G.R. Yeates's Blog, page 3
January 11, 2013
Phobia Friday welcomes Karin Cox
For today’s Phobia Friday, I would like to welcome Karin Cox who will be discussing her new novel, Cruxim – a gothic paranormal tale of dark angels, malicious vampires and a villain inspired by Josef Mengele himself.
1) What attracted you to writing in the first place?
I’ve been a writer as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of writing is winning a poetry contest when I was in about year four, so I was probably about eight or nine. With my (enormous) earnings, I bought a kite and I thought, Now this is a gig I could get used to. I still make about the same amount of money per annum 
English was always my favourite subject at school, but when I applied for university, I listened to all the naysayers who said “You’ll never get a job if you do an Arts degree.” So I enrolled in a Science degree in the hope of becoming a zoologist. Big mistake.
Within a year, I’d transferred to a Bachelor of Arts to study English Literature, Communication Studies and Myth and Ancient Literature, which led to my career in editing and to my job as an inhouse author for an Australian publisher, rather ironically writing books about … zoology and natural history! Writing has always been a natural state for me. I’m one of those people who jolts awake in the wee hours to scribble ideas in a notepad by my bed. It’s cathartic, a necessary process of working through my own thoughts and emotions.
2) Tell me more about your new release, Cruxim; what were its inspirations and how did you first come across the being from which the novel takes its title?
About eight years ago now, I invested in a writing workshop at the Byron Bay Writer’s festival here in Australia. It was run by Stephen Lang, author of An Accidental Terrorist, and in it he showed us all a photographic of a gothic tower and asked us to describe it using all of the senses. I wrote the first few paragraphs of this story, which sat there for several years until I found it scribbled in a notebook and considered expanding on it.
I had the idea of making the person in the tower a mythological creature, but I wanted to make him and his love interest something a little unusual. I knew I need to make him conflicted about his past and his role in the world. As I was searching through mythological creatures, I read about Kresniks, which are creatures from Croatian mythology and sometimes called Cruxim. They dine on vampires but are basically angels. I decided to explore making my hero that: an angel type being whose mission was to kill vampires, because how can you be considered holy and yet spend your life killing others? And then I wondered, what if someone dear to him became a vampire? How would he handle that when his mission is to kill them all? And the rest of the story sort of just fell into place
3) There have been lots of interpretations of angels, demons and vampires in literature – why do you think we keep returning to these particular mythological creatures as writers and readers? Do you think any of this derives from their roots in the Christian mythology that underpins much of Western society?
I think it does. For a novelist, Christian mythology provides the chance to use the complexities that underpin religion to enhance the story. The leap of faith. The guilt of being a sinner. The hypocrisy of believing in redemption, but perhaps not for the truly evil. The lure of sex and the “forbidden.” The dichotomy of God and Satan. Good and evil. That’s a treasure trove of conflict for a writer. All of those things can be worked into the theme of the novel to explore faith, good, and evil, all within the safe confines of the novel.
4) Cruxim features a couple of despicable villains in Beltran and Dr Gandler – were there any specific sources you drew upon for the characters of this horrific pair?
Writing evil characters can be disturbing when you’re in the moment, but I think the real world presents plenty of case studies for heinous acts of inhumanity. When I was coming up with the characters of Gandler and Beltran, I tried to imagine some of the most evil humans I had ever read of, and in a way, I modelled my antagonists on them. Joseph Mengele, the notorious “Angel of Death” of Auschwitz, performed experiments into heredity, including amputations, sterilization and other atrocities, using humans for his subjects. As one of the world’s most evil men, he became my inspiration for Gandler.
Beltran is more of a classic narcissist. Charming and attractive, unlike Gandler he is more interested in emotional cruelty than physical depravity. Having power over people mentally and emotionally is a turn on for him. I consider him more of a Ted Bundy type weirdo. He likes to mock and taunt, to torment people, and to render others helpless and vulnerable.
5) The freakshows of the 19th & 20th centuries have always fascinated me so I’m intrigued as to why you decided to make one of them a key setting for Cruxim?
