This issue includes my 12,000 word story The Psychic Investigator, which is set in my fictitious Grudge End.
Monday, 31 October 2022
The latest issue of Lovecraftian: The Magazine of Eldritch Horror
Sunday, 16 October 2022
My story The Psychic Investigator is in the next issue of Lovecraftiana Magazine
I have had a number of stories in the Lovecraftiana Magazine but these have always, till now, been reprints. This is the first brand-new story I have purposefully written for the magazine to appear in it.
Though the title might not sound Lovecraftian, believe me it is. It is also set in one of my favourite fictitious places: Grudge End.
Thursday, 6 October 2022
Inside Man
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We watched all four episodes of Inside Man last night after having read so many glowing reports about it.
I must admit to having mixed views about it. The parts set in the United States, especially with both Stanley Tucci and Askins Estimond were great - fascinating and amusing - and very well written and acted. The two characters are so different they make an engrossing double act. But the English scenes with David Tennant were often irritating and downright daft. Normally I like Tennant's acting but in this he seemed over the top, irrational and the set up for the storyline in which he is involved seemed unrealistically contrived and unbelievable. As for his son - the less said the better.
Although I would have given all of the US scenes 5 out of 5, I could only offer a rather grudging two for the rest. If there is a second season and it is predominantly about the two Americans on Death Row I would look forward to watching it. But, please, no more "Sexy Vicar"!
Friday, 30 September 2022
Submissions open for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 5 at midnight tonight
Submissions open for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 5 at midnight tonight until midnight on the 31st October.
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Payment
is £25 per story regardless of length plus one contributor's copy of
the paperback. The book will be published as a paperback and ebook. If a
hardcover version is published we will pay an additional £25. Please send your submissions as attachments (doc or docx) headed
"Submission - Swords & Sorceries 5"
to:
paralleluniversepublications@gmx.co.uk
You can send in more than one submission, but we will not accept more than one story per writer. Please only send one story at a time.
Although we prefer original stories we are prepared to consider reprints. Just let us know where and when it was previously published.
You can send in simultaneous submissions, but let us know if your story is accepted elsewhere as soon as you can.
There is no limit on the size of submissions.
There is no need to tell me anything about yourself because the only thing that matters is the story.
All
rejections and acceptances will be sent out by email by the end of the
first week in November. Please don't enquire about your submission
before then.
And good luck!
In the past we have received a number of stories that may be fantasy but are not swords and sorcery. If you are unsure what the swords and sorcery genre is, why not get a better idea by checking out volumes 1 - 4:
Also check our dedicated facebook group:
The contents of Volume One are:
THE MIRROR OF TORJAN SUL - Steve Lines
THE HORROR FROM THE STARS - Steve Dilks
TROLLS ARE DIFFERENT - Susan Murrie Macdonald
CHAIN OF COMMAND - Geoff Hart
DISRUPTION OF DESTINY - Gerri Leen
THE CITY OF SILENCE - Eric Ian Steele
RED - Chadwick Ginther
THE RECONSTRUCTED GOD - Adrian Cole
The cover and all the interior artwork is by Jim Pitts.
amazon.co.uk
The contents of Volume 2 are:
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.
The contents of Volume 3 are:
Sorcerous Vengeance by Lorenzo D. Lopez
Seal Snatchers of Jorsaleem by Tais Teng
When the Gods Send You Rats by Chadwick Ginther
Mother's Bones by Carson Ray
In the Lair of the Snake-Witch by Darin Hlavaz
The Rains of Barofonn by Mike Chinn
Wardark by Craig Herbertson
The Foliage by Rab Foster
In the Lair of the Moonmen by Jon Hansen
Sailing on the Thieves' Tide by Adrian Cole
Illustrations by Jim Pitts.
Swords & Sorceries: Tales of
Heroic Fantasy Volume 4 contains
eleven tales:
In the Iron Woods by Dev Agarwal
My People Were Fair and Wore Stars in Their Hair by Andrew Darlington
At Sea by Geoff Hart
The Flesh of Man by Frank Sawielijew
City at the Mouth of Chaos by Adrian Cole
In the Belly of the Beast by Edward Ahern
The Tracks of the Pi Nereske by Wendy Nikel
Slaves of the Monolith by Paul D. Batteiger
The Green Wood by David Dubrow
Demonic by Phil Emery
The Whips of Malmac by H. R. Laurence
Tuesday, 27 September 2022
Welgar the Cursed to be published in Swords & Heroes edited by Lyndon Perry
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I can now reveal that my story Welgar the Cursed will appear in Swords & Heroes edited by Lyndon Perry, probably in January next year.
Sunday, 25 September 2022
An Interview and a reprint of my story Hanuman are now available on Meghan's Haunted House of Books
I am very pleased that a brand new author interview and a reprint of my story Hanuman (first published in Phantasmagoria Magazine) are live now on Meghan's Haunted House of Books. Just click on the links posted below to access them:
Monday, 12 September 2022
New sword and sorcery story accepted for publication
The good news today is that I have had another sword and sorcery story accepted for publication in an anthology to be published early next year.
The story is called Welgar the Cursed and I'll be releasing more information about the anthology in the near future.
Saturday, 10 September 2022
Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy
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With eleven great swords and sorcery tales, and interior and cover art by award-winning artist Jim Pitts, this series is going from strength to strength.
