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.

Chromatics

Chromatics is a new anthology from Lycopolis Press and is edited by Dean M Drinkel. It contains eleven stories based on the theme of colour – an original concept for a collection of horror stories. It has to be said that the theme is tangential at best in some of the stories but that doesn’t distract from what I found to be a strong collection overall.

The book opens with Anthony Cowin’s The Sand Was Made of Mountains – an elegant piece of prose writing which features a creature called The Catcher in the Sand – drawing immediate comparison with a certain book by J D Salinger. One interpretation of that famous book is that it’s about war and that’s certainly the case with Anthony’s story, featuring a protagonist who is a refugee fleeing from Syria. Topical then, and – in lesser hands – potentially exploitative but that’s absolutely not the case here with the resulting story a subtle, elegiac rumination on the horrors that arise from conflict.

Paul M Feeney uses the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear processing plant as the backdrop for his story The Black God. I have to admit to more than a passing interest in the subject (and can heartily recommend Piers Paul Read’s account of the disaster Ablaze) and have a distinct memory of a TV documentary filmed in the abandoned city of Pripyat. Scenes of the deserted streets were eerie enough – a true post-apocalyptic vision – but really disturbing was the shot of a mysterious figure spotted by the camera crew high up in the window of an abandoned skyscraper. It’s an image that’s remained with me for over twenty years, and one which still gives me shivers and I have to say that I got the same feelings when reading Paul’s story. He creates a wonderful atmosphere here, building a sense of paranoia which goes beyond that of just strangers in a strange land which culminates in something truly dark.

Beige is not the colour of blandness but madness in the story by Martin Roberts. A first person narration from a suitably unreliable narrator leads along the path of delusion towards a tragic revelation. Raven Dane’s The White Room centres around strange goings-on around an abandoned, decaying mansion in a generation-spanning period piece. Those goings-on are explained but I felt the story was possibly too short to contain the ideas within, making it feel like an extract from a longer work.

I loved the concept behind Restoring Scarlet by Dave Jeffrey which gives us a mortician with some very special skills at restoration. It’s another first person narrative which is cleverly constructed so that the readers’ sympathies change over the course of the story, continuously wrong-footing them and leading them towards a chilling conclusion. I loved it.

Xanthos by Wayne Goodchild is probably a little too burdened-under by references to the mythology created by Robert Chambers’ The King in Yellow to stand on its own two feet and would have worked better in an anthology dedicated to the author. That said, it’s the second time Dean has published this story of a playwright with a fear of the colour yellow so who am I to argue..?

Born From the Greens is the first published story by Zak A Ferguson. There’s plenty enough in this story of something monstrous growing in the garden but there’s a little (understandable) naivete to the writing, occasionally pathos becomes bathos and some of the more flowery passages could have done with a little pruning. With all my gardening metaphors used up now what I  can say is that there’s plenty imagination on show here and, with a little technical refinement great things could lie ahead for Zak.

The Spiritual Room by Christopher Beck gave me a few problems. Its subject matter – childhood abuse – is a really tricky one to pull off successfully (by which I mean not in an exploitative way). I really don’t think the author succeeded in this respect, pitching the tone of the story way off. Subtlety and discretion would be more effective – neither of which are on display here.

This is the Colour of Blood by Mark West gives us another outing for his recurring character Mike Decker. It’s an entertaining romp involving Russian gangsters and secret rituals but I don’t think it’s Mark’s best work. I’m still not entirely sure why Decker is involved in the case in the first place other than as a device to move the plot forward – my feeling is that Mark had the conclusion in his head first and then worked backwards to find a way of getting to it.

Anthropocene is by Charles Rudkin and provides an allegorical tale with post-apocalyptic imagery in which colour has disappeared from the earth. The sighting of a dragon in Antarctica may herald a return to some kind of normality. It’s an intriguing story, full of interesting images and allusive dialogue. It’s thoughtful and thought-provoking but suffers a little from being divided up into headed sections.

The collection heads off into the sunset (somewhat appropriately) with Dean M Drinkel’s Dans le Rouge du Couchant. Well now, this was unexpected. Unexpected in that this is a horror anthology and, although there’s darkness creeping around this story like mist on the surface of the Seine, it’s not truly a horror story. It is an excellent story though – a dark love story set in Paris which perfectly captures the paranoia and concerns that accompany any new relationship. (Oh, and the romance of course). There’s a growing sense of dread which develops as the story progresses and the conclusion, although not entirely unexpected, is hard-hitting. I’m not sure why Dean included it in this particular book – but I’m glad he did.

All in all then a strong collection of stories. A couple of stumbles along the way but containing at least four stories which are worth the admission price on their own.

You can buy Chromatics here.

Mother.

