Right then, that’s another one done. As 2018 draws to a
close it’s time for another ramble through the archives to pick out my personal
highlights of the year. In a revelation even more shocking than last year’s
announcement that I was leaving Dark Minds Press (the shock for most being that
I was actually involved in the first place), I have to announce that there will
be no Dark Muse awards this year…
The reason for this is that this year I’ve changed my
reading habits. Whereas in previous years I’ve pretty much focused exclusively
on new releases from small presses – with a view to a potential review – I
decided to take the pressure off a little in 2018 and take my time over what I
read, much of which involved re-reads of books from my past. Stephen King has
featured much in this re-reading process and I began the year with The Stand
and IT – both epics which rekindled my love of losing myself in long novels.
This pretty much set the pattern for the year and I’ve read more novels than
any other form this year, short stories have very much taken a back-seat.
As a result of this, I simply haven’t read enough of the
shorter forms to compile a list long enough from which to select. Granted, all
the awards I’ve given before have been limited by the pool from which I select
but this year that problem was exacerbated and it didn’t seem fair to choose
the best of such a small field.
As such, the list presented at the end is a top ten of my
favourite reads of the year and combines novels, novellas and short stories.
The decision to leave Dark Minds was driven by a desire to
spend more time on my own writing. I don’t take it personally that, since I
departed, DM was nominated for two British Fantasy awards. It’s great news too
to see that Ross is going to keep Dark Minds going and I look forward to
experiencing a DM publication as a reader.
With regards freeing up more time to write, it’s slightly
ironic that I’ve spent a big portion of my time in 2018 editing three novellas
and formatting a PhD thesis. (Seriously, if you think formatting a novel or
anthology is difficult, give one of those a go). I also had the joy of
re-formatting my novel, Witnesses, which
I’ve recently self-published after Crowded Quarantine Publications folded
shortly after its initial release.
It was, I have to say, a labour of love. Witnesses is a book I’m extremely proud
of so I was happy to go the extra mile with its re-release, putting a lot of
work into the layout and formatting. I can now laugh in the face of section
breaks, headers and footers in Word. I was lucky to have a great cover for the
first printing and Neil Williams has produced another stunner for its
re-release.
Counting Witnesses as one publication, my tally for 2018 is
four – which meets the informal target I set myself a few years back. My second
publication was a brace of short stories released for Kindle, Past Horrors. 25000 words for less than
a quid was a tempting offer for a small number of people but it wasn’t until I
ran an offer giving it away for nowt that people really took notice. It flew
off the shelves, to linger on virtual TBR piles for years to come. Am I bitter?
No. OK, the yacht and villa are still on hold but – given this is something I
do to keep me sane, and not to earn a living – I’m more than happy that there are
people out there actually reading my stories. It is, after all, what they’re
for. To quote Neil Hannon, “a song is not a song until it’s listened to,” I
feel much the same way about stories – so thanks to everyone who downloaded Past Horrors.
(Next time I'll feature a Golden retriever with psychic abilities. That number 8 spot will be mine...)
Third up was my short story Collateral Damage in the marvelous George A Romero tribute
anthology Stories of the Dead which
was edited by two very fine authors in their own right, Duncan Bradshaw and
David Owain Hughes.
November brought the release of my novella The Lost in an anthology of World War
One horror novellas, The Darkest
Battlefield, which was published by Dean M Drinkel’s new venture Demain
Publishing. I’m sharing the pages with writers whose work I’ve long admired and
am flattered to be in their company. I also had the pleasure of working with
them on the edits to the stories. It’s available now as an ebook with a
paperback version due in the new year.
The writing continues. I’m currently 55000 words into a
second novel which leaves around another 30000 words still to do. That should
be complete next year as will, hopefully, the project I’m working on with my
good friend Benedict J Jones; a series of interconnected stories featuring a
WW2 Special Ops unit with supernatural overtones.
So then, to my top ten list. It is presented here in no
particular order and features those pieces of writing which have given me that
extra something above and beyond just being entertained. It’s fair to say that
I wish that I could write stuff half as good as this – there are a couple which
set the bar so high that I’m filled with despair that I could never achieve
that level of skill (but in a good way…) – so massive thanks to all the authors
here listed.
Here’s to more of the same in 2019.
Hell Ship by Benedict
J Jones
Maniac Gods by Rich
Hawkins
Shiloh by Philip
Fracassi
I am the River by Ted
E Grau
The Dark Masters
Trilogy by Stephen
Volk
Painted Wolves by Ray
Cluley
Ningen by Laura
Mauro
The Cabin at the End
of the World by Paul
Tremblay
Where the Wounded
Trees Wait by Paul Edwards
The Pale Ones by Bartholomew
Bennett