I’m fascinated by freakshows, too. I think it is human nature to be curious and a little awed by mutation. Nowadays, it seems almost unthinkable that shows like the one in Cruxim were ever allowed, but we have to remember that in the early days of freakshows in the 1700s, no one knew the underlying medical or heredity reasons for the conditions, so some of the abnormalities were considered almost a mythology in themselves, or a punishment from God, a curse, a supernatural affliction. Freakshows were mostly phased out by the mid-1900s, but now we fill our need for the unexplained with shows like “Crossing Over”, “Embarrassing Bodies”, documentaries about ghosts and the supernatural or Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Our curiosity about the “other” is still very much alive.
For me, the freakshow presented a really good opportunity to juxtapose the mythological with the supposedly “freakish”. Often, there is a scientific or rational explanation for the things that we consider to be otherworldly, and I wanted to put my mythological Sphinx and Cruxim in a place where they were the true explained freaks of nature. Doing that enabled me to spend more time exploring Amedeo’s relationship with his Maker too. Why had he been singled out to be this creature unlike any other?
6) So what’s next for Karin Cox? Any last words?
Next is the sequel to Cruxim, which I know many of my early readers are eagerly anticipating. I’m hoping to have it out by Easter, and it is tentatively titled Creche at present. It provides a lot more background into Amedeo’s past—background that even he was unaware of, and also into Sphinxes and the mythology surrounding them. So it explains a few incidents in the first book and why they panned out the way they did.
I’m also working on several other projects, some non-fiction, some fiction and some for children, and running my website for indie authors to find reviews, Indie Review Tracker. I’m always busy. If I only had a few more hours in each day (about twelve more a day would be great!) I could get a few more books out this year too. My book of short stories, Cage Life, is doing really well at present too, so I’d like to take some more time to do a few more shorts in 2013 as well. As for sleep, well …
Thank you, Karin!
To find out more about Karin and her projects, please visit the following links:
Cruxim
Cage Life
Indie Review Tracker
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December 28, 2012
2012 in Review
Yes, I’m jumping on the bandwagon but I’ve not done one of these before so it’s something new for the blog. These are my favourites in literature, film and music from the last year.
Favourite Short Story
My pick for short story is The Singing Grass by Autumn Christian. A poetic black acid trip of a tale from the collection A Gentle Hell released by Dark Continents Publishing. Autumn has a unique and powerful voice that finds its perfect macabre expression here in a confessional story of charred changelings, formaldehyde and buried body parts.
Favourite Novella
This choice was relatively easy for me as this work is still haunting me today – The Shelter by James Everington. Nominally it’s a ghost story but it encapsulates so much more – there’s a Britishness to its darkly nostalgic look at childhood and its traumas that was refreshing in its restraint and creation of a powerful atmosphere through implicit horror. This one also holds a special place in my heart as it was the trigger that made me revisit my frequently aborted story, The Thing Behind the Door, and fashion that into a workable novella. So, thanks for that, James – I can honestly say that you have been an inspiration.
Favourite Short Story Collection
Again, this one for me was relatively straightforward, my choice is The Other Iron River and Other Stories by Tony Rabig. There is a sense of sehnsucht that permeats the stories of Tony Rabig that is startling and moving in its clarity and honesty. Melancholy can often run the risk of shading into being saccharine or crass but never so in this writer’s work. A number of his single short story releases were candidates for my favourite short story but there were too many that I loved to choose from so I decided to go for highlighting this collection instead.
Favourite Novel
For this, I’ve chosen a writer who has followed a similar path to myself – that of historical horror. A Fine Likeness by Sean McLachlan is set during the American Civil War and deals with Confederate rebels and Union soldiers facing off against a black magic cult that are seeking to use the war-time strife to their own ends. A thoroughly immersive read written by someone with a real passion for the period the story is set in. The level of detail is as impressive as the well-drawn and convincing characterisation. I also liked the touch of including real historical characters in amongst the mayhem to add to the tone of authenticity that resounds throughout the book.
