Alan Baxter's Blog, page 15
June 13, 2020
New story and podcast at Does The Die In This?
I have a new short story out and a podcast to go with it. Glenn Parker (The Hellbound Heart on Instagram) has this cool project where he talks to horror authors about all kinds of things on his podcast called Does The Dog Die In This. The podcast is accompanied by original short fiction from those authors and the only guideline is that there has to be a dog in the story. Does it die? You’ll have to read to find out.
Anyone who knows me can probably answer that question fairly safely, but nevertheless, I suggest you gird your loins and brace your heart for this story. It’s emotional.
You can hear the podcast here on Spotify or here on Apple.
And you can read the story for free right here. I’ll post an excerpt from the start below to whet your appetite.
Enjoy!
The Normandy Curse
by Alan Baxter
Clancy James had no idea how much longer he could resist death.
For so long it hadn’t mattered. Then age began to show itself and he’d wondered about the past. Then infirmity kicked in and the fear came with it. Now there was no doubt, and he thought perhaps it was purely terror keeping him alive.
He stared at the coruscating colours where the wall should be. The flexing shadows. The ink dark tendrils questing forward, reaching, writhing. Clancy put one hand to his toast rack of a chest, felt the hammer of his heart through the papery skin. His breaths were shallow and ragged.
“Not now,” he muttered. “Not yet.”
But how much longer could there be? Just turned 96 years old, alone and unnoticed, it had to be weeks now at best, not months or years. And this, whatever this was, would be waiting. As promised.
Henry bounced forward, front legs stiff, his hackles a ridge of fur from under his collar to the base of his tail. He barked, deep and threatening, his most serious voice. Grey around the muzzle, a little tight in the joints himself, but always young at heart.
“Henry!” Clancy gasped. “Back up, boy. Back up!”
Henry glanced quickly at his master, then back to the impossible portal. He barked once more, sharp and angry, but did as he was told.
“Good boy,” Clancy said, bony fingers with swollen knuckles scratching deep into the brown fur of Henry’s rump. With his other hand, Clancy shook out one of the small white heart tablets, managed to put it on his tongue with shaking fingers. He gulped cold tea from the mug beside the chair where he’d fallen asleep, only to wake with tautness in his chest, sharp pains in his arm, shortness of breath.
“Not yet,” he whispered again. “Not yet.”
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June 7, 2020
SERVED COLD wins Australian Shadows Award for Best Collected Work
Holy freaking shirtballs! I won another of these sweet demon head trophies.
Last night the Australian Shadows Awards were announced. I was already stoked to be a finalists in two categories – one for Best Short Fiction for my story, “The Ocean Hushed the Stones” from Served Cold, and one for Best Collected Work for Served Cold itself. And I bloody won for Best Collected Work. Not only is that a huge thrill on its own, it’s also the second Best Collected Work Shadows Award I’ve won. Crow Shine scored me the same award back in 2016. I’ve had two collected volumes of short fiction published and they’ve both won a Shadows demon. A-fucking-mazing.
That means that I’ll soon have four of those cool as hell demon heads on my brag shelf (as well as previously winning for Crow Shine, I also won in 2014 for Best Short Story for “Shadows of the Lonely Dead”, and in 2015 for The Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction for “In Vaulted Halls Entombed”.
The coolest trophy in horror and I have four of the things. Bloody brilliant. Served Cold has been working hard for me, because I also have an Aurealis Award nomination for the original novella in that collection, “Yellowheart”. Not sure when the winners there are announced, but it must be soon. Massive thanks to all the judges and organisers of the Shadows Awards, it’s an absolute honour to have my work recognised this way.
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June 5, 2020
Mephisto audio at Planet Raconteur
My short story “Mephisto” was originally published at Daily Science Fiction on the 23rd June, 2014. It was a finalist in the 2014 Australian Shadows Awards for Best Short Story, which is always a thrill. The story is very short, but it’s powerful, and I wrote it before I had a son. A lot of writers say they can’t write about horror with children after they’ve had kids of their own, which I totally understand. It’s not quite like that for me, I can still explore those themes with my fiction despite being a father now – Manifest Recall is proof enough of that! But even then, this particular story slays me now. It’s a brutal gut punch of a yarn. It’s in Crow Shine, or you can read it at Daily SF (that’s the link above). However, I strongly recommend you listen to it instead. The good people at Planet Raconteur have done a fantastic full audio version of the story that really brings it to life. Which is maybe not for the faint of heart.
Their podcast episode 7 features “Mephisto”, along with stories by authors Ryan Creel and J. Robert Dewitt. Relevant links below. Enjoy!
