil sketches against more tasteful pallets. Despite its flaws, Rachel Rising is one of the best horror comics on the stands right now. Any fan of zombie fiction tired of the genre’s survivalist tropes who wants to see the creatures in a different light should sit up and take notice of this one. By Ryan David Muirhead
B-MOVIE ATTACK By Alan Spencer www.samhainpublishing.com A b-movie screening goes horribly wrong when the film’s vampire cast come to life, possessed by demons, and this is just the beginning as a whole raft of b-movie creations come to life to terrorise Chicago. If you are looking for a subtle, quiet, or gentle horror novel, then you have come to the wrong place. Spencer is an accomplished writer; his work has appeared in Morpheus Tales Magazine several times, and his contribution to 13: Tales of Dark Fiction was a startlingly atmospheric and touching story, a considerable achievement. But Spencer is better known for his quirky sense of humour and his wide-range of horror skills, here put to full effect. In this novel Spencer goes full-pelt into b-movie territory, throwing everything at the reader, including the kitchen sink. There is a humour here that sweeps you up, and the riotous story is an absolute joy to read. Spencer can do subtle and atmospheric very well, but he can also do balls-out, overthe-top, gore-fests! This book is great fun, a treasure-trove of film references that would make Kim Newman’s eyes water. By Adrian Brady GREAT NORTH ROAD By Peter F. Hamilton www.torbooks.co.uk There is epic, and then there is Peter F. Hamilton Epic. The man writes on an astounding scale, space operas that encompass generations, multiple planets, and grand schemes and intrigues. Although this is a rare single-volume story, and far shorter than Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn Trilogy, that kept me enraptured for several weeks, this is still a massive book. At 1200 pages, it took me 4
www.morpheustales.com seven weeks to read, when on average I would have read about seven books in that time. The story starts in 2142, in Newcastle. A Newcastle which is home to Northern Interstellar, the controlling company of the gate to St Libra, a planet virtually owned by Northern Interstellar and the North family of clones who run it. St Libra is the home to the majority of Earth’s bioil supply, bioil being the fuel for almost everything. When a dead North is found in the Tyne, Detective Sid Hurst is given the lead in the case, and an unlimited budget by the HDA, a kind of futuristic X-Files-like agency that believes an alien is responsible. The investigation sets off a planet-wide search of St Libra to find the monster, and the wrongly imprisoned Angela (accused of a similar murder twenty years before) is released and taking to the planet to help with the search. But this is barely the beginning, as there are multiple North factions, criminal activities, guerrilla attacks on the expedition, and the murder investigation runs into wall after wall, not to mention the Zanth… That doesn’t even include the various pasts which include torture, murder, fraud, theft and more. Although Hamilton is not a thrill-aminute writer - for that seek out Andy Remic’s action-packed novels - there is still never a dull moment. Even the character backstories and history are entertaining. It is usually difficult to keep up the effort of reading and remembering the various characters in such a large book, but Hamilton actually makes it easy. This is space opera at its absolute pinnacle. Hamilton is the master of his universe, and gives it to you in every detail, writing in a way that makes everything at the very least interesting. The various plots pull together at the end, with a denouement
that does fail to live up to expectations, but those are expectations that have been building for so long nothing is likely to satisfy. It’s still a good ending, but it’s not great, and the rest of the book makes you want a great ending. For anyone who hasn’t read a Hamilton novel, then this is the perfect introduction before embarking on one of the trilogies, which I would highly recommend. But this isn’t Hamilton’s best book. I can’t wait to have the time to start on the Commonwealth Saga and the Void Trilogy, which have been waiting on my shelf for a few years, and may still be there until I retire. After reading the intricate plotting and details of a Hamilton book, I fear that reading a normal novel just won’t satisfy me. For those prepared to dedicate the time needed to be absorbed by this book, you are in for a treat. By Stanley Riiks FADING LIGHT: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE MONSTROUS Edited by Tim Marquitz http://www.angelicknightpress.com/ This ‘anthology of the monstrous’ published by Angelic Knight Press is positively bristling with talent. Nick Cato, Gary W. Olson, Lee Mather, Edward M. Erdelac, Mark Lawrence and Gene O’Neill are just a few of the stand-out names, and there are some very strong stories here. These are interesting times; there is a wealth of good writers out there all jostling for position in the dark fiction scene, and editor Tim Marquitz has done a sterling job of collating as many of them in one place as is humanly possible. Well, in actual fact, it wasn’t humanly possible. Fading Light comes with a free bonus e-book of stories that did not fit the main volume for one reason or another, which in effect makes it two books for the price of one. Everyone loves a bargain, and 5
www.morpheustales.com any self-respecting horror buff would be a fool to miss out on this one. Picking any favourites from this veritable treasure trove of dark delights is a difficult task, but if pressed I would settle on Tom Olbert’s “They Wait Below”, a nightmarish account of an oil rig worker who inadvertently discovers the truth binding together the fabric of the universe as we know it. Lovecraft himself would be proud of this one. Or perhaps David Dalglish’s “Late Night Customer”, the story of a jaded waitress whose last customer of the evening is a man on the run with a shocking story to tell. There are a few shots of pure horror, another highlight being Gord Rollo’s “Friends of a Forgotten Man”, and while some other stories here push the boundaries of fantasy to the extreme, “They Wait Below” and “Late Night Customer” exemplify perfectly the tone and general idea this anthology is trying to encapsulate – that there are forces at work in the universe beyond human understanding and mankind, in all its blissful ignorance, is but a pawn in a vast age-old cosmic game. By C.M. Saunders
The first three books in the quarterly collection were outstanding. Gary McMahon kicked it off with a creepy and atmospheric story, which was ably followed by Gary Fry’s spooky effort. Paul Finch’s King Death was gruesome, brutal, atmospheric, and even managed to raise the bar for those to follow. Unfortunately, with expectations raised, the following books that I’ve seen have not managed to blow me away, although they have been solid, if not inspiring, pieces of fiction. So which category does this short story fall into? Outstanding, or merely (if that should ever be said!) good? Set in Mexico, our narrator is in search of answers after the death of his friend in a water-filled cave. That’s pretty much the premise. Having ventured into a fair few caves in my time, the darkness, the damp, and claustrophobia, and the inherent danger of being where you are is barely captured by Littlewood. This is the major failing of the story. There is not enough atmosphere, something the earlier books from Spectral Press managed successfully, despite the limited space they have to work with. Eyes of Water is in no way a bad book, the story and the characters are well thought out, and Littlewood writes with a clear and concise style that works well in short story form. The lack of chilling atmosphere does let the book down, and the strange ending doesn’t really seem fitting. There is enough available to scare us without any intervention by the supernatural. Except this is not all that scary. Littlewood’s Eyes of Water is good, but not outstanding. With maybe a page of added tension and atmosphere, particularly towards the end, this could have been brilliant. Potentially a story that could be better than it is, it’s still worth reading. By Stanley Riiks
EYES OF WATER By Alison Littlewood http://spectralpress.wordpress.com This is actually the second time I’m writing the review for this chapbook. The first time I wrote it straight after reading the twenty-odd page story, and I was not thoroughly impressed. I then lost the review, how I can only imagine. But it’s gone, lost forever (probably unsaved) somewhere on my Mac, never to be found. Anyway… For those of you unaware of Spectral Press, they are an astonishingly good small press that produces a very fine selection of short stories, individually packaged as short (magazine-like) chapbooks of just over twenty pages. 6
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www.morpheustales.com Franz Kafka. Alongside authors like these I began to find that a lot of horror seemed tame and polite. I remember loving D. M. Mitchell’s diverse Lovecraft tribute The Starry Wisdom published by Creation Books, but this horror anthology was an exception as most that I read at this time seemed to wash over me like elevator music. What I really wanted then, and what I still want now, is to read horror that is challenging, strange, and sometimes even controversial, like the varied horror stories within the pages of The Starry Wisdom. And so at some point I suppose I must have decided to write my own.
Matt Leyshon Interview Your new collection The Function Room: The Kollection is coming out soon. How did that come about? Most of the stories in The Function Room: The Kollection were written in a damp flat above a butcher’s shop in Blackpool, overlooking Layton cemetery. Melting snow leaked through the ceiling and there was ice on the inside of the windows. The drone of the butcher’s refrigeration unit below was incessant and I would wake up each morning beneath a chilly fog of morning breath to the sound of the butcher hacking up wet bits of lung onto his chopping board. I couldn’t keep the cats on me long enough in the evenings to keep the cold at bay and so I wrote to keep myself warm.
How did you go about first getting your work published? Well, the editor of The Alien Has Landed was called Ariel, and he was my manager and drinking buddy at the time, so getting my reviews published was easy, and getting them published in Blood From ‘Stones was easier still as I was the editor. And nowadays, whilst my stories get their fair share of rejection slips from editors, I still never really struggle to get my fiction into print; my first ever short story was called “Transmission” and you can find it in The Spinetinglers Anthology 2008. It was about electronic voice phenomena and was inspired by Manchester and Joy Division and a book called Breakthrough by Konstantin Raudive. I think that there was probably a lot wrong with that story, but the fact that it got published encouraged me to persevere.
What inspired you to start writing? I started to write seriously in the nineteen nineties when I was in my twenties, but I was producing non-fiction rather than stories. I worked for a major book retailer in Salisbury and then Manchester and was surrounded by books that I wanted to read but could not afford. The Manchester store published its own magazine called The Alien Has Landed and I learned that the way to get the books that I wanted for free from the publisher was to write reviews. I then ended up editing and producing a horror review magazine of my own called Blood From ‘Stones. Although I had enjoyed reading horror books ever since getting The Usborne Book of Witches from my infant school book club, I began to find that I was overindulging in horror. My solution was to return to my old favourites from outside of the genre, writers like William S. Burroughs, Isidore Lucien Ducasse, and
Your story “The Function published in Morpheus Tales about the story and how published. I discovered “The Function 8
Room” was #16. Tell us you got it Room” half
www.morpheustales.com finished on an old hard drive when I was selling a PC. Normally I’m quite disparaging of my old writing and the longer ago that it was written then the harsher I’m likely to be with it; however I found that I rather liked “The Function Room.” It is one of my earliest attempts at writing a short story, although many rewrites and edits took place before it was to appear in Morpheus Tales. Although other Leddenton tales of mine have been published before it in other books and magazines, I’m pretty sure that “The Function Room” was the first to be written and it is also in this story that the mythology around the town first properly begins to form.
similar combination of books and music resulted in the idea for “The Earth is a Drinker of Blood” as I was reading David Jones’ In Parenthesis and listening to P. J. Harvey’s Let England Shake when this was written. Astute readers may also notice the influences of Lanark by Alasdair Grey in the final story GODsWILL, as well as a section inspired by an infamous scene in David Britton’s Lord Horror published by Savoy; I should point out, in reference to this and other viscera, that I agree with Roald Dahl who once said that in fiction, whatever is horrible, is also funny. What are your other influences? I recognise that art and literature both hold a huge sway over the direction of my creativity. For example, the symbolist and decadent writers are influential, particularly Rimbaud and Arthur Machen, as well as artists like William Hogarth, William Etty, John Coulthart (the Reverbstorm comics especially), and Jake and Dinos Chapman. I’m also influenced a lot by my environment and throughout my fiction you’ll find references to the places that I have lived in or have been to. The occult is also influential; a story of mine called “Pan Agaric Nightmares” that was published by Rainfall Books some time ago was noticeably influenced by the writing of Kenneth Grant, an acolyte of Aleister Crowley. I do like films, I could watch Meet the Parents and Blue Velvet every day, but I’m not really a film buff and movies don’t
What other writers have influenced you? Whether conscious or otherwise, I think that all writing is derivative in one way or another and The Function Room: The Kollection contains a lot of stories, and so there are many influences within it. For example the idea of the bird man came from Ted Hughes’ Crow poems and the prison that features in a couple of stories was inspired by Richard Flanagan’s novel, Gould’s Book of Fish. I recall that “Slut’s Hair,” a short story by the poet John Burnside, influenced my depiction of the butcher, Gormo Gloom. There is a recurring theme of there being magic and mystery in nature and this was influenced by the fact that I was listening to Bjork’s Bibliophila and Vespertine a lot at the time of writing and reading Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. A 9
www.morpheustales.com really influence my work, as far as I’m aware.
If you could go back in time to when you started writing and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? I would tell myself to read more short stories and pay more attention to how the good ones are written. This is advice that I continue to give to myself and I still read more short stories than anything else.
Where do you get your inspiration? It’s hard to separate my inspiration from my influences, but I’m motivated to write by a hollow dread of not being creative.
Do you read reviews of your work? How do you deal with criticism? Once a story is in print I tend to disassociate myself from it and I certainly don’t read it again. I read reviews of my stories and I do take an interest in what reviewers and/or editors have to say, but I’ve not really had anything terrible written about my work, yet.
What is your writing day like? Every fortnight I fit in one full writing day around my normal work and for this day I save all the stuff that requires my full attention; mainly editing towards a final copy or creating a first draft out of my handwritten notes. On these writing days I get up around eight am and I’ll look towards eight, maybe ten hours of real writing. I begin by making myself a coffee and then I get straight to the computer and I start work. Throughout the day, every hour or two, I’ll break away for a tea or coffee, but I do not eat at all until the evening. The most I spend away from the computer on a writing day will be as long as it takes to make and finish drinking a brew. I used to write religiously every evening, but now, unless it’s a dedicated writing day, it’ll be mostly just brief handwritten notes as and when thoughts occur. My productivity has lessened but I’m benefiting from letting ideas stew.
What book are you reading now? I’ve just finished The Fighter by Craig Davidson. I took the book out of the library on Friday and by Sunday it was finished; it’s one of those books that reads like a James M. Cain or a Jim Thompson novel, it has a punchy narrative, mostly short and simple sentences, and action from start to finish. I would recommend it to anyone interested in writing good fight scenes. I have Arguably by Christopher Hitchens on my bedside table, and I’m about to start The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz. I also plan to read some Philip K. Dick, as a reviewer has recently referenced one of his novels in relation to a story of mine. What is your proudest moment as a writer? There are lines, and occasionally paragraphs, in my stories that I’m proud of,
Do you have any rituals or routines when you write? Aside from the habitual search through my laptops and pen drives for the most recent draft, I don’t have any rituals or routines when I’m writing. 10
www.morpheustales.com but rarely an entire piece. I was very happy though when Morpheus Tales proposed publishing a collection of my work, and I will of course feel proud when The Function Room: The Kollection hits the shelves.
Black Static of Morpheus Tales #16, my story “The Function Room” was described as having “tentacles lurking in the interstitial zones of the plot,” which I thought was nice too.
What are you working on now? You are well-known for your short stories. Do you plan to write a novel? I’ve just finished what at the moment I’m considering to be the final draft of a ghost story set in Jamaica called “The Blood Clot.” I’m not sure where or by whom it will be published, and it may well get a further rewrite, but I’m currently enjoying what will surely be a brief period of thinking that it is rather good.
What is the most important thing when becoming a writer? Becoming a writer means finding the time to write, which is harder than it sounds. A lot of authors will say that writers should write every day. I do not write every day and might easily go a week or two without writing a thing, but a day does not go past when I don’t think about writing. This suits me as I don’t rely on writing to pay my bills, but I do always make sure that some time, at least once a fortnight, is strictly devoted to writing. But equally, if not more important, is the need to make time for reading, and to read broadly. I’ve known Ramsey Campbell to recommend reading Lolita by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, and I would agree that this is good advice. But if you want to write modern strange and macabre short stories I would say that reading Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected is as good a starting point as any.
Although I feel as though I am still very much mastering the craft of the short story, I can’t deny being tempted by the prospect of writing a novel. I do have an idea for something longer that I intend to work on soon. However, I recognise that writing a novel takes a lot of hard work which is a problem for me as I’m inherently lazy. Are you disappointed with any of your work when you look back on it? Always, and indiscriminately.
Do you write for a particular audience, or for yourself? I initially write for myself, but as I like my work to be published I have to edit for editors and their customer base. If you have read a 3000-word story of mine, then there’s a fair chance that it started life as an
What's the best piece of feedback that you've had from your audience? My story for 13: Dark Tales of Fiction, “To Hear A New World,” was described by one reviewer as ‘bloodily poetic’ which I found satisfying, and in Peter Tennant’s review in 11
www.morpheustales.com impenetrable wall of 6000 words that I would have thought was great, but knew that no publisher would touch and that few readers would have the patience for.
Edition of William S. Burroughs’ Nova Express, and a signed red-cloth-bound issue of The Risen by Peter Whitehead. Another favourite off the top of my head is a very old book called Twilight of the Gods by Richard Garrett, with beautiful etched illustrations by Henry Keen.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing? If I’m not writing, I’m usually thinking about writing, or reading. My fiancé would add napping and playing Fifa on my PSP to that list.
Do you get writer’s block? How do you cope with it? I have times when I want to be writing all the time and I’m overflowing with ideas, and other times when I can’t be arsed at all and ideas are as scarce as brain cells in a Yate’s Wine Bar at last orders. But not wanting to write, or not having anything worth writing never really bothers me, I just read instead, which fortunately is the best cure that there is for writer’s block.
