Witnesses. (Blatant self-publicity).

It’s with a great degree of pleasure that I can announce that my novel, Witnesses, is now available for pre-order from Crowded Quarantine Publications, with a publication date of 31^st January next year.

It was accepted after an open submissions period in 2016 and since the announcement was made I’ve been anticipating the actual release with – it has to be said – a fair degree of excitement.

Adam Millard has done a great job on the edits, translating my meandering prose into proper English and has produced an absolutely stunning cover. He’s taken my suggestion of “err… maybe something with a church on it” and produced an amazing piece of art. I love the 70s pulp paperback feel of it, the creases on the cover a lovely, and clever touch. I was blown away when I saw it for the first time and my love grows for it every time I look at it. (Which is probably more than would be deemed “normal”).

It’s beautifully produced and rendered but also encapsulates the themes of the book, with the two figures, the church and yes – the tentacles…

Witnesses takes as its inspiration the Book of Revelations and the prophesies concerning Armageddon contained within. Given that this is my debut (published) novel, I thought I’d make life really hard for myself by setting it in four different time periods in four different locations around the world: World War One Belgium; Virginia in the United States in 1946; Malaysia in 1977 and the North East of England in the present day. (One of these required less extensive research than the others).

Perhaps it would have been easier to write the four sections one at a time and then cut and paste but, for my sins, I chose not to do it this way. The way the narrative jumps back and forth between the different time periods/locations is exactly as I wrote it – a process which stopped me getting too bogged down in one particular narrative thread and which hopefully keeps the momentum of the book going, dropping clues and revelations so that the reader will slowly work out what’s going on along with the book’s protagonists.

That’s the plan anyway…

I really enjoyed writing Witnesses and am proud of what I’ve produced – even prouder after having seen the amazing job Adam has done. It will also be available as an e-book but you can pre-order the paperback here.

And here's the blurb:

The End Times are upon us…

In the small village of East Lee in north-east England, Dave Charlton is studying for his PhD, an academic work that will probably be read by only a handful of people. His research is of limited interest – certainly nothing that will change the world.

The world is changing though, and as his perception of reality mysteriously begins to alter - bringing new abilities to see what others cannot, a stranger arrives with revelations which will transform the course of his life for ever – and the lives of everyone else on the planet.

Dave finds himself a key player in a story as old as time itself, forced into a situation where the decisions he makes really are the most important in the world. He has become part of the endless cycle of conflict between the forces of good and evil, the struggle which will culminate in the final battle: Armageddon.

Moving between the present day, the battlefields of World War One Belgium, 1940s Virginia and Malaysia in the 1970s, WITNESSES is an epic tale of destiny and apocalyptic horror.

Shrapnel Apartments.

Shrapnel Apartments is the new novel from Chris Kelso and is published by Crowded QuarantinePublications. It’s a follow-up to Unger House Radicals which I reviewed here and which was one of my favourite reads of last year.

Unger House Radicals dealt with the creation of a new art-form, Ultra-Realism, by film student Vincent Bittaker and serial killer Brandon Swarthy – whose relationship I likened to that of Rimbaud and Verlane. In possibly the most contrived pun I’ve ever managed (which is saying something) if UHR is Rimbaud: First Blood, (there’s certainly plenty of the red stuff spilled in its pages), then Shrapnel Apartments can surely be regarded as Rimbaud: First Blood Part II.

There’s a marked slump in quality between the two films but not, I’m very pleased to say, between the books. Whereas John Rambo appears in both films, undergoing an amazing transformation from traumatised, disillusioned veteran to some kind of invincible superhero, Bittaker and Swarthy barely get a look in – although they are referenced occasionally – Shrapnel Apartments is set in a post-Ultra-Realism world, a world in which the radical has become part of the establishment.

As with Unger House Radicals, the book is written in a scattershot style, from the perspectives of multiple characters. There’s perhaps more of a narrative thrust to this one though (or perhaps thrusts – there’s more than one story to be told here) and even a hint of (possibly) cosmic horror with the introduction of a supernatural element to the proceedings in the form of the mysterious entity known as Blackcap and his assistant King Misery – first alluded to in an opening sequence set in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There’s suggestions throughout the book that Blackcap is guiding events, toying with humanity to achieve his own, nefarious ends.

The storylines running throughout Shrapnel Apartments include those of child-killer Beau Carson and his investigation by corrupt cop Bobby Reilly, a spat between critics Gottleib and Mancuso (primarily about Ultra-Realism) and the eternal suffering of Florence Coffey. The individual stories are told in a variety of narrative voices, mainly first person testimonies (although it’s often not clear exactly who it is who’s speaking…) interspersed with third person sections, police records, random soliloquys and – significantly – autopsy reports. It’s a dazzling display of technique, the seemingly random sections bombarding the reader with images and ideas yet undergoing some kind of synergy to create a whole far greater than the sum of its parts which will leave you breathless in its audacity.

