Cate Gardner's Blog, page 31

Something Rotten This Way Comes

Popping in from a mad Christmas in which I haven't eaten much chocolate at all because I have a cold. Atishoo. Spent Christmas Day with the family in a whirl of chaos, got fabulous presents - 3D picture of a New York Taxi for my office, Fringe Season 3 DVD, Jack Skellington mug, Radley Watch, CDs so that I can rock 2012, book voucher, the prettiest notebook in the history of notebooks, lip gloss to make me sparkle and chocolate - drank wine and stole my middle nephew. Middle nephew is now with us for the rest of the week. Plus, eldest nephew, middle nephew and eldest nephew's wife were all here yesterday and it was games, games, some pouting when people didn't win, and more games.

And now on this less chaotic Tuesday morning, I wake to find my story Six Feet Above is live over at the Something Wicked site. If you're in the mood for some zombies this Christmas then head over there and have a read. There's also an interview with me.

Merry Christmas, Dudes!

May your little ones get everything they wish for (and may we too)
In the words of Bill and Ted, Be excellent to each other.
See you around New Year

I ❤ Delivery People

Overnight I received an email from my publisher saying the Theatre hardbacks would be delivered today and after several seconds of twirling in my chair, I decided not to get too excited as UPS let us down when Eric sent the ARCs. But this time....



...in retrospect the delivery couldn't fail because the UPS man who brought it turned out to be my brilliant, wonderful UPS man from work - thankfully I'd changed from my pj's and sorta brushed my hair - who was on a different route for the day. Dude!
I think he's still confused that I opened the door (you know when you see someone out of their usual environment) and trying to figure out the garbage I gabbled at him for five minutes. Although he's used to my garbage. 
In other news, and proving that December is the most awesome month of all, I have a few links for you...
Theatre appears on Gef Fox's top five novellas of the year list and Strange Men appears in his top five anthologies/story collections. Bloody Hell.
At The Crow's Caw, the staff listed their favourite five books of the year and Nowhere Hall appears on Jassen Bailey's list and Theatre on Lee Thompson's list. Dudes!
Jennifer at The Book Den reviewed Theatre... "The mix of Gardner's intelligent prose and her dark, visual tale had my brain all delighted."

Philip Harris reviewed Strange Men over at Solitary Mindset... I love how he started his review... "There's something wrong with Cate Gardner." True. True.

A bloody awesome review from Glynn James for Nowhere Hall... "Cate's ability to describe the indescribable is exceptional here." ...and Alan Baxter reviews Nowhere Hall at his blog... "This is a beautiful story, haunting and powerful. It's superbly written, with rich, stirring language and an excellent sense of place."


I think that's all the linkage. That has to be all the linkage because.... Bloody Hell! Any more goodness and I might explode. Okay, that could happen from the amount of Christmas chocolate we have in the house too... We have far, far, far too much.

Oh, wait... And apparently (news just in) you can vote for Nowhere Hall and Strange Men in the This is Horror awards... Or If you've read Simon Bestwick's Angels of the Silences you can vote for that instead, which is what I'm going to do. :D Voting closes December 30th.

(The Man with) Two Yellow Shoes

My nephew has turned me into an aunt who buys slippers for Christmas (he asked for them, he asked for them). I suddenly feel like I should be wiping marks off his face with my spit and ruffling his hair. By next year, he may have turned me into someone who buys socks and hankies. Maybe used hankies. Yes, that will be my revenge.

Said slippers, an example of which are to the left, are gigantic. He's going to be bandy for the rest of his slipper wearing life. Maybe I should buy some waterproof pants for his little brother and sister because when they see these... Oh boy, there's not going to be a dry anything in the house.

I estimate thirty minutes after middle nephew opens them on Christmas day, that littlest nephew will be walking around with both feet in one slipper and his sister will be wearing the other. Possibly as a hat.

Maybe we'll all be wearing them as hats. Now that's an image.

It's HERE!!!

So by now you may have guessed that Theatre of Curious Acts has been published... OMG! I have waited for this moment for so long. Christmas 2009 Theatre was hibernating with another publisher who had me on the edge of my seat for most of the book's duration with them (about a year) and I was really hoping that I would get a yes before Christmas. I switched off my computer as late as possible (without getting yelled at) on Christmas Eve. I didn't hear of course, but now, two years later the book is real and published and I love, love, love it.