What parts of being a writer do you like best? And least? I like that writing requires solitude, but I like least the fact that writing excludes others. Who are your favourite authors and favourite books? I have found the arrival of e-books and Kindles useful in helping me determine who my favourite authors are. If I really like a writer I’ll buy the hard back 1st edition, if not, then I’ll buy the e-book. So these are some living writers whose hard copies I collect: Richard Flanagan, Robin Robertson, Thomas Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, China Mieville, Iain Sinclair, Alan Moore, Rhys Hughes, David Britton, Cormac McCarthy, and Daniel Woodrell. My favourite books in my collection to date are a copy of Lord Horror by David Britton, complete with a Greater Manchester Police evidence label, a first edition of Arthur Machen’s The Hill of Dreams, my signed 1st
If you could meet anyone, fictional or real, dead or alive, who would it be? I would like the opportunity to meet the deceased artists Louis Wain and Austin Spare. I would commission some sketches of my cats, Olive and Caper, and whatever deities and wraiths might be passing at the time. We have some old Louis Wain prints decorating our stairwell but I’ve never found an affordable Spare. Which do you prefer writing/reading, short stories or novels? I’ve not really enjoyed a mainstream horror 12
www.morpheustales.com novel since my teens, and whenever I read one nowadays I will tend to think that it would have worked better as a few short stories. I think that this is specific to horror as fear has a shorter life expectancy than a long story. For example, read If This Is A Man by Primo Levi or A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and you’ll see how the sensation of fear is made almost mundane (admittedly this in itself is horrific) by over-sustaining the source (concentration camps and gulags, respectively in these cases). Fear, horror, and shock all need to be captured in the briefest of moments if they are to have maximum impact, so they are best delivered in a short blast, like the songs of John Zorn’s Naked City, or the brief sensation of being followed at night before you turn to find nobody there. But to continue the musical comparison, a horror novel for me is like ELP or YES trying to cover Last Caress by The Misfits; it is a bit ridiculous. So, to clarify, I would rate short horror stories over long ones. But beyond the genre, however, I would say that I have no preference.
anything other than write. I didn’t manage a story a week, but I did write a lot of stories and most of those collected in The Function Room date back to this period. That period of hyper-productivity has since reached a natural end, and I now aim to produce a story every two months or so, but I learned an awful lot during that year. What scares you? Fear to me is most associated with my childhood when I worried about nuclear attacks, or when a hooded ghoul used to chase me down my Gran’s hallway every weekend, or when I contemplated death as I urinated blood-coloured pee after gorging on beetroot. But these days, as an adult, I sleep soundly whatever I might have read in bed or watched on TV. H. P. Lovecraft said that the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. It seems to me that there ought to be some truth in this, but it makes a paradox of the question. What makes a good story? I think I’m unusual as a reader in that I care little for plot or character. What I am really interested in is ideas and an interesting use of language. I recognise the need for a plot as, like stage direction, it gets characters from one place to the next, but when stories have a clear sequential plot like a Hollywood movie, I really don’t like it and I
Do you have any advice for new writers? Some advice that worked for me comes from Ray Bradbury. He said that one should begin a life of writing by taking a year producing “a hell of a lot of short stories.” I did this last year when I was living by myself and was too short of cash to do 13
www.morpheustales.com find it boring. And I also recognise that a good character can carry a story, as with Ignatius J. Reilly in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, which by the way, has almost no plot. But still, it is ideas and language that are most important for me. There was a time when poetry and fiction were the same thing and I like stories that go some way towards reuniting the two. To this end I don’t feel that a good horror story comes from following Stephen King’s advice in On Writing; for me it is not true that detail should be minimal and that adverbs should be banished. For example, to show how removing the details from a story is to remove its poetry and its horror, consider the Ripper murder in Chapter 10 of Alan Moore’s From Hell where we are confronted with page after harrowing page of bloody dissection and razor swipe. It takes as long to read this episode and to absorb its details as the murder might have taken to commit, and this is the horror of it. And if you think Jack’s razor slices should also be aimed at the adverbs polluting your first draft, then open Ulysses by James Joyce and imagine how dull the narrative would be without such a clever use of adverbs. I believe that a good writer should enjoy experimenting with language and ultimately a good story is one that only its writer can
tell. I see this as a reason to make use of a more omniscient narration in my writing and also to often sidestep realism. Stylistically this may seem old fashioned, but in horror I think that it works. For me the horror writer’s job is to present things that are more terrifying than anything that the reader might ever have dreamed of; Thomas Ligotti does this exceptionally well, and I would also recommend The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson or A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. Moreover, I feel that the current trend for free indirect narratives actually holds the horror author back; whatever terrors he or she hopes to portray in writing are then only as frightening as the reader cares to imagine. To return to Lovecraft’s point, if true horror is the unknown, then the passive author will surely be hard pressed to create anything that is truly frightening for the reader. There are exceptions of course; Ramsey Campbell and Ray (R. B.) Russell both do spooky realism brilliantly and still succeed in making the reader see the world differently. But to conclude, if you have written something that no other writer could write and that no reader could previously imagine, then I’d say that you may be on your way to writing a good story.
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www.morpheustales.com attempting to control others’ lives, for whatever reason, so I automatically disliked the mother (as we were meant to, of course). Carrie’s supernatural revenge on the cruel pranksters at the end struck more than a sympathetic nerve – as a youngster, I often dreamt of exacting just such retribution for the misery caused by the ignorance of others. Carrie the film was an extremely effective piece of cinema in my book, because I could relate to many of the threads in the storyline (I hated The Shining, but that’s another tale altogether). And yet, it’s being remade. Why? It’s this particular aspect which is currently baffling me, because why remake something which was good in the first place? We all know that the bottom line is money and, if a film was particularly successful on initial release, then I am assuming that the thinking behind the remake idea is that an update will also be successful. Oddly, there is a kind of sound thinking behind this: if it’s a fairly wellknown film then there’s already a “brand” attached to it, so people will naturally be intrigued as to what a modern take on it would be like. Additionally, to make it more accessible and relevant to modern audiences, filmmakers must invest the film with recognisable cultural references and visual cues in order for viewers to buy into it (especially if it’s aimed at certain demographics). However, to my mind, what made a film work in the first place was a convergence of intangibles such as, for example, the talent and vision of the director, those who scripted it, the ingenuity of those who were responsible for the special effects that were often created with minimal resources, the cast of actors who translated those words on the page into a kind of believable reality and many other things. It’s difficult to verbalise exactly what it is I am trying to get across here, but it’s
Ramblings of a Tattooed Head By Simon Marshall-Jones There’s something I have never quite managed to understand – Hollywood’s penchant for remaking films, especially those that were absolutely fine as they were the first time. Given that both Carrie and The Shining are due to receive the makeover treatment in the next year or so, this is a good time to explore the possible reasons why the movie machine in Hollywood deems it necessary to foist these remakes on the cinema-going public. There will also be an adjunct to this as well, reiterating something I wrote about elsewhere a year or so ago. First, taking Carrie as an example, I loved the original film (which is a first for me as I normally detest all the films made from Stephen King’s works). There were aspects of it which made me feel distinctly uncomfortable, such as the bullying and the controlling nature of Carrie’s religiouslyinclined mother. It should come as no surprise that I was bullied in school as well, mainly because of my perceived difference from the other kids: I had diabetes, which made some people uncomfortable and others feel that I was incomplete, so naturally I became a target. Plus, of course, I wasn’t into mainstream culture – I hated pop music, preferring obscure German experimental rock bands or heavy metal groups (depending on which musical phase I was into at the time), loved weird stuff, read a lot of horror and science fiction, and had a liking for such fascinating subjects as astronomy and science. In addition, I absolutely loathed sports. In other words, I was an outsider. Because of this I connected very strongly with the character of Carrie and how, because of her domineering religious mother, she was considered to be an outsider – she didn’t fit into mainstream teenage culture. Also, I am not fond of people 16
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almost something on the order of “the planets being aligned correctly” or, to use an even vaguer term, “magic”. In other words, that happy set of circumstances where every element converged to a single point, achieving perfect focus in the process, and helping to elevate the film above the merely “good” into something beyond that. Let’s face it, all the truly great films, those that have achieved lasting fame especially, possess something at their core which cannot be articulated but which can instead be felt subconsciously, I feel. Ultimately, I believe that it isn’t a case of having access to a bigger budget or more realistic special effects, it’s about how everyone works together to bring a script alive. Look at what happened to George Lucas’ recent filming of the first three episodes in the Star Wars saga – compared with the original and well-loved trilogy, they were light-years ahead in terms of production values and slickness, but this was ultimately what spoiled them in the eyes of many fans. This, to me at least, is the danger whenever any studio proposes a remake of a film – that that “magic” or whatever intangible that made the original the success it was has a slim chance of repeating the
same kind of celluloid alchemy. It’s a rarity in the annals of cinema history where a remake is better than the original (notice, however, I don’t say it’s impossible, just that it’s something of a rare occurrence). Every time I hear of some film being remade, a recurring suspicion always comes back to haunt me: the feeling that there’s a paucity of imagination in Hollywood, that studio executives are unwilling to venture outside of their comfort zones and invest in new talent, instead preferring to excavate the vaults and attempt to resurrect the successes of yesteryear in a bid to keep the money rolling in. The vision is definitely missing these days (however, I also know that there are original films being made still, and good ones, too). Maybe that’s a result of these straitened financial times, where the thinking is that it’s a safer bet to invest in something already known than an unknown quantity. I firmly believe, however, that investment in original talent is needed to revitalise and reinvent the industry – without that much-needed new blood, the corpse of the film industry will decay slowly into a turgid repetitiveness. This small voice would love Hollywood to rein back on the remakes and let the new wave come through in their 17
www.morpheustales.com place, and I am sure there are many out there who would echo that sentiment. Now, let’s get to that adjunct I mentioned in the first paragraph. There’s one aspect of remakes that really bugs me (I will admit that this is simply a personal viewpoint in this instance). Every year, it appears that filmmakers remake successful foreign films, for their home markets – again, I ask why? Much of the success of those originals is down to the particular visions of the director, and that’s what people flocked to see. Often, the films in question were made on small budgets, forcing the crew to become resourceful and exercise a bit of ingenuity when it came to tackling problems, and thereby coming up with brilliant solutions. Once someone offers you a bigger budget to work with, somehow the magic inevitably disappears and in its place is a pedestrian version of a much better original. Plus, with our cultures becoming ever more indistinguishable and blurred, then the translation from one to the other is more often than not unnecessary. It’s akin to taking the Mona Lisa and then repainting it because the original is Italian, and producing an American version of it. Yes, I know that some people don’t like subtitles, but then surely the cheaper answer is to redub the film into English (even though I have reservations about that, too)? It completely mystifies me why there’s this urge to remake films made in Continental Europe or Asia. Perhaps it’s just me though. So these are my ramblings on the subject – I would be fascinated to hear reader’s comments on this subject!
that’s a feat that rarely happens. I own The Ritual, Nevill’s second book; it’s on my shelf waiting to be read, but when his latest book became available for review, I chopped off hands reaching for it as it lay on the Morpheus Tales Reviews desk, taking it for my own. Oh sweet heaven, was it worth all those severed limbs! Kyle Freeman is an almost bankrupt film-maker. Times are hard, and when a project comes up that’s right up his street he would be stupid to refuse. Especially as the executive producer has offered Kyle and his team one hundred thousand to make the film in four locations over just a few days. Kyle takes on the job, and realises this is just his type of thing… A cult is born in London in the late sixties, led by Sister Katherine, who moves the cult to a farmhouse in France until a schism in the sect necessitates a further move to Arizona. There murders occur, bodies are found and a single member of the cult and a few abused children survive. Kyle has interviews arranged with the few surviving members, looking into the strange supernatural aspects surrounding the case, little knowing that whatever happened all those years ago is going to come back to haunt him… This is an extraordinary ghost story, expertly told. Nevill builds the tension immediately. There is the strange cult, as well as death, murder, sacrifice, abused children, and families torn apart - and this is only the beginning. After the first four hundred intense pages, the book veers off in a new direction. This at first seems strange, but it tied in perfectly, and ends with a satisfying dark and nasty climax. Nevill knows how to write atmospheric scenes, and here his expertise is put to excellent use. You can feel the fear of the film-makers; it feels like a kind of Blair Witch Project in book form, only scarier. The characters are pretty good, and
LAST DAYS By Adam Nevill www.panmacmillan.com Nevill’s first novel Apartment 16 had the best prologue I have ever read. It literally sent shivers down my spine, and as a hardened horror fan of over twenty years, 18
www.morpheustales.com this helps build the tension and fear. The book works well not only because the story is so good - the cult’s story that the film crew (both of them!) are investigating - but also because of the rapidly-rising tension as they get closer to the truth about the cult and its deadly legacy. Dark and evil, the book is filled with dread, grief, and guilt. Nevill has again produced an outstandingly horrifying novel. Great stuff! By Stanley Riiks
find no mention of this apart from a solitary, laughably dubious YouTube video. You can’t just make up a load of shit and expect to sell truck loads of books. Horror is an art form to be respected, not a means to make a quick buck. This book and particularly the aforementioned story “Magic” benefited from a hugely expensive and elaborate marketing campaign. Tellingly, it did absolutely nothing for sales. There are a lot of inter-related products – the woefully overpriced “Magic” stand-alone, the even more woefully overpriced “Magic”-plus“Dare” (a total of 11 pages for little under a fiver), Thirteen Volume 1 (featuring “Magic”), Thirteen Volume 2 (featuring “Dare”), Thirteen – Volumes 1 & 2 (featuring both “Magic” and “Dare”)... You get the picture. However, it’s nice to know that the great buying public hasn’t lost the ability to see through the self-generated hype and know a red herring when they see one. The thing with hype is that sooner or later you have to deliver. If you don’t, you get found out pretty quickly. A marketing campaign built on lies and disinformation, a product with no real substance, and an insult to the genre we all love so much. Shameful. By C.M. Saunders
THIRTEEN – VOLUMES 1 AND 2 Edited By Andrew Hannon http://www.13horror.com/ This is a strange one. An ‘anthology’ leading with the interactive story “Magic” and containing over one hundred pieces of fiction. However, having been around the horror genre as long as I have, I would expect to recognize the names of at least a few contributors. I don’t. Several authors have contributed multiple stories, and a generous handful are supplied by the same person masquerading as the editor. This all strikes me as a little bit odd. Suspicions aside, the stories in this anthology just aren’t very good. Some cannot even be considered stories. Most are written in the same style and tone, and some read more like minirants about nothing in particular than actual stories. A little online digging reveals that the ‘editor’ allegedly went missing in 2010 (how he can still write/edit while listed as ‘missing’ is possibly the greatest mystery here), but when he was still around he claimed to have been the editor of a horror fiction magazine called, imaginatively, Thirteen, described (by him) in an interview with a US website as being the ‘biggest UK horror magazine’. I have never heard of that, either. There were rumours that this book was banned in some countries. Again, I can
RESET Peter Bagge’s four-issue limited series Reset is among the weaker of Dark Horse Originals’ raft of “Genius Redefining Genre” comic books. Like the other titles in that line, Reset offers a skewered literary sensibility and unique art style combined with genre content which, in American comics at least, is often reserved for straightforward narratives and realistic visuals. Although Reset might disappoint some science fiction fans, genre aficionados curious about alternative comics might want 19
www.morpheustales.com to give this series a go. In the early 1990s, Peter Bagge made a name for himself as the cartoonist laureate of the Seattle grunge scene with his slacker epic Hate. Although some of his later comics tackled speculative material, such as the amusing Apocalypse Nerd and the lacklustre Yeah!, Reset is Bagge’s first foray into hard science fiction, and the results are at least passable. In Reset, a washed-up comedian named Guy Krause signs up for a scientific experiment that allows him to relive events from his own past. In a laboratory, he dons a virtual reality helmet and haptic simulators to experience digital reconstructions of key moments from his life, such as his high school graduation. The interactive technology, complete with a handy reset button, allows him to change the course of events to his own satisfaction. The line between the experiment and Krause’s real life soon begin to blur as he stumbles upon a conspiracy that has manipulated his career to ensure his participation in the study, but Reset keeps the true purpose of the project a mystery until the final issue. This premise is no doubt a commentary on the artificiality of reality television, the constructiveness of celebrity image, and the fluidity of the division between reality and fiction. Reset’s combination of speculative satire with a black-and-white palette makes the comic reminiscent of certain Twilight Zone episodes, although the writing comes steeped in a caustic sarcasm that reeks of Generation X. Most of Bagge’s work has a humorous edge, and Reset is no exception, although the comedy here is much more muted than one might expect, given the look of the comic. Bagge’s signature style, on full display in Reset, unites the manic exaggeration of kustom kulture cartoons with the low-rent neurosis of underground
comix, all placed in service of characterdriven, relationship-based comedy, where noodle limbs and demonic mugging portray personalities with believable psychological depth. The art only switches gears when Krause flashes back to his past, where the cartoonist employs a flattened look that mimics Flash animation. Although some readers might enjoy the contrast between the outrageous form and the naturalistic content, the eccentric visuals of the series will put off others. By Ryan David Muirhead BESIGNED: BOOK ONE OF THE OUTCAST CHRONICLES By Rowena Cory Daniells www.solarisbooks.com This is going to be a fabulous and massive epic trilogy, and judging by the first book in the series, it will be a wide-ranging and complex story. The scope and scale of the first book is daunting and, at first, difficult to get into, but once you are a couple of hundred pages in you realise the epic and exhaustive world that has been created. To describe the story in a couple of paragraphs would do it a disservice as there is so much going on here. Magic, political and sexual intrigues, gender issues, and much more are held within the worlds of T’EN and the ‘True Men”. Complicated and complex, this is a story that demands to be told. It is rich and diverse and offers a complexity you rarely find outside of Peter F. Hamilton’s massive tomes. This book can’t be recommended individually; this is not a book meant to be read as a stand-alone novel, but gives you enough of the story to want you coming back for more. Daniells has created an exceptionally well-thought-out world, with good characters and a fascinating plot. Bring on the second and third books in the series. By Adrian Brady 20
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www.morpheustales.com that the movie might actually influence the younger generation to commit acts of depravity and murder. After its initial release in 1974, its showing was widely banned. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as many people are aware, was inspired by true events. Despite its derivations, however, the movie itself is a work of fiction - a horror movie. Violence in written fiction has received less of a publicly-incriminating rap, though one just as obvious. I came upon an argument from anonymous online sources in which some of those involved were pressing the opinion that violence within fiction is a tactic for covering up bad writing. In itself, this sounds like a poorlyphrased generalization, but I gathered the argument was meant to indicate that violence in excess was the issue of debate. Still, the amount of violence which constitutes excess is open to interpretation, since people have varying personal thresholds, and at its foundation, the above argument fails to hold water. By its logic, violent books are badly-written books, and this just isn’t the case. Violence is often featured on the news, real-life violence, because it is a part of the world we live in. There is violence, conflict, and strife in the world. There is darkness in the world. Therefore, it finds its way into our fiction. I knew, going into writing Poisonous, that it would be a violent affair. I
Violence as Entertainment By Tommy B. Smith The topic of violence in media has drawn controversy over many years, primarily in the realms of music, television/cinema, and in general fiction. With my new release Poisonous hitting the stands, a book which happens to be a slab of violent horror, why shouldn’t I step into this ongoing discussion? On many occasions, music has been scrutinized for lyrics containing messages violent toward others, or to one’s own self, whether present or even imagined. This has especially been the case in the rock and heavy metal scenes; in the 1980s, Ozzy Osbourne was accused of inciting suicide by means of subliminal messaging hidden in music, and Judas Priest later received the same treatment in a highlypublicized case in 1990. Both cases were taken very seriously in the notions that an artist’s music could be held responsible for the actions and subsequent deaths of fans. Later, in the 1990s, a variety of figures in the hip hop scene became closely linked with gang violence amid the increasing emergence of “gangsta rap.” On the movie front, my memory wanders back to a time decades ago when I seem to remember a movement in vehement opposition to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the film was banned in the UK until 1999), the original movie, and a wave of paranoia 22
