Tim Hawken's Blog, page 3
January 31, 2021
The Hellbound Trilogy's Epic New Covers
When it came to updating the covers of the Hellbound Trilogy it was pretty hard to go past dark art extraordinaire Menton3. Menton has produced work for the X-Files comics, Transfusion, Chasing the Dragon and more. His creepy vision and dark artistry matched so well with the dark fantasy themes of Hellbound it was scary.
After explaining the concept to Menton, he ran with it and created the 3 below masterpieces. An impactful way to gives this cult dark fantasy series a new afterlife…
Menton3’s Cover Art for Hellbound - Book 1.
Menton3’s cover art for I Am Satan - Book 2 of the Hellbound Trilogy by Tim Hawken
Menton3’s cover art for Deicide - Book 3 of the Hellbound Trilogy by Tim Hawken
To finished things off, cover design Xavier Davies added titles, and away we go.
To get these special editions of The Hellbound Trilogy click below.
ShOP NOW
January 19, 2021
Best Lowbrow Pop Surrealism Art Accounts On Instagram
I’m an art junky. Pop Surrealism, Lowbrow Pop, Dark Art, Monsters, New Contemporary or simply skilful illustrations. For those like me, here are the best lowbrow pop surrealism accounts on Instagram I’ve been able to find. As a bonus, I’ve listed some curated pages that have lowbrow pop on Insta but also weave in other dark art and generally epic others sprinkled in there too, just to branch out a little. Good art is good art.
Follow, feast your eyeballs and enjoy.
Best Lowbrow Pop On InstagramPop Surreal - Just like the name suggests, a wide range of Pop Surrealism to feast your eyes on.
Casey Weldon - For my money Casey is one of the funniest lowbrow pop artists getting around.
Tom Grillo - Lowbrow pop with a dark humor twist. Tom Grillo throws up demons, cats, cat demons and more.
Just one rainbow slice of gold from Casey’s Weldon’s insta.
Collections - These accounts offer a great variety of artists all on one scrollWicked Eye Candy - A wonderful mix of weird, wicked and, well, wonderful
She Walks Softly - Super well curated pop surrealism and more
Beautiful Bizarre - The Instagram feed of the magazine. So good.
Copro Gallery - A gallery in California that has been running for 20 years. They know their stuff.
Image via Copro Gallery by Lori Nelson, @lorinlsonart on Instagram
Artists - Pop Surrealists, Dark Artists and More.Mab Graves - Amazing pencil art, detours and, ah, dolls
Adrian Borda - Regular posts of interesting characters in unique worlds
Joshua Roman - Colourful portraits that border on insane (see Mugatu below)
Elena Masci - Italian fine artist with a beautiful mind.
Menton3 - Dark artiste extraordinaire
Image by Joshua Roman - @joshuaromanart on Instagram
Amber Carr - Little devils and BDSM nuns among others
Olivia De Berardinis - Pin ups of a most sublime nature
Luis Royo - Fantasy, erotic and apocalyptic illustrations
Virginia Rose - A collection of retro art with a saucy twist
Image by Olivia De Berardinis - @oliviapinupart on Instagram
That’s a highlight reel for you. Of course, it’s not exhaustive, so if you have any of your own favourites, hit up the comments below.
If you’d like to get a dose of my favourite artists, podcasts and more in your inbox each month. Hit subscribe on my newsletter here.
End Note: A lot of these artists live off sales of art and other merch too, so if you’re thinking of gifting art this year, do you bit to help them eat by buying into their stylings.
January 7, 2021
The Best Drabbles of 2020
A drabble is a micro-story of exactly 100 words. As a writer, I love the format as a test to see how much imagination you can pack into a short space. For over a year now, I’ve been dropping art-inspired drabbles on my Instagram feed most weekdays. They’re a fun way to keep active on social media without resorting to selfies or food shots. A lot of people seem to love them too. So, I thought I’d wrap up my top 3 for the year here, going by likes and comments. There’s a very solid chance the number of likes is more for the art than the story itself, but seemed like the best way to figure out the best drabbles of 2020 on the feed.
Here they are in order.
They came at dawn - the Fallen and their shadow master.