Now for the infomercial... Here are some other people who loved, liked, enjoyed the book:

"Gardner (Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits), a rising purveyor of high literary strangeness, offers a fresh slice of phantasmagoria densely packed with striking images.."  ....Publishers Weekly


"This book is amazing, Cate's writing is intelligent, lyrical, emotional. evocative and totally engaging..." ...Jim McLeod, Ginger Nuts of Horror (Jim also listed the book in his top fifteen reads of the year)

"From the battlefields of Europe, to the end of the world, this novel is a seamless blend of physical and psychological horror that will leave a distinct impression..." ...Pablo Cheesecake, The Eloquent Page (Pablo also picked it as his book of the month for December)

"The aesthetic of this 40,000 word novella evokes theater and circuses and other strange, false places that tell true stories. It's a cross between Gaiman's Neverwear, Maguire's Wicked and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and if you enjoy any of those, you will enjoy the "Theatre of Curious Acts." ...Caroline E Willis at Tangent Online.

And there are more reviews on Theatre's page and you can find it on Goodreads here.

It's available in..

Hardback: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble
Paperback: Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon Canada Barnes & Noble Book Depository
eBook: Amazon US Amazon UK Amazon France Amazon Germany

The Amazon UK & Canada paperback isn't live as of this moment, but should be soon. It will also be available for the Nook soon and Eric has kindly added Theatre to the Hadley Rille Books eBook sale so it's cheaper at the moment.

That Place

It's a weird old world that you can walk past something a thousand times (more than, I suppose, if I were to calculate) and then one day you look at it with fresh eyes, despite battling hailstones and you think, man what used to be in there, what's that for and I could do something with that.

I love those moments.

Now it'll never be a dirty, grey building that seems to go on forever ever again, it'll either be the story I wrote, the story I considered writing, and probably the I know what the freak lives behind those black windows and I should run.

Almost Christmas folks. Eat, drink, be merry. I hope 2012 is a beautiful year. Or just a fun one. God, I need some fun.

Top Five of Other Things...

My favourite novellas/novelettes of 2011 were... (again, not necessarily published this year but read by me this year)





My favourite collections / anthologies read in 2011





My favourite Short Story writers of 2011
Robert ShearmanAlison LittlewoodKen LiuAmanda C DavisRay Cluley

Top Ten Novels 2011

Here be my top ten favourite novels of 2011 - well that I read in 2011, some were published way before this year. I catch up eventually. Next Post... my favourite novellas/novelettes, collections and anthologies, and short story writers of 2011 (coming as soon as I've formatted the post)

A Shameless Post

Apologies, this post is full of braggage. If braggage offends look away now...

First thing this morning, I discovered that I'd made Jim McLeod's Top Ten Discoveries of 2011 along with John Hornor Jacobs, Graeme Reynolds, Ian Rogers, Paul D Brazil, and Jasper Bark. Flabbergasted. And then, on a day that decided it would be good to me, Jim also posted 8 of his Top Fifteen Reads of the Year and Theatre of Curious Acts and Nowhere Hall (along with the other Spectral chapbooks) made the list. And I hadn't even had time yet to link to Jim's excellent review of Theatre... "This book is amazing, Cate's writing is intelligent, lyrical, emotional. evocative and totally engaging..." and you can read the rest of the review here.

And then (because it's one of those days - I should check my lottery numbers), over at The Eloquent Page, Pablo Cheescake has a year in review post and he picked Theatre as his book of the month for December. Hey, who shouted 'you only had to fight half a month's worth of books'? I'm watching you. I may faint now. Oh, and again, Spectral Press gets a mention. Dude!

And... (sorry!!!)

Theatre is now available to actually buy (not pre-order) at Barnes & Noble (hardcover) and at Amazon US (hardcover). And, it's available to preorder at Amazon UK (hardcover). You can't buy it at The Book Depository yet, but the paperback is listed there. I ❤ The Book Depository.

I also ❤ almost everyone in the known universe today. Heck, I'll even save a hug for those extraterrestrial dudes.

Pardon me while I faint.

Some Theatrical Belly Flips

You may have witnessed a wee bit of butt-shaking excitement last night when I discovered that Theatre of Curious Acts (the hardback) is available to pre-order on Amazon (just the US site at the moment). Oh my!

The book will be available as a hardback, paperback, and ebook and they'll all be released (fingers crossed, things going to plan etc etc) on December 21st or thereabouts.

And there was more butt shaking this lunchtime when I read Pablo Cheesecake's review over at The Eloquent Page..."From the battlefields of Europe, to the end of the world, this novel is a seamless blend of physical and psychological horror that will leave a distinct impression..." It's a seriously awesome review. Me and my boys can battle anything now - dragons, war, death.


Theatre means so much to me - I love Barbed Wire Hearts  and Strange Men  but both those books had easy rides to publication (or at least that's how it felt - or rather, a magical ride) whereas poor Theatre often felt like the book that would never be until it landed on Hadley Rille's shores. Have I said how much I love the book. And my boys, especially Daniel & Swan and poor, poor Ken. Ken breaks my heart so don't you dare hate him (okay, you can if you want). Assuming you read their story that is. I hope you do. And if you do, let me know if you love Ken (and if you don't, it's all my fault and not his).