David A. Riley's Blog, page 65

Classic Weird 2 published by Parallel Universe Publications

Classic Weird 2 is now available as a trade paperback and as an ebook within the next day or two.

This 298-page volume contains weird tales by some of the classic authors of the genre, including J. Sheridan Le Fanu (An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street), E. F. Benson (The Judgement Books), Vernon Lee (Oke of Okehurst), Vincent O'Sullivan (When I was Dead), Edith Wharton (The Eyes), W. C. Morrow (A Story Told by the Sea), Irvin S. Cobb (The Unbroken Chain), Edith Nesbit (From the Dead), Robert Murray Gilchrist (Witch In-Grain), Amyas Northcote (The Downs), and J. H. Riddell (The Uninhabited House).

Paperback:
Amazon.co.uk  £8.99
Amazon.com  $11.99

Ebook: (available soon)
Amazon.co.uk  £2.99
Amazon.com  $

Cthulhu Monopoly game just arrived today

This little beauty just arrived today. Looking forward to playing it, though I can't help but wonder what HPL would have made of it!

Great Review for His Own Mad Demons on The Slaughtered Bird website

Dave Dubrow gave His Own Mad Demons: Dark Tales from David A. Riley a great review on The Slaughtered Bird website.

REVIEW: His Own Mad DemonsPublished May 16, 2016 | By FolkloreReview by- Dave Dubrow.
‘His Own Mad Demons’ is an anthology of short stories written by David A Riley, who’s been an active horror writer since he published a story in the eleventh volume of the legendary Pan Book of Horror Stories in 1970. The tales in Riley’s His Own Mad Demons are all set in the English moorland town of Edgebottom, where the supernatural lurks in every shadow. Riley’s gritty, descriptive prose and fundamental themes are timeless, making this collection a must-read for true fans of horror.
The first tale, His Own Mad Demons, follows the travails of petty criminal Nobby, who’s been given a relatively simple job to do. After things go pear-shaped, Nobby’s attempt to go on the lam is beset with obstacles both natural and supernatural.
In Lock-In, a group of old men calling themselves the Grudgers find that leaving their favorite pub isn’t anywhere near as easy as getting in. A gory piece of psychological horror mixed with Lovecraftian elements.
The Fragile Mask on His Face has a dream-like feeling to it in that the reader knows that something terrible is in store for the protagonist, but is powerless to stop it. A story with twists and turns and a most unusual antagonist.
For a slow burn building to a horrific climax, The True Spirit is a tale that shows you the face of evil, making you hope against hope that the poor characters catch on before it’s too late.
The anthology ends with The Worst of All Possible Places, as apt a title as you’d want. Though the prologue is a bit unnecessary, the remainder of the story is the most frightening in the entire collection, even with as unlikable a protagonist as Bill the drunk.
If you’re looking for message fiction, you won’t find it here. This is good old-fashioned horror, a collection of scary stories told well. It’s these kinds of tales that brought so many of us to horror literature in the first place, and it’s refreshing to see that they’re still relevant, still frightening.
Review by- Dave Dubrow

Birthday picture from Joe Young

Many thanks to Joe Young for this birthday picture, which goes along so well with the pressie I got from my daughter and her husband last night.

Glenn Strange's Frankenstein monster

As my birthday present from my daughter, Cassie, and her husband, Alan, I got the Glen Strange Frankenstein monster, completing my collection. The three Karloffs, Chaney and Lugosi had a party last night.


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Dead Ronnie and I published in Sanitarium Magazine

My zombie story, Dead Ronnie and I, set in the Isles of Scotland, is in issue 44 of Sanitarium Magazine.



Sanitarium Magazine Issue #44: Bringing you the Best Short Horror Fiction, Dark Verse and...Welcome to the Sanitarium The perfect length for your in-between reading/ you’ll love the portability of this little slice of damnation as you tremble while you wait for the…amazon.co.uk

Andrew Darlington's A Saucerful of Secrets gets 5-star review in The Zone

Andrew Darlington's A Saucerful of Secrets gets a five-star review in The Zone.

"Like entering a twilight zone for the loading of genre-literate humour, and unloading of predictability for tragedy and vivid lyricism, A Saucerful Of Secrets takes us across multiple thresholds between compelling realism and sophisticated imagination, with sublimely witty references and hefty riffs aplenty, adding a weight and philosophical depth few can match. This is a veteran writer's first collection of short fiction, and it's frequently steeped in traditional SF tropes but with post-modern twists and beguiling absurdism. Through the looking-glass, or down rabbit holes, these are stories penned with unusually poetical intent. The info-density and wordplay seems, at a first glance, like old lead, but, scratch the surface contours and it's revealed to be gold of a Brit-Lit wealth."  Read the full review here.

But bad review rancour can last forever.

Does anyone else think that the worse the writer the more they resent bad reviews? As a rule of thumb, mind.