www.morpheustales.com never once decided, as I wrote it, that it would be a badly-written book, that I would have to sacrifice the quality of the writing for its content that I would have to inject a certain amount of violence to camouflage inadequacies. When I was younger, and the internet didn’t exist, I read a lot of paper books. I had easy access to a large amount of reading material. I read what interested me. This included books containing adult themes. Children’s books offered imaginative worlds and wonders, but the adult books offered me views of characters as they were minus the subtle censoring of content. They held a sense of experience rather than innocence which the books aimed at younger audiences lacked. Many of those adult-audience books were quite imaginative in their own right. Today, I’m a writer, sculpting worlds of my own, and not a multiple felon or a murderer because of my past or present reading habits. The problem perhaps lies not in one’s personal tastes in music, movies, or books, but in the ability to distinguish reality from pure fiction. The world of Poisonous is a hard, gritty, dark place, similar to some such places within our own world. It is what I freely describe it to be: a beast of rage and violence, and to say otherwise would be misleading. To censor it would be to detract from its essence. A mixologist makes no apologies after pouring a potent concoction for a customer, and likewise, I make no apologies for Poisonous, because it is genuine, and it is a beast which lives in me, and one that I had every intention of sharing. It is not for the timid, and certainly not for children, regardless of my account of the reading habits of my younger days. That said, however, it is also a work of fiction. Remember that violence in entertainment - violence as entertainment has been around for ages. In ancient Rome,
armed gladiators fought against opponents for sport. Human blood ran, and the spectators cheered for more. Today, audiences enjoy viewing fighting matches as sporting events. These are far less lethal than the games of ancient times, but still retain a level of violence necessary for the thrill of entertainment. There are those who watch, there are those who participate, and there are those who do neither, because entertainment comes in many forms, varied forms, in events, music, cinema, television, video games, and, of course, books. All in all, there aren’t many people injured in fiction, and most of us can appreciate it for what it is. Some of us have a taste for the macabre. Some don’t, and of course, are welcome to read about rabbits, flowers, and sunshine. Some people drink Scotch, and some people drink virgin strawberry daiquiris. Just don’t pour your virgin daiquiri into my Scotch, please. Tommy B. Smith http://www.tommybsmith.com STORMDANCER By Jay Kristoff www.macmillan.co.uk This is the first book in The Lotus War Trilogy, and if the fact that it is Japanese Steampunk does not get you excited, then perhaps this is not the book for you. Having said that, you are still likely to enjoy yourself as this is a story about friendship at its heart. The story starts with a hunt for a thunder tiger (a kind of griffin), a legendary creature thought to be extinct. Yukiko and her father seek out the thunder tiger for the Shogun, aware that death awaits them if they fail. A quite spectacular debut, this is a heart-warming and unconventional story. The setting is amazing, well thought out and presented, an intriguing place to visit. The characters Kristoff has 23
www.morpheustales.com developed are where the book really takes off, and their relationships are really where the heart of this book lies, and I do not use the word heart without reason. This is a superbly told story of love and friendship, in a beautiful setting with amazing characters. Cannot wait for the second book in the series. Recommended whole-heartedly. By Adrian Brady
researching the crimes, she catches a psychic assassin who has the power to cloud the minds of investigators by obscuring the forensic evidence of his hits. Meru then turns her attention to the case of a planeload of people who suffer total amnesia midflight, but finds herself in the cross-hairs of agents eager to stop her prying. Science fiction has explored the possibilities of parapsychology for decades now, and innumerable works have established a huge stock of different psychic powers over time, so it is interesting to see most of these tropes combined in one story, as well as a few additions of Kindt’s own creation. MIND MGMT also contains cogent ideas about conspiracies, subliminal advertising, and brainwashing that push the comic in the direction of political satire, but the focus always remains on the plot. Kindt’s sketchy and stylized visuals might put off anyone expecting a more polished and realistic aesthetic to match the action-adventure subject matter. The bright water-colours give a softer look that contrasts with the often violent imagery. To promote sales of the monthly books, each issue of MIND MGMT has backup strips and other content that the publishers will exclude from the collected editions. The series presents itself as a found document, an afteraction report drawn by a Mind Management agent, so there are plenty of secret messages hidden in the artwork, as well as mock advertisements filled with cryptograms for readers who enjoy such games. MIND MGMT has demonstrated great potential so far, but like any thriller its quality depends on the twists along the way and just how deep the mystery goes. By Ryan David Muirhead
MIND MGMT If parapsychology intrigues you, and you get a kick out of espionage thrillers, then take a look at MIND MGMT, an ongoing comic book series from creator Matt Kindt of Pistol Whip and Super Spy fame. Dark Horse Originals markets MIND MGMT under their “Genius Redefining Genre” banner, which they reserve for alternative cartoonists tackling science fiction themes. Unlike a few of the other creators in that stable, Kindt is no greenhorn when it comes to speculative material, and the premise of his series is the most intriguing of the lot. The back-story is a secret history that starts just before the First World War, when a pair of mystics establishes the titular Mind Management, a covert organization that specializes in psychic warfare. Mind Management’s agents, their handlers, and their enemies have various mental abilities that range from thought deletion to precognition. The comic follows the exploits of these spies to the present day, when the bulk of the series is set. MIND MGMT seems to have laid its premise bare by the end of the first issue. Although the main story would have benefited from a more gradual revelation of the nature of Mind Management, there are no doubt some mysteries left to be solved. The protagonist of MIND MGMT is Meru, a writer at work on a true crime book about a series of perfect murders. While 24
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www.morpheustales.com For the printed magazine: http://www.lulu.com/shop/samueldiamond/ripped-genes-the-biopunk-specialissue/paperback/product-20364897.html
Ripped Genes Preview By Samuel Diamond Pet-store patron purchases unborn human fetus from avian shopkeep. Swimming instrumentalists mix horns, strings and hormones. Draughtsman seeks amphibious splice for erotic tryst. Editor’s namesake awakens to smells of blood, rot, more blood. Wolfboy’s hired hand lights path, but does he know the way? Labour pains with explosive implications. Half-terraformed planet’s native inhabitants cross the border. Insurgents spring ally from DNAhacking overlords. Copycat comes to terms with surroundings and selves. Spaghetti-slurping journalist learns true meaning of pharmacovigilance. Guerilla clinic guinea pig invests big in immunity. Anthropomorphism: a matter of profit vs. principle. Enamored animal activist meets familiar face.
For the ebook: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2 24661?ref=morpheustales
Got your attention? Good. These 13 lines represent some of the diction, plot points and themes you will find within the pages of Ripped Genes: The Biopunk Special Issue edited by myself and featuring original stories from Benjamin F. Jones, Douglas J. Ogurek, Matt Leyshon, J.B. Ronan, Nicholas Stirling, Alan Spencer, David Barber, John Rovito, Jennifer Marie Brissett, Oscar Windsor-Smith, Wednesday Silverwood, Dev Jarrett and Richard Farren Barber. To preview these tales of boundarypushing biopunk, visit: http://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/rippedg enes
ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! FIGHTBACK Created By Stephen Jones www.runningpress.com For those of you that don’t know, last year Jones created a stunning novel told in a series of short stories in various formats, texts, Twitter posts, letters, memos, etc., which told of the start and the spread of a vicious zombie plague which wiped out 26
www.morpheustales.com London, then the rest of the UK, and finally the world. The final hundred pages of the book briefly described the worldwide spread of the virus as it overtook humanity in every corner of the world. I loved the London and UK part of the book, but was underwhelmed by the rest of the world section which felt too brief and tacked-on. Overall it was a disturbing, gruesome and brilliantly told story of the end of the world by zombie invasion. This is the second book in the series, and I was expecting a straight sequel. That’s not what you get here. The first forty or so pages are basically a retelling of the start of the plague, putting the mass extinction of humanity into context. It reads very familiarly to the first book, which confused me until the book started exploring in much more detail Thomas Moreby, the man ultimately responsible for the contamination, the self-proclaimed King of Zombies. After this introductory section, the story unfolds as you would expect, and the “Fightback” of the title comes into effect, as we follow the various efforts of the struggling human population to put up a fight against the rapidly-spreading zombie hordes. Not willing to rest on his laurels, Jones and his team of writers up the ante not only do you have the traditional slow zombies, but also the fast ones, and even intelligent zombies. It is all explained clearly and concisely through the use of memos, newspaper articles, letters, Twitter feeds, jokes, speeches, and all manner of communication, works just as well as it did in the first book. This goes further though in the exploration of zombie mythos, and this book shows the humans to be fatal heroes rather than simple victims. The book cleverly tells its many stories, some sad, some actually quite touching. This is a rare zombie novel intelligent, humorous, and actually adding
something to a mostly tired genre. Jones has done something remarkable with the Zombie Apocalypse books, and this second manages to be better than the incredible first book. Zombie lovers will devour it with relish, horror fans will find plenty to enjoy, and if the average reader only picks up one genre collection or zombie book, then this is the one they should read. Absolutely brilliant. By Stanley Riiks SURVIVAL HORROR: A ZOMBIE STORY By Paul Johnson Regular readers of Morpheus Tales Magazine will be familiar with the name Paul Johnson-Jovanovic, for his stories have featured several times, including in one of my favourite issues MT#16. Here Johnson is using his skills to provide a brutal and confident short novel, similar to The Hunger Games and The Running Man, where Nathan Baxter (down on his luck and desperate to help his family) volunteers for the game show sweeping the world. All he had to do is survive for one hour. It cannot be that hard can it? Except there are zombies ready to eat him at every step. Forget that this is not the most original story and enjoy it. You will be swept up by Johnson’s concise writing style, and the speed of the action is this full on. There s not time to breath as the tension and action swiftly build towards an entertaining climax. A fast-paced, action-pack joyride of a book. Although short, Johnson has managed to pack in some fascinating details about his characters and the futuristic world they inhabit. Survival Horror will appeal to horror/zombie/survival horror fans, and most readers willing to give it a go. Fun with a capital F. Books don’t often get this exciting. By Adrian Brady
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www.morpheustales.com Tackett. And the ULTIMATE Scream Queen herself: LINNEA QUIGLEY!!!! Break out those PayPal accounts, fellas, you’re gonna want to shell out the very minimal price tag to get yourself one of these gorgeous issues. So in closing, I may have been away for far too long, but as a gesture of kindness I, Trevor Wright, now offer this bevy of bodacious beauties to show you that I truly am a giver at heart. In fact, I am so wonderful that… (the following 17 pages of self praise have been deleted by the editor due to magazine length and repetitive content)… in closing, buy MORPHEUS TALES PRESENTS WOMEN OF HORROR VOL. 1, coming soon!
They’re Back!!… By Trevor Wright … And so am I! After what - a year-long hiatus from the supplement section? - I’m dusting off that thing called laziness, rolling up my sleeves and taking a crack at this whole column business again. And oh, how I’ve missed this mag! As much as I really, really want to talk about me and what I’ve been up to these past few months (which would only bore you, dear reader, to tears), I’ve decided it best to talk about an upcoming Morpheus Tales project I’ve just recently put the finishing touches on. (Actually, I was told by the powers that be that they are sick and tired of hearing about my endless self highfives and pats on the back and want me to stick strictly to writing columns that readers of this magazine may actually enjoy. Of course, I’m paraphrasing here and that may or may not have been what the editors said at all. But that’s what I heard so I’m running with it.) This latest project is called MORPHEUS TALES PRESENTS WOMEN OF HORROR VOL. 1!! And it’s AMAZING! If you thought the Morpheus Tales line of Scream Queens issues were something to write home about, then hold on to your computer screens, because do we have a treat for you. In fact, we have thirteen – count ‘em – THIRTEEN beautiful spectacular treats for you! We have models: Angela Denton, Jasmine Chambers, Stephanie Danielson, Brittney Scalf. We have producers: Andrea Albin, Dai Green, Heather Dorff. We have a casting director: Bea Strobl. A tattooer: Surrah Keen. A make-up artist: Angela Pritchett. Actresses: Jocelyn Rose, Shauna
MONSTERS ANONYMOUS By Theresa Derwin www.anarchy-books.com Anarchy Books is presided over by that fiction powerhouse Andy Remic, and as a publisher he is also exceptionally good. This book is a case in point. Derwin’s collection of interlinked short stories is well set up by the first story in the collection, where the monsters (whether on the inside or the outside) prepare to divulge their monstrousness. The following stories are a smorgasbord of tales with humour, horror, and a dash of SF and fantasy thrown in for good measure. While the tales are a little shorter than I would like, they are extremely entertaining. There are some more traditional themes given a new lease of life, and some brilliant original ideas. Derwin is an author of talent, and one whose first book delights and shows great potential. Cannot wait to read more. By Adrian Brady
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www.morpheustales.com a suit two sizes too small for his enormous limbs; an old woman with a withered arm; a small girl on crutches; and a man who looked like he didn’t belong. He was tall, blonde, with a hideous scar on one side of his face and fingers missing from one hand. He looked tired, scared, and proud. But the last element was what really grabbed me. I have, after all, had funky dreams before. It was what this group was carrying that piqued my interest. Between them, they struggled with a sarcophagus of sorts, only made from brass with tubes that ran from its bevelled sides, and a little glass window in the front that emitted a shifting, pale blue glow. My dream-self couldn’t help but take a peek, and I can’t blame him. And I’ll forever be glad that he did. Because inside was a girl, with flowing blonde hair, suspended in a crystal blue liquid. She was asleep. And that’s where I woke up. I didn’t even have time to swear that I’d never eat cheese before bed again before I was stumbling around for a pen and paper. I doodled, scribbled and scrawled for the rest of the night; a stream of nonsensical images and ideas. And by the time the sun came up, and I had to be ready for University (this was some time ago), I was totally knackered, but totally wired, too. Over the course of that year, I picked the idea apart. How did that group of oddments get into the sewer, carrying what could only be a princess in a brass coffin
Greaveburn Comes to life By Craig Hallam Coming up with kooky ideas has never been an issue for me. I’m an 80s kid, so I was spoon-fed David Bowie in Labyrinth, as well as The Never Ending Story, Thundercats, Ghostbusters, Legend (including Tim Curry’s Dark Lord), and every other weird and wonderful product of that decade. That kind of stuff starts to build up behind the mind’s eye after a while, until the brain is full of dark and fantastical images. But when it came to writing my first novel, I just didn’t have anything that really grabbed me. I’d written two novels previously, but they were warmups (which I didn’t count and were utter pants). I needed something good. I mean, really good. And so I waited around for something to come to me. Which it did. In a dream. I know, I know. That’s such a cliché, but I swear to whatever deity is yours, that it’s true. One night (oooh, that’s a bad story starter) I had one hell of a dream. In that dream, was a sewer. Not the usual cement-sided toilet emptier, but a proper old sewer made of crumbling bricks, slick with moss, with a river of slurry running down the centre that could drown an elephant. A real sewer. And as I watched, a group of oddly-shaped misfits came around a corner and into view. There were four of them. One tall, with a crumpled top hat and 31
www.morpheustales.com filled with some obscure liquid? Thankfully, the ideas eventually pulled together. Or rather, they coalesced into a story which seemed so real to me that it could have been stored away in the back of my mind this whole time. And thanks to my love of the dark, the gothic, and the peculiar, a city rose up in my mind where buildings fought for height in a thorny skyline, the streets below plunged into perpetual darkness, and the population was a twisted band of villains and anarchists. The rest is history, folks. It involves the actual writing of Greaveburn, of course (all five of the drafts I had to complete before I was happy with it). It also involves a score of short stories, two years of studying creative writing, a self-published short story collection, and a year and a half of publisher-searching. But that’s over and done with, and here we stand. Greaveburn, the novel. Something I’ve dreamed of for long enough that it’s become reflex. It’s a weird sensation, to say the least. To find that something you’ve worked so long to achieve is just around the corner. Literally. As I write this, the release of Greaveburn in bookstores all across the country, and websites all across the infinite interweb, is just days away. My fingers are shaking, probably with nerves, but I keep telling myself that it’s excitement. And when I think about it, going back over all the work (and don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been a chore; it’s been a blast), all of this adventure and intrigue that I’ve been subjected to boils down to a single fact. I probably ate too much cheese before bed. And so, dear friends, lovers of everything that is dark and ghastly, I’m off to the shops for a block of Red Leicester. I feel a book coming on, tonight. Thanks for reading.
EVIL STALKS THE NIGHT By Katherine Meyer Griffith http://www.damnationbooks.com/people.ph p?author=79 Evil Stalks the Night is the latest rewritten and reissued offering by the prolific Katherine Meyer Griffith. Ironically, it was also the first of her books to be published, way back in 1985. The story centres on a young psychic girl called Sarah and her family, who live in a nondescript American town called Suncrest. Nondescript, except for the fact that an evil entity prowls the woods behind the family’s home. One by one the entity takes Sarah’s family members and a fair few local children, much to the chagrin of the townsfolk, who then find it within themselves to lay the blame on Sarah’s surviving family. Sarah takes flight and rebuilds her adult life in a different part of the country, but the reader is never left in any doubt that it can only be a matter of time before she is brought back to Suncrest, and a final battle with the evil that still stalks the woods in search of human blood... Evil Stalks the Night is a tremendously involving and atmospheric book boasting a riveting storyline and fine interplay between the central characters. KMG has the story-telling qualities of your favourite grandmother. Highly recommended. By C.M. Saunders THE HUNGER GAMES Normally when a big budget adaptation of a best-selling novel comes out, I will read the book first and then watch the film, but not enjoy it as much as I did the book. I think that if the book is the original, then you should read that before seeing the film based on it. The original is always better in my opinion, although the Harry Potter films were almost as good as the books. Almost. 32
www.morpheustales.com So we come to another successful franchise based on a YA novel. I don’t watch trailers of films I know I will see, so I came to this film completely open minded. To say that I was disappointed is an overstatement. Underwhelmed is more like. Having a good knowledge of The Running Man (the film and the story it was based on), Lord of the Flies (the storyline rather than either the book or the film), Nineteen Eighty-Four (the book), and Predator (the film), it seemed there was nothing, absolutely nothing new for me here. The film starts in a kind of postapocalyptic rural community where, each year, a boy and a girl from each of the twelve communities that make up this world (Panem), are chosen by lottery to enter the Hunger Games, a televised survival-of-thefittest contest to the death where there can only be one winner. Katniss Everdeen volunteers when her younger sister is chosen, and goes through the training and popularity process (sponsors can help while you are in the jungle fighting for your life, but only if they like you). Then we have the games, which are basically a cross between The Running Man and Lord of the Flies (Battle Royale has also been touted as heavily influencing the story, but that’s basically Lord of the Flies with bullets and on a brutal scale), with some Predator (the jungle setting), with fighting, gangs, hunting, traps and cheating thrown in for good measure. It gets quite exciting, and the characters are pretty good; Jennifer Lawrence does a solid job as our lead. The story manages to include quite a lot of back story and explanation without getting bogged down, but there is nothing original. We’ve seen all of this before, and apart from putting it all together in a nicely presented package, nothing is new. The Hunger Games would not have been a success if not for the best-selling
book series. If the film had a lower budget and wasn’t connected to the books at all, no one would have noticed its release. When the next film comes out I won’t be queuing to see it, but I might download a copy and check it out. More than likely I’ll pick up the first book in the series to see if that’s any better. Slightly disappointed. By Stanley Riiks From the Catacombs 11: Periodic Horror By Jim Lesniak If ye olde reviewer’s math is correct, I have been producing a myriad of reviews for Morpheus Tales for five years now – where has the time gone? I would like to thank everyone who continues to read and support MT, whether through buying physical copies, downloads or word of mouth all these years; you have given me a platform to spout my opinions and give a home to other wretched reviewers and winsome writers of horror. As long as you’ll have me, I’ll infest this supplement with my words. This descent into the catacombs is in a slightly different format than usual; rather than specific reviews of books, movies or whatever, we are looking at small-press magazines. I am employing a combination of review with the old school Factsheet Five1 information to give a feel for the publication. We are looking at three primary types of magazines: Comic, Fiction and Movie. Issue numbers and dates refer to the most recent one this desiccated reviewer had in his claws at press time, but generally more issues have been obtained and read.
