Fallen Soldier is
a new short story by Rich Hawkins and is published by… himself. Yes indeed,
Rich has taken the plunge and gone and done the whole thing himself, no doubt
incurring the wrath of all those who see self-publishing as the eighth deadly
sin.
There is still a stigma attached to self-publishing,
presumably as a result of the misguided opinion that an author will take this
route because their work isn’t good enough to be accepted by “real” publishers.
Bollocks, frankly. It’s interesting to compare the attitudes towards
self-publishing between the music and writing industries. In the former, there’s
a degree of kudos given to musicians who start off on their own, posting videos
they’ve made themselves online, building up a fanbase before “making it big”.
If you’re a writer doing the same thing the immediate assumption is often the
one I opened this paragraph with.
Bottom line: What’s wrong with an author taking charge of
all aspects of their own work?
Anyway, I digress. What about Fallen Soldier?
It’s great. I’ve expressed the opinion before that the
novella is the perfect length for horror fiction, a view I stand by, but second
in line has to be the short story. It’ll take you about twenty minutes to read Fallen Soldier but in that time you’ll
experience ghosts, zombies and demonic troglodytes all tied up in a tightly
paced narrative. There’s nothing worse than a short story that outstays its
welcome but that most certainly isn’t the case here in this tale of the return
of a soldier from the trenches of the Great War to find that the horrors he
experienced there are nothing compared to those which await him on his arrival
home.
The single short story format is making somewhat of a
resurgence and it’s an absolute strength and positive of e-publishing that it
makes this a readily available option. That said, great things are being done
by small presses releasing chapbooks too. It’s a trend I’m extremely happy to
see emerging, already this year I’ve relished two stories from Philip Fracassi
(Mother and Altar) and one from Scott Nicolay (Noctuidae) which have been released as “singles”. Fallen Soldier – I’m very happy to say –
has joined their ranks.
You should buy Fallen
Soldier, you won’t find much better value for money for 99p. If you haven’t
read Rich’s work before then it’s a great introduction, if you have then you’ll
enjoy again his trademark mixture of visceral horror and thoughtful
characterisation.
You can get it here.