RSS – http://feeds.feedburner.com/planetraconteur
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June 4, 2020
My second translation in Japanese.
I’m stoked to have another story in Night Land Quarterly, a beautiful digest horror mag from Japan. This time they’ve translated “Crow Shine”, the title story from my award-winning first collection of short stories. In Japanese it’s called “Karasu Sake” which is Crow Sake. I love it.
From the publisher:
Night Land Vol. 21 – sky fantasy
Horror & Dark Fantasy Magazine for the mysterium
Vol. The 21 feature is,”the fantasy of the sky, the city of firmament”.
From old people were dreamer to fly in the sky.
It may have been the beginning of an illusion —
A lot of inspiration for the sky and flight!
The issue is also a special increase page! It’s full of novels, interviews, reviews, essays and more.
Edgar Allan Poe, Adam-Troy Castro, Marjorie Lawrence, m John Harrison, Ernest Hemingway, Karina Tavares, Alan Baxter, Phu, kusanagi, Masahiko Inoue, and more.
In addition, there is a lot of heavier, such as the essay, book guide, and more from the nakano shàn fū long interview, including wait, otojiro, yasuda, shirasawa, asao asao, Akira Wada, and more!
That’s pretty good company I’m keeping!
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May 31, 2020
Horror readings at Nightworms
One of the greatest advocates of horror in the world is Sadie Hartmann. Known online as Mother Horror, she is a tireless reviewer and promoter. She runs Nightworms, which is an incredible subscription box service for horror fans, but it has also grown into something far bigger. It was Sadie’s birthday last weekend and she asked a bunch of us if we’d read something from our body of work on camera for her new Nightworms YouTube channel. Of course, we said yes. You always say yes to Mother Horror. She asked me to read from The Book Club, which I was more than happy to do. I’m super proud of that book and I feel like it didn’t get the attention it deserved at the time. PS Publishing produced an ebook and a gorgeous hardcover, with an amazing original cover by Ben Baldwin. There’s also a limited edition signed and numbered hardcover, with only 100 copies ever available. That one’s a bit expensive, but there will only ever be 100 of them. I think there are a few left. So anyway, here’s my reading for Sadie from The Book Club. I hope you enjoy it. And afterwards, click through to her channel and subscribe. There are loads of other awesome readings there now, and I bet Sadie will make that channel an absolute must-follow for horror fans.
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May 22, 2020
I’m a DOUBLE finalist in the Australian Shadows Awards!
Wow! I’m a finalist in the Australian Shadows Awards. TWICE! Served Cold in Best Collected Works and “The Ocean Hushed the Stones” (from Served Cold) in Best Short Fiction. Amazing. Huge thanks to the judges. BIG congrats to all the finalists! Shortlists here:
COLLECTED WORKS
Finalists:
Collision: Stories by J.S. Breukelaar
Figments and Fragments by Deborah Sheldon
Served Cold by Alan Baxter
EDITED WORKS
Finalists:
Beside the Seaside: Tales from the Day-Tripper edited by Steve Dillon
Trickster’s Treats #3 – the Seven Deadly Sins Edition edited by Marie O’Regan and Lee Murray
Midnight Echo #14 edited by Deborah Sheldon
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Finalists:
The Eldritch Kid: The Bone War written by Christian D. Read
Matinee written by Emmett O’Cuana
Geebung Polo Club written by Shauna O’Meara (adapted from a Banjo Patterson poem)
DCeased written by Tom Taylor
THE ROCKY WOOD AWARD FOR NON-FICTION AND CRITICISM
Finalists:
Suffer the Little Children by Kris Ashton
Horror and the paranormal, chapter 8 of Writing Speculative Fiction by Eugen Bacon
The Danse Macabre by Kyla Lee Ward
Horror Movies That Mean Something and Childhood Trauma Manifested by Maria Lewis
PAUL HAINES AWARD FOR LONG FICTION
Finalists:
Supermassive Black Mass by Matthew R. Davis
The Neverwhere Line by Matthew J. Morrison
Out of Darkness by Chris Mason
Enemy of My Enemy by Rick Kennett
1862 by C.J. Halbard
POETRY
Finalists:
Brine and Vanishings by Hester J. Rook
Taxonomy of Captured Roses by Hester J. Rook
Please Do Not Feed the Animals by Anne Casey
Separation by Jay Caselberg
Ode to a Black Hole by Charles Lovecraft
Boat of a Million Years by Kyla Lee Ward
SHORT FICTION
Finalists:
Steadfast Shadowsong by Matthew R. Davis
Vivienne & Agnes by Chris Mason
The Ocean Hushed the Stones by Alan Baxter
Ava Rune by J.S. Breukelaar
NOVEL
Finalists:
Fusion by Kate Richards
Shepherd by Catherine Jinks
The Flower and the Serpent by Madeleine D’Este
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May 20, 2020
Why books are the best gift you can give.