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Does anyone out there remember Factsheet Five? Am I that old? Sigh. FF was a thick newsprint ‘zine that attempted to review all known ‘zines in print in the pre-web days. 33
www.morpheustales.com Strange Aeons #9 (Spring 2012) http://www.strange-aeons.com
would it? Freaky consists of muddy reprints of pre-code horror comics and a couple pages of editorial comment, including letters to the editor – in a debut issue. Luckily there are several pages of items for sale by the publisher that make the old Warren Captain Company products look quality and classy in comparison. Apparently, the high cover price covers the admittedly nice cover painting and the quality paper stock, since the rest of the magazine was (poorly) assembled from public domain properties and a (cheap) scanner. There is no excuse for the crap-tastic quality of the story scans herein. The scans in Tales Too Terrible to Tell are far superior from TWENTY years ago. Myron Fass had better quality reproductions and more eyecatching covers in the Eerie Publications magazines from FORTY years ago. This is Exhibit “A” in how to produce a magazine without having to really create. Avoid at all means – I do not even want to bother with issue #2. Freaky is truly a waste of superior paper stock.
Strange Aeons is a continuation of Planet Lovecraft magazine, retaining a majority of the editorial and publishing staff. It is primarily a comics magazine with the addition of articles, prose fiction, interviews and reviews. Additionally, it contains gaming modules for its namesake miniatures games, but infrequently. The publication is well-produced with a color cover and mostly black and white interiors; color has been creeping into portions of the magazine over the publication run. The content (obviously) features a Lovecraftian bent, but is not limited to period pieces or adaptations. Super and supernatural heroes get equal time with post-apocalyptic westerns and black humor in the serialized fiction. As with any anthology, results are mixed according to your personal taste, but the breadth of variety in each issue allows for more hits than misses. They appear to be adhering to a quarterly schedule, but the website is the best way to keep abreast of the printing schedule. Strange Aeons is recommended for fans of modern illustrated horror, whether or not you are an acolyte of HPL.
Bloke’s Terrible Tomb of Terror #4 (June 2012) http://viruscomix.ning.com If you are a fan of vintage Creepy and Eerie magazines, this is the publication for you. It is definitely a love letter to Warren Magazines, down to the contents page. Not only that, but “Bloke” has teamed up with the legendary Mike Hoffman to package this magazine. With the quality of art and stories, these magazines could fit in quite well in the aforementioned magazines. Like its inspiration, this is a black and white magazine of illustrated horror.
Freaky #1 http://freakymonstersm agazine.com Crap. Utter crap. I was tempted to simply quote the review for Spinal Tap’s Shark Sandwich (“shit sandwich”) and move on, but that would not warn ye faithful readers, now 34
www.morpheustales.com Every issue has a moody painted cover from Mr. Hoffman, who is very much of the Frank Frazetta or Al Williamson school of illustration. The only off-putting factor for many readers is that these are in the “classic� vein and may feel like a nostalgia trip rather than something new; the quality is there, though, and being inspired by the past is different than imitating it.
Undying Monsters #1 (May/June 2012) http://undyingmonsters.com A well-produced, slick magazine that hearkens back to the heyday of Famous Monsters of Filmland, right down to a nice photo of Uncle Forry. Ultimately, if you want a slavish recreation of FM, this is your magazine. Unfortunately, I have little patience for the old school film book2 summaries of movies in the age of DVDs and instant streaming. Undying Monsters has the benefit of wonderful printing quality, allowing the back and white stills to pop from the page and is a great resource for those images. It is apparent that a lot of work has gone into preparing this magazine to recapture the Famous Monsters feeling; the writing is on par with the reproduction. Ultimately, the publisher is trying to recreate a magazine format that is forty years out of date and limits their audience to those nostalgic for the style and format.
End Times #1 (Summer 2012) http://horrorgeddoncomics.com It is never a good sign when the publisher, editor, primary writer and primary artist are one and the same person, unless it is L.B. Cole. End Times is an anthology comics magazine of short stories attempting to mimic E.C.-style twist endings to mixed results. There are few surprises and minimal suspense to be found here. Also, the art feels unfinished and sketchy, with the feel of the crudeness (without the gore) of the Eerie Publications covers of the 1960s and 1970s. Some panels, in multiple stories, are obviously recycled within the story and look sloppy. The quality of this magazine would improve if the editor would delegate some of the tasks to others, whether the writing or the art, to allow himself more time to focus on one or the other element. For a magazine like this to survive as more than a vanity project, it will need to mature. Although I am ripping it apart, I have greater respect for End Times than Freak, simply because of the effort involved to bring this to fruition. Despite my reservations at the premiere issue’s execution, I shall give #2 a chance when it is published to see if it improves.
Monsters From the Vault (#29) http://monstersfromthevault.com Monsters From the Vault is the gold standard of magazine for classic horror films. The unique film stills, the phenomenal quality of the academic, but not boring, writing and the overall production quality is why this publication has won several Rondo awards. The sheer level of research for the 2
Rather than a capsule summary, a film book tends to examine the whole movie, incorporating stills from the production. This was more valuable in the 1960s for the esoteric films not in TV rotation. 35
www.morpheustales.com main articles is intimidating; the writers seem to have access to a myriad of press releases, movies magazines and interviews from the 1930s through the 1950s in addition to the fantastic trove of stills. Monsters From the Vault is highly recommended as an essential purchase for fans of classic horror from the 1930s-1950s. Ye Olde Reviewer not only insists that you try this one out; he subscribes so as not to miss an issue!
Monsterpalooza Magazine (Autumn, 2011) http://www.monsterpaloozamag.com Monsterpalooza is a slick, full-color, wellproduced square bound magazine. It is an offshoot of the Monsterpalooza conventions, and this debut issue contains a plethora of images from the 2009 iteration of the show. The art director, Theresa Ratajczak, really did an impressive job putting this publication together. The articles run the gamut from classic horror to modern special effects and make-up.
Shadowland Magazine (Fall 2011) http://shadowlandmagazine.com Shadowland feels like a magazine trying to get its sea legs, so to speak. The first two issues are all over the place; as if any “cool” idea for an article was approved and shoehorned into the pages. There is potential here, as the articles themselves feel well written and edited, and the accompanying images are decent quality – it seems any muddiness is due to printing via Ka-Blam3. Shadowland endeavors to cover the “best in horror, sci-fi & fantasy,” but could use a tightening of focus. I am partial to a magazine that will not only have a 12 -page William Castle article, but an eight-page Tombs of the Blind Dead feature; what can I say, I’m weak. The reviews also cover a wide berth of genres, making this magazine one to watch. Increasing editorial cohesiveness and better printing quality could make this a must-buy magazine over time, and it is well worth the price of admission.4
This magazine is an interesting curio, if only for the fact that issue #2 is six months overdue. The sheer amount of work that must have been invested in this production must have been underestimated when they announced a publishing schedule, especially in the light of two year old convention photos at the time of original publication. Well worth flipping through to see if there is any article of interest, but possibly a deceased publication right out of the gate. Exquisite Terror #2 http://exquisiteterror.com Exquisite Terror strives to be an academic examination of horror in fiction and film. It is a black and white digest that is impressively illustrated and nicely printed. With articles examining
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Ka-Blam is mostly used for print on demand comic books and graphic novels. Ideal for a magazine starting out so as not to have piles of unsold stock lying around. 4 Last minute note: It appears that Shadowland will double its page count and increase its cover price to
$9.95 with issue #4. Glancing at the tables of contents for #3 and #4, it does appear that they are putting a more cohesive package together. 36
www.morpheustales.com vampirism (surviving it), cannibalism (cooking tips), and script analysis of both The Evil Dead and The Exorcist, this is not for the casual reader looking for quick and dirty facts5. To get a feel for Exquisite Terror, check out the website – it is updated frequently with reviews, news, and analysis. The greatest compliment I can give this magazine is that I felt it was too short – I wanted more from each issue.
format, as opposed to #6’s limited hardcover edition. Black Ink Horror also contains two illustrations per morbid tale to add to the unease. This publication is definitely not for everyone. Sex, violence, viscera and desperate acts abound as a starting point. Alternatively raw, revolting and disturbing, I have every issue. Hopefully, this excursion into the catacombs has introduced you to some new periodicals that sound tempting. The small press always needs new and devoted readers to survive, and the magazines have been the testing grounds for authors and artists for years. I made a point of reviewing magazines with physical copies available even as digital distribution is becoming the norm. Much as I enjoy instant delivery, the fun of getting something besides bills in the mail is something I cannot give up. The next journey into the vault will be covering small press comic books and graphic novels. Having just returned (at this writing) from the Chicago Comic Con and about to attend Days of the Dead (as a dealer!), I am well-stocked on non-hero, non-mainstream comics. Until next time, stay sick.
Lore (Vol. 2 #1, April, 2012) http://lore-online.com Wow. The resurrection of a 1990s magazine comes charging out of the gate with a Richard Corben wraparound cover in square bound trade paperback format. This format choice is becoming more prevalent, I presume, to capture the book trade and its longer shelf life. This debut issue and the “best of” collection for Volume 1 are of the highest quality for horror/sci-fi/fantasy fiction with old talents and debut stories. Essential.6 Black Ink Horror (#7) http://sideshowpressonline.com
DON’T STAND SO CLOSE By Eric Red www.sstpublications.co.uk
Black Ink Horror has been a home for extreme horror since its digest-sized beginnings. And by extreme, I mean stuff that would make Edward Lee or Jack Ketchum cringe. Its return with issue #7 finds itself in trade paperback
Why is a small-press publisher releasing a novel by the writer of The Hitcher and Near Dark? SST Publications has pulled off quite a coup getting the first novel by a wellknown (in genre terms at least) screenwriter. Experience tells as this is a fastpaced, but intelligent book, written by someone with a vast range of experience to develop the characters and subtleties of a complex and scary progression of the plot. Seventeen-year-old Matt Poe falls for his new teacher, and when Matt needs
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Unless you are “having an old friend for dinner,” of course. But, I digress… 6 You were expecting a long-winded review? Just buy the damn thing. Really, it’s good stuff. 37
www.morpheustales.com additional help, Linda Hayden is only too pleased to tutor him. One thing leads to another and a sexual relationship develops. That’s when things start to go wrong. Incredibly, horribly wrong. The book soon develops from a love story to a horror story, a kind of school version of Fatal Attraction. The sexual side of the book is quite erotic, and the horror is quite terrifying. Red manages to capture the inexperience of youth in our protagonist, as well as the experience and power (and abuse of it) of Linda Hayden. Powerful characterisation and a sleek writing style are what really stand out about this erotic horror thriller. Gripping, erotic and disturbing. By Adrian Brady
How did you go about first getting your work published? When I graduated from University in 1996 and started working in a dead-end office job, I realised that if I wanted to call myself a writer, I’d actually have to write. I switched back to writing short fiction again - a lot easier to see how well that worked than with a script, which has to be produced and performed - and tried to decide what category, if any, the fiction I’d written in the past fell into. Having read Nick Royle’s anthology Darklands, I decided it was horror. I wrote to two authors - Michael Marshall Smith and Simon Clark - whose work I’d loved in Darklands and who now had book deals with major publishers asking for advice. Simon told me about the small press scene that was burgeoning at the time, gave me addresses for several of them and also handed out a list of professional, down-to-earth writing tips. I used both lists and they were a great help. Michael advised me to try and get into a Steve Jones anthology. Sixteen years later I’m still working on that one.
Simon Bestwick Interview What inspired you to start writing? I’m not sure because I’ve always had the story-telling bug, as far back as I can remember. I have a very early memory of reading a chapter in a Ladybird book on undersea exploration - I must have been about three or four years old - about a plane crash (they were trying to salvage the plane, find out the cause of the crash) and trying to make up my own story about something similar. It might have been a spaceship crashing in my version, as I was already a fan of Dr Who, Blake’s 7 and Star Trek (not to mention Star Wars). So it was there before I could write much more than my own name. Later on, in my late teens and when I went to University - I wanted to become an actor, but there was always the idea I would still write scripts rather than prose, usually with a starring role for me, of course.
Meanwhile I kept writing, and by the start of 1997 I’d finally produced a story I was happy with. What other writers have influenced you? I’d have to list Shakespeare as one of them. A truly great writer, largely because he had to write for a wide audience, and work stuff in to please both high and lowbrow tastes. You need elements of both - the rough vitality of good popular entertainment (which doesn’t have to mean coarse or tasteless or stupid) and the weird, offthe-wall and experimental 38
www.morpheustales.com approaches of more specialised stuff (which doesn’t have to mean intellectual masturbation).
a long story. What are your other influences? Films: too many to list. Music: New Model Army for their passion and constant growth, Shriekback because they’re odd and quirky and strange but beautiful, Dead Can Dance because Lisa Gerrard, goddamnit, P.J. Harvey because she’s brilliant and constantly coming up with something new. Dark Sanctuary and Nox Arcana for their darkly beautiful, atmospheric soundscapes. Folk music. Classical. Some jazz. Lots of others.
Another would have to be Ray Bradbury. I was deeply saddened by the news of his death earlier this year, because I truly loved his fiction. It lit up my childhood. It really did. He had that imagination, that intelligence, that gift of language, and first and foremost his stories are real stories. All the other riches are part of what makes them wonderful stories to read. Richard Matheson is another - not as lyrical as Bradbury and not as sunny, but a brilliant writer. A lot of writers I’ve learned a lot from have been Americans - writers with a narrative voice that flows beautifully and naturally. Stephen King’s another; Thomas Harris is, or used to be. Annie Proulx. Nigel Kneale. Ramsey Campbell, because he sets the bar so high for anyone writing horror about twenty feet higher on the wall than everyone else. It gives you something to work for. Simon Louvish for blending the comic and the horrific, the slapstick and the surreal, in mad, freewheeling narratives that are a joy to read. He’s one of the most underrated novelists of the twentieth (and twenty-first) century in my view. If you don’t believe me, read The Therapy Of Avram Blok, City Of Blok, The Days Of Miracles And Wonders, Resurrections From The Dustbin of History or What’s Up God? Actually, you should read all of the above, and not just because I say so; you should read them because they’re hugely funny, deeply humane and a delight to read. So there.
Where do you get your inspiration? Films. Music. Books. The news. Real life. Anything can give you a starting point, a suggestion. The trick is to be listening when it does. What is your writing day like? It tends to vary, because I’m on a rota at work and therefore my hours change constantly. I try to get something done almost first thing, before I leave the house, even if it’s only a couple of lines or paragraphs. After that, I write whenever there’s a break in the day. It all piles up. With a novel, I usually aim for 2500 words of draft per day. Hopefully most of it will be done by the time I get home, so I’ll have the evening to chill out and watch a DVD or go for a walk or something. Do you have any rituals or routines when you write? Not really. There’s usually music - currently I’m listening to ‘Islands’ by Ludovico Einaudi - and I tend to settle on a small number of albums to listen to when working on any one novel (or just one album if it’s a short story). The French Darkwave band Dark Sanctuary has tended to provide the
Oh, and Shaun Hutson. Seriously. But that’s 39
www.morpheustales.com soundtrack for nearly every novel I’ve written thus far. But I can manage without music. Ideally you should rely on as little as you can in order to write. Hemingway said you could write any time that you had pencil and paper and could get people to leave you alone. I tend to use a netbook or a laptop, but the principle stays the same.
each chapter out before starting it, treating each one almost as a self-contained story with a beginning, middle and end, and it worked very well; the second half needed far less rewriting. I’ve a rough outline for the new novel, Riders On The Storm, but each chapter will be planned out in far more detail before it’s written. It needs to be, because Riders is a going to be a big, complicated book, one that’s been brewing for some time. It’s about the R.101 airship, the largest British aircraft ever built. I’ve been wanting to write about her for some time. At first I wanted to write a short story, then a novella. Now it’s a novel. The first in a planned series. Because I’m a glutton for punishment, clearly.
How do you put a book together, do you just sit down and write, or do you plan chapter by chapter? Usually I have some sort of outline in place by the time the writing begins in earnest; there’ll usually have been a host of notes written beforehand, and maybe a few random stabs at writing imagined scenes. Having made some preliminary notes, I ended up writing the first chapter of Tide of Souls more or less by accident (see below), and then stopped to plan out the rest of the novel before continuing. I try and keep the outline loose, but it’s gotten to the point where I’ll usually have one even for short stories now, because I’ll only have a window of a few days here and a few days there to write them; I much prefer to be able to get up in the morning, go to the computer and get to work on something. With too little planning the result can be an enormous amount of rambling - the first draft of The Faceless and the first half of Hell’s Ditch, the novel I’ve just completed, suffered from that, as did The Song Of The Sibyl, a novel I wrote a couple of years back that I’ll be returning to work on later this year or early on in 2013. It took me longer to rewrite The Faceless into publishable shape than it did to write the bloody thing in the first place; I had to do the same with the first half of Hell’s Ditch. With the second half of the novel I planned
Your first novel was part of the Tomes of the Dead series, can you tell us about that? I’d attempted novels previously, but even when I finished them I could never get the hang of rewriting them into a publishable form. A large part of that was struggling to find a voice of my own for work at that length - a lot of my early attempts were rip-offs of other writers’ work or Frankensteinian patchworks of them, and even at shorter length I felt I’d lost my way somewhat. So I turned back to shorter fiction for a spell; by 2007, I felt I was back to where I should be and ready to attempt a novel. The problem was that whatever I wrote was very likely going to be horror, and there weren’t many publishers open for it back then. There was Leisure in the US, but they seemed to have a very defined idea of what they wanted and I didn’t think my stuff would suit them. In the UK we had Virgin Books, but they weren’t open for 40
www.morpheustales.com submissions at that time. And then I went to Fantasycon and saw an advert for Abaddon Books and the stuff they were doing.
guys you could ever deal with, and he knows his horror and fantasy and science fiction very well.
