Tony Richards's Blog: 21st Century Holmes, page 9

THE SPEED OF DARK

Further down this blog, you'll find an interview with Canadian author and publisher Clayton Bye. And now I'm in an anthology of his. It's horror, and it's different and unsettling stuff. At 334 pages, The Speed of Dark has 27 stories by 19 authors from across the world, all of them by invite, and includes my latest Birchiam-on-Sea tale, 'Across the Tracks.'

A GREAT HORROR FREEBIE!

For the whole of today, Saturday 23rd February, one of my collections of horror tales -- The Books of Shadow: Volume II -- is absolutely free on Amazon Kindle. A dozen of my best creepy tales, all of them originally published between the Eighties and the present day. There are two other books in this series, by the way. You can find out more about them HERE.

A BELATED NEW YEAR

I've never cared too much for Xmas. Honestly, I find it dull. So once family duties are over, Louise and I like to get away for New Year if we possibly can. This year it was Palma, capital of Mallorca, a charming town with a large and beautiful Old City, full of winding streets, Arab baths, and amazing buildings including a huge and very beautiful cathedral. I thought I'd share some of it with you (rather late in the day, because I've been pretty busy since I got back).
 

DEADLY VIOLET REVIEWS

Just like the previous three Raine's Landing supernatural novels, the fourth in the series -- DEADLY VIOLET -- has started pulling down some seriously good reviews. Except that, only being an ebook at the moment, those reviews are all on Amazon. Here are the first few:

“What can I say? As entertaining as the other novels, perhaps even more so. I've been a fan of Raine's Landing since I purchased the first novel in the series from the Science Fiction Book Club, and they just keep coming, each one as satisfactory as the last. I always look forward to opening a novel whose title has the subheading: A Raine's Landing Novel.
     This one brings back familiar characters from past stories...Boston cop Lauren, a recovering Saul Hobart, and a pregnant Cassie, trying to maintain a normal life with her boyfriend, the recently-deceased adept Quinn Maycott, as well as others only mentioned previously. There's a little more on Willetts, who came to the Landing, committed what he considers a criminal sin, and stays to work out his own punishment. None of these side stories are enough to detract from the main theme, namely, why does the mysterious violet light suddenly gleam and then nasty things appear and do away with homes and their inhabitants in particularly gruesome ways? It also answers some questions I, and no doubt other readers, have raised through the years.
    I'd call this one a nail-biter, and I'm not going to say any more for Spoilers can pop up unexpectedly whenever one speaks about the Landing. Just read it for yourself, and you'll see what I mean” – T.P. Vissage.

“Deadly Violet, along with the other Raine's Landing novels are page turners. Not a boring part in the whole series. Deadly Violet left you with a cliff hanger at the end, so I'm looking forward to the next in the series” -- Judy.

“Welcome back to Raine's Landing, the town that was built by the original Salem Witches as an escape from the infamous witch trials (1692). However, the town ended up on the wrong side of the wrong witch and found itself cursed in perpetuity. Anyone born in Raine's Landing can never leave and those not born there find it extremely hard to find or visit the town. It is due to this curse That Raine's Landing, a town populated primarily by magic users, exists just off a major highway in the present.
    There are a few people who don't use magic in this town. Ross Devries--a former cop--and his tough sidekick, Cass Mallory, are two of them. Not only that, their peculiar backgrounds make them perfect problem solvers for whenever magic gets out of hand, something that seems to happen with some regularity in Raine's Landing.
    Take this day for example: People have begun disappearing. And giant, purple worms with massive, circular rows of teeth that rotate are grinding unprepared people into nothingness. Then come the little bubbles of violet light that shoot through everything and everyone they find, repeatedly, destroying them just as surely as a "grinder" would. But when houses begin to disappear and people are attacked by their worst nightmares, even the town's adepts can't stop the destruction.
    They keep trying though. Trying to understand and communicate with the intelligent, violet life-forms who seem to be behind all that is happening. But when the sun itself takes on a purple hue, it leaves everyone certain that reality is being consumed by another universe.
    Since magic has failed to protect them, Ross and Cass seem to be the only people who can fix this particular problem. What's the source of that problem? A little girl a hundred years in the past has stolen a powerful talisman, reached out and forward to find the "little girl" from previous stories (She occupies one room in an abandoned house, hovering in the air, spinning slowly and seeing all) and then entwined their minds. It's this that has caused a rip in the continuum of space and allowed the strangest of races access to our world.
    With the clock ticking down to nothingness, Ross and Cass must somehow find a way to break the bond between the two girls and repair the bridge between the universes.
    Be sure to pick up a copy of this superb fantasy. Deadly Violet by Tony Richards just hums along, taking you at high speed to places of which you will never have dreamed. In fact, I think Deadly Violet is the best Raine's Landing novel to date. ” – Clayton Bye.

