Alan Baxter's Blog, page 12

SHADOW BITES – a permanently free sampler of my stuff

Here’s something for everyone! I’ve been meaning to get around to this for a while, and I finally found the time. On the one hand, I just wanted to give away something for free. It’s nice to be generous, right? But also, it’s often a big ask these days to expect people to take a chance on a new-to-them author. One of the hardest parts of being an author is getting noticed out there in the sea of great books available every day. Someone once likened it to a sports stadium, where all the readers are in the stands and all the authors are crammed shoulder to shoulder down on the pitch, waving their arms, trying to be seen. It feels a bit like that sometimes. So in an effort to make getting noticed a bit easier, I’ve put together Shadow Bites.

This is an ebook that will be permanently free on all ebook retailer sites. You can find it here: https://books2read.com/u/bojGVZ It contains a complete novella, three complete short stories, and the opening chapters of six longer books. That should be more than enough to give people a taste of my fiction. Here’s the full contents.

“Out On A Rim” from The Gulp
“Crow Shine” from Crow Shine
“Simulacrum of Hope” from Served Cold
“The Normandy Curse”

Plus the opening chapters of:

Devouring Dark
Hidden City
Bound
Manifest Recall
Primordial
Blood Codex

Feel free to grab a copy yourself, and please share this post or the link anywhere you think people might be interested. Thanks! https://books2read.com/u/bojGVZ

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2021 Ditmar Awards open for nominations

The Australian fan-voted Ditmar Awards are open for nominations for all eligible work published in 2020. Last year was a bit of a mess as hardly anyone knew about the awards opening and not many nominations or votes went through. This year, there’s not a huge amount of time again, so please do get your nominations in. The more people who get involved, the more accurately the awards reflect the will of the reading public, which is what they’re all about, after all. According to the rules, anyone active in fandom, or a full or supporting member of Conflux 16, the 2021 Australian National SF Convention (https://conflux.org.au/) can nominate a work. So basically, if you’re an Australian reader of genre fiction, you can vote. There’s also this: Where a nominator may not be known to the Ditmar subcommittee, the nominator should provide the name of someone known to the subcommittee who can vouch for the nominator’s eligibility. It’s a bit convoluted, but award rules are often like that. If you’re not sure, nominate anyway and explain who you are in the Eligibility section. If you know me, I’ll vouch for you.

There’s a massive eligibility list here, so you can have a reminder of what was published last year. And you can vote easily online through this form: https://ditmars.sf.org.au/2021/nominations.html

So please do get involved. We need to spread the word far and wide and have as many nominations as possible.

For my part, I have a few pieces eligible this year:

Best Novella or Novellette

“Recall Night”, Alan Baxter in Recall Night, (Grey Matter Press)“The Roo”, Alan Baxter in The Roo (self-published)

Honestly, I would love to see The Roo nominated!

Best Short Story

“A Star has Died”, Alan Baxter in Curious Fictions.“The Demon Locke”, Alan Baxter in SNAFU: Medivac, Cohesion Press.“The Normandy Curse”, Alan Baxter in Does the Dog Die in This? 11.“The Bone Fire” – Alan Baxter in Halldark Holidays anthology, ed. Gabino Iglesias (Cemetery Gates Media, Dec 2020)“Liminal” – Alan Baxter in One of Us: A Tribute to Frank Michaels Errington (ed. Kenneth W Cain) Bloodshot Books (November 2020)

 

 

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Special deal on signed books for Aussies

Due to a few postponements and cancellations from recent Covid outbreaks (uugughhhcovid), I find myself with a bunch of stock on hand. That’s no problem, but it would be nice to get some space in my study back, and I can certainly use some cash to feed my family, so I’ve come up with some special deals for anyone in Australia. Sorry international folks, but postage outside the country is brutal. And when I sell direct, I don’t have to allow a bookstore or venue percentage, so I can offer good prices. With that in mind, for the next few weeks, I’m offering bundles of 1 to 5 books, choosing any of the following: THE GULP, THE ROO, DEVOURING DARK, HIDDEN CITY, and SERVED COLD. If you want multiple copies of a single title, or a variety of titles, no problem. Whatever you want, while stocks last. I’ll sign them to anyone and post them anywhere in Australia. When you click through to the checkout page, be sure to let me know in the Order notes (optional) section on the right which books you want and who I should sign them to. And be sure to select the Australia Shipping option you only pay the flat rate shown. Feel free to share this far and wide – all the time the post is up, the offer is on.

