The Inquisition - The Black Abyss

My Inquisition by Colin Leslie (The Black Abyss) is now available to read online.

Malicious Deviance

My copy arrived in the post today - and I'm impressed at its size and the quality of the printing. It looks really good - and I'm looking forward to reading it, apart, of course, from my own story, They Pissed On My Sofa.

Malicious Deviance is published by Library of Horror Press.

The Long List - the British Fantasy Awards

The long list of recommendations for the British Fantasy Awards has just been issued.

Pleased to see that Back from the Dead, the Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories made it.

Plus the Sixth and Seventh Black Books of Horror

The Eighth Black Book of Horror - cover art

Charles Black just emailed me a copy of the artwork by Paul Mudie to be used for the cover of the next Black Book of Horror, made up of the severed heads of the contributing writers. I'm in there amongst them!

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Last night was the final night for this production at Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre. Everyone enjoyed it, and I was pleased that my wife, Linden was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers afterwards and a box of chocolates for all the work she put in to create the four fourteen foot banners used in the play's finale and 29 armbands for the cast.

It's been a great production and I have enjoyed virtually every minute of it, from the twice weekly rehearsals to the final week, when we performed the play every night for seven consecutive nights, including the final four before an audience. Tired now, but I would certainly do something like this again. Oswaldtwistle Players are a great group to work with, with some outstandingly talented members who it's been a real pleasure and privilege to have worked with on this production.

Horror Writers Association - Wiki

The HWA now has its own wiki.

The Century's Best Horror Fiction

It looks as if this long awaited anthology will finally be published in the very near future by Cemetery Dance. According to this link the two volumes are almost ready for the printers except for one signature on the signature sheet for the deluxe edition.

I have been looking forward to this coming out for several years now, ever since John Pelan first contacted me about it. After all, it's not often you can have a story published in such exalted company!

