David A. Riley's Blog, page 81
February 2, 2015
Kitchen Sink Gothic
Cover artwork: Joe YoungMany thanks to artist, Joe Young, for providing us with the cover artwork for Kitchen Sink Gothic. We will be contacting those who have submitted stories so far within the next seven days. And a reminder that we are still looking for stories for this anthology, which will be published by Parallel Universe Publications later this year. Parallel Universe Publications is now accepting submissions, either original or reprints, for an anthology of stories inspired by the classic British cinema/theatre phenomenon known as kitchen sink drama.
What Culture described it as: "A determination to examine the lives of the working and dispossessed classes in a non sentimental way...The movement began in the late 1950s and has survived to this day with the oeuvre of Ken Loach and films such as Nil By Mouth. Tackling thorny themes is a trademark of the Kitchen Sink drama. Abortion, divorce, homelessness, single motherhood, inter racial sex, poverty and homosexuality were all ripe topics to be examined. There was also the advent of The Angry Young Man – usually working class men railing against everyone and everything."
That fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, describes it as: "a term coined to describe a British cultural movement that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose 'heroes' usually could be described as angry young men. It used a style of social realism, which often depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons living in cramped rented accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore social issues and political controversies.
The films, plays and novels employing this style are set frequently in poorer industrial areas in the North of England, and use the rough-hewn speaking accents and slang heard in those regions. The film It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) is a precursor of the genre, and the John Osborne play Look Back in Anger (1956) is thought of as the first of the idiom.
The gritty love-triangle of Look Back in Anger, for example, takes place in a cramped, one-room flat in the English Midlands. The conventions of the genre have continued into the 2000s, finding expression in such television shows as Coronation Street and EastEnders .[1]
In art, "Kitchen Sink School" was a term used by critic David Sylvester to describe painters who depicted social realist-type scenes of domestic life.[2]"
We look forward to tales of darkness and horror, of the supernatural and the weird within the overall framework of the social realism of the kitchen sink drama.
Please send your submissions to rileybooks@ntlworld.com headed "Kitchen Sink Gothic" as an attachment in either doc or docx. We welcome either new stories or reprints. If a reprint please add details of previous publication. We have no firm maximum length though obviously the longer the story the better it will need to be to be accepted.
Payment will be £5 per thousand words and a contributor's copy of the book.
February 1, 2015
January 31, 2015
Things That Go Bump in the Night edited by Douglas Draa and David A. Riley
Things That Go Bump in the Night edited by Douglas Draa and David A. Riley is now available in trade paperback from Parallel Universe Publications. 365 pages long, this bumper volume contains 19 classic weird stories by Sir Hugh Clifford, Edward Lucas White, William Hope Hodgson, George Allan England, F. Marion Crawford, Frederick Marryat, E. F. Benson, W. C. Morrow, Amyas Northcote, M. P. Shiel, Lord Dunsany, Perceval Landon, Robert E. Howard, G. G. Pendarves, Henry Brereton Marriott Watson, Irvin S. Cobb, Huan Mee, Abraham Merritt, Nictzin Dyalhis, and Edith Wharton.Amazon.co.uk £7.99
Amazon.com $14.00
January 30, 2015
Updated Image of Books from Parallel Universe Publications
Things That Go Bump in the Night is being prepared for publication and should be out next week as a 367 page trade paperback containing nineteen stories.
January 26, 2015
Things That Go Bump in the Night
This is the proposed coverThe next book from Parallel Universe Publications will be a bumper anthology of classic weird stories, selected by Douglas Draa and David A. Riley called Things That Go Bump in the Night. Currently it stands at 350 pages.