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| Greyscale version |
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| Full colour version |
Sunday, 4 September 2022
Review: Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography by R. B. Russell
This review was published in Phantasmagoria magazine #21 August 2022
By R. B. Russell
Tartarus Press 2022 Hardcover
Ray Russell’s highly readable biography of Robert Aickman gives an unparalleled glimpse into a life that contained more psychological complications than is usual even amongst authors of “strange stories”. It is a life full of contradictions, not least being the unreliability of his own version of events, to the extent of omitting any mention of his wife of fourteen years in his two autobiographies. And his dislike of technology, “experts” and our modern age was so strong that he never owned a radio, television or a car. Instead, living in London he frequently attended theatres, opera and the ballet, and for quite some time wrote opera reviews.
Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography is a warts and all biography, which is not, I must confess, what I expected from Tartarus Press, which has published Aickman’s entire opus over recent years. All credit to them and to Ray Russell for being unflinchingly objective in the biography of a writer whose writings he and Tartarus Press obviously value immensely.
It is a fact that throughout his life Aickman’s uncompromising views on so many things caused him to have some bitter enemies, such as L.T. C Rolt, with whom he co-founded the Inland Waterways Association in 1946, and who Aickman successfully worked with for many years until an intractable divergence of views on what the objectives of the IWA should be caused a lasting rift. Indeed, it was so bad that at a dinner party in 1974, shortly before his death, Rolt claimed Aickman was “the most evil man I have ever known.” Which is a sad reflection on how their long-time collaboration had descended into such acrimony.
Alas for Aickman, Rolt was not the only enemy he made, and it’s suggested this was why, despite all the work he put into the IWA, Aickman never received any official recognition in the form of some kind of honour, whether an OBE or a knighthood.
Of course, for most of us, Aickman is mainly known for his stories. Significantly, although he wrote extensively for the IWA, it was only when he developed a relationship with the writer Elizabeth Jane Howard the first of the stories he became famous for saw publication, when they co-authored the collection We Are for the Dark. Even then books of short stories by little or unknown writers were rare and it saw publication by Jonathan Cape only because of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s earlier success with her novel The Beautiful Visit, which Cape had published. The collection was made up of six stories, three by both contributors, though who wrote which was not revealed at the time.
Since then, of course, numerous collections of stories by Aickman have been published over the years, and for quite some time he was the highly respected editor of the Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories. He also went on to receive recognition within the genre and was awarded the prize for Best Short Story for Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal in 1975 at the First World Fantasy Awards in Providence, Rhode Island, though unfortunately he was unable to attend. For some reason his visa was declined by the United States. The following year he was Guest of Honour at the British Fantasy Society’s annual convention, FantasyCon.
Unfortunately, Aickman’s distrust of experts and modern technology led him to refuse chemotherapy when he was diagnosed with cancer in 1980, preferring instead to take homeopathic remedies. He died the following year aged 66.
Review: Pariah by Sam Dawson
This review was published in Phantasmagoria magazine #21 August 2022
Published by Supernatural Tales, 188 pages
Not only does Pariah contain sixteen excellent stories by Sam Dawson, it also includes some really well drawn line illustrations by the author too. Plus he created its distinctive cover.
Pariah and Other Stories is an entertainingly varied collection. While some of the tales are darkly disturbing, others are satisfyingly horrific. All share an air of authenticity.
Sixteen stories are too many to itemise here, especially as some are only a few pages long, so I will mention two that impressed me the most.
Field Trip is also one of the longest. In it we encounter two close friends who have had a long, ongoing passion for camping in unusual places, especially those with a ghostly reputation, as a sort of daring do. Perhaps inevitably, they finally chance on somewhere that not only lives up to its reputation but does so in ways the two of them least expect – somewhere that proves far more dangerous than either of them is prepared. For them it was just supposed to be a long lost, deserted village, isolated since the sixteenth century due to plague. No longer even shown on any maps, they are surprised to discover it is far from deserted and going there will change their lives forever. A well-conceived and gripping story with some unexpected twists.
The other that especially caught my attention is the title story itself: Pariah. Set during the second world war at a time when the allied armies are still fighting their way across Europe, Pariah is the nickname bestowed on a specially converted Churchill tank. It has had its main gun removed to be replaced with a massive flame thrower. Needing a new command after having lost the crew of his previous tank when it was hit by a shell while he was temporarily away from it, Sergeant Freddie Brown is offered the Pariah. Few tankmen want anything to do with flame throwers as they are regarded by most as a barbaric weapon. In fact, they are hated so much by the Germans they are known to shoot any of their crews who fall into their hands – which is why Brown’s new command comes with a brand-new crew. Its previous one were executed when the tank was briefly captured. As events unfold, it isn’t long before it becomes obvious to Brown that the tank’s reputation goes further than the detestation felt by everyone towards its function, a reputation that continues long past the end of the war up until the present day in a well-researched tale full of authentic-sounding anecdotes and facts.
One of the things that impressed me most about all of these stories, besides their variety, is the author’s research into what he is writing, without ever becoming pedantic about it.
All in all, an excellent collection which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Pariah & Other Stories is published by Supernatural Tales and is available to
purchase from Lulu and other outlets.
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