Whilst Unger House Radicals was all about art, it’s a bit more difficult to pin down a single theme for Shrapnel Apartments although I’ll stick my neck out and boldly suggest it might be about the nature of evil itself. The titular apartments are (actually, may or may not be) the location of a reality TV show – a la Big Brother – so there’s evidence of evil right there and, given the references to Jazz music (which everyone knows is the work of the devil) which appear in the book I’m relatively confident in this assumption.

Not that it matters. What any reader takes from any book is absolutely an individual experience. What I took from Shrapnel Apartments was an admiration for a writer willing to try new things, be experimental and doing so brilliantly. This is yet another assault on the senses from Chris Kelso and I thank him for it. There’s great skill on display creating the distinct and individual voices of the characters but also in corralling all the disparate elements into a thought-provoking, dazzling and thoroughly satisfying whole.

Ascent

Ascent is the new novel from Luke Walker and is published by Crowded Quarantine Publications. Beginning with the imminent threat of nuclear bomb detonating outside RAF Lakenheath, it’s a novel which hits the ground running.

Actually, that’s exactly how the narrative begins, with one of the book’s main characters, Kelly, crashing into the reception area of Greenham Place, the high-rise building which serves as the location for the rest of the novel, a safe haven from the blast which turns out to be anything but.

Once inside, she encounters others who have found themselves inside the building at the moment of detonation; her sister Alex, Rod, Dao and Simon – but no one else… At least no one human.

So begins a dazzlingly inventive, fast paced and disorientating tale in which reality is blurred as much for the reader as the protagonists themselves. They find themselves haunted, somehow their own individual fears manifest as apparitions and inexplicable encounters. Unable to escape from the building, they become captives, hunted as well as haunted by the ghosts of their memories and fears.

There’s a wonderful sense of unease and disorientation created in Ascent. The protagonists have no idea of what is happening, or why – and those puzzles are shared by the reader. Has the bomb gone off and they are all dead? Has time somehow frozen and trapped them in a kind of limbo? It’s a massive strength of the book that it raises these questions in the reader’s mind, carrying them along with the narrative which cracks along at a fair old pace, offering hints and suggestions along the way.

Hinted at all through the book, is the presence of some elemental force guiding the action, a suggestion that the building itself is a manifestation of that force, a nexus of evil as it were, tormenting the protagonists, exploiting their fears.

It’s the individual confrontations with their personal horrors which provide some cracking set-pieces, many of which are not for the faint-hearted. Even amidst the fast-paced action, each character arc is given time to develop as the group of five find their own ways to resolution and, given that the commonality in all their stories is an overwhelming sense of guilt, even redemption.

I loved Ascent, it’s a high concept story which is evidence of a great imagination at work. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on here, but Luke handles all the narrative threads and ideas perfectly and has created a book which works on a whole range of levels. Exciting, scary and thought-provoking. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Ascent is officially released on June 3rd but you can pre-order here.

Unger House Radicals.

Imagine, if you can, asking someone who’s just taken a tab of speed what they think art is. There’s a good chance their answer will be similar to the contents of the new novel from Chris Kelso, Unger House Radicals, which is published by Crowded Quarantine Publications. Which sounds like a criticism – but isn’t – it’s simply the best analogy I can come up with for one of the strangest, and best books I’ve read in quite some time.

In truth, there aren’t enough –isms to describe it, take your pick from nihilism, existentialism, cynicism and a whole host of others. Closest to the point is probably that hoary old standard of post-modernism and there’s no doubt that this novel displays all the trademarks of that particular movement from its fractured narrative (what narrative there actually is: there’s a beginning and a middle – not necessarily in that order – but no real end, at least not in the classic sense of the word) to its liberal sprinklings of references to luminaries in the field (Baudillard, Duchamp, Rothko) and its use of multiple viewpoints, characters and media. It’s a stunning display of imagination and skill, a meta-metafiction which raises a multitude of questions about the role of art and its relationship with reality. It’s a work of fiction and yet reads almost like a thesis, an analysis of art via a critical realism approach.

Have I sold it to you yet?

Vincent Bittaker is a film student, eager to make a name for himself, who serendipitously meets up with Brandon Swarthy, a serial killer with multiple personalities who shares his dreams of creating a new movement, Ultra-Realism, and with whom he begins an intense relationship much like Rimbaud and Verlane did back in the 1850s. Unger House is the location in Louisiana where their magnum opus will be filmed.