Let’s talk about why books are the best present you can give someone.
First of all, books are straight up awesome. You’re giving someone an experience that will last them many hours, and that they can repeat as often as they like. You’re giving them a world, you’re opening their life with the experience of other lives. You’re gifting them an expansion of mind and soul wrapped up in pure entertainment. But it’s more than that.
If you gift someone a book, it’s obviously something you think is worth the time. So you’re sharing a thing that resonated in your soul. Your gift includes a part of you, an insight into who you are, a thing you want that person to share. When you gift someone a book, you’re saying, “This is a journey I went on and it moved me. I want you to feel that. Here, have the same journey, from me, for free.” That alone is an incredible gift.
You’re also gifting them something to echo back to you, because when they’ve read the book it gives you both something to talk about, to dissect. That way you get even deeper into each other’s experience.
But it’s more than just a gift for your friends, family, whoever. It’s a gift to the author too. You’ve given the author more readers, and honestly, that’s the best kind of gift we can ever get (other than a book!) If the person enjoyed the book, they might also give it to someone else, and the whole process repeats for gifter, reader, and author. And when that author gets more readers, it means publishers have confidence in them and they get to write more books. That’s a gift for everyone who gave the book and everyone who received it. More books!
And the beauty of a physical book is that it can be given over and over again. Sure, authors would love more sales, but the sharing of enthusiasm is powerful. They can regift and pass on not only the story, but the enthusiasm. (And no, this isn’t an excuse for piracy where you replicate a digital file indefinitely. Don’t be that arsehole. Real books wear out, or they stop with one person who buys new copies for other people.)
So if you want to give someone the best possible present, give them a book you loved. Give everyone who matters to you copies of the books that moved you. It’s a special kind of magic.
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May 19, 2020
Another Zoom creepypasta
You may remember a while ago I wrote a horror story on Twitter that went a bit viral. It’s this one:
You guys know I’m also a martial arts instructor, huh. I’ve been running my classes online during this pandemic. But something weird has happened.
— Alan Baxter (@AlanBaxter) April 8, 2020
Well, I wrote another one. This didn’t go quite as popular as the last one, then again these things rarely do. But so that it doesn’t get lost in the annals of past Twitter, I’m archiving it here on my blog again. I’ve transcribed it below, or you can read it on Twitter following the tweet thread as I originally wrote it:
We had a zoom meeting/class today, all the senior international instructors. It was good, some people up late at night, some up first thing in the a.m. But then something weird happened.
— Alan Baxter (@AlanBaxter) May 17, 2020
We had a zoom meeting/class today, all the senior international instructors. It was good, some people up late at night, some up first thing in the am. But then something weird happened.
I was in my study at home, some were in their schools, others in their lounge rooms, bedrooms, etc.
One guy, J, was somewhere in his house that just had a plain white wall behind him and a small window to his left. It was early where he was in Europe, so the window was bright with morning sun.
As we were chatting and going through some moves, I saw something on the wall behind J. A kind of dark set of wriggling lines. I paused, moved closer to my screen to check, but it was gone.
We carried on, then I saw it again. I wondered if it was a spider running in and out of shot from above.
I stopped and stared at it. Bigger now. It was about the size of child’s open hand. I moved closer again for a better look. It wasn’t spider.
Maybe a bit like a sea anemone, only with really thin appendages, and it kind of writhed. And it was jet black. If it wasn’t moving, it would be easy to mistake for a weird crack in the paintwork.
“Hey Al,” one of the others said. “You okay?”
I realised I’d been staring hard at J’s screen, so all they saw was my intense close-up.
I glanced around at the others – about a dozen of us were there – and they had all paused, confused looks on their faces.
“Sorry,” I said. “Hey, J, what’s that on the wall behind you?”
But as I said it, looking back to J’s tile on my screen, I couldn’t see it any more.
He looked behind himself anyway, of course, then back. “I see nothing,” he said. What could I do? “No worries,” I said. “It’s gone.”
Maybe it was a weird resolution glitch or something.
We got back to it, and I tried not to pay too close attention to J’s screen. Then I saw it again. I ignored it a while, but it persisted. So dark it was somewhere beyond black, gently undulating its dozens of filament arms.
“There!” I said, unable to stand it any longer. Just looking at the thing made me feel… uncomfortable. “J, behind you now!”