At first I thought it was a trick of the light, my eyes adjusting to the morning mist.
Then, the bodies emerged, suspended in mid-air like dark marionettes.
By then, it was too late to run. I tried, but something tugged me back.
An invisible string wrapped around the core of me. Wove inside my mind.
I was pulled into the sky, back to join the others. My mouth smiled with dark delight. Together we would take over the town.
Deep down though, I screamed to be let go.
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This 100-word micro story was inspired by the epic art of Abhay Parmar who you can follow on Instagram here.
It received 11.1K likes and 40 comments.
Everybody wanted to live in The Shade. The cool district.
Every morning I’d wake up to the scorching sun in the city and look over. They hadn’t woken yet. Didn’t know the meaning of tropical insanity. The inability to sleep because you lay all night in a pool of sweat.
Their air-conditioning took the remaining power that didn’t go into irrigation pumps. Said we were lucky we could eat. We had shelter. Had lives while the rest of the world was a desert.
The Shade was the place to be, but only because of us who worked in the sun.
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This 100-word microstory was inspired by the insane scifi concept work of Inward Sound who you can follow on Instagram here.
It received 7.8K likes and 46 comments.
The stories go that our land was carved by the gods. Really, it was scratched out by their kids.
A sandpit to play in. A paddle pool to splash in. This world was designed for them to learn the ropes of destruction before they tried their hands at creation.
Yet what they created was beautiful. Swirling rivers dug with sticks, sweeping mountains that were their fortresses, rainforests teeming with tiny playthings.
We have the god children to thank for that past. Just as we have our own to thank for the future.
Never underestimate what some innocent play can create.
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This 100-word microstory was inspired by the always playful art Ian Mutch who you can follow on Instagram here.
It received 7.1K likes and 47 comments.
You can my more of these art-inspred microstories over on Instagram here or on good old Facebook here.
November 26, 2020
The Best YA Fantasy Books with Sabaa Tahir
Sabaa’s Tahir’s YA fantasy books have sold more than a million copies worldwide and recently made TIME Magazine’s 100 best fantasy books of all time. Her latest novel A Sky Beyond the Storm is out December 1st and is by a mile the most eagerly awaited fantasy series finale this year. Sabaa has a bright sock addiction, makes a mean music playlist, and enjoys killing off darling characters even more than Jay Kristoff and George R Martin combined.
In this episode we dive into what makes an amazing sock, why romance is underrated, and how YA is a category that often defies genre. We also of course talked about Sabaa’s best YA fantasy book recommendations.
Sabaa Tahir’s most loved YA fantasy novels include:The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdeah
This YA fantasy series has rich historical detail and plenty of romance. Renée’s newer series starting with The Beautiful is also amazing YA urban romantic paranormal fantasy.
Six of Crows Leigh Bardugo
A YA Fantasy series with an Oceans 11 ‘heist movie’ feel to it.
The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
A reimagining of the Arabian Nights, including rich historical details with a heist element too.
The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon
Incredible Contemporary Literary YA fiction
They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera
Another genre defying book, it’s maybe best described as Young Adult LGBT Adventure
Sabaa’s newest YA Fantasy book, the final instalment in the Ember In The Ashes series can be found where all good books are sold.
October 12, 2020
The Best Action Adventure Books with Matthew Reilly
Matthew Reilly is a New York Times bestselling author of 18 novels - with his latest, The Two Lost Mountains launching today. His books have sold over 7.5 million copies worldwide, thanks to his intriguing characters and plot pacing that’s faster than a Dalorian DMC-12. While most peg him as an action adventure writer, he also touches other genres like scifi and fantasy frequently in his work. Matthew himself describes his novels as 'escapist' fiction.
In this chat, we talked Hollywood adaptations, killing off characters (and getting hate mail for it), plus how Michael Crichton influenced his writing…
For the best action adventure novels (other than his own) Matthew recommended…
The Andromeda Strain or The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton.
He also thinks non-fiction like Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari & The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova help inspire great works of fiction.
Finally, for pure imagination, Matthew Reilly recommends scifi classics: Rendevous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke, The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov, and The Hyperion Series by Dan Simmons.
