Casting the Runes: The Letters of M. R. James

CASTING THE RUNES: The Letters of M. R. James

Edited by Jane Mainley-Piddock

Foreword by Mark Gatiss

Unbound, 2023; Hardcover £25; kindle £15.99

Anyone expecting these letters to be in any way similar to those of H. P. Lovecraft or the recent Hippocampus collection of Clark Ashton Smith’s correspondence with August Derleth, in which, besides discussing subjects of particular interest to the writers, they write about their stories, may be disappointed that there is no mention within any of James’s letters about his ghost stories.

But, I hasten to add, don’t let this put you off, as they are an illuminating glimpse into the everyday life of the author, particularly helped by the notes added after every letter by Jane Mainley-Piddock, which, if anything, are even more interesting than the letters themselves, adding many much-needed background details and facts.

The letters are an easy read, usually written in a chatty, laid-back style. They start with his earliest letters in 1873 and go on to 1927, when he is Provost of Eton.

One of the longest notes goes on to discuss James’s fascination with Charles Dickens’s final, uncompleted novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood and his attempts to find a solution to it, as well as his fondness for detective stories, in particular Conan Doyle’s, which had an influence on the structure of his own ghost stories. Jane Mainley-Piddock’s notes, in fact, are worth the price of the book in themselves, with great insights into James and his stories.

Contrary to what I expected I read the entire volume of over 200 pages within just a few days and was never bored. Definitely something for anyone who loves the ghost stories of M. R. James and would like to read more by and about him.

It comes with a Foreword by James enthusiast Mark Gatis, and an Introduction by the editor.

Reviewed by David A. Riley

This review was read out by Trevor Kennedy on his weekly broadcast on Big Hits Radio UK on Sunday the 26th February 2023, and is also included in Phantasmagoria magazine, Spring 2023.

My review of Casting the Runes: The Letters of M. R. James to be read on Trevor Kennedy's Broadcast this Sunday

My review of Casting the Runes: The Letters of M. R. James, edited by Jane Mainley-Piddock will be broadcast on Trevor Kennedy's radio show this Sunday on Big Hits Radio UK between 12 noon and 2 p.m. 

It will also be included in the next issue of Phantasmagoria, which will be available towards the end of next week.

Latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine includes a Tribute to the late Charles Black

I am pleased to announce that the latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine, due at the end of February, includes a tribute to Charles Black close to the 4th anniversary of his death, with contributions collected by me from Stephen Bacon, Mike Chinn, Kevin Demant, Kate Farrell, Paul Finch, Craig Herbertson, Paul Mudie, Thana Niveau, Reggie Oliver, Marion Pitman, John Probert, David A. Sutton, Anna Taborska and David Williamson. 

It was while I was at Charles's funeral I was told by Kevin Demant that Charles had told him he had intended to start a regular anthology of swords and sorcery stories like the Black Books of Horror. Unfortunately ill health and his death prevented him from ever doing this - which is why I created Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy and why each volume is dedicated to him.

New story finished: Ossani's Slaves

After having just had two stories accepted for publication, last night I finished another: Ossani's Slaves, which is yet another involving my secretive sorcerer, Ossani the Healer, who first appeared at the end of The Storyteller of Koss, before going on to become one of the two main characters in Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus, alongside Welgar the Northerner. 

Two more stories accepted for publication in 2023

Yesterday I found out two of my stories will see print later this year, one a reprint and the other new.

    The reprint is a story called Swan Song, which originally appeared in The Ninth Black Book of Horror. This will be reprinted in August in Schlock Webzine.

    The new story is a sword and sorcery tale called The Dark Priestdom, which will appear in the next issue of Savage Realms Monthly. This will mark my second story in that great magazine. It's also a prequel to Welgar the Cursed, which will be in Lyndon Perry's Swords & Heroes anthology in May.

 

New Monochrome Ad for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy

A new monochrome ad for the Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy anthology series has been produced and will appear for the first time in the next issue of Phantasmagoria magazine, due soon. 

 

Free E-Book Promotion 1st - 5th February 2023: A Handful of Zombies: Tales of the Restless Dead

From the 1st till the 5th February the kindle version of A Handful of Zombies: Tales of the Restless Dead will be free to download. The paperback will remain available for £5.00.

amazon.co.uk

amazon.com

All four stories in this collection cover a wide range of tropes within the zombie genre. 

Dead Ronnie and I is a tale of high adventure by plane and sea, with an abortive escape by our protagonist to the as yet untainted Isles of Scotland. This was originally published in Sanitarium Magazine No 44 in 2016.

His Pale Blue Eyes is probably the most traditional take of zombie stories today, featuring a young girl’s determined search for her parents during a zombie apocalypse. It’s a story, though, about conditioning and how what someone is taught can radically affect their behaviour. Is the horror in this the shambling undead or the girl herself? See what you think. This first appeared in Bite-Sized Horror edited by Johnny Mains for Obverse Books in 2011.

By contrast Right For You Now, originally published in Weirdbook Zombie Annual No 3 in 2021, harks back to the original concept of the zombie in Voodoo-haunted Haiti, though this tale is set in present-day Britain. It’s a combination of a crime story, revenge, and a man’s obsessive fascination with age-old practices.