The book is available for $2.99 (plus a very small delivery fee) from Amazon Kindle, and for those who prefer something more solid, a paperback version ought to be ready sometime later this year.

ELECTRIC ANGELS

At last, after a good long wait, my third Raine's Landing supernatural thriller -- Midnight's Angels -- is available in ebook form. You can get it both on Smashwords and on Amazon Kindle.

THE NEXT BIG THING

Okay, I've been asked to try something that's fairly new to me, but seeing as I've based a lot of my career on trying something new, let's go ...

The Next Big Thing -- brainchild of Lisa Lane -- is a meme that creates a chain reaction through the blogs of authors of various genres, wherein they answer the same 10 questions about one of their forthcoming works. So, I'll dutifully get to it.

1. What is the title of your story?
It's the newest tale set in my fictional English town called Birchiam-on-Sea, it's called 'Across the Tracks,' and it is due to appear in Spring 2013 in a fascinating new anthology of different and disturbing horror stories called The Speed of Dark from Chase Enterprises, based in Canada. A lot of the better anthos seem to come from that part of the world these days.

2. How did you come by the idea?
Well, 'across the tracks' or 'the wrong side of the tracks' are fairly common North American expressions which relate to crossing from a well-off part of a town to a far less well-off part. Going across from one world to a rather different world, in other words. Which is what this story is -- quite literally -- about. The central character in the tale -- a lawyer called Norman Miller -- has some good news for the resident of what is called in the UK a 'council estate' and in the US a 'housing project,' but leaves it till the evening before he goes there. Bad mistake. Anyone who lives in a large Western city is more than familiar with such districts, but more about that later.

3. What genre does your story fall under?
I often like to use the term 'dark fantasy,' which I see as more appropriate for some of my work, the Raine's Landing series, for instance. But in this case, no. This is straightforward HORROR, with more than a whiff of the Lovecraftian about it.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters if it was a movie?
Apart from a very brief appearance by his wife at the end, Norman Miller is the only -- human -- character in the tale. He's a middle aged lawyer, and I think in terms of his astonished reactions to the events he comes across, William Hurt would play him perfectly, although he'd have to learn a British accent.

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your story?
A lawyer ventures into a bad part of his hometown that he's never visited before, and finds that it is a considerably worse place than he could ever have imagined.

6. Will the anthology be self-published or traditional?
Chase Enterprises is an independent but traditional publisher. Which is not to say that there will not be an ebook version of The Speed of Dark ... there will.

7. How long did it take you to write the final draft of your manuscript?
I don't have any exact recollection, I'm afraid. With a short story, the first draft usually takes a couple of days. But then I pick it up and put it down over the next few weeks, correcting it and whittling away until I'm happy with it. Then I put it aside for a month or three, and reread it with my mind fresh, which is when I usually decide to revise certain parts completely.