I checked out their website and liked the look of what they were doing. I was attracted to Tomes Of The Dead because the novels were all stand-alone, while the other series Abaddon did were in various kinds of shared world. Also, it was unequivocally about horror. The only proviso was that you had to make use of the zombie motif in some way. As luck would have it, their commissioning editor, Jon Oliver, knew my short fiction quite well and really liked it, so I got the go-ahead to submit a proposal.
The book itself has three first-person narrators - Katja, a soldier called McTarn, and a scientist called Stiles - caught up in the flood and then the zombie apocalypse that follows on from it. They all end up in the Pendle Hill area of Lancashire (which has a generally creepy reputation at the best of times), surrounded by an ever-growing horde of zombies. I tried to write the best possible novel I could, and I was actually surprised by how well Tide was received. It really outstripped any expectations I’d had for it.
The only trouble was that I had no idea what to write. Initially I dredged up an old story idea I had about a lightship torn loose from its moorings and cast adrift in a catastrophic, Biblical-scale flood. I basically turned the lightship into a prison ship to provide a bigger cast, shoehorned some zombies into the mix and hoped Jon wouldn’t see the joins. To his credit, he did, and rejected the idea. But he really liked the idea of the flood and the aquatic zombies.
If you could go back in time to when you started writing and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? Write the stories you want to tell; don’t be distracted by what’s in vogue or popular right now. What matters is to be proud of and happy with what you’ve written. Do you read reviews of your work? How do you deal with criticism? Yeah, I read them. I’d be lying if I said a good review didn’t give me a boost, or that a bad one didn’t make me scowl. I deal with criticism by trying to work out if it’s justified; if it is, I learn from it. Otherwise, the reviewer’s either missed the point or just doesn’t get along with my stuff. Which is fair enough; you can’t please everyone. Or the third alternative - the reviewer could just be a cunt. It’s always possible.
I decided I could either try and dream up a new idea from scratch or look at the elements of the original pitch that Jon had liked and see if I could build a story from that. I went for the latter, and also decided to keep one of the characters; a trafficked woman from Eastern Europe called Katja Wencewska. That turned out to have been a good idea, because in the middle of making some notes she suddenly came to life and started telling her story in the first person. Before I knew it, most of chapter one was suddenly there. I worked out an outline from that, sent that and the chapter to Jon, and about a month later he rang me up and commissioned it. I was very lucky to have Jon for an editor - he’s one of the nicest
What book are you reading now? Some Kind Of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce, who’s one of our best writers. Also reading Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill on the side, which is a very funny, oddball blend of detective mystery and the supernatural set in 1970s Communist Laos. 41
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www.morpheustales.com What is your proudest moment as a writer? I’ve had a succession of them: getting my first story acceptance, the first time I was invited to contribute to an anthology, the first time I had a story picked for a ‘best of’ anthology, my first novel getting published… the point is to keep looking ahead and trying to focus on what hill you want to climb next. You should never have had your proudest moment; that should still be to come.
Spindly Men are an old legend in certain parts of Lancashire: when the night wind blows on dale and fell, the Spindly Men come up from Hell. They’re hideously thin and tattered figures without faces, and if they touch you, you’ll see Hell. And it will kill you. That’s the legend, anyway. But the reality’s worse than that; you’ll have to read The Faceless to find out what it is. What is the most important thing when becoming a writer? You need a very strong work ethic, which has to go hand in hand with an almost religious commitment to and belief in your own work. At the same time, as I said above, you need to be your own harshest critic as well as taskmaster. Oh, and did I mention the nearimpossible balancing act of being thickskinned enough to handle bad reviews and rejections while staying open enough to feel everything to the full?
Are you disappointed with any of your work when you look back on it? On the whole, no, apart from a few very early stories, most of them thankfully unpublished. There’s always time, though! What's the best piece of feedback that you've had from your audience? Never ask me to pick a ‘best’ or ‘favourite.’ I’m hopeless at them and you get very long lists instead. (You’ve probably noticed this by now.) Although my first fan letter - from Mark West, now a pretty well-known writer himself - has to be a strong contender. Michael Marshall Smith was my favourite writer at that time, so being told I’d written a story that was similar to but better than one of his was praise indeed.
Do you write for a particular audience, or for yourself? I think Stephen King put it best: to please others and to please myself. The second part, though, is the most important; otherwise the work is hollow and the praise meaningless. What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Go out walking. Watch DVDs. Listen to music. Go to gigs. Spend time with my girlfriend. Luckily, she’s a writer, too. It
Your latest novel The Faceless is out now; who are The Faceless (or the Spindly men) and why are they so terrifying? Are they terrifying? If so, thanks! The 43
www.morpheustales.com helps. I love her madly. That helps, too.
aside), there’s a problem with it that I need to go back and fix (in which case it becomes about rewriting or note-taking), or I need to take a break (go for a walk, sit by a riverrecharging those batteries again). It’s about learning to recognise where any problems with your writing arise from, and taking steps to combat them.
What parts of being a writer do you like best? And least? Most? The writing itself. Followed by readers telling you they enjoyed or were moved by something I wrote, and getting the nod from writers I hugely respect. Least? Witnessing the bitching, backbiting and general trollishness that fucks up online forums. Oh, and writing bios.
If you could meet anyone, fictional or real, dead or alive, who would it be? Shakespeare (again!), Ray Bradbury, and Lieutenant-Commander Noel Grabowsky Atherstone, First Officer of His Majesty’s Airship R.101. He was a highly respected airshipman and he knew the ship better than anybody. Would have loved to down a drink with him.
Who are your favourite authors and favourite books? Authors, other than the ones I’ve cited above as influences? Joolz Denby, who I’m in awe of - Billie Morgan is a compulsive, devastating masterpiece of a novel. Joel Lane, who’s one of the best short story writers out there. Peter Straub - I’m reading Ghost Story at the moment. Books? Bradbury’s The October Country, Matheson’s Shock 3. Campbell’s anthology The Gruesome Book. I love Michael Moorcock for the sweep of his imagination, his intelligence and his optimism. The Ice Schooner, The Dancers At The End Of Time, the Oswald Bastable books and the first two Colonel Pyat novels (I need to read the other two!) all blow me away. There are many more, but I’ll stop there because I can’t remember them all!
Your work has been compared with Gary McMahon and Ramsey Campbell. Who would you like your work to be compared to? Being compared to Ramsey is a very high compliment if you write horror fiction; I don’t think very many people would dispute that he’s one of the finest living writers of the genre and has done more to a) ally it to a modernity of outlook and b) uphold the highest literary standards within it. Shakespeare, as I might have mentioned is another of my heroes. Bradbury, of course, because the man was a fucking genius. Matheson, because he is. Steinbeck, because… er… because THE GRAPES OF BLOODY WRATH, for goodness sake. Poe. Lovecraft (as long as it’s not for political views!). Ask me tomorrow and the list will have expanded further.
Do you get writer’s block? How do you cope with it? The short answer is no. If I’m not writing something, I’m usually planning it or making notes for it. Or doing something like this, which is kinda sorta writing, even though I’d rather be getting my damned airship off the ground. At most, I’ll have a couple of days off after a big project to recharge my batteries. Sometimes I’ll aim for a week, but I rarely last that long. If I’m struggling to write something, it’s either the wrong time to write it (in which case put it
Which do you prefer writing/reading, short stories or novels? I love both. Novels have been my main focus for the last few years; there’s comparatively little time for short stories, so most of my output in that area has been in 44
www.morpheustales.com response to commissions and requests. I’ve done a few for little or no payment, just because I enjoy working in the form. One of the pieces of writing I’ve most enjoyed this year has been a short story called ‘Lex Draconis’ that’s appearing in Adele Wearing’s upcoming anthology called Tales Told At The Nun And Dragon. It’s quite different from my usual stuff; it’s practically a romantic comedy, but I’ve enjoyed writing something like it for a change.
set-up. Humanity’s limitless capacity for stupidity, self-delusion and acting against its own enlightened self-interest. Cruelty. Suffering. Unreasoning hatred - the idea of being randomly targeted for death or injury because of skin colour, sexual orientation or any one of a dozen things you haven’t the slightest control over. Losing those I love. And, yes, also, unexplained creaks in the middle of the night when I’m alone in the house, which I tend to automatically assume belong to a serial killer, a malevolent spectre, or a bug-eyed monster.
What are you working on now? You’ve found me at a bit of a watershed. I’ve just finished Hell’s Ditch, my third novel (fourth if you count the still to be rewritten Song Of The Sibyl), and sent it off to my agent. And then, at last, Riders On The Storm.
What makes a good story? Well, if I knew that… for me, the bottom line is that you’re interested in what happens. You don’t have to love or sympathise with the characters (FFS) but you have to give a damn. Plot, characterisation, use of language, and ideas all play a part in that, but for me the best stories are where all of these come together. Bradbury was always great for that. How many times have I mentioned him now? Far too many. So on that note, I’ll sign off! Thanks for having me over!
Do you have any advice for other writers? When it comes to getting started, the landscape has changed so massively since I started out I wouldn’t know where to begin. It’s much easier for even a small publisher to produce a very glossy and professionallooking (at first glance) book. And a huge number of people are self-publishing, via Smashwords. There was always an element of that in the small press, but it’s gone into overdrive.
A Journey to Publication By Nathaniel Connors Unfortunately, after careful consideration, we have decided to pass on this project. A similar message I received from countless publishing agencies and literary agents over the past ten years. I submitted so many queries at one time that I actually created a folder in my email named “rejection letters.” A folder that filled up rather quickly with a list of publishers and agents that decided to pass on representing my writing and my dream of seeing Revelation: Creatures Rule the Night professionally published. After a while the rhetorical format of the rejection letter simply became comical, and in many instances I could tell the answer was no before even reading the email. This,
On the other hand, as I mentioned above about becoming a writer, I think there’s a certain attitude every writer needs, and I don’t think that’s changed. What scares you? Religious fundamentalism. Religious, and other, bigotry. The corrupt, vicious, greedy, incompetent scum who constitute the present government. The demented, screeching psychopaths who constitute the US Republican party. The cretinous inability of progressive parties to put together a decent and humane alternative to the current 45
www.morpheustales.com however, only fuelled my desire to get published and I submitted my manuscript to as many agencies as I could find online with an “open submission” policy. I was determined to achieve my goal. Creatures Rule the Night started as part of a poetry assignment in my high school English class. Later, my teacher, looking to expand our creative writing abilities, asked us to write a short story. The poem that I had written months before became the perfect catalyst and by my senior year the idea of a novel began to take shape. While studying history and politics in college, I worked on my manuscript from time to time adding Revelation to the beginning of the title when I began to envision a trilogy in order to tell my entire story. In 2002, the same year that my oldest son was born, I got my first break in seeing Revelation published. Digital books were just starting to grow in popularity and a small independent eBook company, Gateway Publishers, signed me to my first contract releasing my title that same year. I remember thinking that this was going to be my big moment; my chance for the entire world to read my work. It wouldn’t be long before we were talking book advancements and movie rights. How young and naïve I was. In eight years I sold two copies of my book and made exactly $1 in royalties. During that time my family grew and I retreated to working and supporting my children. Every so often I would work a little bit more on my second manuscript but writing had taken a back burner to life. Then, in 2008, I realized that I was missing something; a passion that had driven me since I was a teenager. Writing had always been my means of expression. Without it, I had bottled up years of emotions and hid away from the talent I had been blessed with.
On a daily basis, I began to write again, adding pages and pages of material to Revelation’s sequel. I wrote five chapters but stopped when I noticed something very different in my style of writing. The years had changed me; growing up, experiencing life had given me a new perspective. The sequel looked nothing like the original so I decided to make a big change. Leaving behind the second book I decided to rewrite Revelation: Creatures Rule the Night. For two years I worked on it in my free time, and by 2010 I had a completely new manuscript with three new chapters and over 20,000 more words. It was also at that time, after speaking with my eBook publisher, that we decided to part ways from each other giving me the freedom to resubmit my work to other companies. It took eight months of submitting queries (at least a dozen a month) before another publishing agency gave me a new opportunity. August 28, 2011: I have great pleasure in informing you of our acceptance of your submission. – Damnation Books LLC/Eternal Press. I almost didn’t catch it at first, expecting to the see word the “unfortunately” somewhere in the first two sentences. But that wasn’t the case. It had taken me eighteen years, but my book was finally going to be in print and available through a large number of vendors and outlets in the US and in several other countries. I was no longer chasing a dream but instead staring at my future. Given a March 2012 release date, I began to reach out online and started making friends with other writers in my genre on Facebook and in Yahoo groups. At first I had reached out to other authors published by Damnation Books, but quickly found myself communicating daily with a number of writers (both published and independent). Not only did I find this community welcoming, I discovered a world of books I would have never heard of or read before. I 46
www.morpheustales.com wasn’t just a writer in this community, but a fan as well. And when my book was finally released, just as I had supported my fellow authors, they too returned the favour and not only read my book, but promoted it on their blogs and social networks. Thoughtful and unsolicited, this was not about making money. This was about writers sharing a story with each other and with their fans. This changed my perspective of what it meant to be a writer and gave me a new outlook on how to move forward. After gaining my opportunity to become a published author, I decided to go a different route and plan to self-publish Revelation: Lucifer’s Legionnaire, Book Two in the Revelation series sometime this fall. I had seen one side of the publishing industry and found both pros and cons to being traditionally published. My hope is that self-publishing will give me a little more control over my novel. One obvious con is that I lose the benefit of a publishing company’s editor and cover artist. I resolved this issue by enlisting the talents of wellknown horror and fantasy author Tim Marquitz to edit my book, and graphic design artist Kerri Lenthall to create the cover, giving my novel a professional finish before its release. By enabling myself to see another side of publishing and based on the outcome, this should help me decide which direction I wish to pursue in releasing the third and final book in the series. The greatest lesson I have learned on my journey is that writing is my passion. I might never sit amongst the elite novelists of my time and reach that grand plateau of being a known name in millions of households around the world. If this is the case I will not be disappointed in myself, and I realize that this in no way means I have failed as a writer. My muse has inspired me and reminded me that I am a storyteller, and as long as I am able to put
words to paper, I will always have an audience. Nathaniel Connors http://nathanielconnors.com/ WINDIGO SOUL By Robert Brumm Jr. http://www.robertbrumm.com/ I love indie books. Obviously, the quality varies wildly, but by nature they are raw, uncompromising, and unblighted by commercial pressures. You know when you read that you are getting the author’s vision, not that of some can’t-bebothered book editor locked in a stuffy office somewhere. Robert Brumm Jr. is one of the best young indie writers to emerge in a long time. His writing is by turns exciting, harrowing, and thought-provoking, with useful turns of phrase and no lack of ideas. It isn’t only me who has noticed Robert’s talent; this particular book was a semifinalist in the Kindle Book Review ‘Best Indie Book of 2012’ competition. Windigo Soul is a nightmarish pseudo-political vision of a brutal future where, by order of the United Federation of Nations, citizens are forcibly ‘retired’ when they reach sixty. This means they are killed to make room within society for the younger generation, and it is Henry Reed’s sixtieth birthday. In a nutshell this is a classic ‘little guy versus the establishment’ tale. Your natural instinct is to root for the underdog, but this time the underdog is facing an enemy infinitely bigger and more powerful than he. Can he win the battle? Get the book and find out! By C.M. Saunders 47
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Alan Spencer Interview
What are your other influences? Reading books, watching movies, listening to people talk to each other, living everyday life, just about everything influences my writing. I think as long as you’re working on a writing project of some kind, anything going on around you becomes an influence. Ideas are floating around, and I’m ready to catch them.
What inspired you to start writing? There are a ton of reasons, though I’ll share one that’s more embarrassing. One man’s name. R.L. Stine. I tore through his Fear Street and Goosebumps books like they were going out of style (and they did) when I was a kid. Reading those books later snowballed into checking out Stephen King, Clive Barker, Jack Ketchum; the list goes on. Somehow I thought my love of reading these authors could be channelled into my own writing, so I gave it a shot.
Where do you get your inspiration? At this point, it’s the wheel that keeps on turning. I stay inspired knowing I’ve got four or five novels written that need to be edited and finalized, and the harder I work, the faster I’ll get them published. I’m not getting any younger. Plus, I’ve got a whole wall in my writing room decorated in papers with future novel ideas. They’re constantly looking over my shoulder waiting for their turn.
How did you go about first getting your work published? For the longest time, the wrong way. I read writers’ handbooks with magazine and publisher listings, but it wasn’t until I really used the Internet that I found horror publishers hungry for submissions. It was through those search engines I discovered the small-presses that were welcoming to new writers like me. Without the Internet and those search engines, I wouldn’t be published.
You are well-known to Morpheus Tales readers for your short fiction, but you’ve published several novels. Tell us about some of them. I’m kind of all over the place. If you like zombies, I’ve got super zombies who battle for your appendages and organs like insane body brokers with Inside the Perimeter: Scavengers of the Dead or Zombies and Power Tools, a mix of murder mystery and dead people using power tools to dispatch their victims (and this one gets nasty, folks!). If you like blood suckers, Cider Mill Vampires depicts our monsters using the apple presses at a Kansas cider mill to collect blood, while a bumbling tabloid reporter tries to put a stop to their activities. I think any horror book/horror movie fan
What other writers have influenced you? Before my first novel, I had zero working experience in the writing field. That’s why I was lucky with my first novel acceptance with Damnation Books. There, I got real experience working with an editor/writer named Tim Marquitz. He’s a tough editor, but he’s also very effective and helpful. After he worked with me on The Body Cartel, I became a different writer. It was a very transforming experience. Tim sent me in a good direction. So to answer your question, Tim Marquitz is a writer who 49
www.morpheustales.com would really enjoy B-Movie Reels and BMovie Attack. Picture made up B-movie characters from cheap and cheesy horror movies coming to attack you because of a haunted reel projector. Or if you want something real dark, Ashes in Her Eyes: Uncut Edition tells a story about what happens when the ashes of a dead murderer blow into a funeral cremator’s eyes. It features some crazy death scenes and some flashes of the beyond. The book’s real dark and mean. And I can’t leave out The Body Cartel. This one’s a mix of drug cartels, cave cannibals, strippers, guns, guts, and carnage all in the Arizona desert. Seedy, gory, and crazy!
