Steven Mace's Blog, page 5

SNM Horror Magazine August Asylum Issue (#57)

Publication News:  My short story "The Visitor" has been published and featured in SNM Horror Magazine's August Asylum issue (#57).  This paranoid horror story is about a creepy mental patient who speaks of being watched by mysterious beings who have compelled him to commit crimes. Although his claims are bizarre and he is considered insane, eventually his psychiatrist uncovers the truth...
You can read it here: SNM Horror Magazine- August Asylum 

Litro Magazine #127: Victoriana

Publication news: My short story "The Legacy of Steeple Hill" is featured in Litro Magazine's Victoriana issue (July #127).

It's a curious story. It definitely has a feel of Edgar Allan Poe/Wilkie Collins about it, and a sinister atmosphere throughout. A Crimean war veteran, Thomas Barrington, visits the ancestral home of the Walsinghams, the mansion on Steeple Hill. It's a suitably gloomy and labyrinthine building overlooking a rugged, ominous coastline. Barrington is calling on his old friend, and the present incumbent and aristocrat owner of the mansion, Lord John Walsingham. Barrington unwittingly stumbles upon a sequence of planned occult rituals orchestrated by Walsingham, which have already resulted in mysterious supernatural events taking place at the forbidding gothic mansion...

Please read and enjoy, and I hope you will take the time to read the entire issue as well (Victoriana being a theme close to my heart!) The link is here: Litro Magazine #127

Blysster Press Crypticon Anthology of Horror Shorts

Publication news- my short story 'Winter's Promise' has been published in Blysster Press' Crypticon anthology of horror shorts. It's a supernatural tale about a couple trapped in a mountainside cabin during a heavy snowstorm, and their strange experiences. You can check this story out and more amazing tales by fantastic authors in the anthology, which is available as a paperback from Amazon here:
Blysster Press Crypticon Anthology

Writing Update April 2013

It's been a long time since I posted a fresh article on this blog, too long in fact. I apologise for this period of silence. The truth is that I have not been silent on here for lack of anything to write, but simply because I've been too busy with other stuff- I've completed the final draft of a new unpublished novel, Staccato House; I've written about 60% of another new novel and I've completed the final draft of a new novella. I've also completed a new collection of short stories, entitled Echoes and Exiles. A few of the stories intended for this have already been published online and in magazines; others are in the progression-stage of making it to publication- that purgatory waiting-room of literary judgement. Once all works have been submitted and found a suitable home, I'll make the rest of the material publicly available as I think its deserving to be read- so I'm guessing that Echoes and Exiles will (hopefully) be ready to buy/read on various formats by the end of 2013. There are additional locations for the "Aspiring Author Online". I've set up a new blog at Wordpress which for now is going to operate in tandem with this one. What is the point of it? Well, I like the Wordpress layout, the blog design and their widgets. I have an open mind about this, so I may continue to update both and post duplicate articles, or restrict myself to updating one blog. We'll see. You can check out my Wordpress blog here:
Steven Mace- Aspiring Author at Wordpress

My books are now published at Smashwords. (I recommend .pdf copies/online viewing) You can see my profile and information here:

Steven Mace- Works at Smashwords

I have a Goodreads account too, which you can view here, and you can find my work here too:

Steven Mace at Goodreads

I'd also like to remind you of my other online homes. I'm on Twitter:
Steven Mace on Twitter
My Amazon Author Page (download my books for the Amazon Kindle)
Steven Mace- Amazon Author Page
My Lulu Spotlight (to buy hard copies of my books)
Steven Mace- Lulu Author Spotlight
My Facebook Author Page
Steven Mace on Facebook
My RedBubble (online artists and writers) home:
Steven Mace on RedBubble

A few more interesting links.