1 signed book including postage: $25 – click HERE for this deal

2 signed books including postage: $40 – click HERE for this deal

3 signed books including postage: $55 – click HERE for this deal

4 signed books including postage: $70 – click HERE for this deal

5 signed books including postage: $85 – click HERE for this deal

 

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Supanova joy, Supanova sadness, and a special offer for Aussies

I had a great time over the weekend at Supanova in Sydney. It was weird and good to be out at a big convention again. It was great to see fans, meet new friends, and sign loads of books. The cosplay was amazing as always and the vibe was great, despite the lower than usual numbers. But that wasn’t too much of a surprise, given the unfortunate timing of a bit of a Covid flare-up in some Sydney suburbs. And that also, annoyingly, has affected the next con, in Perth. We were all supposed to take the Supanova train to Perth this coming weekend, but on Saturday afternoon, during SydNova, word came in that WA had changed its border restrictions for anyone coming to the state from NSW. The Supanova crew scrambled to figure out alternatives, but it quickly became apparent that the new border entry rules meant no one from NSW could get to WA and be available in time for the following Saturday. Less than a week’s notice is nowhere near enough to shift arrivals for a show the size of Supanova, with all the crew and guests and exhibitors. So they made the tough, but correct, call to postpone PerthNova. Hopefully it’ll only be a short postponement and we’ll get to go in the near future.

However, this has left Perth with a bunch of disappointed fans and me with a bunch of stock on hand that will sit here until the con is rescheduled. That’s no problem, but I’ve come up with an interim plan: special deals for anyone in Australia as follows (sorry international folks, but postage outside the country is brutal).

I have plenty of stock on hand of THE GULP, THE ROO, DEVOURING DARK, HIDDEN CITY, and SERVED COLD. I’m offering the following signed book deals:

1 signed book including postage: $25 – click HERE for this deal

2 signed books including postage: $40 – click HERE for this deal

3 signed books including postage: $55 – click HERE for this deal

4 signed books including postage: $70 – click HERE for this deal

All 5 signed books including postage: $85 – click HERE for this deal

That’s pretty damn super cheap prices, the best I can manage. I’ll sign them to anyone and post them anywhere in Australia. Just be sure to let me know in the Order notes (optional) section of the checkout which books you want and who I should sign them to, and be sure to select the Australia Shipping option. This offer will stand until PerthNova gets rescheduled. Sorry I can’t do more, and I’m sad we’re not seeing Perth folx this coming weekend, but I’m confident we’ll see you all soon.

 

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Content warnings are not censorship

What’s that? Another twitterstorm of outrage and controversy. Well, it is *checks watch* a day of the week, after all. In this case, there’s been another big blow up about including content warnings (sometimes called trigger warnings, now simply CW hereafter) in horror books. There was a day when I was against the idea. Now I’m not. Horror, or any other fiction for that matter, has no rules. Story is how we mirror and interrogate our world. Write your soul, your pain, your truth. Anyone who tries to tell you what you can write can go suck it. Equally, if you write something deeply offensive or harmful to others, be ready for consequences. Don’t be a dick is always the benchmark, for fiction of any kind or life in general. But write what you want. You should always consider whether a story is yours to tell, but we want diversity in our fiction, we want to see our world reflected. Doing that without harm is the trick.

Horror, of course, is meant to be confronting. But that doesn’t mean it should be traumatic, or that people avoiding trauma are somehow wrong, weak, or censors. If a reader asks for CW, that’s okay. People carry all kinds of trauma they don’t want reinforced. CW are not censorship. You don’t have to include them, of course, but don’t deny others discussing them. That’s a dick move. A lot of people don’t want CW, they want no spoilers. Fair enough, I’m like that too. CW should definitely be somewhere out of sight. A good idea is the back of the book maybe, where people who want them can look. Another option is to have them available via the publisher or author website. That’s an inclusive move, not censorship. I’ve added a page to my site here that people can check in future (it’s currently still under construction). It’ll take a while to get right, but at least then anyone who might need a warning about the content of any of my books can ask and be directed there. I definitely deal with some seriously fucked up shit in my stories. Horror is the genre of honesty, after all, and honestly, the world can be pretty fucked up.