He frowned, and turned around. But the way he moved put him between the camera and the thing on the wall, and I couldn’t see it any more. When he turned back it was gone.
He shook his head, giving me a look. “Very funny, brother horror writer! Stop trying to freak me out.”
“Sorry, dude,” I said. “I really saw something though.”
We carried on and the thing came back. I didn’t see it appear, but suddenly it was there again. I ignored it, resisted the urge to say anything. From the corner of my eye, I saw it wriggling gently, like hair in a soft current.
I tried to continue ignoring it, but it started to grow. By the time it was at least as big as a side plate, the long, writhing filaments reaching out from the wall behind J, I couldn’t bear it any more. “Behind you, J!”
He made an annoyed face. “Enough, please! We’re trying to train here.”
He didn’t turn around and it kept growing, the size of a dinner plate now, the tendrils maybe a foot long, questing out across the space between itself and J.
“Can’t the rest of you see anything?” I asked, getting agitated now. How could it be a digital glitch? But what the hell was it?
A dozen frowning faces looked back at me. Some of them leaned closer, I guess trying to get a good look, but the thing was so obvious, the size of a car wheel now, and protruding forward from the wall.
The tendrils began thickening and whipping more urgently, wrapping around each other, then flaring out again.
The rest of the people watching made confused faces or shook their heads. How could they not see it? “You okay, Al?” one asked. “Too much whisky, eh?” another said.
“J,” I said, “Please turn around, man. Just look!”
His shoulders slumped and he rolled his eyes. “Fine!” And he turned around. He was looking right at it, the thing was so big I could see it all around him.
The thickening, frantic arms strained forward for him. There could only be a few inches between the tips of them and J’s face.
He raised his arms to either side and shook his head, then turned back to face his camera.
“Al, you’re not funny,” he said, just as several of the reaching tendrils wrapped over his head and around his neck.
The reaction was instant.
Everyone watching jerked back from their screens, eyes and mouths wide. They all started talking over one another and pointing, but I couldn’t make out any words over J’s screams.
The night-black tendrils wrapped tight around his head and neck, slid over his shoulders and around his chest. He slapped and clawed at them.
The light from the window to his left illuminated that side and showed them to be glossy, almost oily.
Everyone was shouting and moving frantically left and right, in an attempt to do something, anything. But we were all thousands of kilometres apart, different countries, on different continents. And J just kept screaming.
The black appendages tightened, we saw his skin depress with their contraction, squeezing the flesh white. Then they covered his face further and some tips disappeared into his mouth. His screams became gargles, then gags, then silent, desperate struggling.
J rose up, lifted from the ground and carried backwards. I’d been so focussed on his struggles I hadn’t noticed the main mass of the thing had grown to cover most of the wall.
As it dragged J back into itself, his struggles weakening, the spread continued, getting faster. As it began to cover the window, the morning sunlight was blocked.
After a few seconds, J’s tile in the meeting was a silent black rectangle. And we all sat staring at it, trapped in lockdown, continents apart, unable to do a thing.
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May 17, 2020
A Star Has Died – Brand new short story
A little while ago I was approached to write a short story for an anthology called “Side Quests”. It was a cool concept, with all the contributing authors writing stories featuring characters from their existing series. I thought it was a great opportunity to write a Silhouette story. Silhouette, from The Alex Caine Series, is a character I love to write, and I get loads of feedback from people saying how much they like her. I want to write more of her story, and will hopefully get around to that, but in the meantime, there’s this one.
Sadly, “Side Quests” fell through, but the story is still there. So I’ve published it on my Curious Fictions page here. This is a brand new, previously unpublished short story. I could have gone through the usual submissions process and seen if a magazine wanted to buy it, but the original anthology paid a small kill fee and it’s a bit of a niche yarn. While it certainly stands alone and will make sense whether you’ve read Alex Caine or not, it’s also part of that larger universe, so it seems fair to publish it for free. Of course, if you do enjoy it and feel like tossing a coin to the writer, you can either subscribe to my Curious Fictions page, or shout me a virtual coffee here.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! Please do spread the link around and it’ll hopefully entertain lots of readers. Stay safe, everyone.
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May 16, 2020
Free stories at Curious Fictions
There are three free stories on my Curious Fictions page right now – Australian post-apocalypse, horror sf, and ocean horror. Everything else there is $1 each read (or it’s all free for subscribers). I’ll post more soon. Find it here: https://curiousfictions.com/authors/450-alan-baxter
Of course, if you really enjoy the free stuff and you think, DAMN, I need to pay for that! you can always shout me a coffee* here: https://ko-fi.com/alanbaxter Or just spread the word. In the long run, it’s all about readers.
*whisky
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