My SF short story "Virtuatronics" was a runner-up in Five Stop Story's November 2012 competition. You can read it here: http://www.fivestopstory.com/read/story.php?storyId=4495

My primer on 'Steampunk Literature' was published by Litro Magazine in November 2012 and you can read it here: http://www.litro.co.uk/2012/11/primer-steampunk-literature/

The full version of my psychological short story "This Machine" was published in the November 2012 edition of Suspense Magazine: http://www.suspensemagazine.com/2012NovemberMagazine.html

An abbreviated version of the same story was published online at Urban Story, check out their website here: http://www.urbanvirtual.co.uk/#/clapham-south/4570361182

My Black Comedy/Psychological short story "The Ballad of Leonard and Mary" was published in the October edition of Suspense Magazine: http://www.suspensemagazine.com/100512SuspenseMagazine.html

You can also read my Fantasy Adventure novella The Pirate Princess for free online at Authonomy:
http://authonomy.com/books/32683/the-pirate-princess/read-book/

Retrieved from the Vaults

I don't have all of the books that I own with me at my home in London. I managed to retrieve most of my ancient book and comics collection from the vaults in Lincolnshire. For now my books are shelved without rhyme or reason, but I re-discovered my favourite tomes and reading material from my younger days. Here is the 'library': 


There are some rather odd juxtapositions of particular volumes there if you look closely (Stephen King not far from Shakespeare and Dickens), but for now a sensible bibliography will have to wait. Still, I think I can just about get away with placing Tolkien and Lovecraft close together, with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein lurking nearby- I'm just not sure about Virginia Woolf and Charles Darwin!:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s I was a voracious reader of comics and graphic novels- particularly 2000AD. It was interesting to rediscover some old favourites, with Judge Dredd featuring prominently:

My favourite short stories (2)

The Shadow-Cage by Philippa Pearce Philippa Pearce was a children's writer from Cambridgeshire, and she is most famous for her children's novel Tom's Midnight Garden.

  'The Shadow-Cage' is a supernatural story about witchcraft and I particularly like the rural setting for the story. It obviously has a Cambridgeshire setting, which is similar to the area where I myself grew up in South Lincolnshire. Ned Challis is a farmer, who finds an ancient glass bottle with a stopper when he is ploughing a field. He allows his daughter Lisa to keep the bottle, before remembering only later that he found it near the site of an old witch's house that burnt down. His daughter Lisa takes it to school, where her cousin Kevin wants the bottle and takes it from her. After a day at school, he forgets it and leaves it in the school playground. In the middle of the night Kevin remembers it, and decides to go and fetch it at the stroke of midnight...only to fall into the grasp of old sorcery. When Kevin returns to the playground he encounters the shadow-cage and the mysterious, elusive Whistlers...
The whistlers were in no hurry. The first whistle had come from right across the fields. Then there was a long pause. Then the sound was repeated, equally distantly, from the direction of the river bridges. Later still, another whistle from the direction of the railway line, or somewhere near it.

  The Room in the Tower by E.F Benson Edward Frederic Benson was a late 19th-century/early 20th century English author of novels, short stories and biographies. His elder brother Arthur Christopher Benson wrote the lyrics to Edward Elgar's patriotic song "Land of Hope and Glory".  E.F Benson wrote a broad range of material, including numerous horror and supernatural stories of considerable power. One of the best of these is 'The Room in the Tower'. It begins with the protagonist experiencing a recurring dream of attending an old school friend's gathering at a mysterious mansion. Everyone there sits in silence. The old school friend's name is Jack Stone, and at the end of the tea party, Mrs Stone (the old school friend's mother) announces: “Jack will show you your room: I have given you the room in the tower.” The protagonist experiences the dream for many years, and curiously the people in it age accordingly over that period of time. After a while, the dreamer understands that Mrs Stone has died, and on that occasion the people attending the party wear black. Yet it is still Mrs Stone's voice who announces "I have given you the room in the tower" and the dreamer sees a gravestone on the lawn: In evil memory of Julia Stone. When the dreamer goes up into the room in the tower, it is darker than normal and he feels a sense of decay. He wakes up screaming.Then, one fateful day, the protagonist is invited in reality to stay at a house by another friend, John Clinton. He arrives at the house only to discover that it is exactly like the mansion in his sinister dream...he is given the room in the tower where he discovers a portrait hanging:It represented Mrs Stone as I had seen her last in my dreams: old and withered and white-haired. But in spite of the evident feebleness of body, a dreadful exuberance and vitality shone through the envelope of flesh, an exuberance wholly malign, a vitality that foamed and frothed with unimaginable evil. Evil beamed from the narrow, leering eyes: it laughed in the demonlike mouth. The whole face was instinct with some secret and appalling mirth; the hands, clasped together on the knee, seemed shaking with suppressed and nameless glee.