Our final tale, Romero’s Children, is more in the way of a science fiction story. The zombies here are certainly the most different. For a start off they are not dead but have been granted near immortality by a drug that swept the world with its promise to stop aging. Alas for those caught up in the frenzied demand to use it, though, its side effects were such that they would have been better off dead. This story appeared in 2010 in The Seventh Black Book of Horror edited by the late Charles Black and was subsequently picked up by American editor Paula Guran for her 2012 anthology Extreme Zombies.

 

 

Welgar, Nadrain and Ossani - three intertwined swords and sorcery characters

In my own swords and sorcery stories I have chanced to create three characters so far who have appeared in more than one tale, and only one of them is what could possibly be described as a Northern barbarian, though Welgar's fate is a far cry from Conan or any of his clones, having been disfigured into the semblance of a walking corpse by the Agryptian "god" that possessed his body in one of these stories.

The others are:

Ossani - a sorcerer who hides behind the cover of being nothing more than a healer. He appears briefly at the end of The Storyteller of Koss, which was published last year in Summer of Sci-fi & Fantasy edited by Dustin Bilyk (Author's Hand Publishing).

Ossani returns as the titular character in Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus, which also introduces us to Welgar the Northerner. I am currently working on a third Ossani story.

Nadrain the Storyteller - he is the main character and narrator of The Storyteller of Koss. Nadrain next appears in The Dark Priestdom, alongside my Northern mercenary Welgar - this story has been accepted for publication and should appear sometime this year.

Welgar - His first appearance is in Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus, followed by The Dark Priestdom. His third story, which briefly features Nadrain once more in the opening pages, is in Welgar the Cursed, due to be published in March this year in Swords & Heroes, edited by Lyndon Perry.

All three characters have intertwining fates, despite being completely different from each other. I would add that nothing was planned about this beforehand; it grew organically with each tale I wrote. Now I am looking forward to continuing their sagas and seeing how they intertwine even more.

 

 

The last Grudge End story

Several years ago now without planning to do such a thing I began a series of loosely connected stories based around a fictitious area of a fictitious town in Lancashire. The town was Edgebottom - the area of this town was known as Grudge End, an area of ill repute, with a long history of violence, murder, cults and worse!

The first story in which Grudge End is mentioned, though it doesn't take place there, is Lock In, first published in The Black Book of Horror, 2007.

Following this came these:

The Fragile Mask on his Face (Dark Discoveries magazine No 15, 2009)

The Worst of all Possible Places (Houses on the Borderland, 2008)

The True Spirit (Back from the Dead, 2010)

Old Grudge Ender (The Screaming Book of Horror, 2012)

Scrap (Dark Visions 1, 2013)

Grudge End Cloggers (Scare Me, 2020)

The Psychic Investigator (Lovecraftiana Magazine, 2022)

Advert for A Handful of Zombies: Tales of the Restless Dead

amazon.co.uk

amazon.com

All four stories in this collection cover a wide range of tropes within the zombie genre. 

Dead Ronnie and I is a tale of high adventure by plane and sea, with an abortive escape by our protagonist to the as yet untainted Isles of Scotland. This was originally published in Sanitarium Magazine No 44 in 2016.

His Pale Blue Eyes is probably the most traditional take of zombie stories today, featuring a young girl’s determined search for her parents during a zombie apocalypse. It’s a story, though, about conditioning and how what someone is taught can radically affect their behaviour. Is the horror in this the shambling undead or the girl herself? See what you think. This first appeared in Bite-Sized Horror edited by Johnny Mains for Obverse Books in 2011.

By contrast Right For You Now, originally published in Weirdbook Zombie Annual No 3 in 2021, harks back to the original concept of the zombie in Voodoo-haunted Haiti, though this tale is set in present-day Britain. It’s a combination of a crime story, revenge, and a man’s obsessive fascination with age-old practices.

Our final tale, Romero’s Children, is more in the way of a science fiction story. The zombies here are certainly the most different. For a start off they are not dead but have been granted near immortality by a drug that swept the world with its promise to stop aging. Alas for those caught up in the frenzied demand to use it, though, its side effects were such that they would have been better off dead. This story appeared in 2010 in The Seventh Black Book of Horror edited by the late Charles Black and was subsequently picked up by American editor Paula Guran for her 2012 anthology Extreme Zombies.

 

First story to be published in 2023

At the moment it looks as if the first story I'll have published this year will be Welgar the Cursed in Lyndon Perry's swords and sorcery anthology Swords & Heroes. 

I have as yet to receive confirmation of the actual date when this book will be published, but I'll post it here when I do.

Lucilla - published in Bewildering Stories

My story Lucilla has been published in 11 parts in Bewildering Stories. To read them for free follow this link.

The Triptych of Hell to be published in Lovecraftiana magazine

My Lovecraftian short story The Triptych of Hell is to be published in the Candlemas (February) 2024 issue of Lovecraftiana magazine.

The story was inspired by the collaborative illustration used for the front cover of the Phantasmagoria Magazine's Fantasy Tales Special between Jim Pitts, Dave Carson and Allen Koszowsky. 

Possible front cover for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 6

Jim Pitts has been busy in the past week working on colouring a previous black and white illustration for the front cover of the next swords and sorcery anthology in May 2023. Below is a copy of the original illustration together with the coloured version and a copy of what the cover will almost certainly look like.

 

Volume 6 will be open for submissions on the 1st April for the full month.