Table of Contents
1901: Barry Pain -- The Undying Thing
1902: W.W. Jacobs -- The Monkey's Paw
1903: H.G.Wells -- The Valley of the Spiders
1904: Arthur Machen -- The White People
1905: R. Murray Gilchrist -- The Lover's Ordeal
1906: Edward Lucas White -- House of the Nightmare
1907: Algernon Blackwood -- The Willows
1908: Perceval Landon -- Thurnley Abbey
1909: Violet Hunt -- The Coach
1910: Wm Hope Hodgson -- The Whistling Room
1911: M.R. James -- Casting the Runes
1912: E.F. Benson -- Caterpillars
1913: Aleister Crowley -- The Testament of Magdelan Blair
1914: M. P. Shiel -- The Place of Pain
1915: Hanns Heinz Ewers -- The Spider
1916: Lord Dunsany -- Thirteen at Table
1917: Frederick Stuart Greene -- The Black Pool
1918: H. De Vere Stacpoole -- The Middle Bedroom
1919: Ulric Daubeny -- The Sumach
1920: Maurice Level -- In the Light of the Red Lamp
1921: Vincent O'Sullivan -- Master of Fallen Years
1922: Walter de la Mare -- Seaton's Aunt
1923: George Allen England -- The Thing From--"Outside"
1924: C.M. Eddy, Jr. -- The Loved Dead
1925: John Metcalfe -- The Smoking Leg
1926: H.P. Lovecraft -- The Outsider
1927: Donald Wandrei -- The Red Brain
1928: H.R. Wakefield -- The Red Lodge
1929: Eleanor Scott -- Celui-La
1930: Rosalie Muspratt -- Spirit of Stonhenge
1931: Henry S. Whitehead -- Cassius
1932: David H. Keller -- The Thing in the Cellar
1933: C.L. Moore -- Shambleau
1934: L.A. Lewis -- The Tower of Moab
1935: Clark Ashton Smith -- The Dark Eidolon
1936: Thorp McCluskey -- The Crawling Horror
1937: Howard Wandrei -- The Eerie Mr Murphy
1938: Robert E. Howard -- Pigeons from Hell
1939: Robert Barbour Johnson -- Far Below
1940: John Collier -- Evening Primrose
1941: C.M. Kornbluth -- The Words of Guru
1942: Jane Rice -- The Idol of the Flies
1943: Anthony Boucher -- They Bite
1944: Ray Bradbury -- The Jar
1945: August Derleth -- Carousel
1946: Manly Wade Wellman -- Shonokin Town
1947: Theodore Sturgeon -- Bianca's Hands
1948: Shirley Jackson -- The Lottery
1949: Nigel Kneale -- The Pond
1950: Richard Matheson -- Born of Man & Woman
1951: Russell Kirk -- Uncle Isiah
1952: Eric Frank Russell -- I Am Nothing
1953: Robert Sheckley -- The Altar
1954: Everil Worrell -- Call Not Their Names
1955: Robert Aickman -- Ringing the Changes
1956: Richard Wilson -- Lonely Road
1957: Clifford Simak -- Founding Father
1958: Robert Bloch -- That Hell-Bound Train
1959: Charles Beaumont -- The Howling Man
1960: Fredric Brown -- The House
1961: Ray Russell -- Sardonicus
1962: Carl Jacobi -- The Aquarium
1963: Robert Arthur -- The Mirror of Cagliostro
1964: Charles Birkin -- A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
1965: Jean Ray -- The Shadowy Street
1966: Arthur Porges -- The Mirror
1967: Norman Spinrad -- Carcinoma Angels
1968: Anna Hunger -- Come
1969: Steffan Aletti -- The Last Work of Pietro Apono
1970: David A. Riley -- The Lurkers in the Abyss
1971: Dorothy K. Haynes -- The Derelict Track
1972: Gary Brandner -- The Price of a Demon
1973: Eddy C. Bertin -- Like Two White Spiders
1974: Karl Edward Wagner -- Sticks
1975: David Drake -- The Barrow Troll
1976: Dennis Etchison -- It Only Comes Out at Night
1977: Barry N. Malzberg -- The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady
1978: Michael Bishop -- Within the Walls of Tyre
1979: Ramsey Campbell -- Mackintosh Willy
1980: Michael Shea -- The Autopsy
1981: Stephen King -- The Reach
1982: Fritz Leiber -- Horrible Imagings
1983: David Schow -- One for the Horrors
1984: Bob Leman -- The Unhappy Pilgrimage of Clifford M.
1985: Michael Reaves -- The Night People
1986: Tim Powers -- Night Moves
1987: Ian Watson -- Evil Water
1988: Joe R. Lansdale -- The Night They Missed the Horror Show
1989: Joel Lane -- The Earth Wire
1990: Elizabeth Massie -- Stephen
1991: Thomas Ligotti -- The Glamour
1992: Poppy Z. Brite -- Calcutta Lord of Nerves
1993: Lucy Taylor -- The Family Underwater
1994: Jack Ketchum -- The Box
1995: Terry Lamsley -- The Toddler
1996: Caitlín R. Kiernan -- Tears Seven Times Salt
1997: Stephen Laws -- The Crawl
1998: Brian Hodge -- As Above, So Below
1999: Glen Hirshberg -- Mr. Dark's Carnival
2000: Tim Lebbon -- Reconstructing Amy

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

We've now got just two rehearsals left before he play opens on Wednesday night. Looking good. There's plenty of humour and action in it, and the audience will certainly have no time for dozing off with all the gunfire - not that I imagine any of them will be tempted anyway!

This is only the second play I have ever been involved with as one of the actors - and I am enjoying virtually every minute of it. We were at the theatre from ten o'clock yesterday morning till gone five at night. The stage, though sparse, looks very impressive. I'm especially pleased at the fourteen foot banners that Lin made for it. Not to mention all the armbands for the cast!

Paul McGowan plays the lead as Arturo Ui, whose rise to power as the leading gangster in 1920s Chicago mirrors the rise to power of Hitler. Paul is brilliant in the role. Chris Knight, as director, does seem to have a knack to get the best out of the cast too - which is quite large.Despite all the pressures he must be feeling he seems to have kept his good humour - not to mention his sense of humour too!

Duke Nukem Forever

I have always loved Duke Nukem, though it's a long time since I last played the game. This new one looks pretty brilliant.