Thoughts on reading (George R R Martin)

Like his hordes of fans, I'm absorbed in George R R Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series of epic fantasy novels (many people may be more aware of the TV dramatisation Game of Thrones, the title of which is taken from the first book in the series) I have just finished reading Dance of Dragons and like many I will be waiting patiently for the final two novels in the series, Winds of Winter and Dream of Spring. There are a lot of people commenting on these books and publishing their thoughts; I thought I would share some of mine.
The Song of Ice and Fire is epic dark fantasy, with obvious inspiration from varied sources such as Shakespearean tragedy; the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's historical fiction, most notably The White Company; J.R.R Tolkien's work and Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea novels; not to mention Martin's contemporaries such as Raymond E.Feist and Anne McCaffrey. The pseudo-medieval setting and culture is very familiar in fantasy fiction. What makes this series stand out though is the mighty scale and sheer ambition of Martin's imagination. He has created a vast and vivid Fantasy world, a War and Peace of fantasy novels; different continents populated by flawed, complex characters; a world with its own history and religions. The reader finds themselves caring passionately about the main character's gripping adventures and possible fates. The cast includes a lengthy array of sorcerers, priests, soldiers, knights, heirs, Kings, Queens, Lords, servants, sell-swords, skin-changers, warriors, maids, slaves, merchants, pirates, dragons, princes, princesses and numerous aristocratic Houses. Plots and subplots are set against a dark and dangerous backdrop.
The story of A Song of Ice and Fire takes place on the continents Westeros and Essos, with a history of thousands of years. The series is told in the third person by point of view characters, who number over thirty by the fifth novel. Three principle plots become interwoven: the political intrigue and battle (the "Game of Thrones") for control of Westeros by several aristocratic Houses; the rising threat of the previously dormant supernatural and zombie-like Others dwelling beyond an immense wall of ice on Westeros' northern border; and the growing ambition of Daenerys Targaryen, the exiled daughter of a king murdered in a civil war shortly before her birth, to return to Westeros with her fire-breathing dragons and claim her rightful throne.
The scope of Martin's achievement is deeply impressive. He has been working on the series for almost twenty years now. The number of plot threads that he is weaving together and juggling is quite incredible.  As an aspiring author, I admire (and am quite envious of) his ability to keep so many plot threads dangling while the reader continues to be hooked by his epic tale.  Some people have criticised him for the expanding length of the series and killing off major characters- I disagree, I think these aspects are integral to the success and popularity of the books (and the TV series). So many of Martin's characters are interesting because they are damaged- mentally/emotionally or physically, and sometimes both. My favourite character, Tyrion Lannister, is a perfect example of this but this is reflected in other characters: his siblings Cersei and Jaime; Davos Seaworth; Jon Snow; Theon Greyjoy and many others.
I will say very little about the detail of the plots as I see no sense in giving away the story in this article and revealing spoilers- there's absolutely no fun in that, and the beauty of these novels lies in their delicious unexpected plot twists and surprises. There is a real sense of the sinister; of evil and treachery in these books. Martin's world is ravaged; often mysterious and cruel.

Thoughts on reading (Bram Stoker)

Bram Stoker is most famous as the author of Dracula, the Victorian novel which took the vampire myth and centred it within the modern popular consciousness through the medium of literature and cinema. It's a classic obviously- I also own and have read The Jewel of Seven Stars, which is an excellent, spine-tingling supernatural tale by Stoker based around Egyptian mythology. I decided to download and read two lesser known works by Bram Stoker, The Lady of the Shroud and The Lair of the White Worm.
I discovered that they were lesser known for a good reason. The Lady of the Shroud is written in the same epistolary form as Dracula, advancing the narrative from different point-of-view perspectives, but this structure doesn't quite work for this novel.
The mystery of 'The Lady' herself is solved halfway through the novel, and what had begun as an eerie Gothic tale becomes a predictable and cliched 'Boys Own' Victorian adventure, dipping into piracy and Balkan politics, and dripping with sentimentality.
The novel begins and concludes in a dry fashion: the opening is dominated by dry legal affairs and notes which set up the novel's central premise; the hero, Rupert St Leger, inheriting a ruined castle on the Balkan coast. This is livened up only by the observations of the priggish Ernest Melton and his equally insufferable relations. They add some light relief and provide some of the more entertaining elements. The novel concludes with happy-ever-after observations of political ceremony. The climax is dominated by pomp and circumstance as the tale gradually grinds to a halt and outstays its welcome.
The best passages of the novel are its sinister prologue with elusive promise of the supernatural; Rupert's first mysterious encounters with 'The Lady'; and Ernest Melton's humorous passages, yet sadly the novel never quite lives up to its promise.



