Adam L.G. Nevill's Blog, page 42
October 9, 2016
THE RITUAL MAKES “40 SCARIEST BOOKS OF THE LAST 200 YEARS”
Very pleased to see THE RITUAL make this horror fiction list. No idea of the length and breadth of the reading behind it (though far higher than average is my gut), but watching that novel morph into something of a cult fiction book, through word-of-mouth since 2011, has been deeply satisfying.
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September 27, 2016
FANTASYCON BY THE SEA, 2016
One weekend each year always makes me happy and it’s Fantasycon weekend. This one conformed to the trend. I had a hoot and was up in Scarborough for the best part of four days, and drove just shy of 700 miles to get there and back. I’m still unpacking …
A whole heap of people made it memorable and enjoyable, but I wanted to acknowledge a few folk on here. This was a weekend of curious personal synchronicity and completion, particularly when Mark Morris interviewed me. I first met Mark in 2004 at my first Fantasycon, after my first novel was published. Mark was, I’m pretty sure, the third person that I met at that con’, but also the first reader of ‘Banquet for the Damned’ (that was not involved in the publishing of it) that I actually met in the wild and in person. So to be interviewed as the Guest of Honour by such a good writer and friend, 12 years later, was special and all seemed to complete some part of my journey. And I glowed too when I read his piece on me in the program. Thank you, Mark! I’ve had two GOH gigs this year, one in Scarborough and one in Dublin, and they were both confirming and rewarding experiences, but made particularly special by two of my oldest mates in this genre world, Mark and Sarah Pinborough, who asked me questions that made me think, and who turned my aversion to public speaking into a chat about books with a friend.
A huge two horn salute to all who came to the interview and to my ‘Some Will Not Sleep’ launch in a really packed Fantasycon schedule. Again, I underestimated the level of interest that might manifest in the book, and was a tad startled by the amount of folks who showed up. We even ran out of the allotted hour and had to shift the launch into a corridor. Getting to that point in the book’s production, in three formats, has been a game of snakes and ladders (two hundred dust jackets destroyed in a jacketing machine the previous Friday), but that launch dismissed my last remaining doubts about the entire undertaking. Thank you from the bottom of my hooves to all who picked up a copy. Seeing so many Ritual Tees on display around the joint was also monumental! I went up with 72 books and came home with 5 … You rock and you roll!
Which brings me to my Birmingham road crew and “brotherhood”. It took five of us, plus one kind red shirt, to actually run the launch in the Cabaret Ballroom. So a massive thanks to my brother, Simon Nevill (and for doing the artwork and raffle), to my old friend and text designer, Peter Marsh, and to the two Paul’s, who all ran the show around me (while I just sat on my ass and chatted). The two Paul’s aren’t on here, but they were two of the first friends I made at school after coming to the UK from New Zealand (and they also converted me to their taste in music).
One thing I never anticipated was the potential for just how much ballache that my own stock and merchandise posed on arrival. And yet, the hassle was immediately headed off by the marvelous Karl Edward Wagner award-winning redshirts (notably Alex Davis, Pixie, Brendan and Patrice Hawkes-Reed), and then my baggage train was stored and administered by one of the warmest and most generous souls I’ve met in this game – Brian J. Showers of the marvellous Swan River Press. The reason the hardback came out in such fine shape was also down to Brian, who mentored me throughout the book’s critical path, while working and running his own press.
All in all, good dinners were also eaten, belly laughs were enjoyed, pints were supped, a couple of Slaughtered lambs were visited, books were bought, old and new friends hung out, fireworks even went off, and awards went out to some terrific writers and publications (I was really chuffed to see Catriona Ward pick up the Derleth for the super Rawblood).
And thanks to all my BFS mates too for being such great companions throughout the entire weekend. Hope to see you all next year, if not before.
Long live the BFS.
The Grand
Scarborough, looking north from The Grand
South Bay, looking south from near The Grand
With the Brummie road crew – inc’ the two Paul’s on the right. Pic Pete Marsh.
Brian J. Showers and the Swan River Press table in the dealer’s room
With friends on Friday, Adam Millard, Andrew Freudenberg, Jim Mcleod
Gary MacMahon and Steve Harris in Ritual shirts!
Before the banquet with Catriona Ward, Gary Power and Sarah
With Kit Power at the Some Will Not Sleep launch
With Carrie Buchanan of Horror Blog UK at the launch
From inside the Terror Tunnel
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September 20, 2016
Fantasycon by the Sea
Fantasycon by the Sea … Just checked the car’s vitals, and despite some reservations about the driver-side front tyre, I’m blasting off from here Wednesday evening. Then splitting my journey in two, as it’s quite a treck from Devon, to arrive in Scarborough sometime on Thursday. My route is like a perfect diagonal line from the south west coast to the north east coast of this island. This means that I can use a compass instead of a satnav, which will be useful if I can’t stop and just plough straight into the sea and keep on going …
But, if I make it, up there:
On FRIDAY, I will be doing a Waterstones signing at 5pm for my novels.