But the idea that people asking for CW are somehow “snowflakes” is bloody toxic. If I love cake but I’m allergic to peanuts, it’s not censorship of the cake’s integrity or commentary on the cake’s validity to include a list of ingredients. It’s not weak of someone with a peanut allergy to want to avoid a cake that can harm them. People without allergies can ignore the ingredient list. People with peanut allergies can stay safe. It’s really that simple. If you don’t include a list of ingredients and someone has a peanut allergy, they’ll avoid your cake entirely just in case. But if they have one allergy and your ingredients point out their problem isn’t in the cake, you might even gain a new reader. Do people read cakes? This analogy has taken me down a dark alley and mugged me. Let’s move on.

Just to reiterate: Horror is meant to be confronting. That doesn’t mean it should be traumatic, or that people avoiding trauma are somehow wrong, weak, or censors. If we can create whatever we want and protect people with trauma as well, why the fuck wouldn’t we? No one is telling you what you can or can’t write.

 

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Great novellas

I bloody love a good novella. There was a time when the novella was super popular. Those good old days of magazine rack pulp fiction, with pocket-sized novellas in every pharmacy, newsagent, supermarket, you name it. Then production costs and distribution systems changed, and bookstore shelf real estate became an issue, so wide spines were more popular, and the novella fell out of favour. Now we come full circle, and with print on demand and ebooks especially, length of story and width of spine are not so relevant any more. So we’ve seen a great resurgence in the novella. I love the length, especially for horror and dark fiction. There’s something perfect about having the space for a storyline like a novel, but the immediacy and pace of a short story. Some of my most successful books have been novellas. Given the popularity of my recent post on great short story collections, I thought I’d do another post with great novellas. This isn’t by any means exhaustive, of course, but it’s a hell of a list to get you started.

By definition, a novella is a short novel. The Science Fiction Writers of America (and most other genre bodies) recognise that as any book or story that is between 17,501 and 40,000 words. Anything less is a short story or novelette. Anything more is a novel. Of course, it’s a flexible thing and often based on opinion. A bit over 40,000 words would still be considered a novella by some. Some people won’t consider anything a novel until it’s over 60,000 words. Regardless, generally speaking, we’re talking about short novels. So the list below might not always be books that are less than 40,000 words, but they are all short novels. I know I’ve missed some classics, so I apologise. And I’ll add to this as new ones pass my brain.

Like the short story list, I’ll start with my own. That’s the beauty of this being my blog. Thanks for reading! Then I’ll list a wide variety of others, alphabetical by author surname, to get your teeth into. Every title link goes to Goodreads so you can add anything to your TBR, or simply look them up wherever you prefer to shop. Of course, the big ol’ Zon is easy, but try to support local indie booksellers too.

Alan Baxter

My novellas include THE ROO, which is absolute gonzo creature feature mayhem, THE BOOK CLUB, which is a missing person crime mystery with cosmic horror, and the ELI CARVER books, best described as John Wick meets The Frighteners – loads of guns and ghosts. The third Eli Carver book after MANIFEST RECALL and RECALL NIGHT is due out later this year. And of course, there’s THE GULP, a collection of five interconnected novellas of weird Australian isolated harbour town cosmic horror. I also wrote a dark horror novella with David Wood called Dark Rite.

Peter M Ball

Exile (Flotsam Series, #1) is the start of a great urban fantasy novella series.

Nathan Ballingrud

Ballingrud writer great novella length fiction, but one of the best is The Visible Filth, which can be found in Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell.

Clive Barker

The Hellbound Heart is an absolute classic.

Laird Barron

Barron is another who writes amazing novellas. Try X’s For Eyes.

John Boden

Try Walk The Darkness Down.

Kealan Patrick Burke

Try Jack & Jill.

Aaron Dries

And the Night Growled Back is worth your time.

Brian Evenson

The Warren is unlike anything you’ll have read before.

Philip Fracassi

A few good ones, try Shiloh.

Lisa L Hannet

There’s a great novella called “By Touch and By Glance” in her collection Songs for Dark Seasons.

Ernest Hemingway

There’s a reason The Old Man and the Sea is a classic.

Mark Allan Gunnells

2B is a great book with cool twists.

Laurel Hightower

Crossroads will tear your heart out.

Gabino Iglesias

Try Zero Saints.

Kathleen Jennings

Flyaway is amazing Australian gothic.

Stephen Graham Jones

SGJ writes amazingly at any length but just won the Stoker for Night of the Mannequins. Try that!

Paul Haines

One of the best novellas you’ll ever read is “Wives” which you can find in Paul’s collection, The Last Days of Kali Yuga.

Brian Keene

Try his new one, With Teeth.

Todd Keisling

Rock and roll and cosmic horror in The Final Reconciliation.