Jessica Palmer's Other Visions of Heaven and Hell published by Parallel Universe Publications

Jessica Palmer has had 28 books published, both fiction and nonfiction. Her novels – horror, fantasy and science fiction – were released by Pocket Books in the United States and Scholastic in the United Kingdom. She has written two textbooks about Native American history, which were published by McFarland, and an encyclopedia of natural history released by Harper Collins’ label Element Books and later by Thorson in the UK.
Palmer has also written ten science-and-technology manuals on the topics of explosives and radiation. These were distributed globally. It was this work that brought her to Great Britain in 1988.
The daughter of a professional clown, Palmer refers to her switch to writing fiction as an exercise in damage limitation. She taught classes and conducted workshops on creative writing and publishing at North Shropshire College in Whitchurch, Stanmore College and the Islington Arts Factory in London.
As a journalist, Palmer won awards in New Mexico and Texas for writing features, public service and breaking news – the most recent in 2013. Palmer has also written satirical columns for newspapers, including “A Slice of Life” and “How to Make Love to your Personal Computer.”
Her two loves are writing and animals. She started a nonprofit in Kansas for wildlife rescue and has held a wildlife rehabilitation permit since 2002.
Other Visions of Heaven and Hell are a series of sometimes inter-related stories about our ideas of Heaven and Hell, sometimes hilarious - sometimes horrific - but always entertaining.

Contents are:
Devil's Due
The Faithful
And now, a Word from our Sponsor
Heavenly Bodies
On the Wings of a Prayer
Fallen Angel
A Stitch in Time
Infinity
No Good Turn
Leap of Faith
Divine Comedy
Force of Habit
The Gates of Hell
Hell on Wheels
Cinderella Revisited
Last Laugh
Sisters
A Cold Day in Hell
Cheap Shots
What the Dickens
When Hell Freezes Over
Bad Medicine
Wrong Number
A Snowball's Chance
Devil Woman
To Be or Not
The King's Plate
An Afterthought
About the Author

Last Laugh was first published in Weirdbook #28, Autumn 1993, edited by W. Paul Ganley
Cinderella Revisited was first published in Weirdbook #29, Autumn 1995, edited by W. Paul Ganley
What the Dickens was first published in Substance Sept 1995

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

ebook:
amazon.co.uk £2.99
amazon.com     $4.30

Andrew Darlington's A Saucerful of Secrets reviewed on the Vault of Evil

Cover Art: Vincent ChongAndrew Darlington's brilliant collection of stories, A Saucerful of Secrets, has been reviewed on the Vault of Evil by Kevin Demant.


The Strange Laudanum Dream of Branwell Brontë
London Bridge is Falling Down, Falling Down
Thuesday to Fryday
The Door to Anywhere
Beast of the Baskervilles
Derek Edge and the Saucerful of Secrets
Refuge
The Non-Expanding Universe
Gender-Shock
Big Bad John
Terminator Zero and the Dream Demons
A Grotesque Romance
This World Holds Space Enough
And the Earth Has No End

Blurb:
Andrew Darlington has had masses of material published in all manner of strange and obscure places, magazines, websites, anthologies and books. He's also worked as a Stand-Up Poet on the ‘Alternative Cabaret Circuit’, and has interviewed very many people from the worlds of Literature, SF-Fantasy, Art and Rock-Music for a variety of publications (a selection of favourite interviews collected into the ‘Headpress’ book ‘I WAS ELVIS PRESLEY’S BASTARD LOVE-CHILD’). His latest music biography is ‘DON'T CALL ME nigger, WHITEY: SLY STONE & BLACK POWER’ (Leaky Boot Press).

The Kitchen Sink Gothic anthology is not without its bizarre moments, and perhaps the most unconventional story of all is Derek And The Sunspots. Derek is back in this latest genre bending début (?) collection from Andrew Darlington, and this time he's brought along all his friends.

There will be strangeness.

The Strange Laudanum Dream of Branwell Brontë: (DS Davidson [ed.], Tigershark #3, 2014). "I witnessed my own death. I am but thirty years old. And I know the very day when approaching death will quench life's feeble ember."

Our hero heads through the snow for The Black Bull and another night on the booze. But what's this? Loitering on the path, a metal spacecraft and a a human-size, talking bee from another dimension. The bee is perfectly civil. It explains that his are an inquisitive race who delve beyond record history to seek out "uncomfortable truths." Unfortunately, this has not met with the approval of the Slithy Toves, lizard-like creatures who act as an intergalactic secret police. After the briefest guided tour of the craft, the bee-man ushers Branwell into a parallel world where he, and not his talented sisters wrote Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It is even inscribed on his headstone.

It has all been an enlightening experience for Branwell, but the adventure takes a turn for the terrifying when the pair are set upon by an armed lizard.

London Bridge is Falling Down, Falling Down: Last days of Queen Victoria's reign. The Capital's most deprived districts come under attack from a plague of genetically enhanced six-legged rats, venomous frogs, ferocious foxes and cockroaches "the size of your fist." Who is responsible for this outrage? In their desperation, Her Majesty's Government reanimate Professor James Moriarty as a last resort. The criminal mastermind has been fitted with an electro-magnetic heart to be switched off by Sir Frederick Trouton immediately he proves uncooperative (shades of Robert Lory's classic Dracula Returns). Moriarty duly traces the culprit to Bedlam, where Dr. Conrad Van Herder, MAD FOREIGN VIVISECTIONIST, social-Darwinist, misguided ecologist, etc., is manufacturing abominations in a bid to cleanse an over-populated world of it's "weaklings." Begins with a grisly attack on a tosher working the mudflats beneath Blackfriars Bridge and includes enough horrific vignettes to qualify as a superior When Animals Attack! entry.

Read more: http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/6255/andrew-darlington-saucerful-secrets#ixzz46vi0Oe31