On SATURDAY, I will be undergoing a Guest of Honour interrogation by my old friend, Mark Morris, between 11:00am and 12:00pm, in the Main Ballroom of the Grand Hotel.
Later on SATURDAY, from 4pm to 5pm, I’m launching SOME WILL NOT SLEEP: SELECTED HORRORS, the limited edition hardback. Again, this launch will be held in the Main Ballroom of the Grand Hotel. The launch will be catered with beer (mostly), wine, & non-alcoholic drinks – so customers can have a drink on Ritual Limited.
Now, for this hardback, which is a very high spec’ book, I will be selling it at a special Fantasycon price of only £20 for the book, and a mere £25 for the book and Black Metal Tee combo. That may sound pricey, but the book was very expensive to produce (for the love of God, no drinks on the table!). It is also beauteous to behold, but with a touch of the ghastly about it … Every purchase of the book also comes with two limited edition “artefacts”: a tear-proof bookmark and a signed postcard within a very nice envelope. There are 400 books, 400 postcards, 400 bookmarks in this edition (though I am only bringing a fraction of it with me). If you just wanted a shirt, the price is £10. (See pic below for bundle).
These book prices reflect a saving of 8 – 9 pounds, so are significant. But then it’s not every day that I’m a Guest of Honour anywhere. If you want the title page signed too, I will do so, but am only making my “mark” on an actual book if requested (erring on side of caution). But this will be the first opportunity to get a copy, and five weeks ahead of the publication date. So it’s a BFS Fantasycon exclusive, an organisation and event that has done so much for me as a writer, and for many years.
Other than that, signing a book is a great privilege and something that I never take for granted, so if you can’t make these launches, I will happily sign anything (save my own execution orders), anywhere, at pretty much anytime (in a communal area). So don’t be shy if you want a book signed.
The ever generous Brian J. Showers, has offered to stock SOME WILL NOT SLEEP at the Swan River Press table in the Dealer’s Room, during the convention. So if you can’t make the main launch, you can get a copy there, where the cover will grin amongst stacks of those excellent Swan River Press books.
I look forward to seeing so many friends in Scarborough, from both real and virtual dimensions. Travel safely.
Fantasycon by the Sea
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September 19, 2016
SOME WILL NOT SLEEP HAS ARRIVED (IN HARDBACK)
The limited edition, high spec’, hardback of Some Will Not Sleep has been delivered to my office. The eagle has landed …
400 copies. First carton opened. Inspection underway. They’re looking good, they’re looking heavy …
And I took a Youtube tutorial on folding Tees, so the first 100 are racked and stacked.
With a tailwind the store should open next week.
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September 17, 2016
BEFORE YOU SLEEP – FREE ON AMAZON
BEFORE YOU SLEEP is finally free on Amazon UK and US. It’s taken me over two weeks to get a price match, but if this is the store where you download your horror, then my THREE HORRORS are in the mix and looking to inhabit your devices!
Free horror short stories from Adam Nevill
This link will show you everywhere that you can get your FREE eBook.
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September 14, 2016
SOME WILL NOT SLEEP – THE LAUNCH
My running sheets arrived from the printers, CPI, late yesterday. The book has been stitched so I just needed to approve the jacket, boards and endpapers, which you can see below. The book’s constituent parts are all looking a bit infernal and ominous and I like the cut of their cloth. In the vast cosmic horror of discovery hell, the book’s imagery may also help readers identify that it contains no whimsical reflections of village life or any love stories.
The first public appearance of the hardback of SOME WILL NOT SLEEP: SELECTED HORRORS will be at its launch at Fantasycon, and you are all invited. More details about the collection’s wider availability, and the store, go out in my September newsletter. Once I have the actual book and have given it a photo session, I’ll fire the newsletter out. The official pub date is Halloween (this year, I hope).
Date:
Saturday, September 24
Time:
4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Event Categories:
Book Launch, Guest of Honor, Main Ballroom (Grand Hotel)
Boards
Front board
Rear board
Endpapers
Endpapers
Dust jacket
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September 6, 2016
SOME WILL NOT SLEEP – PAPERBACK AND SHIRT
Well it’s been something of a day of days for me, Some Will Not Sleep and Ritual Limited. I am still flying under the “coming soon” flag for the collection in all of its editions, but I felt as if I am really getting somewhere today.