Samantha Kolesnik

True Crime is harsh and amazing.

Ed Kurtz

Try A Wind of Knives.

Eric LaRocca

The epistolary Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is like nothing you’ll have read before.

Tim Lebbon

His novella White is one of the best I’ve read.

Victor LaValle

The Ballad of Black Tom reinvents Lovecraft in the best way.

Martin Livings

Rope is short and brutal.

Josh Malerman

The first thing by Malerman I ever read was A House at the Bottom of a Lake and it still blows my mind.

Richard Matheson

I Am Legend is still one of my all-time favourite books.

Christine Morgan

Long by novella standards, but it qualifies as a short novel for me, The Night Silver River Run Red is a great horror western.

Jason Nahrung

Salvage reinvents the vampire yarn.

Nnedi Okorafor

Binti (Binti, #1) is great sci-fi.

George Orwell

Animal Farm

Sarah Pinborough

The Language of Dying is lyrical and beautiful and heartbreaking.

Daniel I Russell

Try Critique.

Priya Sharma

Ormeshadow is wonderful.

Angela Slatter

Of Sorrow and Such is classic Slatter at her best.

Keith Stevenson (editor)

I’m including X6: A Novellanthology as it contains 6 great novellas and of particular note is Margo Lanagan’s “Sea Hearts” which became an amazing novel. This was also the original publication of Paul Haines’ “Wives” mentioned above.

Peter Straub

Magic Terror is a collection of four novellas, all amazing.

Steve Stred

The Window In the Ground is a cool concept cleverly realised.

John F D Taff

Fire & Rain (The Fearing #1) is the start of an amazing novella series, or you can also now buy it as an omnibus edition.

Sara Tantlinger

Try To Be Devoured. It’s incredible.

Stephen Volk

Whitstable is a wonderful piece of work.

Marlee Jane Ward

Welcome to Orphancorp is the start of a stellar novella trilogy.

Kaaron Warren

Without doubt, one of the best writers working today. Try Into Bones like Oil.

Corey J White

Killing Gravity (The Voidwitch Saga, #1) is the first of a brilliant SF novella trilogy.

Kim Wilkins

The Year of Ancient Ghosts is a collection of superb novellas.

Michael David Wilson

Try The Girl in the Video to be really weirded out.

 

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Reading “Mother In Bloom” for StokerCon 2021

I pre-recorded a reading for StokerCon 2021 where I read the opening pages of “Mother In Bloom”, the second novella in THE GULP. It was exclusive to the con, but now the con is over, so I’ve made it public. I hope you enjoy it.

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It takes a lot of manure to grow a few good roses

A couple of writer friends I respect a great deal have mentioned something along these lines over the last day or two, so I thought I’d write a similar admission. I can often feel guilt and frustration and joy in equal measure. I genuinely love to see my fellow writers sharing great successes, be they new publishing deals, story sales, movie options, or anything else. It is fantastic to see those successes, and it proves those things are possible for all of us. Do I envy those successes too, because I want them for myself? Fuck yeah, I do. I can be happy for my peers and cranky it’s not me at the same time. We contain multitudes, us fleshy bags of need and yearning. And the thing is, I know damn well that every time I post about one of my successes, there are others out there who are equally happy-envious of me. Of course they are, they’re only human. But there’s an imbalance in this, because we only post the successes, not the toil and failure in between. We only show the beautiful rose, not the dirt and shit it was grown in. And that’s worth remembering.

For every success, I guarantee that there’s a lot of non-success. Failure isn’t the right word – we only fail when we quit – but lack of success is common. All the time we’re refusing to give in, we just have varying levels of success, from none to HOLY SHIT! But for every story sale, there are dozens of rejections. For every new book deal, there are dozens of “Thanks, but no thanks”. Even for every movie option, there are loads of enthusiastic messages from producers or studios that ultimately come to absolutely nothing.

No one is successful all the time. No one bats a home run with every ball they strike. But the weird thing is, we never post about all the times we miss. Honestly, we’d look like whinging sad sacks if we did, because as a writer it’s quite possible to miss almost daily. At least every week something I hoped might come good simply doesn’t. Or something that looks to be awesome crashes and burns for no good fucking reason halfway through take-off. It’s the nature of this industry.

So if we’ve had fifty rejections, but then we get an acceptance, you bet your best socks we sing and dance about it. The trouble is, for everyone else out there looking in, they only see the success. And it probably seems not that long since the last success, especially if we’re working really hard, because the successes are all we post about. So it looks like we’re out here swimming in a pool of acceptance letters like Scrooge McDuck diving into a mountain of cash. It’s a skewed perspective.