Favourite Movie
I have seen a number of great movies this year that have impressed for different reasons; Avengers Assemble, Dredd & The Dark Knight Rises amongst them. But my vote for the best of 2012 goes to Prometheus. Yes, it’s a flawed film but having rewatched it, I think it still shines despite those flaws. It had ambition, it dared to be ambiguous and leave the audience asking questions and it was absolutely the most stunning example of cinematography and onscreen design I saw all year round. Point goes to the old school Master Scott.
Favourite Album
This one goes to Jordan Reyne’s Children of a Factory Nation. It’s diverse, it’s ethereal, it has grinding industrial fury as much as it does a haunting beauty drawn from Celtic folk traditions. It does what all great music should do – it takes what is past and reshapes it into something new, exciting and enticing. The standout tracks for me are the pounding echoes of Factory Nation and the reflective after-hours come-down, The Arsonist.
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December 22, 2012
December 10, 2012
The Thing Behind the Door – OUT NOW
“Then, why don’t you run, eh? Right back to school.”
The Old School stood alone and abandoned on the edge of the Old Town, somewhere in the South-East of England. It was a place of horror and old nightmares; where shadows gathered and the silence was haunted by the voices of the dead. Clayton, Jennifer and Louisa are being drawn back to the Old School, drawn by something shaped from their own darkness and despair. It waits for them, it calls to them, and it yearns to take everything from them. Because it was once like them but now it is something else.
Forgotten and unloved. Unforgiven and hated.
It is the Thing Behind the Door.
Also included in this edition, you get to see the evolution of this highly personal tale over the years and the various forms it has taken:
- An alternate novella version of The Thing Behind the Door
- A short story version of The Thing Behind the Door
- A poem entitled The Thing Behind the Door
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December 2, 2012
Release Schedule Update
Hello everyone,
This is just a brief post to update you all on my releases for the remainder of 2012 and into 2013.
2012
The Thing Behind the Door will be coming out on 14th December.
The Old School stood alone and abandoned on the edge of the Old Town, somewhere in the South-East of England. It was a place of horror and old nightmares; where shadows gathered and the silence was haunted by the voices of the dead. Clayton, Jennifer and Louisa are being drawn back to the Old School, drawn by something shaped from their own darkness and despair. It waits for them, it calls to them, and it yearns to take everything from them. Because it was once like them but now it is something else.
Forgotten and unloved. Unforgiven and hated.
It is the Thing Behind the Door.
2013
Next year, the following titles are currently scheduled for release:
The Sword of Sighs (YA Fantasy) – Spring release
Sarah Bean lives a quiet life in until the day when she is transported from our world to the fantastic and strange land of Seythe. She meets a wayfaring wizard called Ossen who saves her from the dreaded black riders, servants of a being known only as the Fallen One. Together, they will have to undertake a treacherous journey to the far-away Fellhorn mountain where Sarah must find the one weapon that can save them from the pursuing black riders – The Sword of Sighs.
Baby Blue-Eyes (Noir Thriller) – Summer Release
Los Angeles, 1926. Frank Trencher is on the trail of a killer and he won’t rest until the man who murdered Hollywood starlet, Baby Blue-Eyes, is brought to justice.
Bloodswords and a Colder Sun (Dark Fantasy) – Autumn Release
Worlds come and worlds go. Galaxies are born and universes burn. And always, treading the paths from one to another, there is a Wanderer Eternal. His name is Khale – the man who turned Death’s blade aside.
The Kingdom of Brindan is being torn apart by civil war. Witroth, son of the king, leads the mercenaries that prey on the people, burn the crops, slaughter the animals and sink the tradeships. There are also rumours that unearthly beings have been seen abroad in the countryside, that human sacrifice and devil worship are being practiced by the marauders. King Brinda needs a general skilled in dark sorcery and the art of war. He sends out word for Khale the Wanderer to be brought to him.
And though the fee will be handsome for winning this war, Khale soon discovers that Witroth has summoned to Earth an ageless power that knows the Wanderer Eternal of old. And it is something that even he may not survive when it comes to the final confrontation.