How do you put a book together, do you just sit down and write, or do you plan chapter by chapter? I wish I could say every step was planned and my system has been perfected, but writing a book for me is organized chaos. I put most of my planning effort into deciding what characters will be in the book, why they’re in the book, and expanding on the concept of the novel. If I have those pieces, I can make up the rest as I go. Sometimes the less I know about what’s going to happen, the easier I can convince myself to jump into a project. If I worry too much about the little details, I won’t write the damn thing. You’re written a series of novels called BMovie Reels and BMovie Attack. How did the series come about? B-Movie Reels actually started out of pure frustration. It’s been over four years since I wrote the first draft of the book. I wasn’t getting anywhere with my writing at the time. It was rejection city for all my projects across the board. I’d just graduated college, and I had that “I’m going to knock the world on its ass with my writing, here I come” mentality, and it just wasn’t happening. So I said forget publishing, forget word counts, the writing rules, or how I will market it when it’s done. I wrote B-Movie Reels purely for myself, and doing that was the best thing. It really put the intensity back into writing when the flame was pretty damn close to being
What is your writing day like? Because I work a fulltime job, I sneak in writing a couple of hours before work or after work, and on weekends, I get up early and try to accomplish as much as I can. I probably get fifteen hours a week of writing in, though I tinker around a lot during that time. Sometimes I stare at movie posters in my writing room. If I draw a blank, that poster from the movie Pieces just steals my attention. Do you have any rituals or routines when you write? As long as I’ve got my energy drink and metal music, I’m ready to go.
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www.morpheustales.com snuffed out completely. In short, B-Movie Reels kicked the pity party out of my head. And I love horror movies, even if they’re cheesy or so bad they’re good. The novel’s really an outlet for my obsession with horror movies.
Yes! I think all writers like to hear from people who enjoyed their work, but I also like to hear from the naysayers. Their reactions can help me become a better writer. But if it’s a review that just says “It sucks” it doesn’t do the reader or the writer any good. And sure, it can be tough when someone doesn’t enjoy your work, but once you get back in that writing chair and belt out the pages, the negative feelings go away pretty fast. I have to hand it to the readership, though, because once someone pays cold hard cash for your book, they absolutely have a right to their opinion. It’s not fair to expect everybody to love you.
If you could go back in time to when you started writing and give yourself one piece of advice what would it be? “Hold off on sending manuscripts, young man,” that’s what I would’ve said. I also would’ve taken a lot more time really learning my craft, how to tell a story better, and most of all, how to self-edit. I was very lucky to have my experience with Damnation Books and Tim Marquitz’s direction. With that said, The Body Cartel needed serious work when I submitted it. After working hard to fix the novel postacceptance, I about had a breakdown because it was so much work and so much re-thinking everything. I was determined never to go through that again if I didn’t have to. That meant working much harder the next time. But at the same time, how else do you get that experience except through making those mistakes first? It’s a damned if you, damned if you don’t situation.
What book are you reading now? I read a lot of books at once. I went through a phase where I was reading nothing but crime fiction, authors like Ed McBain, Christa Faust, Jim Thompson, and Duane Swiercyznski. Horrorwise, I had a lot of fun with Donor by Elena Hearty, Pretty Little Dead Things by Gary McMahon, and Angel Board by Kristopher Rufty, to name a few. What is your proudest moment as a writer? My proudest moment was when I got the balls to release my own book, Cider Mill Vampires. I asked the artist who did The Body Cartel cover if he’d be interested in making a cover for me, and he agreed. From there, it kept snowballing. I could do
Do you read reviews of your work? How do you deal with criticism? 51
www.morpheustales.com whatever I wanted with this book, and nobody could tell me to hold back, because Cider Mill Vampires is a blood bath, but it’s also full of crazy humour. It’s also going to be a series. Later this year, I’m putting out the follow-up called This Town Eats Everything, another gory romp. I’ll keep the series going on my own dime, no matter how it sells. It’s kind of like my own little private guilty pleasure. I’m hoping over the next few years, I can get an audience for it. If not, the books will keep coming regardless. I have to write them.
What’s the best piece of feedback that you’ve had from your audience? There’s nothing better than talking to someone in person who read your work and wants to chat with you about it. I went to a wedding about a year ago, and there was this couple who were in their early twenties. My sister-in-law lent them The Body Cartel. Both of them loved it! They were mimicking holding a gun and shooting at stuff, and they kept saying “Man, it was awesome. They were blowing everything away.” It was so funny because both the guy and girl were equally stoked about it. It was a physical change in their faces and bodies. They were pumped. It was a good feeling to know something I wrote had that effect on them.
Are you disappointed with any of your work when you look back on it? Not so much with the books themselves. At this point in the game, my challenge falls under one category, and that’s selling books. My best example is all the zombie books out there that sell like crazy, and then I put out Zombies and Power Tools, and I get little reaction. It’s hard to cope with that. It falls under the crickets chirping in the room situation. I’m slowly getting more of a reception overall, but it’s very gradual. I have to remind myself if I stick to my guns and write as high quality material as possible, the rest will come in time. Whether that be years or decades, a writer has to be okay with that. Some days are easier than others, but like I said, it’s slowly getting better. But don’t get me wrong, the pity party left town years ago.
What is the most important thing when becoming a writer? You have to be selfmotivated. Nobody’s going to do it for you. You also have to balance work, life, and fun and still get things done. You also have to be a student of writing for the rest of your life. Reading books, paying attention to how writers accomplish character, plot, and style is vital. Never be satisfied. Do you write for a particular audience, or for yourself? I write for both myself and the horror fans, but also the people who left horror behind and need a firm reminder why the genre’s so much fun. Horror deserves more respect, so 52
www.morpheustales.com I’m hoping to add to that argument with each book I publish.
Cinesploitation’s website. Other than that, I’m a homebody.
If you could recommend any of your books to a non-horror reader which one would it be? I’d recommend B-Movie Reels first, only because it’s a bit of everything: gore, humour, and suspense. It’s also got the tone of fun, which can speak to anyone, even if they’re not a horror fan.
What parts of being a writer do you like best? And least? I enjoy writing because it’s great to see an idea that’s taped up on my wall transform into an actual published book. One thing I don’t like about writing is the desperation behind it, trying to get publishers to publish it, readers to buy it, and the world to care. You’ve got to have a thick skin and lots and lots of patience. It takes time to get used to those challenges, but as long as the love of writing remains intact, failure or success won’t matter.
Which of your books would you recommend to a dedicated horror fan? It depends. The horror fan who wants something really dark and insidious would enjoy Ashes in Her Eyes. It’s my darkest book so far. But I still say B-Movie Reels and B-Movie Attack would please the reader who’s been there and done that and wants something a bit different. You get more bang for your buck with so many horror villains in one novel. For those who don’t want to spend the money on me just yet, they should check out Cider Mill Vampires. I’ve priced it very cheap on the Kindle.
Who are your favourite authors and favourite books? My favourite author is either Jim Thompson or Joyce Carol Oates, because of how they write, not necessarily what they write. The way they write character, it’s insane how real it is. It’s hard to peg down my favourite book, so I’ll throw out a couple that come to mind. Crimson Orgy by Austin Williams, Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates, and Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing? I manage a Doggy Day Care as my full-time job. The dogs keep me busy, that’s for sure. I also enjoy running with my giant headphones on. I’m up to three miles without keeling over. I watch horror movies like crazy, and I do reviews at
Do you get writer’s block? How do you cope with it? Writer’s block, in my experience, is a novel telling you your situation or characters aren’t working. It’s time to either scrap the project, re-think things, or move on and come back to it once you figure out what’s wrong. If you’re too frustrated trying to fix 53
www.morpheustales.com problems, chances are, you need perspective, and that means time away from the project. That’s not to say once a book is challenging to just automatically quit. If that were the case, nobody would get anything done.
really develop a concept and characters. But short stories also make me really rise up to the challenge and bend my brain to come up with hard-earned answers. What are you working on now? Right now I’m editing novels that are in my backlog pile, while I’m planning the next three future projects. When I say planning, I’m fleshing things out, deciding who my characters are going to be, and what the bad guys are going to do to them. In 2013, I’ll be releasing a novel I’m very proud of called Psycho Therapy by Samhain Publishing. If you want horror, it’s all there in one mean package.
If you could meet anyone, fictional or real, dead or alive, who would it be? Clive Barker, Lucio Fulci, Joyce Carol Oates, Frazer Lee, Christa Fault, Edward Lee, and Jack Ketchum, just to name a few... You got your start in the small press; how would you say that affected your writing? The small press got me thinking like an editor as much as a writer. It also taught me there’s a lot of bullshit out there. People say things, promise things, or label themselves “editors” or “great writers,” and it’s all a bunch of hot air. You have to do your research about publishers and make your own informed opinion before you submit a book and sign contracts. The small press has opened my eyes to how many different levels of professionalism there are out there. Just because someone calls themselves a publisher doesn’t guarantee they know what they’re doing. In contrast, without my varied experiences, I wouldn’t have gained the necessary working experience to get to the point I am now. Basically, use your good judgement. Knock the desperation to get published out of your head and look for quality.
Do you have any advice for other writers? If you’re planning to send a novel somewhere, read a couple of their books first. Check the presentation, the content, the editing, how well it’s selling, ask the authors if they’re happy with their experience with that publisher. Do your homework. Also spend the time to write several novels, reflect on your strengths and weaknesses, and then send it out there for consideration. Never be in a hurry. When you rush, that’s when you tend to make unnecessary mistakes. SURVIVAL HORROR: A ZOMBIE STORY By Paul Johnson Regular readers of Morpheus Tales Magazine will be familiar with the name Paul Johnson-Jovanovic, for his stories have been featured several times, including in one of my favourite issues MT#16. Here, Johnson uses his skills to provide a brutal and confident short novel, similar to The Hunger Games and The Running Man, in which Nathan Baxter (down on his luck and desperate to help his family) volunteers for the game show sweeping the world. All he has to do is
Which do you prefer writing/reading, short stories or novels? Reading novels will always be my favourite thing, though I’ll check out an anthology from time to time. From a writing standpoint, short stories are tough to write. I could re-write short stories a thousand times, and I could still make alterations later. I love novels because there’s less of a word count constraint, and it allows me the chance to 54
www.morpheustales.com survive for one hour. It can’t be that hard, can it? Except there are zombies ready to eat him at every step. Forget that this is not the most original story and enjoy it. You will be swept up by Johnson’s concise writing style and the full-on pace. There’s not enough time to breathe as the tension and action swiftly build towards an entertaining climax. A fast-paced, action-packed joyride of a book. Although short, Johnson has managed to pack in some fascinating details about his characters and the futuristic world they inhabit. Survival Horror will appeal to zombie/survival horror fans and most other readers willing to give these genres a go. Fun with a capital F. Books don’t often get this exciting. By Adrian Brady
relationship with the dreaded red editing pen wouldn’t fix! By C.M. Saunders ASH By James Herbert www.macmillan.co.uk Having grown up with James Herbert’s novels as a teenager, I have missed him. His last book was The Secret of Crickley Hall published back in 2006, and soon to be a two-part drama from the BBC. Six years is a long time in publishing, but British Number One Chiller Writer is back with Ash. Paranormal investigator David Ash (who featured in Haunted and The Ghosts of Sleath) has a locked-room mystery to solve. A body is found crucified in a locked room in Comraich Castle in Scotland. A murder mystery/ghost story follows, and Herbert is in fine form, producing an unsettling and creepy tale with his usual style. While King may grab the headlines and the box-office, Herbert has managed to maintain his brilliant chill-factor, producing scares and thrills that are unparalleled. Ash sees a welcome return to one of the UK’s finest horror authors. By Adrian Brady
HOFFMAN’S CREEPER & OTHER DISTURBING TALES By Cameron Trost I remember reviewing Hoffman’s Creeper for MT a while back. Harking back to the great sci-fi tales of the ‘50s and ‘60s, it reminded me of something you would see in a classic edition of Amazing Stories. While not strictly a breath of fresh air, it was more like a whiff of rich, clammy air from a creepy attic or cellar. And it turns out that attic or cellar is not just hiding Hoffman’s Creeper, but a whole host of other unmentionables. As the title suggests, this is a collection of stories by young Aussie Cameron Trost, many of which have been previously published in various publications. Most of these tales have a classical feel about them and for the most part are very well constructed. If I were to have a criticism it would be that some feel slightly bloated around the middle and are perhaps a little more descriptive and long-winded than necessary. Still, nothing a slightly closer
Brittney Scalf Interview From Women in Horror Growing up, were you a fan of horror movies? If so, which ones were your favourites? I’ve been a fan of horror movies for as long as I can remember. My mom and I would watch them a lot together. Of course she would try to hide the really bad ones, but I always managed to sneak them in. I’ve always preferred horror movies over any other genre. Now don’t get me wrong, I love good old comedy movies and cheesy romantic movies just as much as the next 55
www.morpheustales.com person, but I relate to horror movies so much more.
What exciting projects are in store for you? I have a lot of exciting work coming up as far as acting and modelling. I’m being written into some work with Sick Flick Productions as well as some other projects that film makers are working on. A pilot I shot a few months back just got picked up, so hopefully that will be airing soon. I’m really concentrating on doing some horror-themed photo shoots this summer and fall to promote myself as a horror actress.
I would say as a kid the first horror movies I remember seeing were Return of the Living Dead, The Fly, Child’s Play, Night of the Living Dead, and the older Dawn and Day of the Dead just to name a few off the top of my head. Back then, they scared the living hell out of me. Things that would gross out my friends like blood and guts I always thought were so awesome, and I was mostly curious as to how they went about making the movies.
This magazine does a lot of interviews with horror authors and publishes a lot of horror fiction. Do you have a favourite horror author and/or book? I really like Anne Rice’s work! I’ve just recently checked out Brian Keene’s work as well. My buddy Andy Deane is also a great author. I just read his book The Sticks and it was amazing. Another thing I’ve recently gotten into is old comics. I love Spiderman!
What are your predictions on the next big thing in horror? Zombie movies seem to be getting more and more popular nowadays as well as vampire movies. I’d like to see more actual horror movies based around other supernatural creatures. If you could be in any movie already made, what would it be? And whom would you play? Either Laurie Strode in Rob Zombie’s Halloween One and Two, or Mary-Beth in Adam Green’s Hatchet.
Anything else you’d like to add? Acting isn’t for everyone but, like horror movies, it has made an impact on my life. Acting isn’t just something I do for fun…it’s who I am. Anything I can do to better myself as an actress and model, I do it. I get to travel, meet famous people, and spend countless hours working on projects, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. One thing I’m really looking forward to in life is becoming better known for my work and meeting all of the people that admire me for my work. This is a sneak peak at the Women in Horror magazine, coming soon!
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The Function Room: The Kollection By Matt Leyshon - Preview ISBN: 978-1-4710-8275-7
Table of Contents A note from the author........................................................ Welcome To Leddenton ...................................................... The Rape Waved Yellow..................................................... Who Begat Crow Man ........................................................ The Function Room ............................................................ The Butcher’s Confirmation ............................................... The Butcher’s Progress....................................................... Sac....................................................................................... The Butcher’s Scat.............................................................. The Blood Promise ............................................................. A Worrying of Sheep .......................................................... The Earth is a Drinker of Blood ......................................... Leech................................................................................... A Development ................................................................... The Estate of Things ........................................................... Disc Eyes ............................................................................ Zombie Ho!......................................................................... GODsWILL ........................................................................ Matt Leyshon’s stories manage to combine threads of dark-hued English pastoral fantasy with the logic of nightmare. Like Worzel Gummidge cast adrift in a Ligottian fever-dream, these interlinked tales carve out their own niche in which to fester. - Gary McMahon
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www.morpheustales.com The Rape Waved Yellow Despite the pleasant heat from the late summer sun Marsyas Mire wound his window up as soon he left the motorway. He decided, as the fields and thickets closed stealthily in upon him, that he did not like the countryside. He also decided that he could not be less suited to his new job on the features team with Rural Life magazine if he tried. So much nature felt unnatural to him. The air tasted of manure and so he lit a cigarette. He turned on the radio and daydreamed of cities erupting from the plain like concrete fungi as he drove. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, expecting tractors to zoom out in front of him from gateways, or for wild horses to leap over hedgerows and into his path. The narrow road taunted him, unwinding into the distance like incriminating videotape from a dropped CCTV spool. The fields of rape lining the road glowed a dazzling chemical yellow in the sunlight and the downs that rolled so monstrously into the valleys mocked him with their lack of wine bars, take-aways, and convenience stores. By the time he arrived in Leddenton he felt quite unwell. “So you’re a journalist,” said the landlord of the Royal Hotel. “I work for Rural Life magazine. I’m covering your corn festival tomorrow,” Marsyas replied. “And you get paid for this?” “Well, it’s my job. So yes, I get paid.” The sun bled like treacle through the window of the inn and glistened on the liqueur bottles that lined the shelves behind the landlord. Marsyas squinted and brought a hand to his throbbing temple. The landlord had a shiny round face and big wet eyes that lingered like irrelevant remarks. “And we get nothing, even though we provide the story?” he said. “Hopefully my story will bring more visitors to your town,” Marsyas said. “You might get more people wanting to stay here at your hotel.”