Death is the only true reality and so art, if it is to be regarded as authentic must mirror that reality – such is the thinking of the two as they prepare to commit murder in the name of said art. Rothko once claimed that “the exhilarated tragic experience is … the only source of art” and this proposition is taken to the nth degree as the two kidnap and kill a girl, filming her brutal murder. This scene is described in vivid detail in the book, and is truly horrifying – as it should be. It’s a tough scene to read and yet I carried on, the emotions I felt those of disgust – and in effect, by so doing, became proof of, and complicit in, the couple’s twisted philosophy. I read horror fiction to be entertained… Except, of course, these are fictional characters, there is no philosophy, there are no Unger House Radicals.

This book seriously messes with your head.

The murder, with a few scenes following, pretty much marks the end of the main narrative thrust of the book, with the remainder taken up with a series of vignettes featuring different characters. The film, unsurprisingly, achieves cult status and the individual storylines which conclude the book – a bold move by the author it has to be said – cleverly throw light on the impact the film has on society, and whether or not its creators’ original aims have been realised.

Unger House Radicals is a difficult read – but only because of its subject matter, the writing here is of the highest quality and the way the book has been constructed is nothing short of amazing. A comparison to the film Natural Born Killers is perhaps appropriate, Swarthy is certainly a psychopath and Bittaker obviously shares some of those traits, but there are also similarities in their construction; the film uses different film stocks, camera equipment and so on to create its discussion of the links between violence and the media and the ways in which both influence each other. A similar argument – this time between violence and art – is made in the book, this time using literary, rather than filmic devices.

Unger House Radicals is quite unlike anything I’ve ever read before. This is a good thing. It blew me away with its style and approach and I strongly recommend that you read it too.

The Last Soldier

The Last Soldier is the new novel from Rich Hawkins and is the final book in the Last Plague trilogy published by Crowded Quarantine Publications. The first two books in the series were outstanding with the The Last Plague followed up by the smaller scale, more introspective but vastly darker The Last Outpost and that incredibly high standard is more than maintained in this, the conclusion. The Last Soldier is proof indeed that all good things must come to an end.

It’s set a year after the events of The Last Outpost which described the aftermath of the outbreak of the titular plague whose victims transformed into Lovecraftian monstrosities, consumed by the desire for human flesh. That book ended with a journey from Britain to Scandinavia, the location of the fabled outpost. In contrast, The Last Soldier begins with a return to British shores, the journey taken by Morse – the soldier of the title, a man who has seen active duty in Northern Ireland – and Florence, a young girl who may, or may not be, the key to a fightback against the hordes of infected and the Plague Gods, huge cosmic horrors circling in the skies above the ravaged landscape.

 The Britain they return to is changed completely from pre-plague times with uninfected humans now absolutely in the minority and a sense of some kind of evolution of the infected into bigger, even more deadly manifestations. There’s also evidence of interaction between humans and the infected, exemplified in a particularly chilling set-piece involving a pit and which provides further evidence that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Given that the story is set in a bleak, post-apocalyptic word it’s natural that Rich should choose to set most of the action in my home county of Northumberland. Some of the place names he uses will raise a smile amongst those familiar with indie press horror but I was pleased to see that he obviously like the name of a real place – Black Heddon – as much as I do, using it for a key scene.

So, given this is the culmination of the series, the big question is – does the ending work? Is it worthy of the exemplary ground work that has preceded it? Is it a fitting conclusion?

Absolutely.

No spoilers here but honestly, the way this epic story ends, and in particular the way in which Rich chooses to handle it, is perfect. It works with all that has gone before and is eminently satisfying.

I enjoyed the hell out of The Last Soldier – as I did the first two books of the series – and can’t recommend it highly enough. Rich has created a truly spectacular, and entirely plausible and brilliantly realised, post—apocalyptic vision here. The characters he has placed within his world are real and believable and perfect vehicles for the theme of humanity which runs throughout the series. By choosing to tell an epic, world-altering story through the filter of individual experiences is a technique that has worked brilliantly throughout, no more so than in this final instalment. The trilogy may be complete now but it’s a world that deserves revisiting, something I sincerely hope he finds time for.

The Last Outpost.

The Last Outpost is the new novel by Rich Hawkins and is the sequel to The Last Plague. Both books are published by Crowded Quarantine Publications.. I read The Last Plague having been introduced to Rich’s writing via his novella Black Star Black Sun and thoroughly enjoyed this particular take on the apocalypse, an end of the world scenario which merged Lovecraft and zombie tropes in spectacular fashion, producing a novel which has rightly been nominated for a British Fantasy award.

The first novel described the apocalypse itself, the moment when (possibly) the stars were right and the titular plague ravaged humanity, turning its victims into ravening hordes of monsters – the “infected” – human beings metamorphosed into horrifying shapes and forms with an insatiable blood-lust. Although focussing in on a small group of characters, the novel was epic in scale, full of marvellously executed set-pieces and horrifying imagery.

