Poem - As Silver Dusk Suffuses Red

As silver dusk suffuses red

And eastern skies dull mauve,

Frail laughter comes out through the gloom,

From every bush and grove.

The sound of movement, gay and brisk,

Bursts through the night's warm mist,

And, as the sky harvests its stars

Vague forms leap up, moon-kissed,   

Each writhing, with wide open mouths,

Each eye bright as a bird's,

Whilst through the woods come further shapes,

Sprites in a thousand herds.

Blossoming flames from fires reach up

And strive to dye the moon.

The dancing, singing hurries on,

For dawn will come so soon!

This was published in Phantasmagoria #15

The Forbidden Planet on blu-ray

I have ordered a blu-ray copy of The Forbidden Planet.
This was one of the very first SF movies my parents ever took me to watch at the cinema when I was little (the other was The Day the Earth Stood Still).
For a long time I thought the invisible monster at the climax, the Monster from the Id, was the tiger's ghost till I finally saw the film again years later. It's strange the misconceptions you can get from a film when you're very young.

Children of Dune - TV mini-series from 2003

I don't know how I missed it but I finally caught up with the 2003 TV mini-series Children of Dune. I am surprised it's not better known as its production values are impressive. A very complex storyline, which you definitely have to pay attention to in order to keep up, but well worth it. For me it's definitely up there as one of the best TV science fiction adaptations ever.

Midway

Watched Midway last night on amazon prime and was very impressed. Well acted and scripted, full of action and drama about a battle that saw the turning of the tide in the war in the Pacific. The special effects used for the action scenes and the recreation of the planes, aircraft carriers, etc in this epic battle were excellent.
It was a battle I had heard about but about which I knew very little. I didn't realise just how easily things could have gone quite differently so that Japan would have been left in a position to cripple the United States for years to come. Nor did I realise how much depended on accurate intelligence to determine just where the Japanese would strike.
It was interesting to see some of the storylines of some of the key people in the drama at the end, though what striuck me most was how many Chinese were killed by the Japanese because they were suspected of having helped the 80 American airmen who bombed Tokyo to escape back to the States. This was an incredible 250,000!
Defintely recommended for anyone who likes war films, history and action movies in general.

Books for review

I am slowly building up a small list of books I intend to review, starting with S. T. Joshi's The Assaults of Chaos. When I have finished this I'll start Paul Tremblay's Survivor Song, then Adrian Cole's Elak, King of Atlantis.

A pretty varied selection of books. 

When I have read and reviewed them I'll be sending my reviews on to Trevor Kennedy for Phantasmagoria magazine, though I will also include them on this blog.

 

Hanuman to be published in the next issue of Phantasmagoria / Three Eyed Jack in Gruesome Grotesques

Artwork © Jim Pitts

Trevor Kennedy's Phantasmagoria magazine will feature my previously unpublished story Hanuman.  Set in India Hanuman is a yarn about reincarnation, the great god Kali and the notorious Cult of the Thuggees. 

Gruesome Grotesques, also edited by Trevor, will feature yet another brand new story, Three Eyed Jack, with artwork by Jim Pitts. In this tale, Jack has been born with a third eye. But what it can see is not just of this world...

Grudge End Cloggers to be published in Scare Me

My next new story to be published will be Grudge End Cloggers in Esskaye Books' Scare Me anthology. The book will be out in August.

Other writers in the collection are:
Tylor James
Jarred Martin
Rob Francis
Laura DeHaan
Chris Kuriata
Dee Caples
Stephen McQuiggan
Holley Cornetto
James Dorr
Alex Ebenstein
Trisha McKee

The effectively creepy artwork on the cover is the work of  M. J. Hiblen.

The Assaults of Chaos: A novel about H. P. Lovecraft by S. T. Joshi

I came across a reference to this novel on The Vault of Evil. Despite the fact that it was given one four-star and one one-star review on amazon, I was so intrigued by it that I found a copy from a reliable British bookseller on Abebooks and ordered it. The one-star review could very easily have been written by someone with a grudge against Joshi, something which wouldn't surprise me at all, taking into account Joshi's often outspoken views on Lovecraft and other authors.

Anyway, I'll see for myself how good or bad this novel is and write a review which, hopefully, will be included in a future issue of Phantasmagoria magazine.

New short story acceptance - Grudge End Cloggers

Very pleased to have received a short story acceptance this morning for an anthology due later this year in the UK. The story is one I finished only a few months ago, Grudge End Cloggers. As anyone familiar with my stories, especially those written over the past decade, will know Grudge End is a particular favourite locale of mine (it features in my novel The Return too) where bad things usually happen.

More details later.

Phantasmagoria 15 now out in print and ebook

The latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine is now available to order from Amazon in print and an ebook and will shortly be available from certain shops.

The front cover by artist Jim Pitts is for my story The Fragile Mask on His Face, also included in this issue, along with a couple of my drawings and a poem, As Silver Dusk Suffuses Red, again with a Jim Pitts illustration.

Amazon UK
Amazon USA

 

Three Eyed Jack

Very pleased to learn that Trevor Kennedy will be including my brand new story Three Eyed Jack in the next edition of Gruesome Grotesques: Carnival of Freaks later this year.

Phantasmagoria Magazine #15

Coming this weekend, the latest issue of Phantasmagoria. The brilliant cover artwork by Jim Pitts illustrates my story The Fragile Mask on his Face, which is published in this issue. I also have a poem and some artwork in it too.

Cover artwork for Phantasmagoria magazine for my story The Fragile Mask on his Face

I can now reveal the fantastic cover artwork by Jim Pitts for my story The Fragile Mask on his Face, which will be in the next issue of Phantasmagoria magazine, due next week.

The Evil Leader of Communist China

Chinese death threats for Polish illustrator! 

Her boss wants to fire her. Read the article on the link below. 

And below that is the illustration in question.

link 

No one should have to suffer under Communist rule. 

It's time the Chinese people were helped to shake off the shackles of that despotic regime.