To read Matthew Reilly’s books, or some of his free short stories head to MatthewReilly.com
September 29, 2020
The Best Biographies with Derek Rielly
Derek Rielly is a strange cross of dirtbag surfer meets eloquent wordsmith. This made him the perfect person to write Wednesdays With Bob - the bestselling biography on Bob Hawke. Derek has since followed that up with an incredible book on the Indigenous Australian icon David Gulpilil. When he’s not writing about real people, Derek also makes up facts about his parents to colour up his author’s bio.
Derek chatting with the late Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke. Photo shot by Richard Freeman, sourced via BeachGrit.com
In this chat, we uncover whether Derek’s dad really was a pro wrestler, how persistence landed him the book with Bob Hawke, and how one of the most compelling biographies he’s read opens up with a corpse on a slab…
Derek’s best biography recommendations include…Night Train: The Sonny Liston Story by Nick Toches
Dino: Living High On The Business of Dreams by Nick Toches
The World Is My Home by James Mitchener (actually a memoir)
When Warriors Lie Down and Die by Richard Trudger (history)
To stay in touch with Derek’s latest, head to BeachGrit.com.
September 12, 2020
The Best Non Fiction Books with Jess Hill
Jess Hill is an investigative journalist and the author of See What You Made Me Do, which recently won the coveted Stella Prize. Jess’s work has also won two Walkley awards, three Our Watch awards, and an Amnesty International award. She even helped set Twitter on fire last year with her revelation that Stockholm Syndrome is actually a bunch of bullshit.
Jess’s book See What You Made Me Do is for sure the most mindblowing non-fiction book I’ve read this year, up there with my favourites of all time like Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
I was lucky enough to have a remarkable chat with this remarkable woman, where we spoke about the role of non-fiction for society, the best non-fiction books getting around, and what it meant for Jess to win The Stella Prize.
Listen to the interview below, and check out all her recommendations.
Best Non-Fiction Books According To Jess Hill
Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Bonus - The Best Cli-Fi Books according to Jess
A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop
To connect with Jess, follow her on Twitter here, or head to her website here.
To shop all of the titles above in a way that helps support local bookstores, and the Genre Wars Book Podcast at the same time, head here.
August 24, 2020
The Best Sci Fi Books with Ken Liu
Reading Ken’s Liu bio, you might think he’s a replicant from the future who never sleeps. He’s worked as a programmer for Microsoft, practices law with a degree from Harvard and has won just about every major sci-fi and fantasy writing award getting around including The Hugo, The Locus, The Nebula and more. On top of that, he’s translated critically acclaimed works from Chinese into English, including one of my favourite sci-fi books The Three Body Problem. His latest series The Dandelion Dynasty also cements Ken as the undisputed godfather of Silkpunk.
In episode 5 of the Genre Wars Book Podcast, we talked about how genre is useful, how it’s not, what kinds of stories Ken is drawn to, and that time he wrote for a little series called Star Wars…
To browse Ken Liu’s best sci-fi book recommendations, see below.
Best SciFi Classics(*Note: Ken chose writers here over specific works. I’ve selected one book I think represents them well.)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
"[A] science fiction masterpiece."--Newsweek
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
"Intricate and extraordinary."--The New York Times
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
"In the ongoing contest over which dystopian classic is most applicable to our time, Octavia Butler's 'Parable' books may be unmatched."--New Yorker
This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
"A twisting, sapphic time travel fantasy love story that never stops surprising." --Booklist
"Trust us, trigonometry has never sounded so cool." --Paste Magazine
"A thrilling, intense, nail-biting read that transcends genre and has an ending of biblical proportions." --Grimdark Magazine
A Song For A New Day by Sarah Pinsker
“This tale of hope and passion is a remarkable achievement." --Publishers Weekly
United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas
"A searing vision of the persistence of hope in the face of brutality, United States of Japan is utterly brilliant." -- Ken Liu
To connect with Ken and get updates about his writing, find him on Twitter @KYLIU99 or head to his website . I’d recommend his Paper Menagerie as a wonderful place to start.
To see all of the best science fiction book titles above, along with recommendations lists from other authors head here.