8. What other tales would you compare this story to within your genre?
One of my own, actually. Back in 2003, an anthology came out called Gathering the Bones, edited by Jack Dann, Ramsey Campbell and Dennis Etchison, which carried a new story of mine called 'The Lords of Zero.' It was about a penniless writer who moves onto a bad housing project, had a touch of Lovecraft too, and was very well-received, so much so that John Ajvide Lindqvist -- the Swedish author of Let the Right One In -- sought me out at World Horror to tell me how much he liked it. 'Across the Tracks' comes at the same subject matter, but from a different direction.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this story?
I said earlier on that anyone who lives in a modern city is familiar with the kind of district described in the tale, and if you're wise you stay away from them. But I found myself in circumstances where I could not. Years back, London's politicians tried out a new scheme in an attempt to revive bad housing projects -- people from outside could move in for a very minimal rent indeed, in an attempt to put some folks with proper jobs and stuff into the social mix. And two friends of mine, one a writer, the other a critic and essayist, gave it a try, since they were low on funds at that particular time.
The scheme didn't work of course, for obvious reasons. One of my friends got held up at knifepoint, and the other took a waling from a gang of thugs. But I visited them more than a few times, and got to know those kinds of places better than most people do.
The point of both 'Lords of Zero' and 'Across the Tracks' is this. There actually are worlds beyond the normal one we're used to right here in our cities. The rules and moral codes are different, life is lived in a completely different way, and -- though they might exist side by side -- you don't cross over from one to the other without taking a big risk. That is where the horror really comes from, in both tales.

10. What else about your story might pique the readers interest?
If I haven't managed that by now, then I give up. Wait till The Speed of Dark comes out, get hold of a copy, and enjoy! (If that's the right word).

Other contributors to this meme are: Clayton Bye, Delinda McCann, J.A. Vasquez and Ron Cherry. Look them up as well.

ANOTHER COVER

And Deadly Violet -- the 4th novel in my Raine's Landing supernatural series -- now has a brand-new cover, thanks to the excellent Steve Upham of Screaming Dreams.

The book has also had its first review, a very favourable one too. The Deepening Review Site says: "Deadly Violet just hums along, taking you at high speed to places of which you have never dreamed. In fact, I think (it) is the best Raine's Landing novel to date. Be sure to pick up a copy of this superb fantasy"

You can read the complete review right here.

DEADLY VIOLET -- THE 4th RAINE'S LANDING NOVEL

Three of my series of Raine's Landing superadventure novels have seen print so far, all to great reviews, one from Dark Regions Press and two from Eos/HarperCollins. But, for a variety of reasons, I've decided to put book 4 in the series directly onto Kindle. I'm currently negotiating with a publisher to have a print version of the new book out in 2013. Meanwhile, here's the 'back-cover' blurb:

It may look like a perfectly ordinary New England town, a little larger than most. But Raine’s Landing, Massachusetts, holds some very dark secrets. The real witches of Salem fled here just before the Trials of 1692, and the place has been full of magic -- the good and the bad kind -- ever since. And a curse hangs over the whole population … there are so many people because nobody born here can ever leave.

It’s late December now. People are getting ready for the holidays, scarcely guessing what is coming their way next. Because a psychic beggar girl in the town’s Victorian past has gotten hold of a magical jewel that massively expands her powers -- she has reached out with her mind through time itself, making contact with Raine’s Landing in the present day. The only problem is, she’s warped the fabric of reality by doing that, damaging the walls that separate them from very different and strange Universes. Rows of houses begin vanishing, with their occupants still inside. Bizarre creatures, some of them extremely dangerous, start to roam the streets. And if Ross, Cassie, and Doc Willets are going to stop their hometown from disappearing altogether, then they’re going to need an awful lot of help.

You can read an excerpt from the new book here.

And you can find out more about it here if you're in the US, or here if you'd prefer to see the UK page.

I'VE MOVED TO SIMON & SCHUSTER

My first stand-alone novel in a good while -- I'm not counting my Raine's Landing series from Harpers -- has been accepted by Simon & Schuster. TROPIC OF DARKNESS is a supernatural thriller set in Cuba, mostly in Havana, and the action alternates between the present day and back in the Fifties, when the Mob largely ran that city. The novel will be appearing as an ebook first and in print later, and I'll let you have more information as soon as I have it.


