David A. Riley's Blog, page 62

The 3rd Spectral Book of Horror - Boat Trip

My latest story to be published is a Lovecraftian horror called Boat Trip, which will appear in The 3rd Spectral Book of Horror, edited by Joseph Rubas.

Last batch of books for FantasyCon by the Sea arrived today

Arriving in good time, the last batch of books for FantasyCon by the Sea were delivered today.
Adverts all booked and paid for, book launch organised, and the dealer's table booked and paid for too. Now all we need to is get there for Thursday the 22nd.
Looking forward to meeting some of our authors who'll be at FantasyCon, including Adrian Cole, Paul Lewis, Steve Lockley, and Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso, as well as my old friend, the artist Jim Pitts, who did the cover for Adrian Cole's Tough Guys and a splendid frontispiece for Fishhead: The Darker Tales of Irvin S. Cobb.

Five-star review of The Return

It was great to come across another 5-star review of my novel, The Return, on amazon.

"A gritty noir novel that combines the best elements of crime fiction with genuinely frightening Lovecraftian horror."

Robert Aickman Comes to Fantasycon

This is an article I wrote for an anniversary anthology devoted to Robert Aickman. As the book has been delayed for quite some time and it's by no means certain it will ever appear, I am publishing the article here as something that I hope may be of at least some slight interest. 
Robert Aickman Comes to Fantasycon

Robert Aickman's letter accepting the invitation to be GoH


I have now been informed by the editor and publisher of the book that it should be out by Christmas and would prefer it if I didn't publish this article yet. Therefore I have deleted what I wrote. If the book isn't published by the end of the year and it doesn't look like it will ever appear, I'll reinstate the article on my blog at a later date. Hopefully, the Aickman book will be published. I've read the rest of it and it's a fantastic book with some utterly fascinating articles in it, well worth reading. Fingers crossed!!!!!

The Book is  
CELEBRATING ROBERT AICKMAN, AN ANTHOLOGY OF UNSETTLED DUST 
Edited by JOHNNY MAINS. 
To be published in a limited edition hardback by Noose & Gibbet Publishing. 



This is the TOC:

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION JOHNNY MAINS
AN AFTERNOON WITH AICKMAN TED KLEIN
THE HOUSE THAT MOVED NEXT DOOR STEPHEN VOLK
READING AICKMAN REECE SHEARSMITH
THE VESTIGE LYNDA E. RUCKER
THE FLOWER UNFOLDS SIMON STRANZAS
HOLIDAY ROMANCE MARK MORRIS
EUMENIDES (THE BENEVOLENT LADIES) ADAM NEVILL
ROBERT AICKMAN COMES TO FANTASYCON DAVID A. RILEY
ADAPTING AICKMAN JOHN L. PROBERT
FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS OF AICKMAN RICHARD DALBY
ON ROBERT AICKMAN'S 'LETTERS TO THE POSTMAN'
PHILIP CHALLINOR
THE ROOMS ARE HIGH REGGIE OLIVER
AMONG THE TOILING MASSES PHILIP CHALLINOR
WHEN YOU'RE NOT LOOKING STEVE RASNIC TEM
A CHOICE OF WEAPONS: ROBERT AICKMAN AND TOM ROLT SONIA ROLT
THE CLOSURE CONRAD WILLIAMS
‘THE CICERONES’: EPISCOPUS PUERORUM ROGER CLARKE
THE SWANS RAY CLULEY
BOBBO ROBERT SHEARMAN
NOT MEETING MR AICKMAN LISA TUTTLE
IN CONVERSATION WITH RAMSEY CAMPBELL

Haunted Grave and Other Stories by Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso published by Parallel Universe Publications

Haunted Grave and Other Stories: Eight Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction from the African Continent has now been published by Parallel Universe Publications.

Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso is an MA graduate of Creative Writing, Swansea University Wales. His short stories, poems and non-fiction have appeared in a couple of journals, anthologies and magazines such as Emanation: Foray into Forever, Africa Roar Anthology, Open Road Review, Criterion Journal, ANA Review, Ground's Ear Anthology, Future Lovecraft, African Eyeball, Miracle e-zine, Episteme Journal, Texts on SAVVY Journal. He has been shortlisted in IdeasTap Inspires: Writers' Centre Norwich Writing competition, Ghana Poetry Prize, and Quickfox Poetry Competition.

amazon.co.uk £8.99
amazon.com $11.99

Full page ad for PUP in Fear Magazine

There's a great full page ad for Parallel Universe Publications on the inside front cover of the new Fear magazine.

