“Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.”
Simone Weil
A horror writer’s muse is a ravenous creature: a shoulder dweller that whispers inspiration to those that would listen, ready to twist any innocuous encounter into an apocolypse or blood-thirsty beast. Our visual and cultural diet is theirs. They feed on all that our senses consume. They never sleep: their lidless eyes always watching. They are the keepers of the question that dominates creative minds: ‘What if…?’
What if a serial killer picks his victims while stuck in traffic?
What if a zombie plague was spread on a crowded New York subway train?
What if your computer assumed your identity and set out to destroy you?
They are the sorts of questions horror writers scribble in the notebooks they have stashed away in work desks, glove boxes and handbags. Ideas that could be generated from such incidental observations or experiences as being cut off in traffic or coughed on by a stranger in a crowded bus or train.
So remember – although Santa Claus may have stopped checking up on you years ago, somewhere a muse is watching, waiting to feed creative minds like the authors you’ll encounter in this month’s update.
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Special Announcement!
~ Pre-Order ~ Midnight Echo #4
Edited by Lee Battersby
Australian Horror Writers Association
ISSN: 1836 3865
RRP: $13.00 AU (Printed version for non-AHWA members), $10.00 (Printed version for AHWA members), $3.50 AU (Digital versions)
Released date: June 2010
Available from: Australian Horror Writers Association
From the editor:
Everywhere we have travelled, the human race has been shadowed by monsters. They lurked in the shadows just outside the circle of light cast by our fires. They swam in the darkness beneath our keels. When we discovered new lands, and stepped onto white-sand beaches for the first time, they watched us from the bushes. They live in the corners of our eyes; in the silver lining within the cloud; in the cold, scared part of our minds we have spent our entire evolution pretending to ignore.
There are monsters in the pages of Midnight Echo: discovered; dissected, and chronicled by those who are unafraid to look beyond the circle of fire. Stories and poetry from writers like Geoffrey Maloney, Jenny Blackford, and Christopher Green, who have swum in the waters below the human psyche and returned to warn us of the truth they have discovered. That there is only one true monster in the human world, and it lives in your mirror.
Open the pages of Midnight Echo, and see what happens when the mirror stares back.
Lee Battersby.
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Sinister Reads
~ Pre-Order ~ Madigan Mine
Kirstyn McDermott
Picador (Pan Macmillan Australia)
ISBN: 9780330425711
RRP: $32.99 AU
Release date: 1st July 2010
Pre-order available from: Infinitas Bookshop
Available from: Pan MacMillan and all good bookstores.
When Alex meets Madigan again everything changes. His childhood sweetheart is beautiful and impulsive, but there is something wrong with her. Something dangerous.
Then she commits suicide.
Now Alex can’t get Madigan out of his head. Is it all in his mind, or is she communicating with him?
To save himself and those he loves, Alex must uncover the sinister reason why Madigan took her own life – and why she won’t lie still in her grave.
2008 Winner of the Aurealis, Ditmar and Chronos Awards for Painlessness, Kirstyn’s new novel is sure to leave the reader begging for more.
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~ Pre-Order ~ An Eclectic Slice of Life
Editored by Craig Bezant.
Dark Prints Press
ISBN: 9780646536415
RRP: $29.95 AU
Release date: 12th December 2010
Pre-orders available from: Dark Prints Press (Query here.)
Dark Prints Press and Eclecticism E-zine present the print anthology that had to happen. With short fiction and poetry representing the best work from the first two years of the e-zine, plus new and exclusive work from most contributors (including UK Horror author Joseph D’Lacey, winner of the British Fantasy Society’s Best Newcomer Award 2009), this is certainly something special to own.
Be sure to keep an eye out for news of the book launch closer to the release date!
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Dark Pages 1
Edited by Brenton Tomlinson
Blade Red Press
ISBN: 9780980578232
RRP: $15.00AU
Available from: Blade Red Press, Amazon
A collection of dark stories to delight and disturb, including tales of fantasy, science fiction and chilling examples of the macabre.
Blade Red Press has gathered some of the best writing talent in the world to compile an anthology of sublime quality. It is full of exquisite tales of disturbia that will leave you unable to put the book down. When you finally do, you’ll never look at people the same way again.
