Callum McSorley's Blog, page 19
November 7, 2017
Pulp 2 influences: Charles Dickens
One of the most famous and lauded storytellers of all time, Charles Dickens may seem an unlikely character to pop up in a blog about authors who influenced my book of pulp stories, but the way Dickens’s stories contained scenes of poverty and violence which shocked and outraged the public of the time and were serialised in magazines (replete with cliff-hangers) had a direct impact on the later pulp magazines and penny dreadfuls and shilling shockers.
He also had an admirable social conscience...
November 5, 2017
Pulp 2 influences: Philip K Dick
If you’ve not read him then you’ve at least seen a film adapted from one of his stories. From classics of cinema like Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) to big budget summer blockbusters like Minority Report and schlocky B-movies like Screamers (Second Variety), there’s shelf-loads of sci fi films based on the work of Philip K Dick.
Seriously, the list goes on: A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall (We Can Remember It for You Wholesale), The Man in the High Castle, The Adjustment Bu...
November 3, 2017
Pulp 2 influences: No Mean City
I first read No Mean City while at university, on a course called The Glasgow Novel. It sat alongside the likes of Alasdair Grey’s Lanark and James Kelman’s How Late It Was, How Late.
Published in 1935, it shocked the public of the time with its depictions of violence and poverty in Glasgow’s notorious slum, The Gorbals, during the 1920s. (The Gorbals was probably only marginally improved by the publication date, the east end of Glasgow nearly 100 years later still being an area where many li...
October 31, 2017
Fresh Blood Orange OUT NOW
Today’s the day, folks! Fresh Blood Orange, the sequel to last year’s Beaten to a Pulp! is out now in print and on Kindle.
Another bite-size chunk of genre stories in pulp style.
Also, the marks the first day my book giveaway. To celebrate the launch of FBO, both of my previous books (Beaten to a Pulp! and Dead in Autumn, Buried in Winter) are free on Kindle for the next five days.
Beaten to a Pulp 2:
Fresh Blood Orange[image error]Come and meet the Queen of Junkyard Dogs: Clem Astor lives in t...
October 27, 2017
Fresh Blood Orange [Excerpt]
Beaten to a Pulp 2
Fresh Blood Orange
by Callum McSorley
Queen of Junkyard Dogs
[image error]Clem hadn’t thought about the junkyard in years. Not since Bobby phoned her up long-distance to tell her Paw was dead. She wasn’t surprised; nobody was. He’d been turning yellow with tobacco and whisky twenty years ago when she first packed up and moved to the desert. And now, five years after they put him in the fallow ground, Bobby was on the phone again to tell her they were selling up.
“That’s good, Bobby,...
October 18, 2017
Graeme Macrae Burnet at Woodlands Workspace
I recently had the pleasure of seeing Booker nominated Scots author Graeme Macrae Burnet discuss his latest novel – The Accident on the A35 – at Woodlands Workspace, a new hub for arts and events in Glasgow’s west end.
You can read my account of the night over at Aether & Ichor.
‘Booker-prize nominated author Burnet is the first writer to appear there as part of a month-long series of events to mark the grand opening, just weeks before the publication of his third novel, The Accident on the A...
October 17, 2017
Kindle book giveaway
To celebrate the release of my latest sort story collection, Fresh Blood Orange, the kindle versions of my previous books – Dead in Autumn, Buried in Winter and Beaten to a Pulp! – will be given away free on launch day, Hallowe’en 2017.
The promotion will run from 31/10/17 until 4/11/17.
[image error]Dead in Autumn, Buried in Winter
Old Blue Eyes, Madonna, Chewbacca and Frankenstein’s Monster go trick-or-treating in the upmarket part of town. They find a lavish three-storey house lying empty, the keys lef...
October 2, 2017
Fresh Blood Orange
I’m thrilled to announce my second book of short stories – Fresh Blood Orange (Beaten to a Pulp 2) – will be released on Kindle and in print on Hallowe’en!
Come and meet the Queen of Junkyard Dogs: Clem Astor lives in the desert, the mirage of Vegas on the horizon, where she breeds dogs for fighting. She dreams of the Astor family junkyard where monsters ran, monsters she has brought to life.
Meet Layla, fresh out of cryo stasis at Bar-L detention centre. A child murderer, she has been releas...
August 30, 2017
Apocalypse Now with MR Carey and Joe Hill
Last week, as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival On Tour, I had the pleasure of seeing sci-fi/horror heavyweights Joe Hill and MR Carey in discussion about their latest novels and the apocalypse at East Kilbride Arts Centre.
Highlights included a bizarre singalong with Joe Hill and his sons, who formed a makeshift band and performed a couple of barely rehearsed songs – ‘Love Me Tender’ (with rewritten lyrics about zombies) and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ (about werewolves, with the ne...
August 22, 2017
Read ‘Green Fire’ in Grasslimb Journal
A copy of the new issue of Grasslimb Journal dropped through my door today, and you can now have one too!
My short story, Green Fire, appears on then back page of the current issue, Vol. 15 No. 2, along with other great stories, poems and cartoons.
Click here to read it.