January 23, 2015
Goblin Mire - temporary price reduction
For the next few weeks my fantasy novel Goblin Mire will be available for £6.99 in the UK and for $12 in the States. Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
January 22, 2015
A Sample Chapter from Goblin Mire
A sample chapter from Goblin Mire:Dark shapes moved through the gloom. Goblin soldiers muttered, uneasy at the vile smells that wafted towards them as the Corrupted One gathered the goblin captains to the rear of his wagon. Crudely built from massive lengths of timber, its solid wheels had sunk into the muddy ground as it was dragged here days ago, drawn by manacled teams of slaves: maimed ogres, tortured into submission decades ago for work in the mire. Their sightless faces twitched as they crouched in their chains at the front of the wagon, squatting in their own filth like huge maggots. Torches burned from sconces fixed to poles in the ground as the goblin leaders watched the Corrupted One work. As he dragged out bodies from the depths of his wagon he laid them across the ground, muttering to himself a high-pitched litany. Standing with the rest of the Grand Council, Mickle Gorestab scowled as the air grew cold about him, knowing that this was sorcery of the darkest sort. Beside him, Ograff Bludrip shuffled his feet, his large hands gripping the hilt of his sword for reassurance. Ghosts of the dead elves lying before them seemed to whisper in their ears, while phantom fingers, as cold as ice, plucked at their arms. Mickle's eyes darted from side to side but he could see nothing, though their armed escort, watching from beyond the torchlight, seemed even further away than before. Mickle grunted, knowing they probably were. "I wish we had never needed his help," Ograff murmured, his large face sick with nausea. Mickle swallowed, though his throat felt dry as he steeled himself as firmly as he could against his fears. Vile though it was, they needed the Corrupted One's help. Without it they would never get past the city’s walls. And he knew - oh, he knew, with a twitching of his hands - that the burning of Cyramon and the wholesale slaughter of its pestilential citizens would be worth all of this. The air seemed to thicken, congealing about them. Mickle stared through the flickering, unreal gloom towards the elf. The bodies he had gathered from the slain lay at his feet as he raised his face and glared at the stars - at the harsh stars that burned intensely in the sky. He shrieked suddenly. Mickle involuntarily clamped his hands to his ears in a vain attempt to seal the awful, blood-chilling sound of the Corrupted One's cries from his head. The bodies before him seemed to glow, seemed to spread before his eyes, their outlines shifting and growing softer as if somehow they were starting to melt. Fascinated despite the nausea that made him want to be sick, Mickle stared as the elves were transformed from solidity to a liquid, then into a shimmering translucent gas like feeble, enthralled ghosts before the Corrupted One's arms. The shrieking ended and Adragor, exhausted, slumped to his knees, his head bowed onto his chest. As he fell, so the ghosts of the elves dispersed, floating and fading towards the goblins, who flinched away from them, dazed as the shapes disappeared inside them. Mickle removed his hands from his ears. It was then that he noticed the change that was taking place in his body - how his fingers were becoming paler and thinner and... elf-like! Startled, he turned to Ograff, the shock of what he saw, as his eyes bulged with disbelieving horror, paralyzing his throat.
trade paperback:
Amazon.co.uk £9.50
Amazon.com $13.30
ebook:
Amazon.co.uk £2.97
Amazon.com $4.50
January 19, 2015
Parallel Universe Publications
Originally created to publish our science fiction/fantasy magazine, Beyond, in 1995, our imprint, Parallel Universe Publications, lay dormant for many years till it was revived in 2012 to publish Craig Herbertson's hardcover story collection The Heaven Maker and Other Gruesome Tales. It was only then that we, Linden and I, discussed the possibility of publishing further books at some time in the near future. We have now published three more books in the past few months: Black Ceremonies by Charles Black, a reprint (for the first time in actual print as opposed to an ebook) of my fantasy novel Goblin Mire, and a trade paperback version of Craig's hardcover short story collection.In the coming months we have other books planned, including an anthology, Kitchen Sink Gothic.
January 18, 2015
A Big Thank You to Joe Young
I would like to give a big thank you to Joe Young, without whom I would not have considered republishing Goblin Mire.After my one and only fantasy novel was originally published by Renaissance eBooks several years ago, I was so discouraged with the appallingly bad cover they slapped on it and by the total lack of help I got from them in promoting the book, I took it off the market as soon as my contract with them allowed. There the novel would have stayed until, out of the blue, Joe Young contacted me. On his own initiative, equally appalled by the original cover, he had designed a new one. His encouragement led me to rewriting the novel, shedding 8 or 9 thousand words and, finally, getting it published again as a trade paperback and ebook with Joe's wraparound cover.
Thanks, Joe. However well (or not) the book does, I am glad that it's properly available again - and this time with the kind of cover I hope it deserves!