And even when we do post about our wonderful successes, we don’t post about the shit that might follow. If we sell a new book to a publisher, damn straight we sing out about it. When that book is published and fucking bombs, hardly selling any copies and quickly dropping off reader and reviewer radars… yeah, we don’t tend to sing so publicly about that. But it does happen. And we do go on and on about it, but with our friends in private. It’s the standard lie of social media – you see all the gloss and none of the dross.

But trust on me on this – the more you see someone winning, the harder they are working. There are a fuckton of horrible crashes and misses between every win, so if someone seems to be winning a lot, they are losing a lot too. This business is brutal and thankless and demoralising as hell a lot of the time. But we don’t quit. Every one of those wins is a reminder that they can happen, do happen, will happen again. So we keep going. Like Rocky in the last seconds of the round, we are not going down. AAADDRIIIAAANNNNNN! We write again. And again. Because we know how much we want it. We know we can do it. You have to dig through a lot of shit to grow a rose and that’s what we do, day after day. The only thing in this whole business we control is the writing. So that’s what we do, that’s what we fall back on, every time. We write, and we try to get better with every word. Nothing else is in our control.

I guarantee that almost no one is the runaway success they might appear to be. We’re all busting our arses to stay afloat, always hoping for more readers to build our career, more acceptances here and there among the slew of rejections. But in the bad times, we don’t post about it publicly – we knuckle down and work. Then when something good comes up, we sure as hell post about that. And because I know that to be true, when my peers post about their successes, even though I’m jealous it’s not me, I also mutter a heartfelt “Fuck yeah!” because not only do they deserve that success, it’s a reminder that it can happen to me too.

The only failure is quitting. Never give in, never surrender. Dig as much shit as necessary to grow as many roses as you can. I’m here to cheer you along, and hopefully every now and then you’ll be cheering for me too.

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“Exquisite” at Pseudopod

I’m absolutely ecstatic to have another story at my favourite podcast, Pseudopod. “Exquisite” is one of the three original stories from my second (award-winning!) collection, SERVED COLD. I really wavered back and forth about whether or not to include it, but ultimately decided it was a good fit after all. And that turned out to be the right decision, because no other story in that book has garnered more comment. It’s the kind of story that really resonates with and/or divides people. You have to love that. I’ll add it to the Free Stories page here, but meanwhile, please give a listen to “Exquisite” on Pseudopod ep 755, brilliantly narrated by Dan Rabarts.

Thanks to all the team at Pseudopod. Love your work!

 

 

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Great short story collections

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of short fiction. While I love to read (and write) a novel, I find the shorter yarn to be a unique art form. In many ways, with genre fiction (and especially horror) the short story or novella is often a better format than the novel. It can be sharper, more visceral. There’s long been an argument, for example, that Stephen King’s short stories are way better than his novels. I wouldn’t personally comment on that (Kermit-sipping-tea-dot-gif), but I can understand the argument.

A short story is not simply a novel with less in it. When I teach short story workshops, I try to make the differences as clear as I can. However, this post isn’t a workshop, so I’ll leave that argument there. Let’s just agree that short fiction is awesome. This post is about great short story collections (and anthologies). To clarify, a book of short stories all by the same author is a collection. A book of short stories by various authors is an anthology. This distinction isn’t made in film (to use King again as an example, that’s why Creepshow is called an anthology movie), but in written fiction, it’s a well-recognised and very clear distinction.

When I teach short fiction workshops, I constantly get asked for good examples of the form. Understandable, really. So I’ve finally got around to putting together a blog post that lists a variety of my favourites. I’ll revisit this post and add to it as new ones come out. In the meantime, what follows are some examples of what I think are the best short story collections around (and I’ll include a few anthologies at the end). I’ve picked one from each author as a good starting point, but seriously, grab anything by the people listed below and you won’t be disappointed. Naturally, I’m going to start with my own – I’ve won awards for my short fiction and my collections, so it’s only a small amount of hubris to start with my stuff – and I’m going to list more than one. It’s my blog, so there. After my own stuff, the list is alphabetical by author surname. Note: This is NOT definitive, I know I missed loads of great stuff, and yes, I’ll update it as and when I can. Here we go.