Fishhead: The Darker Tales of Irvin S. Cobb published by Parallel Universe Publications

During his lifetime Irvin S. Cobb was one of the most celebrated writers in American literature, though nowadays he is almost forgotten, apart perhaps from his Lovecraft connection. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was born in Paducah, Kentucky on the 23rd June, 1876. His father, unable to cope with the death of his own father, succumbed to alcoholism when Cobb was only sixteen. As a result, Cobb’s education came to an end and he started work, first on the Paducah Daily News, then the Louisville Evening Post. By 1904 Cobb’s career in journalism was doing so well that he moved to New York, where he would go on to spend the rest of his life, starting work at the Evening Sun, though it wasn’t long before an assignment to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire so impressed Joseph Pulitzer that he offered Cobb a job at the New York World, where he became the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States. In 1911 Cobb moved to the Saturday Evening Post. Three years later he was asked to cover the Great War. Amongst the many stories he wrote while there were the exploits of the Harlem Hellfighters, a unit of black American soldiers who had gone on to earn distinction for their courage and discipline, which Cobb celebrated in his book The Glory of the Coming. Besides his prolific work as a journalist, Cobb’s fame largely came from his humorous stories, which were published in the leading magazines of his day, and collected in numerous books during his lifetime. But, though he was best known as a humourist, he did have a darker side, exemplified by the tales collected in this volume. Two of the most famous succeeded in catching the attention of H. P. Lovecraft. It is claimed that Fishhead influenced Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. And there is certainly no doubt that Lovecraft was favourably impressed with this tale. In his groundbreaking essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft wrote: “Fishhead, an early achievement, is banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake…” The Unbroken Chain gave Lovecraft the key idea behind The Rats in the Walls, though in all other respects the two tales are totally different. Besides writing and journalism, Cobb’s career extended to Hollywood, where legendary director, John Ford, made two films based on his books: Judge Priest (1934) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953). Other films included Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), starring Jackie Coogan, and The Woman Accused (1933), with a young Cary Grant. Cobb also did a stint at acting himself, appearing in ten movies altogether, including Pepper, Everybody’s Old Man (1936), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) and Hawaii Calls (1938). It’s a sign of the prominence he had achieved that in 1935 he was invited to host the 7th Academy Awards. Other than the tales that inspired Lovecraft, Cobb also wrote some brilliantly dark stories that culminate in a kind of sadistic irony. They are some of the finest conte cruel ever written. Amongst the best of these is the final story in this collection: Faith, Hope, and Charity, whose protagonists, as is often the case in Cobb’s stories, struggle against fates that are not only pre-ordained but are horrendously appropriate! It must be added his hapless victims are far from blameless. What fates await them under Cobb’s pen have most definitely been brought upon them by themselves! Through most of the tales there is a wry sense of humour, so wry, in fact, that it never detracts from the impact at the end; indeed, it often adds to and embellishes it! I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did and share with me the conviction that it is high time they were revived.

The book includes a frontispeice drawn by Jim Pitts and an Introduction by Linden Riley.

Contents are:

Fishhead
The Escape of Mr. Trimm
The Gallowsmith
Mr. Lobel's Apoplexy
The Unbroken Chain
The Second Coming of the First Husband
Masterpiece
January Thaw
Cabbages and Kings
We Can't All Be Thoroughbreds
Queer Creek
Ace, Deuce, Ten Spot, Joker
Balm of Gilead
Faith, Hope, and Charity

trade paperback:
Amazon.co.uk  £8.99
Amazon.com  $11.99

Parallel Universe places ads in the horrorzine, Fear magazine, Black Static and FantasyCon Programme

Advert in the horrorzine
Parallel Universe Publications has embarked on an advertising campaign to raise its profile. The first of these was in the horrorzine for Adrian Cole's Tough Guys.

We have now arranged for an ad to go in the inaugural issue of the revived magazine Fear, edited by John Gilbert. This will be followed by a half-page ad in Black Static (issue #54). 
Advert in Fear magazine Advert in Black Static
As well as a book launch at FantasyCon we are also placing a full-page, full-colour ad in the convention programme.

Into the Dark by Andrew Jennings - free kindle download Sunday 10th July

For one day only the kindle version of Andrew Jennings' horror novel Into the Dark will be free.

All we would ask is that if you do download it to write a honest review afterwards, however brief.

In the meantime, enjoy!

Tough Guys by Adrian Cole - copies arrive by courier

Our copies of Tough Guys by Adrian Cole arrived by courier yesterday, including extra copies ordered for the launch at Fantasycon in Scarborough later this year. Really pleased with the brilliant Jim Pitts wraparound cover. The book includes an in-depth introduction by David A. Sutton.