I also read the shorter novel The Lair of the White Worm, notable for its loose cinematic adaptation starring Hugh Grant and Amanda Donohoe, and directed by Ken Russell. A lurid, unsettling Victorian horror story, at times it is unintentionally absurd and also quaint and dated in its attitudes toward women and race. Although conceptually ridiculous, Stoker's ability to create memorable and sinister characters in the form of Lady Arabella and Edgar Caswell redeem the story somewhat. The ideas of psychic domination and mesmeric power in this novel echoed concepts I found in Aleister Crowley's novel Moonchild.

Writing Update

Apologies for my blog posts and journal entries being so infrequent of late. Over the past year or so I've been exceptionally busy with the process of writing fiction rather than updating social media. I've completed a host of new short stories over the past twelve months. Hopefully all of them will be appearing in some kind of published format in the near future, and beyond into the New Year. I might make a new collection available on Amazon at some point, which is provisionally titled Echoes and Exiles.  I'm holding back on making these stories available for the moment while I wait for publishing outcomes.
I've also finished an entire draft of my second full length novel, Staccato House. Regular readers of my blog, and Twitter/Facebook followers, will know that I originally submitted this work in the form of a novella to Contact Publishing's thriller-writing novella competition, and it was shortlisted in the final ten.  The 40,000 words that I wrote then has since evolved into a 110,000+ word novel- give or take a few extra final tweaks eventually.
I'm attempting to juggle several ongoing writing projects at the moment. I've also been wrestling with my third novel, A Riverside Tale- a book that I have been working on since the latter part of 2011. This one is a little different from what I normally write, at least in terms of theme and genre. It doesn't fall into any of the categories of fantasy, horror, SF or thriller. It's probably more accurately described as a romance/mystery novel, and is set in England during the period of the 1940s-1970s. It needed some research rather than pure invention. I'll be sharing more information about this novel and my other works in progress in due course.
In addition to all of this- see, I told you I was busy, and this isn't even the day job!- I've been re-writing my first novel Copper Moon Rising. Some of you might already know that I self-published this novel, an epic fantasy/SF crossover tale, in 2010. I also created a second edition in 2011 to make a few corrections. This year I've been working on a revised version as it may still have a publication future, and have noticed a few more necessary alterations and edits that needed to be made. I have added to the mid-section of the novel, Moloch's tale in particular- which in hindsight I thought was slightly under-written. However, if you have already bought it or own a copy, I would assure you that I have done very little in terms of substantially changing the narrative and basic plot structure. It's generally  been a case of adding some necessary final polish- clarifying some aspects of the story, expanding particular sections, and filling out one or two of the characters and settings. In some places I felt that the narrative's prose style was uneven, due to earlier drastic rewrites and my own impatience at the time - carelessly rushing ahead with the plot. I'll probably make the new amended version available on Amazon at least, sometime in the near future- unless I can make strides with it elsewhere.


 

A Primer on 'Steampunk' Literature/Litro Magazine

Check out my article on steampunk fiction, published in Litro Magazine. The three books I recommended are a mix, the 'Difference Engine' is heavy-going but seminal; 'The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters' is a lurid, dark rollercoaster adventure and 'Retromancer' by Robert Rankin is a light hearted dip into the genre:
 A Primer on Steampunk Literature by Steven Mace

    (Illustration copyright James Davis) Litro is an excellent publication with many other intriguing and enlightening articles about world literature. If you have any interest in fiction and writing then it’s worth having a look at.  Litro Magazine