Mother is a novelette written by Philip Fracassi and published by Dunhams Manor Press. It's a high quality chapbook which has been beautifully produced. The author is new to me but the reason for that is provided in a note at the end of the book which states that this is his first foray into horror. Thankfully, given how much I enjoyed Mother, it also promises that it won't be his last.
It's the story of a marriage in crisis, college sweethearts Julie and Howard marry straight after graduation but their relationship begins to falter soon after. The narrative is told in first person by Howard - and in a most effective way, as his thoughts and opinions are all too apparent with the author skilfully presenting a character damned by his own words. Howard is not a nice man and it's clear that the breakdown of the marriage is as much down to his own personality as anything else. He's a man seemingly incapable of empathy or sympathy with anyone - his concerns are only for himself.
As an attempt to salvage the marriage, (and clearly never having watched Lars Von Trier's Antichrist), the couple buy a house in a remote location surrounded by woods. The attic room is converted to a studio where Julie can work on her art. When Howard discovers his wife in her studio surrounded by black candles and mysterious symbols drawn onto the floor, things begin to get strange. Credit is due to the author here for the way in which he handles the "reveal" as to what the symbols mean - writing a lovely passage with a great closing line.
The incident heralds a change in Julie however, romance - it seems - blossoms once more, resulting in pregnancy and the arrival of a son - named Howard after his father.
Then things get really strange...
No spoilers here, suffice to say that the horror really ramps up in the closing scenes of the story as it's revealed that little Howard may not be the only offspring to which Julie is mother...
I really enjoyed Mother - beautifully constructed, it's a perfect combination of literary writing and full-on horror. I hope that the author makes good on his promise that this won't be his last foray into the genre.
You can - and should - buy Mother here.

The Hyde Hotel

The Hyde Hotel is an anthology of stories set in, and around, the titular establishment. It’s published by Black Shuck Books and edited by James Everington and Dan Howarth with the latter also providing one of the stories and the former and introduction and epilogue (“checking in” and “checking out”). Hotels, of course, are classic venues for horror, a resource that has been mined on numerous occasions most famously (perhaps) in King’s (and Kubrick’s…) The Shining and recently with one of my favourite hotel-horrors, Stephen Graham Jones’ The Elvis Room. James himself is no stranger to the location, check out (see what I did there…) his story The Other Room for evidence.

I have to say, this is an impressive collection of stories and one that provided an excellent start to 2016. It begins with The View From the Basement by Alison Littlewood which introduces the character of the hotel itself – something that features in many of the stories. More than just a building (of course) its disorienting architecture and atmosphere can influence and coerce. Staffing problems are non-existent, turnover is minimal but carried out smoothly and efficiently as demonstrated in Iain Rowans Night Porters – of all the stories contained herein the one which perhaps most directly references The Shining.

Other hotel staff are the subject of Dan Howarth’s Tick Box – a group of individuals whose task of karma maintenance produces almost enough blood to fill an elevator. The red stuff is used to good effect in Alex Davis’ Something Like Blood, where metaphor becomes reality in a tale of confusion and identity.

The fabric of the building itself (and possibly its inhabitants too) provided the starting point for Amelia Mangan’s The Edifice of Dust, an enigmatic piece that spans past, present and future and which really gets under your skin.

Lost and Found by S P Miskowski sees history repeating itself in a series of diary entries charting an American tourist’s attempts to follow in the footsteps of her favourite author Muriel Watson. An author named Watson? Nothing good could ever come of that. It doesn’t.

Hotels are of course a magnet for suicides – where better to end your days than somewhere impersonal and anonymous? Such is the subject matter of Ray Cluley’s Housekeeping – an obtuse little story (it’s the shortest in the book) which demands a repeat reading. Possibly even this won’t be enough to reveal all its secrets and hidden meanings. Maybe a third reading is necessary. (I’ve read it three times).

The Coyote Corporation’s Misplaced Song is the least strange thing about Cate Gardner’s story. It’s a real slice of surrealism involving a suicide bomber who is terrified of children and an explosive device called “Lullaby”. I’m not usually a fan of stories which are weird for weird’s sake but I really enjoyed this one, having the odd chuckle to myself along the way.

Simon Bestwick’s The Wrath of the Deep has possibly the loosest connection to the hotel theme (a key scene plays out in a hotel room early on but other than that it’s a bit tenuous) but the nastiness of the characters inhabiting the story and the narrative that unfolds make this a minor quibble, providing a very entertaining tale of double-crosses and revenge.

Those unsettling conversations that drift in from hotel corridors and adjoining rooms play a big part in Mark West’s The Sealed Window – a beautifully paranoid experience that leads to a twisty ending and a cracker of a last line.

The wallpaper may not be a Gilmanesque yellow but the effect of staying in a room in the Hyde Hotel is comparable, at least as far as Gwen is concerned as VH Leslie sings the blues to end the collection. The Blue Room provided a strong finish to wrap up a hugely satisfying anthology. James and Dan have done a Grand job here. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in The Hyde Hotel and I’m sure everyone who graces its doors will too. You can check out any time you like of course, but be warned – you just can never leave.