The accompanying photo, btw, is of the beautiful but crumbling rooftops of central Havana, taken by yours truly from the roof terrace of the Hotel Inglaterra.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW -- CLAYTON BYE

A resident of Kenora, Canada, the multi-talented Clayton Bye is an extremely busy man. He’s the author of nine books – including two instalments in a fantasy series, FROM EARTH TO EDEN -- and numerous short stories and poems. Additionally, he’s an editor, a publisher, an anthologist, and a prolific critic, principally through his review site The Deepening. But I managed to get him to pause long enough to give us his views on his own work and writing in general. You can find out more about him at www.claytonbye.com
Q1: You write in a pretty wide variety of genres. Can you tell us about that?
Several books ago, after trying to decide what kind of writer I wanted to be, other than a good one, it occurred to me I had already made that choice. I was an independent. A true independent, someone who wrote books for profit and did it all myself—before I had ever heard the term POD and in a time when I was painted with the brush of stigma. I'm also a Contrarian, a term I ripped off the backside of the financial world. My definition of a Contrarian is: someone who looks to the average person when determining which direction to go or what decision to make. You see, the average person, or in our case the average writer, is that way because of the choices they make, just as the rich or the famous achieve what they do by taking certain uncommon steps. So, in a nutshell, I try not to do the same things the average person does but, rather, to emulate the people who have achieved what I want from life..

I had no interest in being a genre writer. It was also notable that my favourite kind of story is trans-genred, if I'm allowed to be playful. I'm speaking of Horror, by the way. Horror can go anywhere it wants and nobody can do a thing about it. So, I took my inspiration from the average writer and from my love of horror stories and decided I was going to try out as many genres as I can before I die.

Since I'm more of a book writer than a short fiction writer, this means my body of work will probably never support me monetarily, but that's just the way it is. I'm still having fun. The year before last I wrote a book of poetry. It's a damned fine book, too, entitled 
Q2: What got you into writing in the first place? Would you say you’re a naturally born author, or did it only come to you in time?

I began my odyssey to become a writer as far back as I can remember, which would be about four years of age. I was reading and printing by that time, and a short while later one of the beautiful Rombiero twins showed me how to make written letters. So, in grade one, while others were learning the basics, I spent as much of my class time as I could, learning to write from the flash cards lining the borders of the walls, close to the ceiling. They had the printed letter, then directly below would be the written one.

School was always like that for me. If I didn't like something or liked something else better, then I would add it to my curriculum. This transformed into a personal development course when I was in grade 7 and is still used today.

Q3: Writers generally fall into two basic types … those who heavily research their material, and those who rely on their own experiences for the background of their work. Which one are you?

Both.

Q4: Which writers have influenced you most? Who do you admire, and even envy?

Damon Knight's “The Man in the Tree” provided the inspiration for “The Sorcerer's Key,” which is not my most popular book but is, arguably, my best.

People Like Og Mandino, the former editor of “Success Magazine,” and a wonderful author, as well. Zig Ziglar, who taught me how to sell—along with a few crotchety dinosaurs (I spent most of my adult life as a salesman of some sort).

Louis L'Amour, who taught me the secret to being a writer. He's the man who said “Temperamental I am not...” and claimed he could sit down in the middle of Sunset Boulevard and type away. As the one-time fourth bestselling novelist in the world, he knew of what he spoke. I own every one of his books.

John D. MacDonald, who showed me the only thing that's truly important in a novel is interesting people doing interesting things. I own every one of his books.

Stephen King, who I believe is the greatest, modern storyteller alive today. I own every one of his books. Sure, Neil Gaiman is more the face of horror today than King, but it doesn't make him a better storyteller.

Then there's the advent of something really new. It's called Bizarro, and the writer to watch is a young man with an imagination that's scary. His name is Jeremy C. Shipp. I own every one of his books but the latest, because I've been too damned busy to buy it!

I am not an envious man. People sow what they reap. But if I were ever to be jealous, it would be of Jeremy Shipp; he's young, he's positioned to be one of those “overnight sensations,” but most of all he's in for a ride like no other, immersed in worlds so strange that he might just be happy to stop at home every now and then and visit THE CLOWNS IN HIS ATTIC.

Thanks, Clayton.
Copyright© Clayton Clifford Bye