My samples of the SOME WILL NOT SLEEP paperback arrived this afternoon, and I will say that print-on-demand has come an awful long way over the last few years. These books are as good to my eye as the better B format paperbacks from the trads – lovely velvety matte finish on the cover, and real easy-on-the-eye cream paper inside. If you picked this up in Waterstones you wouldn’t think P.O.D. I’m giving Ingram Spark full marks. It feels real good in the hand and the perfect bound binding is great. I may have stroked it …
And I’m awarding full marks to Pete Marsh of the Dead Good Design Company who resized the amazing jacket artwork from the hardback, and his own text design for the hardback, to fit this paperback edition.
I’m publishing this paperback at the same time as the limited edition hardback and the eBook on Halloween, 2016. The paperback’s availability worldwide will be impressive.
And if that wasn’t exciting enough (for me, admittedly) after the last seven months of many very long days, involving much trial and even more error on this indie venture, the Ritual Limited Black Metal T’ sample arrived too. I’ve splashed out on the manufacture of my merch’ so that the Ritual shirt is made on ring spun, soft style cotton, like a good tour shirt. And it’s a beaut’.
My all singing, tap dancing store, will be opening soon for presales, and I will be taking delivery of the hardback very soon … If you want to get in first, my mailing list is a good place to be (and you get a free book). Signup is on my homepage.
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August 24, 2016
SECOND FREE BOOK – BEFORE YOU SLEEP: THREE HORRORS
And while I am on the subject of new books, I am giving away a second FREE BOOK – BEFORE YOU SLEEP: THREE HORRORS.
Currently, the eBook of BEFORE YOU SLEEP is only available for my newsletter subscribers, but it will eventually be cast further and wider like a piece of paper inscribed by runes, through online retailers. I’ll shout when it’s active on Amazon and co, but if you want it now, sign up at my website and I’ll send out the download details again at the end of each week until it’s live online.
You can sign-up on the homepage at www.adamlgnevill.com
BEFORE YOU SLEEP is a three story appetiser that precedes the main course of my first short story collection, SOME WILL NOT SLEEP: SELECTED HORRORS, that will be published in time for Halloween this year (details in the next newsletter, and subscribers will have first dibs on the limited edition hardback too). I’ve selected three horror stories from Some Will Not Sleep that I want to offer, absolutely free, in a special eBook edition. So here’s the blurb:
BEFORE YOU SLEEP: THREE HORRORS by ADAM L. G. NEVILL
A trilogy of horror stories from Adam L. G. Nevill’s first collection of short stories – SOME WILL NOT SLEEP – and an introduction to the nightmarish visions and ghastly spectres that have been disturbing the sleep of readers for years. In this book you’ll find two ghost stories and a tale of ancestral demoniac horror.
In the big white house on the hill angels are said to appear . . .
When the children left the house, their toys remained . . .
A confused and vengeful presence occupies the home of a first-time buyer . . .
Cover artwork by Clarkevanmeurs Design
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UNDER A WATCHFUL EYE BY ADAM NEVILL – COVER REVEAL
Folks who receive my newsletter have already seen this, but here is the cover of the hardback edition of my next novel: UNDER A WATCHFUL EYE.
It’s published by Pan Macmillan, January 12th 2017. I love it.
It will manifest in just under six months, and the story behind the story can also be found in my August newsletter. I’ll resend that to any new sign-ups by the end of the week. You can signup on my homepage and get some free books too.
The supernatural and skulls have a longstanding relationship, but this is a Leiberish smoke ghost!
Seb Logan is being watched. He just doesn’t know by whom.
When the sudden appearance of a dark figure shatters his idyllic coastal life, he soon realizes that the murky past he thought he’d left behind has far from forgotten him. What’s more unsettling is the strange atmosphere that engulfs him at every sighting, plunging his mind into a terrifying paranoia.
To be a victim without knowing the tormentor. To be despised without knowing the offence caused. To be seen by what nobody else can see. These are the thoughts which plague his every waking moment.
Imprisoned by despair, Seb fears his stalker is not working alone, but rather is involved in a wider conspiracy that threatens everything he has worked for. For there are doors in this world that open into unknown places with their own rules. Places used by the worst kind of people to achieve their own ends. And once his investigation leads him to stray across the line and into mortal danger he risks becoming another fatality in a long line of victims . . .
If memory serves, I first thought of much of this story as far back as 2003 and partially developed it in a long short story (‘Yellow Teeth’). This novel concerns itself with the consequences of an unpleasant individual returning to a horror writer’s life. In one sense it is a tale of literary rivalry and a toxic friendship, but this novel also marks a return to my roots, in that the novel is more M. R. Jamesian than any of my novels since Last Days. Writing No One Gets Out Alive and Lost Girl left me feeling winded and a bit flat – they took a lot of research and writing and seemed to exhaust all of my energy. I don’t want to sound phoney, but I did wonder if I could write another story that “mattered” as much to me as those two novels do. Those that have read the books know that they don’t pull any punches, nor make light of what’s at stake for the characters, and even the world’s future.