The Last Outpost takes up the story not long after the events of the first book are over and as such, is more concerned with the aftermath of the plague. Whilst the first book was an action-packed rollercoaster ride (© reviewer’s clichés) this is a more sedate piece of writing, introspective even, almost a stream of consciousness from the character of Royce, a survivor of the plague, now wandering alone through the ravaged countryside.

There’s much existential angst going on here, with Royce having to come to terms with the new world he finds himself in as well as the death of his wife and daughter. This is bleak stuff but credit is due to Rich for taking this path and also for the quality of the writing on display here. In effect, it’s an extended soliloquy but one that’s full of real emotion, the writing spot-on, poetic in parts.

The bleakness conveyed in Royce’s inner monologue draws favourable comparison to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road conjuring up similar feelings of desolation and despair as that classic book and, like The Road, an encounter with other survivors provides a pivotal moment in the book. There’s a change in tone about halfway through The Last Outpost where a set-piece within a house provides one of the most intense passages of horror writing I’ve come across in a while.

The second half of the book provides more action and introduces more characters but the overarching feeling of despair is never lost, lurks constantly in the background. The title of the book comes from rumours of a settlement of survivors on the other side of the North Sea, the journey towards which provides the main narrative thrust of the story but it’s the characters who count here, Royce himself, George – an elderly man he meets on the way and Amy, pregnant and so fighting for the survival of her unborn child as well as her own.

It’s the journey that’s important though, not the destination and quite a journey it is too. Rich has created an entirely believable world here, one in which the horrors come from not only the infected, and the mighty Titans which swoop through the skies above but from the darkness that lies within all of us. The book does however end on a note of optimism, hope even – made even more profound by the events leading up to (and especially immediately before) it.

The second of a trilogy is always regarded as the darkest and that’s certainly the case here. Bleak and nihilistic but beautifully written The Last Outpost is a book I highly recommend and I look forward with great anticipation to whatever happens next…

The Last Bus.

Ah, the joys of travelling on public transport – how shall I list them? In less time than it would take to list the horrors thereof, truth to tell. Aside from the regular unreliability, the noise and smell, the heaters that only seem to work during the hottest summer days plus many other assaults on the physical being, the practice brings with it its own peculiar array of psychological trauma, turning even the most mild-mannered individuals into judgemental, territorial and paranoid sociopaths. The tension of waiting in a queue, wondering if there’s going to be a seat available – preferably a double seat because the thought of having to sit next to someone else is unbearable. And then, when you’re securely in situ, the apprehension that sets in every time the bus stops and someone gets on that they’ll sit next to you, disrupt your personal space, the way you deliberately avoid eye contact with them, the familiar mantra running through your head as they make their way along the bus “don’t, don’t don’t don’t don’t…” invariably terminated by a heartfelt bastard! as they do. This immediately followed by the feelings of intense hatred towards those other passengers who have sat on the outside of the double seat, or put their bags there to prevent infiltration. Bastards.

Of course, that could just be me.

Horrors indeed, but nothing in comparison to those endured by the passengers on Paul M Feeney’s The Last Bus, a novella published by Crowded Quarantine Publications. Despite the title, the bus is actually one of the first of the day, transporting a motley bunch of commuters to an unnamed city. An explosion within the city initiates a series of events that turn what should have been an ordinary day into an extraordinary one.

The book is an homage to B-movies and it uses a well-worn trope of those films in bringing together a disparate group of individuals and watches how they cope with the extreme events happening around them.

The characters on the bus are, to some extent – although in keeping with the B-movie origins of the tale – stereotypes but the author takes great pleasure in subverting them allowing for some unexpected twists and turns. It’s a strength of the book that time is taken to develop these characters so that you will either be rooting for or wishing a terrible death on them.

There are terrible deaths, gleefully devised and described and most of these occur within “interludes” – breaks from the main narrative set on the bus, describing, and fleshing out, what is happening in the world outside. Gore abounds here – as do in-jokes, the names of the victims will be instantly recognisable to anyone who spends time in the world of horror fiction. My own personal jury is out on this device – it did make me smile but at the same time took me out of the narrative.

The story which unfolds in an epic one but the approach taken – focussing on a small group of individuals – makes it perfect for novella length. As mentioned earlier, it’s basically a B-movie and they always worked (and so, by dint, does the novella) because they were short and over long before rational thought had a chance to kick in and tricky questions about logic and realism had an opportunity to rear their heads. This could easily have been a novel but I’m glad it isn’t – it’s a quick read and the narrative cracks along at a fast pace and it’s all the more enjoyable for that.

My only encounter with Paul’s work prior to The Last Bus was The Weight of the Ocean. That was a deeply moving, personal piece of writing – sad and melancholic. It’s fair to say that his new novella is about as far removed from that as you can get which only goes to prove that he’s versatile, as well as gifted, as a writer.

I really enjoyed The Last Bus and recommend that you should buy it – which you can do directly from the publishers..