And tempting!

Wake Wood

Got the DVD for this latest Hammer epic this weekend. Surprisingly good, and with some unexpected twists - and a toe-curling end that I did not anticipate at all, but which makes horrifying sense. Some good performances, particularly from Ella Connolly, who plays the little girl, and TV stalwart Timoth Spall. This is a true Folk Horror in the tradition of The Wicker Man, though it owes nothing to that earlier film and has an original storyline all of its own. Some quite gruesome - and exceedingly realistic - scenes which would certainly never have been allowed past the censor during Hammer's heyday in the sixties, but are far from gratuitous. In a way, they help to build up what it really means to live and work in the countryside, away from the sentimentality of townlife. Well worth watching.

 

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

A photo of some of the cast in the Oswaldtwistle Players production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, which starts this coming Wednesday for four nights at the Civic Theatre, Oswaldtwistle.

Front left is Paul McGowan who plays Ui. Next to him, with the machine gun, is Chris Knight, our producer. I'm stood just behind him at the edge of the photo, arms folded and looking as grim as I can manage as a gangster bodyguard. Our first dress rehearsal is Sunday at the theatre.

MURDER! MAYHEM! HIGH DRAMA AND LAUGHS!

Popular award winning local actor Paul McGowan takes the title role of Chicago mob leader Arturo Ui in this blackly comic satire set in the late 1920’s. Arturo runs his protection racket with a Hitler-like ruthlessness. With his murderous gang he takes control of the greengrocery wholesale business in Chicago using extortion and intimidation .

First Chicago, then Cicero and then...? Nothing less than world domination in the cauliflower trade.

 OSWALDTWISTLE PLAYERS present this classic and chillingly funny play

 at the newly re-furbished Civic Theatre (it’s very nice now),

Union Rd, Oswaldtwistle BB5 3HZ

The Resistible Rise of ARTURO UI

by Bertolt Brecht, directed by Chris Knight

April 6^th to 9^th 2011 at 7.30pm

Tickets:-   Adult £8, concessions, £7. with a special first night price of £6 all seats

Discounts available for block bookings.

Available from:-

The Tourist Office, Accrington Town Hall,

The Civic Arts Centre, Union Rd, Oswaldtwistle,

Edmundson’s Sweet Shop, 172 Union Rd, Oswaldtwistle

On-line at www.ticketsource.co.uk/oswplayers

Or ring 01254 236057

Malicious Deviance now available

Robert Essig's anthology Malicious Deviance is now available. Copies can be bought direct from Amazon.

The anthology includes my short story They Pissed on my Sofa and twenty-four others.

"Everyone has a story .... EVERYONE! In Malicious Deviance you will read 25 tales of obsession, murder, blasphemy, corruption, death and much, much more. Bad people have stories too. How do socialites really acquire their power? What is the truth about ole St. Nick? Can a woman's love for her husband's well being go too far? Can a man truly manipulate the feeble minded into suicide? Would you like a peek into Hell? Yes, bad people have stories to tell, and you won't soon forget the evil these 25 tales are laden with - the horror and depravity of Malicious Deviance."

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

We had another good rehearsal last night. We have started to use some of the blank firing handguns that will be used in the production to get us used to the noise - they really do go off with a hell of a bang. And, even though you know they are only firing blanks, it's still a bit unnerving to have one pointed at you at close range, knowing it's going to be fired.

Lin was asked to make 26 Nazi-style armbands (with the letters UI instead of a swastika) and 4 fourteen-foot banners for the stage for a Nuremberg-like finale. The armbands are finished and three of the banners only need the large white circles with the letters UI sewing onto the red matrerial. I took one of the banners to the rehearsal. It looked pretty good when it was stretched out in the hall.

We had some photos taken last night. I had to sit in my gangster-bodyguard role with a fake machine gun resting on one knee, looking mean!

BFS Journal

The next issue of the BFS Journal will be out shortly (it's at the printers now). This, of course, includes Prism as well as Dark Horizons and New Horizons. It has a pretty brilliant cover by Daniele Sierra.