This was first published in Alone on the Darkside, edited by the late John Pelan for ROC Books. It was a story inspired by a visit to the ancient city of Knossos when we were on holiday in Crete some years ago.
The contents of Volume 2 are:
Introduction by David A. Riley
The Essence of Dust by Mike Chinn
Highjacking the Lord of Light by Tais Teng
Out in the Wildlands by Martin Owton
Zale and Zedril by Susan Murrie Macdonald
The Amulet and the Shadow by Steve Dilks
Antediluvia: Seasons of the World by Andrew Darlington
A Thousand Words for Death by Pedro Iniguez
Stone Snake by Dev Agarwal
Seven Thrones by Phil Emery
The Eater of Gods by Adrian Cole
Illustrations by Jim Pitts.
Amazon.co.uk £11.99 paperback/£2.99 kindle
Amazon.com $16.97 paperback/$4.23 kindle
The latest issue of Phantasmagoria Magazine includes my review of There Goes Pretty by horror writer C. C. Adams.
THERE GOES PRETTY by C. C. Adams
Dark Minds Press, 2021
Not all ghost stories lead to misery, horror, and violent death – but there is never any doubt that these are exactly where There Goes Pretty is taking us.
Set in present day London, with numerous name checks on eating places and other fashionable venues, it is not a world within which one would normally expect the supernatural to emerge, yet this is exactly what happens here, written with deceptive subtlety as newly married couple, Denny and Olivia find their new found joy subverted by something neither of them can understand.
It begins with Olivia, who might just be suffering from hallucinations to start with, till she is subjected to a physical assault and realises she is either self-harming without knowing about it or being subjected to attacks by something preternatural that has evil intentions towards her.
A practical woman, though, Olivia is mystified why the manifestation can only be seen and felt by her, while her husband goes on with his life with no other worries than the state of his wife’s mental health, which he is totally ill-equipped to understand. An inevitable rift grows between them, which the manifestation is only too eager to exploit, sending Olivia deeper into a mental breakdown.
Only after this has reached its horrific conclusion does Denny begin to realise the grim reality of what is going on – but the results from his reactions, though dramatically different than his wife’s, are just as horrific.
Some tales have no happy outcomes. Some tales you know don’t have this as an option. And so it is with There Goes Pretty, in which the horror accumulates to a bleak and deadly conclusion and a closing line that says it all.
Well written, fast moving, and as bleak as hell, There Goes Pretty is grim, unsettling and incredibly gripping.
The contents of Volume 2 are:
Introduction by David A. Riley
The Essence of Dust by Mike Chinn
Highjacking the Lord of Light by Tais Teng
Out in the Wildlands by Martin Owton
Zale and Zedril by Susan Murrie Macdonald
The Amulet and the Shadow by Steve Dilks
Antediluvia: Seasons of the World by Andrew Darlington
A Thousand Words for Death by Pedro Iniguez
Stone Snake by Dev Agarwal
Seven Thrones by Phil Emery
The Eater of Gods by Adrian Cole
Illustrations by Jim Pitts.
Volume 1 is still available:
Parallel Universe Publications
In 2015, his Sherlock Holmes steampunk mash-up, Vallis Timoris (Fringe-works), sent the famous detective to the Moon. Parallel Universe Publications has also published a collection of his stories, Radix Omnium Malum.
In his own language he has written everything from radio-plays to hefty fantasy trilogies.
To date he has sold sixty-eight stories in the English language and two children's books: When the Nightgaunt Knows Your Name and The Emerald Boy. His YA novel Phaedra: Alastor 824, set in the universe of Jack Vance, has been published by Spatterlight Press.
His most recent sales have been to Daily Science Fiction, Unreal, Lowlife and Cirsova.
English website: http://taisteng.atspace.com/
Art: https://taisteng.deviantart.com/
Susan lives in a small town in Tennessee about twenty kilometres from Memphis. She is married to a travel agent and has a son and daughter of university age. She has had stories in Tales from OmniPark, Under Western Stars, Space Force: Building a Legacy, Cat Tails: War Zone, Wee Tales, The Caterpillar, Sirius Science Fiction, Itty Bitty Writing Space, Bumples, Alternative Truths, More Alternative Truths, Paper Butterfly, Sword and Sorceress, Knee-High Drummond and the Durango Kid, Barbarian Crowns, and Supernatural Colorado.
Andrew’s website is http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.co.uk/
Originally from Los Angeles, he now resides in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he is currently working on his second novel.
Dev has been editing non-fiction for a number of years and is non-fiction editor for the magazine Khoreo. He is also the editor of Focus, the magazine for genre writers produced by the British Science Fiction Association.
His fantasy often draws on historical events. His story Stone Snake is the start of a series of adventures of the principal character travelling home.
The contents of Volume 2 are:
Introduction by David A. Riley
The Essence of Dust by Mike Chinn
Highjacking the Lord of Light by Tais Teng
Out in the Wildlands by Martin Owton
Zale and Zedril by Susan Murrie Macdonald
The Amulet and the Shadow by Steve Dilks
Antediluvia: Seasons of the World by Andrew Darlington
A Thousand Words for Death by Pedro Iniguez
Stone Snake by Dev Agarwal
Seven Thrones by Phil Emery
The Eater of Gods by Adrian Cole
Illustrations by Jim Pitts.
Volume 1 is still available:
Parallel Universe Publications
LATER by Stephen King
Titan Books, Hard Case Crime Novels, 2021Stephen King is never afraid of picking up a previously used trope and adapting it. In fact, he openly references the most obvious comparison to this particular trope, The Sixth Sense. Both that and Later revolve around a boy who can “see dead people.” Not only that, but whenever Jamie Conklin, who narrates Later in the first person, asks them questions they have to give him honest answers.
Of course, being a Stephen King novel things don’t pan out well and we soon discover there are horrors out there which can make use of the recently deceased, something which Jamie finds out to his cost.
I must admit I didn’t find this Stephen King book as engaging as I normally do, possibly because it is written in the first person and maybe, too, because he tries to make it read like something a non-literary person would write. But it does move at a cracking pace and there are certainly some unexpected twists and turns along the way. And at around 230 pages it is one of his shortest novels.
Unusually, I didn’t find that the villainous characters, including Jamie’s mother’s one time girlfriend, the corrupt cop Liz Dutton, or the serial killer Kenneth Therriault, known as The Thumper, came over as vividly as they usually do in King’s novels. Perhaps the naïve first-person narrative prevented this, as we only see things from Jamie Conklin’s juvenile perspective.
Nevertheless, for all of this the book is far from boring, and despite being published as a “hard case crime” novel is replete with supernatural horrors – more than enough to satisfy all but the most jaded of King’s fans.
Trevor Kennedy publishes the fabulous magazine Phantasmagoria.