Bleak Tales & Forsaken Stories (A Collection of English Ghost Stories) – Winter Release
A Dream of Whitby Abbey; The Derelict House; When not the With-not; A Voice in the Rectory; Empty Galleries; The Picture in the Book; One Last Thing; Non Omnis Moriar; A Night in the Library.
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November 26, 2012
NIGHT RESIDUE – OUT NOW
Come here, into the space that exists between the light and the dark…where a masked god plays with the blind puppet-folk who worship him…where a woman dying to get out of this life finds black salvation in an old shop across the street…where churches and theatres become places of dismal communion…where dreams and nightmares guide the unwitting and unwilling through the broken patterns of their lives. These are fragments, thoughts and memories of a shadow world that linger on in the brain after waking. These are the night’s residue.
Now available from Amazon at the following Kindle Stores:
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November 21, 2012
The Next Big Thing (Behind the Door)
Dean Drinkel invited me to take part in The Next Big Thing. So I’m going to talk here about my December release – The Thing Behind the Door.
1. What is the working title of your next book?
There’s nothing working about it. The Thing Behind the Door is a title I have been working on for six years and in that time it has been written out as a novel twice, a short story, a poem and now, in its final form, it is a novella.
2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
The technical term would be personal shit. I’ve exorcised a lot of ghosts with this title; my neglectful and abusive parents, the people I went to school with who drove me to the point of suicide and certain convictions about what the education system in the Western world actually does rather than what it supposedly does.
3. What genre does your book fall under?
Horror, undoubtedly, whilst shading into the darker end of the Weird Fiction spectrum. To paraphrase one of the people who have read it in its finished form, it’s not a pedestrian story.
4. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
To be honest, the characters are too close to the people that inspired them for me to see anyone else in those roles and this isn’t Hollywood movie material to put it mildly. It would have to be a lo-fi underground indie horror movie shot in grainy black and white to get even close to the tone I’ve gone for.
5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
This book isn’t ‘high concept’ so you’ll have to read it and find out what it’s about for yourself.
6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Self-published and exclusive to Amazon. Kneel before ‘Zon!
7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
It took six years to get what I wanted down. It’s been a painful process and there were many times where I thought I would have to abandon it and move on. But it kept calling me back, demanding to be told. Most of the times I wrote a part of it, I felt like hives were breaking out all over me and I would have nightmares as well. It’s been like sipping from a poison chalice that seemed, at times, to be bottomless and overflowing. I was stirring up a lot of nasty, toxic black shit which made the story warp and mutate massively but I couldn’t have told this story any other way. There were times when it got a long way away from what it was meant to be but I finally managed to drag it back, make it honest and now it’s ready to be turned loose on the world.
8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
One of the key inspirations was Quentin S. Crisp’s Remember You’re a One-Ball – a harrowing yet subtle portrayal of the poisonous contradictions that underlie the world we live in. Stephen King’s Carrie would be a more familiar comparison though The Thing Behind the Door is more of a response than an imitation of the latter. Stephen King’s story was written from the point of view of an outsider who did not experience the abuse he highlighted. I did so my perspective is starkly differently and readers will see I have drawn conclusions other than those outlined in Carrie.
9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Pain, Hatred and Fear.
10. What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
I suppose it might be interesting to people curious about the psychological state of abuse victims. I made the portrayal of my own thoughts and feelings as unflinching as possible, which wasn’t always easy to do. It also takes inspiration from writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers so Lovecraftians will probably find some appeal. And one of its literary inspirations was Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen – I’d challenge anyone to read both books and find all the reference points I’ve buried in the text, not just the more obvious ones. Unsurprisingly, Borowski’s book is not a light read as it was based on his experiences in the concentration camps of World War Two.
The Thing Behind the Door will be released on 17th December.