Alan Baxter

Crow Shine, Served Cold and The Gulp: Tales From The Gulp 1

My own short fiction runs through all forms of dark fantasy and horror. Crow Shine leans more towards the fantastical than the others. Both Crow Shine and Served Cold won the Australian Shadows Award for Best Collection in their respective years of publication. Crow Shine was also a finalist for the Aurealis Award, the Ditmar Award and was on the preliminary ballot of the Stoker Award (though it didn’t make the shortlist). I’ve yet to see if The Gulp wins anything, as that’s newly published this year.

Jo Anderton

Jo writes the most incredible, dark, twisted science fiction short stories and her award-winning collection The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories is superb.

Nathan Ballingrud

One of the best working today, his horror stories are sublime. Check out North American Lake Monsters, still for me one of the best short story collections ever published.

Clive Barker

Probably my favourite author of all-time, the six volume Books of Blood, Volumes 1-3 and Books of Blood, Volumes 4-6 are still the benchmark in short fiction for me.

Laird Barron

Laird is one of my favourite writers working today and his short horror stories are amazing. A great place to start is The Imago Sequence and Other Stories.

Roald Dahl

My earliest introduction to short stories, these blew my young mind. Start with Kiss Kiss.

Harlan Ellison

I mean, the man is a legend. Start with I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

Philip Fracassi

A newer writer who’s turning out great stuff, try Behold the Void.

Paul Haines

By all the gods, I miss my friend. Taken way too soon, Paul is one of the greatest horror and genre writers Australia has ever seen. His collection The Last Days of Kali Yuga is outstanding.

Lisa L Hannett

Lisa is a wonderful writer, with lyrical, magical stories. I’d suggest starting with Bluegrass Symphony to get a great taste of her dark, fantastical style.

Robert Hood

Rob is the godfather of Aus horror. One of my favourite collections of his is Creeping in Reptile Flesh, but he deserves a double mention as he is also an amazing writer of ghost stories and has an absolute doorstop of a ghost yarn collection called Peripheral Visions: The Collected Ghost Stories which is amazing.

Jack Ketchum

Ketchum is in a league of his own. Read Peaceable Kingdom.

Stephen King

We have to include King, right? One of my favourites is Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

Margo Lanagan

Truly one of the greatest, weird, mystical, transportive. Start with Black Juice.

John Langan

Another great writer who works wonders at long short story and novella length. Read Sefira and Other Betrayals.

Thomas Ligotti

Another of the true greats, his stories are mesmerising. Start with the excellent double collection in a single volume, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe.

Martin Livings

Not prolific, but an excellent writer, start with his collection Living With the Dead.

Kirstyn McDermott

Dark and beautiful, and thoroughly disturbing. Start with Caution: Contains Small Parts.

T R Napper

Proper modern cyberpunk. Read Neon Leviathan.

Annie Proulx

A master of character and almost genre-defying stories. Start with Bad Dirt.

Angela Slatter

Angela is a master of the form, and she has more collections than you can safely shake a stick at. But maybe start with Sourdough and Other Stories. It’s a great example of her dark, twisted fairytale style, and still one of my favourites of her work.

John F D Taff

Multiple Stoker Award nominations, try Little Black Spots.

Paul Tremblay

He writes weird shit, man. Start with Growing Things and Other Stories.

Kaaron Warren

Kaaron is an absolute legend and her fiction will discomfort the hell out of you. Another absolute master at work. Something of a definitive collection of her is Dead Sea Fruit.

Kim Wilkins

Wonderful fantasy, with a dark edge, her novella collection The Year of Ancient Ghosts is superb.

Selected Anthologies (alphabetical by anthology title)

A Killer Among Demons, ed. Craig Bezant.

Anywhere but Earth, ed. Keith Stevenson.

Damnation and Dames, ed. Liz Grzyb.

Dark Cities, ed. Christopher Golden.

Dead Red Heart, ed. Russell B Farr.

Dreaming in the Dark, ed. Jack Dann.

Evil is a Matter of Perspective: An Anthology of Antagonists, ed. Adrian Collins.

Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors – ed. Doug Murano and Michael Bailey.

Peel Back the Skin, ed. Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson.

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror, ed. Geoff Brown, A J Spedding, Matthew Summers – this is first one, but get every volume. They’re all fantastic.

Supernatural Noir, ed. Ellen Datlow – NB: I picked this as it’s one of my favourite anthologies in general, but everything Ellen Datlow edits is pure gold. Get them all. Her Best Horror of the Year series is truly benchmark stuff.

Swords Against Darkness, ed. Paula Guran.

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