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www.morpheustales.com Who Begat Crow Man Marsyas recalls a comedy sketch that he had once heard in which Sir Arthur Strieve-Greebling tells of a life dedicated to teaching ravens to fly underwater; and he thinks too of Saint Francis of Assisi, preaching to the birds that eat from his outstretched palm. Now, presented with a task that that is seemingly impossible for one such flayed and feathered man, he renames himself and seeks to make use of the abundant bird life that fills The Function Room. The crow man points to a grey and porous dial that protrudes above from a lattice board of ribs and other bones. “Two clicks to the right,” he says. A mistle thrush that he has trained over the previous evenings flew out from the dusty gloom and obediently gripped the disc in its beak and began turning it. The crow man turned to the pinned mouth of a windpipe pipe stretched open beside him. “Fly through,” he instructs. Several starlings flutter up from the windowsill and soar into the pipe where they are funnelled through to a container on the other side. Their weight causes the container to slowly sink and its movement sets off numerous pulleys and turning cogs. He rubs his feathered hands together contentedly and gazes around the workings of The Function Room. Around him harnessed birds tug on sinewy pulleys as they fly up towards the flaked plaster ceiling before they are pulled back again to The Function Room floor. Then they tried to fly away again, their endless efforts to escape powering the cranial cogs and bony axles that filled the centre of the room, endlessly turning and pumping and grinding. The air around the machinery is filled with a constant cacophony of pained squawks and screeches over the chirrups and chirps of the untethered birds that bat their wings against the rafters and peck at the woodwork above him. Nearby, woodpeckers endlessly beat their beaks upon a millstone, the fragments of which he plans to mix into a cement-like paste with body fluids so that he might seal up the doorway that he no longer needs.
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www.morpheustales.com The Function Room In the undulating folds of the green vale there lies the grey and old town of Leddenton. From the skies you imagine it appearing to a cosmic observer as a dying fly in a corpulent web of trundling downs and the laser trails of ley lines. In its dark heart stands your home and workplace, The Function Room, an awkward construction that you imagine might appear to that observer above as a crooked canvas begging to be straightened. It is an unassuming, though somewhat askew building of red clay brick. A small plaque upon its wall deceptively reads, Church Hall. Despite the plain exterior, it is a complex work of architecture that you live and work within; the nooks and crannies inside The Function Room very much defy comparison to the orderly nature of the town outside. The regular homes upon regimented avenues and the straight roads both seem to impose orderliness and regularity upon the routines of the townsfolk, unless it is after all your occasional efforts in observation and control that sustains their plain monotony. Around you tiny white wheels spin like bony tops and pink pulleys pump like the workings of some great, fleshy perpetual motion device. Within these tilting walls that openly challenge gravity every day they remain standing, you have learned, and unlearned through laziness, the importance of staying on top of things and keeping your eye on the ball. Sometimes, with despair, you feel as though you are but a mere dust mote inside the workings of a giant clock, for it seems that allowing your attention to wander has, in fact, no consequence; the machine continues to function, outside the same lights go on at the same time each evening, the dog walkers depart their homes just as they did the day before and the day before that, regardless of your intervention. It is hardly your fault that you have become a little idle, but a certain irony is lost upon you, as it was such a tendency towards slothfulness that first brought you to The Function Room. You once worked for the town’s rail company. Your job was in the signal box, a simple but secure occupation that essentially involved, only very occasionally, pulling a lever that lifted a sign that would stop one train when another approached from the opposite direction. One day, arising in panic from bored reverie, you pulled the wrong lever and found yourself quite inexplicably in The Function Room, watching what was very nearly a catastrophic train crash through a very small and dusty window. Above you a spring unfurls in perfect serenity, but as a cog whines gently behind you, you underline your mental note to obtain lubricant from the storeroom, just as you had reminded yourself yesterday. “I really should oil that,” you grumble to the dull walls that are latticed by the shadows of the machinery like corpse dust upon grease-stained paintwork. All around you, from the window to the murky recesses of the cellar and attic, wheels turn, spindles rotate, and great axles spin as you grudgingly pull levers and twist dials with infinite weariness. The gentle groans from the machinery that now occur with growing frequency have become an issue that could almost disrupt your tedium with thoughts of urgency. “Going to have to stop being so lazy one day,” you say. Your words drift upwards into the murk like ashes on crematorium vortexes. In another room a shaft the colour of aging ivory clunks awkwardly and you wince once more, cursing your procrastination. “I’ll maybe fix that tomorrow,” you say to yourself. But already all is on the verge of going awry and an indescribable horror contemplates alighting one stop early at Leddenton station in hopeful expectation of the exercise benefiting its cosmic essence. Not unlike like you, Gormo Gloom is oblivious to this impending disruption. Gormo Gloom is the owner of Gloom Butchery, he is a purveyor of meat and his store is in the building next to yours. He has never knowingly met you, and yet you know him well; perhaps better than he knows himself for you know that when a certain piston begins to pump, Gormo Gloom will rise from his bed, and when at the opposite end of The Function Room a little wheel wobbles unevenly to life, you know that Gormo Gloom will visit the bathroom. Today that particular piston has already pumped and so too has the little wheel turned, and Gloom is in his butcher’s shop. Gloom sets his clock by Daisy Time for Daisy always enters his shop at 9.15 to buy chicken liver for her cat’s breakfast. Neither you nor Gloom knows it, but it is 9.16 and so Daisy is late. Daisy surveys the meaty cuts beneath the glass counter in a pantomime of choice making. The air is heavy with the metallic aroma of fermenting blood and stagnating bone. Daisy is old, a pensioner, but 62
www.morpheustales.com perhaps not as old as she dresses. She wears the uniform of a coffin dodger; a woollen coat as murky as a drizzly autumn wood, knee length stockings, and she clutches her handbag like a kiddie fiddling priest with his rosary. You observe the scene next door by pressing your eye to a vial of liquid as murky as conjunctiva juices. Around you the womb of intricate workings turns, the coils of muscle-like length, the belts that stretch like tendons, and the bony levers, how they are like a giant body, the corporeal extension of some divine controller. “Two fresh chicken livers, please,” says Daisy. Gloom doesn’t answer immediately. He is setting his clock. He eases the minute hand forward with a podgy index finger and stops it at quarter past. His slow and deliberate movements have an animal grace that quite fits his ovine physiognomy. His long and sheep-like face reminds you of a bust carved in wax that droops a little more each day as the sun settles briefly upon it as it traverses the firmament and passes his shop window. His jowls and the bags under his eyes surrender a little more to gravity each day. His hair, worn like a helmet of wire wool, has an animal texture too and his sheep teeth, flat and yellowy pebbles of random shape, suggest many an hour of peacefully chewing the cud. “Coming right up, Daisy my dear,” says Gloom. You hear their voices through one of many leathery ear-type shapes that project periodically from the wall. “Actually,” says Daisy. “Let’s make it three.” How curious, you think to yourself, noticing the variation in their interaction. Like a pastoral stroller contemplating the last leaf to fall from an autumn tree, you are suddenly entranced. Gloom pauses, unsure that he has heard correctly. He too has detected a change in their routine, a shifting in the dismal spheres they inhabit. “Three?” he asks. “Three,” says Daisy. Gloom puts his plastic glove back on to his hand and selects another liver from the tray under the counter. He holds it up and with Daisy’s nod of approval he drops it into a small white bag with the others and seals it with a strip of red tape. Outside the sky clears and the sun streams hazily through the shop window and the scene is momentarily captured in illumination for you like a still life from the oeuvre of an artist, who although skilled, persists in depicting the mundane. “Is it the cat’s birthday?” says Gloom, knowing his suggestion to be most unlikely as many a year had passed with him serving her livers and never before had Daisy treated her pet to an extra portion. “No, it isn’t,” she replied. “I just thought I’d buy three today.” Like Gloom, you can’t help but forge a spontaneous frown. Minor discrepancies in routine can lead to disaster; everyone in Leddenton knows this, not least of all you, but experience has taught you that the necessary ingredient for successful indolence is unfounded optimism, and with this in mind your attention turns for a moment from Gloom The Butchers. Through a different murky vial you can see Daisy’s home where her cat usually waits for the key to turn in the front door before it stretches, yawns, and rises from the divan. Daisy’s cat surely sensed that today was no ordinary day, for you watch her rise from her snug patch of quilt early and go to the window to watch the day unfold. Daisy drops the livers into her tartan shopping bag and turns to leave. Gormo takes his cleaver from the chopping board and waves goodbye with it, as he always does. However, out of sorts somewhat from the odd break in routine, he has forgotten to remove his hygiene glove and the cleaver slips from his hand and spins through the air like a circus performer’s knife. You watch its graceful journey in slow motion, as if absently observing a dragonfly hovering between lilies before deciding where to settle. Gormo finds time to will his cleaver a landing place in the wooden frame of the shop entrance, and to debate the considerable advantages, were the cleaver to strike Daisy in the head, for it to do so with the handle rather than the blade. Both hopes culminate in disappointment, a spray of blood, and finally Daisy collapsing to the floor like a marionette with severed strings. A room already dense with the aroma of death achieves greater aromatic depth. All of this abruptly disturbs you with a sense of utter horror and dismay, for this sort of thing does not happen in Leddenton where every day is the same. Somewhere air wheezes from a stuttering piston and 63
www.morpheustales.com the machinery in a distant room grinds with the awkward gear change of a learner cyclist. Somewhere even more remote, in a cosmic colour pool that begins to stir like oil upon water in the light of an uncharted sun, a tentacle straightens like a flaccid plague-pink stamen with the wet foretaste of arousal, for the territories of the world carefully plotted and painstakingly mapped have been disturbed. An ancient being has awakened, invoked by the abandonment of routine and reason, and its body trembles like a jelly being set upon the table of the universe. Your fingers clench the grip of a cold bony lever and your knuckles whiten. You have felt this sense of panic once before. The stress creak of a floorboard distracts your tension and you turn to the floor. “What shoddy workmanship. This mess is your fault, not mine!” you shout at The Function Room walls. This grotesque distraction then gives form to words of unspeakable terror, a grinding rotor groans a noise like Cthulhu, a steam turbine wheezes something that sounds like Ishakshar, and together they form a tangible mess of seething gore-sound. An aural shape so repugnant that the very sound of it could kill a man; reverberations of that frightful drone conjures in your mind a vile montage of sewerage and offal, castration off cuts and Leng Tch’e burgers. Somehow in this terrifying moment of dread you realise that it is this manifestation of horror that has instructed you, silent and invisible, in your work, a gaffer that you have never met and should have prayed that you never would. Your superior expands seamlessly throughout the universe until its presence closes around you like the sweaty hand of a failed fornicator gripping his doughy, limp worm in a shameful rage. You rise staggering from your stool, your pants ballooning at the rear, warming at the crotch, and you frantically brush at the screaming green slime upon your arms and face, gagging at each mouthful of air that clots reeking in your throat like anal mucus. Then invisible shears snap quickly at your fingers leaving bloody stumps, and then your hand is gone with the next snip; you watch it flutter like an autumn leaf until it settles on an axle, replacing the worn cog that had previously whined with each revolution. You observe in sweating horror how a cloud of sour spittle settles to coat the grey, dead flesh and strengthen it against wear. Scalpels carve canals in each thigh and nimble finger-tendrils extract sinews from you to weave belts that will power the decaying pulleys. A red thread like the first sign of dawn over the horizon etches itself instantly across the crown of your head, and your scalp places itself where a creaking disc had spun. Your scream aborts, like a foetus that knows that the warm embrace of the womb is the best this planet can offer, as your ribs crack and burst from your chest; a lever replaced here, a spindle there, an explosion of intestinal carnage everywhere. Gloom hears the commotion and screams and is then frozen briefly by indecision, transfixed by the murder before him and the sound of mutilation and bloody dismemberment coming from the Church Hall. He decides that he would very much prefer not to be caught with his cleaver in Daisy’s dead head and so he opts to drag her body into the back of the shop where he does his chopping and keeps his meat chillers. He pulls Daisy along behind him by her feet, leaving a scarlet slug trail of gore on his tiled shop floor. His intention is to place her in a fridge until a more suitable plan mushroomed in his confused brain from the spores of such strange circumstances and bewilderment. But this plan changes, for before he can reach the fridge he passes a murky recess that although he must have walked past every day, he had never before noticed. It conjured a quite irrational curiosity given Gloom’s situation. One of Daisy’s legs drops to the floor as he stretches a hand out into the shadows expecting his fingertips to meet brickwork, but no end to the recess is forthcoming and so he steps inside, pulling the body of Daisy along limply behind him. “What strange kind of cubby hole is this? Odd how I have never noticed it before,” says Gloom quietly, perhaps to the dead body of Daisy as she slides wetly along the floor. Inside the recess Daisy’s body is now completely engulfed by darkness and so Gloom lets her ankles go and waves his hands in circles before him in search of walls that might mark an end to this interior void that logically must protrude deep into the Church Hall. There is a sudden sound of rushing air like sucking gullies in a cliff face. He senses somehow that the space around him has become confined and when he reaches behind him his hands press against cold brickwork. The blackness mutes to a foggy grey and before him he sees a light blinking in the murk. Clearly he cannot retreat and so Gloom begins making his way towards the light. The light is being emitted from a tiny diode above a grey lever that looked to Gloom like an old bone. Above the lever there is a dusty window, and when Gloom clears a peephole and peers through it to 64
www.morpheustales.com the street outside he sees a police car pulling up outside his shop. “Oh dear, what will become of me now,” he whispers to himself. The diode begins to flash with increasing urgency and so Gloom, fearing imminent arrest, decides for want of any better option to pull the lever above it in the vague hope that somehow it will save him. Given the queer events of the day, stranger things had happened than him being saved by pulling a lever, he thought. To his pleasant surprise a burglar alarm at a nearby shop on the High Street began to ring, the policeman paused halfway out of the vehicle and then opted to investigate the piercing bell rather than to purchase one of Gloom’s special breakfast rolls. Gloom had forgotten in his panic that the policeman always purchased a roll from him at 9.30. Gloom allows a sigh of relief to whistle through his uneven teeth, but this calm moment of being oblivious to this newfound demonstration of cause and effect is desperately short lived. Gloom’s eyes roll slowly down, slowly adjusting to the half light, until they become fixed on the console before him and then rest upon the fossil-like phallus-lever gripped in his hand, its base resting on two bulbous bearings in a leathery encasement of leper-white lips. There is a hissing sound as of gas escaping and the room shimmers for a second like a mirage. Gloom is alone and surrounded by inexplicable machinery; pulleys tug in silence and great wheels spin with mysterious purpose. Bending low beneath fleshy pulmonary sacks that inflate and empty quietly above him, he decides to explore this strange world that he has found himself in, and he soon discovers his wanderings are limited by walls the colour of decay and a distinct lack of any exit. The windows are few and without hinges, and besides, they are all far too small for him to fit through. In each room he enters, the same machinery turns to obscure ends and Gloom begins to panic. He feels claustrophobic. Gloom returns through a corridor of eldritch shadows and heavy cogs to the control panel where he first entered this strange place. Beside him a chattering piece of machinery comes to life. Rigid wires whose extremities terminate in pointed tooth roots tap up and down on a piece of paper that extends jerkily before him. A bar toothed with sharpened fingernails suddenly drops and guillotines the paper sending a slip drifting downwards to Gloom’s feet. He picks it up and reads the message upon it. Welcome to The Function Room.
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www.morpheustales.com The Butcher’s Confirmation Now amputated and dissected, with your parts strewn throughout The Function Room to replace the worn cogs of bone and leaking pipelines of unfurled intestine, you see everything. It is upon your flesh stretched between the rafters that the records will be printed in your blackened blood with the jittering nibs of carpal fragments. The first dark entry to be written will be the confirmation of the butcher and new Function Room controller, Gormo Gloom. Outside, grave shirkers dawdle along the pavement into the heart of Leddenton like deadly blood clots. They cast slow curtain-call shadows across The Function Room as they pass. Above them house martins dive-bomb the eaves that creak in the morning sun and steam rises like wraiths from the rusting gutters. Your thoughts are distempered, layered like the bloodstains upon the wall. Dissected like Osiris, and with the vision of Horus, you dissipate the myriad detail into The Function Room where Gloom assesses his new environment. Confusion stirs the coils of bacon rind and slithers of black pudding in his stomach. He strains his eyes in the grey mist of belligerent shadows and tries to make sense of his new surroundings. Slowly The Function Room takes shape around him with hues grinding together like tectonic plates as his focus steadies. He sees fleshy pulleys tugging arbitrary rhythms, and ivory pistons rising and then falling in skittish time. Trepanned bony discs spin back and forth in a furious white blur above him like diseased sycamore seeds suspended in their autumnal descent. The walls lean in like neglected tombstones. Nearby your lung expands and retracts with a wheeze between supports of stiffened tendons and elongated tumours. You watch as Gloom reaches out cautiously to stroke it as one might pet a sleeping cat. He turns from the strange mechanics and finds that his interest in dead meat draws him towards your eye, peeled open like a litchi and pinned wide on the wall to form a wet aspic portal in vulval lips. His fingers splay on the damp brickwork as he leans forward to peer through.
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www.morpheustales.com The Butcher’s Progress A malignancy of red brick and slate is concealed behind the vines and fir tree shadows, its influence spreading like cancer through Leddenton. Within, clinging limply to The Function Room wall like an anemone, your eye gently turns in its pink flesh cup. Ass sputum bubbles gently in the folds like hot fudge and then films briefly over your iris. A mess of machinery works around you, glistening with uterine juice. Pulleys of your fresh tendons ease wetly back and forth to spin shimmering white discs upon bony spindles. Lung sacs balloon and deflate and skulls on femur rods map the lives of the townsfolk beneath a network of your nerves. Outside a car pulls away as within The Function Room a kneecap rotates in its vulval socket. Alarm clocks wake the sleeping residents as a vertebral pendulum begins to swing. A gallstone tumbles through a dried intestine oiled with smegma and a milk float responds, commencing its journey down the High Street. You watch your replacement explore his new domain, a curious insect in your web of gore, and you begin to assess the new controller, to ascertain his purpose. His fat oafish feet scuff away your imprints in the dusty floor, smearing the marks of your struggles to escape. Eventually, with a wet rasp, he presses his eye to yours. Like a night watchman starting his shift, you wait for a moment as your eye grows accustomed to this new play of light, and then you focus as the past of Gormo Gloom, jittery at first like old cinefilm, begins to unfold. You see Leddenton as it was when you first entered The Function Room, and you see Gloom the Butcher looking up at the moon hanging fat and pallid in the sky over pink hills of cloud. He checks his watch before walking up Gladly Chunner’s overgrown garden path to let himself in through the front door. “It’s only me again, Chunner, my old pal. I’ve brought you some food to keep you going,” he calls up the stairs. Gloom walks down the hall and sets his bag of leftover stock upon the worktop in the kitchen.