The Best Crime Fiction Books with Chris Hammer
Chris Hammer is the author of instant bestseller Scrublands and it’s stunning followup Silver. A journalist with over 30 years of experience, he was also shortlisted for a Walkey award for his first non-fiction novel The River. In 2019 Chris won the CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel, has just been shortlisted for the 2020 ABA Booksellers Choice Awards, and takes out my personal award for most memorable character names in any books I’ve ever read. He is a font of knowledge when it comes to crime fiction and the first person I’d ask for recommendations when it comes to finding the best crime fiction books getting around.
Look out for the moment in the podcast where Chris breakdowns every Midsomer Murders plot ever in one neat package. Brilliant stuff.
Here are Chris Hammer’s top crime fiction reads…
Best Crime Fiction Book ‘Classics’Modern Classic, The Broken Shore By Peter Temple
"Flinty, funny, subtle, and smart . . .Temple ranks among [the crime genre's] very best practitioners." --Entertainment Weekly
Older Classic, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
"[Chandler] wrote as if pain hurt and life mattered." --The New Yorker
The Wife and the Widow by Christian White
"Good Girl, Bad Girl is a gripping and eerie read. You won't be able to look away." --Karin Slaughter, #1 international bestselling author
"Compelling, unexpected twists and a hold-your-breath standoff . . . Hand this one to readers of Tana French and to police-procedural fans." --Booklist
Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic
ONE OF THE YEAR'S 10 BEST MYSTERY NOVELS -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The Girl In The Mirror by Rose Carlise (brand new)
“A seductive debut thriller about greed, lust, secrets, and deadly lies involving identical twin sisters.”
"A darkly illuminating thriller that soars across genre constraints . . ." - The Australian
"The Majesties is a thrilling, tender page-turner, the darker side of Crazy Rich Asians." --Krys Lee, author of Drifting House and How I Became a North Korean
To read Chris Hammer’s books, head to his website or Facebook for updates. I recommend starting at Scrublands. It’s a cracker.
To see all of the best crime fiction book titles above curated in the Genre Wars Shop (which helps support independent bookstores) head here.
The Best Horror Books with Alan Baxter
Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author of supernatural thrillers, horror and dark fantasy. He has written over 20 books, has had over 70 short stories published in award-winning magazines and anthologies, and has been shortlisted for the Ditmar Awards, Aurealis Awards and Shadows awards multiple times, winning three Australian Shadows awards in the process. Alan is the Vice President of the Australasian Horror Writers Association and as a Kung Fu teacher could axe kick the bejeezus out of anyone leaving him bad reviews on Good Reads.
We had a great discussion during episode 3 of the Genre Wars Book Podcast about what makes good horror, whether you can actually define the genre and, of course, the best horror books that people should read.
Here are Alan’s recommendations...
Best Horror Book ‘Classics’The Great Secret Show by Clive Barker
"Barker has an unparalleled talent for envisioning other worlds." -- Washington Post
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
"I think the author who influence me the most as a writer was Richard Matheson. Books like I Am Legend were an inspiration to me." -- Stephen King
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
"The books that have profoundly scared me...are few....But Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House beat them all...It scared me as a teenager and it haunts me still." --Neil Gaiman
Best New Horror Books
The Grief Hole by Kaaron Warren
“The Grief Hole put me immediately into a world I wish I'd never seen and never wanted to leave." --Leslie Bohem
Mongrels By Stephen Graeme-Jones
"Hilarious, painful, fascinating, and satisfying...Will easily be remembered as one of the most unique and unforgettable werewolf tales ever written." --New York Journal of Books
The Cipher By Cathe Koja
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award and Locus Awards, finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, and named one of io9.com's "Top 10 Debut Science Fiction Novels That Took the World By Storm."
Jack Ketchem’s The Girl Next Door
“Thoroughly disturbing.” -- Alan Baxter
To find Alan’s books and read his stories head to AlanBaxter.com.au (I recommend starting with Devouring Dark). Or connect with Alan on Twitter here or Instagram here.
To see all of the best horror book titles above curated in the Genre Wars Shop (which helps support independent bookstores) head here. I’ve also added one of my favourites, House of Leaves.