As a kind of creative relief, I decided to write a new story directly from my “classic” horror roots, while also touching upon the themes of writing itself, and literary horror. But this doesn’t mean that I am slipping on the safety catch or dulling my edge. Readers will discover a tale of psychic terror inhabited by some of the most ghastly supernatural entities that I’ve yet dared to imagine.
And to my mind, as I wrote the book, not only was the story a return to my beginnings, it also became a strange distant cousin to Last Days. I don’t want to give too much away, but the story also encompasses my taste for unusual spiritual beliefs and organisations, odd counter-culture figures, and people haunted to the end of themselves …
The first six months of writing was hard going, but I gradually began to feel revitalised and recharged and am very pleased with the finished novel. When I finally typed “The end” I knew that I’d rediscovered the same levels of intensity and inspiration that were responsible for each of my preceding novels.
I’m in talks with my publisher to see if I can arrange something special for readers ahead of publication too.
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August 22, 2016
Dublin Ghost Story Festival 2016
The first Dublin Ghost Story Festival was a hall-of-fame convention for me. And it was a big success for the organisers, so hats off to Brian J. Showers, John Connolly and their team for creating such a great experience; and into which went a great deal of time and thought (and some Dublin horse-trading by some accounts). I can’t recall enjoying panels so much either. I saw everything that was scheduled (on a perfectly balanced and curated programme) and it was all quality. I was ever warmed by the convivial atmosphere, and I think this con’ was of a perfect size.
Without a trace of hyperbole, it was a genuine honour to be Guest of Honour, and in a city with such a great literary tradition – the uncanny synchronicity of me deciding to be a writer, after reading Joyce’s Portrait’ at the age of 16, and then being a Guest of Honour in his city 31 years later, was special. I was also invited there by people who know their (Oliver) Onions, and who I also hold in such high esteem as publishers and writers (Brian J. Showers has been my mentor on the hardback of ‘Some Will Not Sleep’ from the beginning). Ultimately, I am, and will always only ever be, one of the guys who loves books (with a beer in his hand), but being offered this gig felt like I had inserted a new antler into my headdress (the one that only unlucky critics and motorists ever get to see). And also, how often do you get to hang out with John Connolly and David Mitchell in a Freemason’s Lodge – or was it a temple? David Mitchell had even read one of my books and bought me a cake … My hind legs nearly tap danced.
I also want to thank a few people who made the weekend extra special. Thanks to me old mucker from the class of newbies of 2004, Sarah Pinborough, who interviewed me. I’ve never been that keen on public speaking but she made this feel like two old friends chatting about horror, in a car (doing 15 in a 70), on the way to a writing retreat in Wales. Though we only covered half of them, her questions made me think a bit harder about what I have emerged from, and also about what grisly form I have assumed in 2016.
Robert Lloyd Parry was, as ever, outstanding on stage and wonderful company off it. He performed two M R James stories and one by Le Fanu over the weekend – all sublime. His new show is the Time Machine and touring the UK this year. If you haven’t seen him perform, you must. He adds so much class and character, and both new and lost dimensions, to the classic ghost stories in our tradition.
Thanks for Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane of HWA UK for the great company (as well helping me activate my phone and to then switch off the roaming on my return). Shout outs to Lynda E. Rucker (a terrific moderator), Alexandra Benedict, Angela Slatter, Maura McHugh, Sean Hogan, Lisa Tuttle, Helen Hopley, Martin Roberts, and Diala Atat for their company, and to all of the cool people I met for the first time in the bars and halls like John Reppion, Martin Hayes, Gerry Hayes, Owen Harris,Charlene Putney, Amelia Moriarty Bradshaw, John Mulvaney. And there were many others too, but after 24 hours sleep since last Thursday I am beginning to hallucinate everyone into a Francis Bacon painting made up of screaming faces inside a cube …
I didn’t take enough pictures inside the event, because I was too busy gassing, but there are a few attached. Some include scenes from the impromptu literary walk Brian gave us yesterday, that took in the residences of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Elizabeth Bowen, and the birthplace of Francis Bacon …
I no longer mind that the airport confiscated my drug of choice on the way out – nicotine liquid – because I vaped my fix in the gents anyway, so there.
As ever, it was soothing to drive back into the bay, which was warm and sunny and golden, and to get back to my girls. My nipper has lost a front tooth since I’ve been away and now has a little lisp that is achingly sweet. All is good.
Back to the coalface tomorrow after a good sleep to make some more ghosts. But I could still murder another draught Guinness right now.
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