My nominees for The Next Big Thing are:
Nyki Blatchley is a British author and poet who graduated from Keele University in English and Greek and now lives just outside London. He has had about two dozen stories published, mostly fantasy or horror, in various magazines, webzines and anthologies, including Aoife’s Kiss, AfterburnSF, Chimaera Serials and The Thirteenth Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories. His novel At An Uncertain Hour was published by StoneGarden in April 2009, and his novella The City of Ferrid was published by Crystal Codices later the same year. He’s currently working on a fantasy trilogy.
Nyki is an administrator for the online fantasy writers’ group fantasy-writers.org and runs the live group East Herts Fantasy Writers. He has also had many poems published, and has performed poetry and music at various venues around London, including frequent appearances at the legendary coffee-house Bunjies, which in the 60s featured artists such as Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and David Bowie.
Sandra Norval is an aspiring novelist. She started writing as a child and her stories and outlandish ideas have often resulted in her being described as ‘odd’. She likes that. It’s only recently that Sandra has started thinking about actually getting her work published and is getting interest from a wide variety of readers. Yes, it’s true that one of those is her mum but that is the one whose honesty is sometimes brutal. Go figure. A serial volunteer Sandra has a full time job (now an Environmental Manager, previously an Accountant) and has volunteered with kids teaching water sports, worked with bats, badgers and other wildlife and is currently heavily involved with organising the Verulam Writers’ Circle’s Get Writing events. Through this more recent work, she has had the joy of discussing the publishing world with the likes of Toby Frost and John Jarrold amongst a growing list and has learnt all about what she wasn’t doing right or could do better. This is what she wants to share with you. Currently working on her first novel ‘Libertine’, she has several other books on the back burner.
Sarah Buchheit was born and raised in Florida and now lives with her two sisters, brother-in-law, nephew, Labradoodle, and cat in Woodridge, Illinois. She is in the process of writing the ninth book in the Galoria Hunter Series – her Epic Fantasy saga about the Non-Human world that exists within our own. She loves playing Halo, drinking coffee and Swedish fish (drinking or playing with? Not sure).
James Everington is a writer from Nottingham, England. His main influences are writers like Ramsey Campbell, Shirley Jackson, and Robert Aickman. He enjoys the unexplained, the psychological, and the ambiguous in weird fiction and thinks a lot of the best such fiction has been done in the short story form. He is the author of The Shelter and The Other Room.
Autumn Christian is a horror writer who lives in the dark woods of the southern United States with poisonous blue flowers in her backyard and a set of polished cow skulls on her mantel. Though she would consider her primary profession being thrown down basement steps and chained to a keyboard in a basement, she’s been a freelance writer, an iPhone game designer, a cheese producer, a haunted house actor, and a video game tester. She considers Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Katie Jane Garside, the southern gothic, and dubstep as main sources of inspiration.
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November 2, 2012
Phobia Friday welcomes Alisa Tangredi
Today I would like to welcome Alisa Tangredi, paranormal suspense author to Phobia Friday.
1) So what attracted you to writing paranormal and suspense fiction in the first place?
I think I have always had a desire to make sense out of what causes us to believe there is a monster under the bed or in the closet – to understand why some of us have an irrational need to sleep with the light on. Somehow that need turned into another need – to create that which makes us want to keep the light on. I think most of what I end up writing deals with some sort of extreme loss. Someone gets left behind. I think that is the ultimate monster for many of us, either because it has happened or because we worry about it. I take it a step further and make an actual monster responsible for that loss, whether real or psychological. Sometimes that monster turns out to be very much human, sometimes the paranormal being is actually the more sympathetic creature.
2) Tell me more about your new release, Under the Looking Glass; what were its inspirations?
This is going to sound lame, but I had a really vivid dream one night where I got tossed over the side of a boat. That created a kernel of an idea that percolated around for awhile until it formed into something completely different. Adding to that, I had a life-long problem with insomnia till about 5 years ago (yay accupuncture!). I started doing some research on what kinds of things actually happen to those with insomnia so acute that reality blurs to a point where one can no longer trust anything around them, including their own experiences or actions. I like playing around with psychology.