Stories:
The Stain of the Psychopomp King by Lucien E G Spelman
Heart Of Ice by Martin Livings
Neptune’s Garden by Lisa A Koosis
Dust by Naomi Bell
To Die For by S D Matley
The Franchise by Joe L Murr
Clip Notes by Marty Young
Blood on Green by Victoria Anisman-Reiner
Cargo by Aaron Polson
Nepenthe by Felicity Dowker
Yellow Water Pike by Derek Rutherford
Surveying The Land by B D Wilson
Nightwork by Robert Neilson
Hand And Cradle by Trent Roman
Reviews:
“The stories within can and will make you feel things you may prefer
stay buried…” Paul Haines, award-winning author of Slice Of Life
“What can I say other than Wow! …the stories will have the reader hooked from beginning to end.”
Gill Ainsworth, Co-Editor Aegri Somnia
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Cthulhu’s Dark Cults
Edited by David Conyers
Chaosium Inc.
ISBN: 1568822359
RRP: $14.99 US
Release date: 27th May 2010
Available from: Chaosium Inc., Amazon (US) and Amazon (UK)
Journey across the globe to witness the numerous and diverse cults that worship Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones. Lead by powerful sorcerers and fanatical necromancers, their followers are mad and deranged slaves. The ancient and alien gods whom they willingly devote themselves are truly terrifying. These cults control real power, for they are the real secret masters of our world. Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu is an endless source of imagination of all things dark and mysterious.
This book is part of an expanding collection of Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction and related topics. Call of Cthulhu fiction focuses on single entities, concepts, or authors significant to readers and fans of H.P. Lovecraft.
This collection of ten stories features the cults which first appeared in classic Call of Cthulhu gaming supplements such as The Masks of Nyarlathotep, The Day of the Beast, Horror on the Orient Express, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Secrets of Kenya and others. The collection features stories by four Australian authors, David Conyers, David Witteveen, Penelope Love and Shane Jiraiya Cummings. Leading up to publication, the editor David Conyers is publishing excerpts from the various stories on his online journal.
The Eternal Chinaman by John Sunseri
Captains of Industry by John Goodrich
Perfect Skin by David Witteveen
Covenant of Darkness by William Jones
The Whisper of Ancient Secrets by Penelope Love
Old Ghost by Peter A. Worthy
The Nature of Faith by Oscar Rios
The Devil’s Diamonds by Cody Goodfellow
Requiem for the Burning God by Shane Jiraiya Cummings
Sister of the Sands by David Conyers
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Tormented Bodies
by Adrian Scott
Renaissance e-books
ISBN: 9781615082469
RRP: $4.95 US
Available from: Renaissance e-books.
The gypsy waited till he found the perfect woman with the perfect body and the perfect sexual and emotional bliss – only then did the gypsy pronounce her curse! When her curse was fulfilled – it was time for Thurlow’s revenge to begin! Bondage and more highlight this fourth installment of the exploits of the man without a soul, Mason Thurlow, one of the world’s most evil beings – who was a persecuted hero in his own mind and heart!
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Sinister Slices
The Hand of God
by Jason Crowe
Published in: Midnight Echo #4
Available from: Australian Horror Writers Association
Where We Go to be Made Lighter
by Christopher Green
Published in: Midnight Echo #4
Available from: Australian Horror Writers Association
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Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook!
Dark Pages 1
Edited by Brenton Tomlinson
Blade Red Press
ISBN no.: 9780980578232
RRP: $15.00AU
Available from: Blade Red Press, Amazon
A collection of dark stories to delight and disturb, including tales
of fantasy, science fiction and chilling examples of the macabre.
Blade Red Press has gathered some of the best writing talent in the
world to compile an anthology of sublime quality. It is full of
exquisite tales of disturbia that will leave you unable to put the
book down. When you finally do, you’ll never look at people the same
way again.
Story list:
The Stain of the Psychopomp King by Lucien E G Spelman
Heart Of Ice by Martin Livings
Neptune’s Garden by Lisa A Koosis
Dust by Naomi Bell
To Die For by S D Matley
The Franchise by Joe L Murr
Clip Notes by Marty Young
Blood on Green by Victoria Anisman-Reiner
Cargo by Aaron Polson
Nepenthe by Felicity Dowker
Yellow Water Pike by Derek Rutherford
Surveying The Land by B D Wilson
Nightwork by Robert Neilson
Hand And Cradle by Trent Roman
Reviews:
“The stories within can and will make you feel things you may prefer
stay buried…” Paul Haines, award-winning author of Slice Of Life
“What can I say other than Wow! …the stories will have the reader hooked from beginning to end.”
Gill Ainsworth, Co-Editor Aegri Somnia
Edited by Lee Battersby