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www.morpheustales.com Sac His was not the first to disappear. Abraham’s beloved daughter Carla had vanished and she was the third little girl to go missing from Leddenton in as many years. He had responded with an appeal in the local paper and wandered the town searching for her, scouring the local woods, fields, and riverbanks. He closed down their little bed and breakfast and dedicated his time to rooting through the tips and rubbish dumps, searching for clues or bodies with the other parents of lost girls. He was beginning to think that he had done all that he could to find her, until a lady from Wessex Police calling herself Annie visited him at home one day. She urged him to get on with his life and to leave the police to do their work, suggested that it was unfair on his wife to be so stubborn in his belief that Carla would be found. “Do you have children?” “No,” Annie had replied, resting one bony hand upon his shoulder as she plucked her knickers out of her ass crack with the other. “But I know what it’s like to lose something precious.” “Oh, really,” Abraham had snapped, quivering with rage as he opened the door for her to leave. What difference did it make to Annie if he had chose to spend his time wandering the streets in vain, looking out for his daughter, shining his flashlight under hedgerows, and calling her name into crowds of shoppers whenever he spotted a child in a red raincoat like the one that Carla had worn? He learned that Annie had visited the other parents of the lost girls too, and delivered the same message, wearily twirling the heavy gold ring upon her little finger, stroking the engraved square and compass. “Let the police deal with it, accept that it is out of your hands. If a runaway does not want to be found, then chances are they won’t be. You have to accept that.” Something had not seemed right to Abraham then, and still troubled him now.
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www.morpheustales.com The Butcher’s Scat Dusty light seeps through the bluish slates above like pus from a gangrenous wound. A split bowel bursts above your eye and pours viscera to the floor where it foams pink like a seal massacre on a dismal beach. Your concerns about Gormo Gloom are verified; he refuses the role of a non-interventionist controller. He cannot resist tinkering, dreaming of wholesale butchery, of an entire town suspended from meat hooks. The vulval lids around your eye prise open with a wet rasp. You watch him randomly turn carpal dials and flick cuneate switches of grey ethmoid as nerve coils tense and unwind. “Let me out of here!” Gloom screams, frantically racing the perimeters like a trapped rat, stopping for a moment to flick levers of briny ilium as if some fearful code can be broken that might release him from this fresh hell. Outside the rain begins to pour over Leddenton. The riverbanks swell like leeches and burst, washing the High Street in brown, scummed water. Thunderclaps reverberate around the moist walls of The Function Room. Worms rise from the lawns in the gardens of the red brick townhouses like offal squeezed through a sieve. Gloom stops, exhausted, and hammers his fists upon the walls. He is a liability; that much is clear to you. He has taken to wearing an emptied bosom stretched over his head like a skullcap. Medallions of pudenda hang from his neck on a spinal cord, slapping against his butcher’s apron whenever he moves. He wears the scalps of previous controllers over his butcher’s boots, tied with bleached veins. Intestines dangle from his waist like a hula skirt of gore and your wrinkled and pallid scrotum hangs from his chin, quivering as he struts from calcified levers to renal pumps like a deranged turkey. There have been so many lessons, and he has learned so little. You determine to tempt him with visions, flicking your lids coquettishly, parting the wet labial lips that frame your gorged eye.
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www.morpheustales.com The Blood Promise “Let’s do it now,” said Keren. Carla bobbed her little head over the edge of the sandpit and peered around the park. The only person who might have been paying them any attention was Gormo Gloom. As always he was sitting on a bench beneath his parasol, feeding the pigeons from a brown paper bag. The other children were engrossed with their play, and the other adults were engrossed with their children or chatting to each other. The girls were in their own little world. “The weirdoes are still huddled beneath the climbing frame,” Carla said, pointing at a group of children playing some mysterious game in the shade that seemed to involve simply sitting still and gazing vacantly ahead. “It doesn’t matter even if they could see, they don’t speak to anyone anyway,” Keren replied. They both giggled. They always made of the fun of the same group of kids that cowered together in the shadows whenever their parents brought them to the park on sunny Sundays. “Pasty skinned freaks,” Carla whispered, and they both exploded into fits of giggles again. Carla and Keren had been friends for almost all of the nine years of their lives. They were both introduced as babies when their mums attended the same mothers and toddlers club. As soon as they were old enough to like things, Carla and Keren liked each other. When they were old enough to play, they played together and now that they were old enough to have secrets, they intended to share them with each other too. Every Sunday their mums brought them to the park to play and watched them from the coffee shop. The girls felt a deep bond and they knew that they would remain friends forever. Today, hidden in the sandpit, they decided that like adults they would mark their commitment to each other with ritual; it was to be their secret.
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www.morpheustales.com A Worrying of Sheep Annie arrives unnoticed by night in a caul of reeking excreta. She lies unconscious at the foot of the trembling escape tower left by Gloom. The lid of your eye, a fine fold of coral flesh as delicate as tissue paper, does not open and your attention remains elsewhere. The rains of yesterday have recalled a memory that surely cannot be yours, of preparing for battle as red raindrops as big as rose petals fall upon the lines, and of a fellow Achaean who turns to you and speaks of Zeus, the bloodless god, with a sense of dread that is almost palpable. Later, as dull red light, like the stuttering glow of a dying ember, trickles through the hole in the roof, you see the construction that Gloom had used to climb free of The Function Room quiver as if with excitement. The whole place seems askew, like a wrongly buttoned shirt. Somewhere a fibular spindle strains against a patellar cog caked in wet grime, groaning like a heavy table being dragged across the floor. Awakening slowly, your pupil contracts and dilates in time with the slow throb of his ferly campanile of bone and cartilage bound in brittle tendons, trembling in reeking air. A woodlouse scurries over your eye, and through the segmented darkness of The Function Room she comes into focus, the new Controller, supine upon the filthy floor, her hair coiled in clotted tendrils like intestines tumbling from a split gut. You watch her eyes flicker rapidly, mimicking the wings of the blue bottle flies that buzz around her like errant apostrophes. Raindrops fall from the perforated ceiling and splash upon her face, leaving pale lines like war paint in the crusted filth. Steaming shit encircles her prostrate and dreaming form like a grimy collar as her ripened reveries open themselves to you like the thighs of a barren nymph, and like a maggot in a windfall apple, you burrow in. In your dream you see a murky pond. A boy named Spine washes his hands in the water, breaking its filmy surface to sift cold tadpole jelly through his fingers.
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www.morpheustales.com The Earth is a Drinker of Blood They arrived on foot beneath an aching sky, heads bowed, and bedraggled. Their sanguine scent tainted the spring air, cloying the musky odour of wet hawthorn and bird’s eggs. Despite their puffed faces and rotund bellies they were as vague as wraiths, like the swollen shadows of promenade walkers at dusk, shadows upon shadows, and they were instantly forgotten by the few drivers that passed them travelling along the country lanes. Wet trench coats flapped against their bloated frames and their soaked holdalls were slung over their shoulders like dead animals, the straps carving deep rosy ridges into their doughy shoulders. Raindrops hung from their noses in pink droplets, and their skin, as pale as alabaster, was viscous from the unceasing storm. And with their journey complete they set up camp beneath the hill, and there they waited, fat with blood. In his cottage on the other side of the chalk hills’ backbone Abraham closed the kitchen door, muting the shrill noise of his bickering children in the next room. He sighed and, thinking he had heard distant thunder, stared out of the window over the sink. Dark clouds loosened their sleeves and released another blackout curtain of rain. The bored sounds of Adam and Oliver grated him and he felt his temples throbbing in time with the storm that beat its rug against the window. He remembered Carla, their daughter, and knew that she would never have annoyed him as the boys did. He peered outside at the chalk hill bearing its teeth to the relentless rain as it recalled lost gullies from its receding, green gums. He leaned his head against the cold glass and cursed. He had taken a few days off work to take the kids on some day trips to give his wife Zefferus a break, but so far each day had been ruined by one incessant downpour after another. He felt as though the walls were closing in. He reached up, opened the cupboard and found the tea caddy empty. He cursed again, unable to fathom once more how a day off from work could actually be worse than one in the office.
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www.morpheustales.com Leech Bastian Leech crouched in the shadow of the church spire, waiting for his man. The breeze smarted upon his glistening skin. The Dagon users had formed a loose community of outcasts and losers within Leddenton, instantly recognisable by their glassy fish eyes and briny skin, the back of their hands forever at their noses wiping away strings of kelpy gunk. Bastian knew about Apache; he was reputedly the first to starting pushing Dagon on the streets of his town, and he was an ugly fucker. He was famed amongst Dagon users as a maverick dealer who took genuine pleasure in his work. Bastian didn’t care if their deal was to bring a smile to Apache’s face; he just wanted his fix. The dark and littered street between the churchyard and the old church hall was Apache’s natural habitat, the dark shallows beneath the yew trees where he crouched like a foraging squirrel, watching, always watching; evolution had adapted him to trading in hallowed alcoves and skulking behind gravestones, seeking business in close proximity to death as if he were mocking his clients. Most dealers did it for the money and saw associating with low-life Dagonites as an unpleasant but necessary evil, but money seemed to mean little to Apache. It was all about deals in the shadows and trading in murk, compelling addicts to wait patiently at the church door like drunks seeking the warmth of a midnight mass as he skulked around inside like a rat in a run, or daring them to form a queue at the bus stop in the summer sun as he dangled his toes in the Stour by the shade of the nearby bridge. Bastian remembered him from school as a little ferrety boy, the son of a butcher. He had always been in trouble, fighting anyone no matter how much bigger or older he were. He had gotten his name after stealing petrol from a parked car whilst still in junior school, he had wiped his hands clean in his hair and then lit a cigarette; now his scalp flashed through his hair like the moon reflecting in a weedy pool.
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www.morpheustales.com A Development The extra hours put in at Doghouse and Umbridge Property Developers had finally paid off for Maudlin Time, and at last he had enough capital to invest in a property of his own. The derelict Church Hall in Leddenton was to be his grand project, a tribute to his mother and a tidy source of income for some years to come. Returning to his hometown after years away working in the city, the building he had grown up opposite appeared quite suddenly before him as the road turned. It seemed to be a looming tangle of jade towers and turrets, but as he came nearer this slowly focussed. He saw how overgrown the evergreens had become in the narrow grounds between the building and the road, creating an illusion of some fairytale castle. He parked at the kerb and found the Church Hall to be almost invisible for the overgrowth. Only when he parted the thorny hawthorns and advanced some way up the path was he able to perceive its bowed walls and crumbling roof. Maudlin pondered upon his architectural training and wondered if even De Selby, renowned hater of interiors, might have approved of such an odd construct. It met none of the structural definitions listed as responsible for the degeneration of the human race listed in his famous work, Country Album. It had little of the imposing magnificence that his approach had suggested and bore little resemblance to his memories. In fact, a closer inspection of the exterior revealed a building so anonymous that it was almost invisible. The interior, however, could have been no less different for there was a bewildering kaleidoscope of details. The walls seemed to undulate with fleshy eruptions and bony projections. Doors opened onto damp walls and dark corridors led off into darker passageways. It was far larger inside than the faรงade suggested, and Maudlin found himself once more drawing upon his training.
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www.morpheustales.com The Estate of Things “It’ll be a baptism of fire,” his new colleagues at the Methodist office had declared before he set out. “He won’t last five minutes on the estate,” he heard them whisper as he headed out into the dusk. “He just doesn’t look the part.” “True enough,” thought Bastian Leech as he took a shortcut across the park and headed towards the town centre. He may well have seen the light, but he had his work cut out visualising himself in his new role as a missionary. The estate was a symbol of our fractured society according to a recent article in the local newspaper that he had read, and the towers before him were populated with welfare-claiming immigrants who were high on drugs and low on civil responsibilities. Bastian knew that the estate had kept the local police in jobs long before the Council had moved asylum seekers in. But he also knew that even when the Church Hall had stood on the site, there had been problems with very English squatters and junkies. His knowledge of Leddenton’s social history, however, did little to instil confidence as he walked down the High Street with the tower blocks of the estate silhouetted before him against the fat and pink moon. As he approached the estate, he saw a kid with a tollgate belly standing sentry at the entrance, his green underpants bulging like a hernia through the open fly of his school trousers. The pouch of a catapult hung from his pocket like a leaked stretch of intestine. The kid watched him with eyes like stray currants in a plain bun, and whacked his toy Action Man against the wall with irregular menace. Bastian kept his head down as he walked, tucking his new Bible tightly under his arm and fingering the rosary in his blazer pocket nervously. The tower blocks loomed before him, casting a shadow of cliff-face nausea. He looked up and saw a face emerge from a window above and then quickly withdraw. The tower blocks absorbed the sounds of Leddenton like yew trees around a churchyard, and the click of the catch seemed thunderous as the window closed above.
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www.morpheustales.com Disc Eyes Detective Inspector Spicer slammed the door shut and stamped across the room to rest his forehead against the cool glass of the window. Their hotel room overlooked the promenade; it was a wet spring day and the sea was grey, the sky greyer, and his mood several shades grimmer than the two combined. The deep pulses of bass from a bar below drifted in waves against the glass and made his head throb. If he stood on tiptoes he could just see the top of Blackpool’s famous tower. His assistant and mistress, Amanda, lay upon the bed. She observed him briefly before rolling her eyes and returning her attention to the television. “Shit. Bloody shit,” he said, knocking his head against the warped pane with a dull thump. “What’s up, babe?” said Amanda. “Are you stressing again about your wife?” “I don’t think about her when I’m with you, babe, in fact I don’t think of her at all anymore. But my fucking notebook just fell down the chute with our rubbish,” he replied. “Well, it’ll be right on the top. Just go and find the manager. Then come back and let me have some more hot loving.” “Babe, when we catch this guy I’ll ride you like Streethawk,” he said, grabbing their room key from the dressing table and throwing her an unconvincing grin. He retraced his footsteps across the worn carpets in the corridor and went down to the reception where he rang the bell at the desk and waited. He flicked through tourist brochures, feeling as anaemic as the décor and quickly grew impatient. He turned to face the lounge where a man sat alone in a tired and threadbare armchair reading a battered old book. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But have you seen the manager around here?” The man dropped his book to study him, his face for a moment appearing as plain as eggshell in the sickly light.
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www.morpheustales.com Zombie Ho! Detective Inspector Spicer peered over the top of his sunglasses and licked his lips as a group of girls tumbled drunkenly out of a bar just ahead, their shoulder straps hanging loose, and thongs flashing above low-cut jeans like jewels glistening in bedrock. Neither police work nor his assistant Amanda could compete for his attentions with all this flesh on show in the sunshine. “Spicer,” hissed Amanda, startling him with an elbow in the ribs. The promenade was bustling with tourists and revellers in the evening sun. Huddled clusters of guys nudged each other, swigging from cans of lager, cheering, as another gaggle of party girls swung their hips and kicked their heels, pausing to drain bottles of brightly-coloured booze beside a candy floss stall. Spicer’s head swam in a kaleidoscope of bikini tops and tight shorts, and every shade of flesh between lily-white and orange cordial. “Now I know why you wanted this case so much.” “No way, babe. I just wanted some time alone with you, away from Leddenton,” he replied, taking her hand in his. “I couldn’t care less about catching this murderer.” “Yeah, right,” Amanda said, swinging her handbag high on her shoulder, tossing her hair. “So suddenly you don’t want to be a Chief Inspector. You’ll be telling me you’re going to leave your wife for me next.” He puffed his cheeks in disbelief as one of the girls bent over right in front of him to choose a stick of rock. “Sorry, babe, did you say something?” She tugged his hand and pulled him away from the promenade. “I fancy a coffee,” she said. “Come on.” He took one last longing look at the parade of nubile and drunken flesh, then allowed himself to be lead from the seafront and towards the coffee shops in the town centre.
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www.morpheustales.com GODsWILL Zeferus presses herself against the retina of your memory. You focus acutely, as if seeing the world through a pinhole camera. “You are nothing to me now,” she says, and then turns from the kitchen window to face you. Outside the rain taps its fingers impatiently upon the glass. “But you are the only one for me,” you hear yourself say. “You always were, ever since that time in the summerhouse...” “I’m leaving you,” she replies. You gaze past her and see through the window that outside the sky is as turbulent like a stormy sea. Against the dark backdrop of rain clouds, the outline of the church hall’s roof in the distance looms ever darker. The wind mouths something incomprehensible through the double-glazing, a prompt perhaps. She turns to the window again. Over her shoulder you see an old man cycling down the lane, dressed in a waterproof cape and with the rain falling from him in sheets. He looks like a foreigner, and a childish memory urges you not to trust folk like him, but you can somehow sense that Zeferus wants to speak to him. Her head moves slowly, following his progress. Then she turns abruptly and pushes past you. You go to the window now and crane your neck to look down the lane. The old man rests his bicycle against the wrought iron gate and you watch him climb in to the neighbouring field where an old long barrow lies like a grassy shipwreck. You hear Zeferus thumping around in the hallway and then the front door slams as suddenly as a match strike. You see her walk up the garden path and then turn down the lane. You move away too quickly and dizziness takes hold, and the world spirals around you. Once the spell has passed, you find that something feels different and wrong now, but at first you cannot establish in your mind what it is. The air has become warm and moschate and you sense that there is less of it than there was before. White light slices through the room and sprays shadows at the walls. Where are you? You roll your eye in its pissy pink cup of flesh and look around for the cause of the atmosphere’s displacement. “Hospital? What’s wrong with me?” The words crawl fall from your mouth to the glistening tiled floor like abandoned chicklets from a nest. You smack the taste of sour milk from your palate and look around you, dazed. “What we don’t have, is phantom limb syndrome after all,” Old Black Lip laughs. You look down and see that stretched below you is a soft mass of repulsive white flesh, caked in a reeking continent of vomit. You gaze for a moment upon the disgusting specimen below, and to your horror you find yourself gagging, but worse than that is the discovery that you have a stomach to turn, and a throat for bile to bubble in, and a hand that rises to the corners of your mouth to wipe away the thin yellow stream of fetid stomach acid that appears in response to your thoughts. You want to cast your mind out like an angler’s line, to Maltese temples, to country towns and church halls, to nightclubs and neon. “You’re one of the first to go. This is a rather big day for us. My name is Old Black Lip, and I’m in control here. You might say that I am The Controller.” Your mouth opens and your tongue flaps like a leech in an eddy. You feel your body shake uncontrollably. The light blinds you and you shrink back like a spent cock, receding into warm visions where once you were in control, where you were The Controller. A peculiar and distant memory surfaces and you recall making a lot of money when the rail networks were privatised; it was in the eighties, you think. You had helped your company make their bid and it was because of researching the South West train line and liking the countryside that you had invested in a property in Leddenton. Some of your colleagues back then, finding themselves quite suddenly wealthier than they had ever imagined, had decided to buy yachts whilst others had invested in expensive sports cars, but you had opted for a second home in the country.
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Morpheus Tales #18 Review Supplement, October 2012. Š COPYRIGHT October 2012 Morpheus Tales Publishing, Publishing ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Review can be used, in full or in part, for publicity purposes as long as Morpheus Tales Magazine M is quoted as the source
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