3) There have been lots of interpretations and adaptations of Alice in Wonderland over the years from Graham Masterton’s Mirror to Tim Burton’s epic movie and American McGee’s Alice. What do you think it is that makes the story so fascinating for successive writers and artists? What do you think is different and unique about your take on it?
I can’t speak for other artists, but for me there is such a rich psychological canvas in both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I find it to be less a children’s story and more a masterpiece of madness run amok. Nothing makes sense, no matter how hard one might try to rationalize it, sit down, focus, try to remember where we are. I think of Wonderland that way. In my story, my main character happens upon an artist’s recreation of that Wonderland, with the main character as the artist’s intended Alice. Nothing good can come of that.
4) I play around with the dividing lines between dream and reality, sanity and insanity in my own work so I’m interested as to what made you decide to have a go at this in Under the Looking Glass?
Quite possibly for many of the same reasons you do. Maybe? I think there is a very fine line that separates us from being completely rational and functioning human beings to suddenly going completely ‘round the bend.
5) So what’s next for Alisa Tangredi?
I am finishing up the first draft of Without Intent, which is a follow up to The Puppet Maker’s Bones. Hopefully that will be released in the Spring of next year. I have been very undisciplined lately.
Thank you so much for having me on your blog!
Thank you for joining me here, Alisa.
Under The Looking Glass is available at:
And you can find out more about Alisa at:
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October 30, 2012
Book Launch – This Darkness Mine
The City is a house of flies, slowly rotting away. Soho Ghetto is a place of riots, sex, abuse and disease but it is no worse than the corporate meat-markets that staff their offices with the corpses of recently-deceased employees. Have you ever been to The Shop? Would you know a Bottom-Feeder if you saw one? Do you know what it feels like to be eaten alive by a Redundancy Package? Would you like to meet a Fallen Angel? All of these things and more are here. This is the bestiary of the 21st Century. This darkness mine.
Available NOW on Amazon:
This Darkness Mine is being launched alongwith a KDP Select Promotion. The following titles are currently available to download for FREE!
The Eyes of The Dead: USA UK GER FR IT ES JP
Shapes in the Mist: USA UK GER FR IT ES JP
Hell’s Teeth: USA UK GER FR IT ES JP
The Vetala Cycle – A Collected Edition: USA UK GER FR IT ES JP
HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL!
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October 28, 2012
Sample Sunday: This Darkness Mine Preview
There’s a place called The Shop and you can get everything there. Good price. Low price. Cut price. That is, everything you don’t want. Why would you want something you don’t want? That’s what you’re thinking but is that not what we want all our lives long? Things to fall over at home, ever-increasing hoards of rubbish, snapping, splintering, breaking-down clinkered heaps of microchip, beads, plastic, perished rubber and wood.
So in we go, into The Shop.
Marching in, we tick the box on the disposable card-strip and stand patiently in line. Our faces serene, unlined and our guts gurgle, our throats are in turmoil, so eager, expectant. We know what’s coming, what the assistants will bring to us, place in our hands, hurriedly. Look at us askance, plead with their eyes for us to take it away. They wipe their hands on their tunics to erase the wet electric sensation of having touched our purchase.
They try to look away but are drawn back to stare at it. The softly shifting dimensions of it, the out-of-focus outlines, patches of damp. Then, there is the way the vestigial limbs twitch and grow, fingers and toes recede and deform, according to the mood of the purchase. Stinking geriatric fuck-holes open and beg, embarrassingly, in public, to be fingered as we pass by. A slit opens, forming a lizardly eye from yellow putrescent jelly. The eye is soon overcome though, strangled to death by the bloodshot web of its capillaries. It makes such a mess when it pops like an old egg, the dripping remains of it giving birth to a rustling brood of white-haired whining spiders, which scatter to every dark corner.
Some of the purchases are swathed in used hospital linen whilst others are stuffed into stapled-shut supermarket boxes, bandaged with reams of brown packing tape to keep the amniotic fluids in, as much as is possible. We hurry out. We are ashamed.
The Shop is an odd place.
Every city has one.
This Darkness Mine will be released on Tuesday 30th October.
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