2015 Review

Is it that time already? Apparently so. Who’d have thought that twelve months could have passed so quickly? Anyway, here it is again, my annual round-up of the horror fiction that has passed before my eyes during 2015 along with the announcement of the Dark Muses, the much-coveted (in at least one million of the parallel universes that Quantum Physics assures us truly exist) awards for excellence. The awards will go to the novel, novella, single author collection, anthology and single story which have impressed me the most. The design for the award is by 77studios, who did a great job on the cover for the first in the line of novellas that Dark Minds Press are publishing – Slaughter Beach by  Benedict J Jones.

 

It’s been quite a year for the small press Ross Warren and myself set up between us, after a hiatus of three years, we managed to publish three books in 2015, the aforementioned novella, our third anthology Darkest Minds and a collection from Frank Duffy – Hungry Celluloid. It’s been a great experience, working with the authors (and artists – much kudos to the incredibly talented Neil Williams and 77studios as well as Mark West) on the books and, hopefully, producing something they’re proud of too.

All three books would of course feature prominently in the nominations for the Dark Muses but some self-imposed conflict of interest type scenario must unfortunately come into play thereby disqualifying them from consideration. My own personal bias aside however, the quality of the craftsmanship of all the authors involved deserves to be recognised and the best way to do that is to click on the images at the side here and purchase a copy. Go on, do it. Seriously, you won’t regret it.

So, with the irritating ad-break over (at least it didn’t crash your whole system like the bloody ones on 4od do) it’s time to launch into the awards proper:

(All the awards are based purely on what “did it” for me this year and as such are purely subjective. Much as I would like to, I can’t possibly read everything that’s published (despite what my wife thinks) so, of course, there’s a high likelihood that the best piece of horror writing ever simply failed to pass in front of my eyes and as such has failed to get a mention. So (again) having thus removed any vestige of kudos associated with them, the Dark Muses for 2015 go to):

 

 

Best Novel.

Okay, let’s begin with the bad news. The Scarlet Gospels was awful. The feeling of disappointment I felt as I skim-read the last few chapters of this long-awaited new novel from Clive Barker is beyond description, by me and possibly by Barker himself given the evidence presented here. It all started so well – the prologue is classic Barker and, having finished it, I settled in for a thrilling journey to the dark side, anticipating the intense horror and vivid imagination that had played such a big part in my formative years – I, like so many others, list The Books of Blood as among the best horror fiction I’ve ever read. I think The Scarlet Gospels would have been a bad book no matter who had written it but the fact that it was Clive Barker who created it just makes it all the worse. Harry’s Harrowers are possibly the most annoying characters ever created. Doing little more than follow Pinhead on his rampage through Hell, they seem solely to exist to facilitate a tacked-on set-piece towards the end of the book with a hideously stereotypical fundamentalist preacher. So many times I wanted Pinhead to halt his mission so that he could turn on them instead… And, much as it may sound like it, this isn’t bigotry informing my views here. The issues Barker is addressing (I assume) deserve so much better than this.

A much more satisfying vision of Hell came courtesy of Simon Kurt Unsworth’s The Devil’s Detective. Here was a book full of the imagination and imagery so sadly lacking in The Scarlet Gospels. Even without the comparison, The Devil’s Detective is a marvellous book containing great characters, an intriguing plot and imagery which has stayed with me long after I finished the last page.

Mankind fared badly in a number of novels this year, facing threats both from the natural world and of its own making. Tim Lebbon provided a tense and thrilling monster apocalypse in The Silence whilst global warming provided the basis for Adam Nevill’s end of the world scenario in the simply stunning Lost Girl. A threat to civilisation provided a tangential backdrop to Sarah Pinborough's The Death House but the resulting narrative was small scale and deeply moving while Rich Hawkins built upon the impressive groundwork of his zombie/Lovecraftian apocalypse of The Last Plague with the second book in the planned trilogy, The Last Outpost. This was an outstanding book, smaller in scale than its predecessor but all the better for that, an elegiac, thoughtful book - contemplative and profound and yet still scary as hell. Another post-apocalyptic series of books was initiated by Simon Bestwick this year with the first of the Black Road series manifesting in Hell’s Ditch – this time nuclear war providing the starting point for the new civilisation.

Another mid-trilogy novel was provided by Mark Morris with The Society of Blood, the follow up to The Wolves of London and part of the Obsidian Heart trilogy. Much as I enjoyed it, I felt it suffered from trying a little too hard to be complicated with its jumps in time and constant uncertainty about whether characters were really who they were or actually a shape-shifter – these questions constantly reiterated in the first person narration. I’m sticking with the trilogy though as the concept and imagination on display are things I appreciate greatly – hopefully The Wraiths of War will provide some clarity and resolution to the saga.

David Mitchell provided another dose of literary horror with Slade House – a short read, set in the same world as last year’s The Bone Clocks, this was a series of interlinked ghost stories told, characteristically, from different narrative voices.

My choice for my favourite novel of the year was a difficult one but after much contemplation the short list was whittled down to two. Runner-up position goes to Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts. I loved this book for the way it was constructed – and the way it deconstructed. Ostensibly a story about demonic possession, it very cleverly plays with the conventions of that sub-genre to produce a thought-provoking, intelligent – and most importantly, really scary – piece of metafiction.

My favourite novel of this year however – and therefore the winner of the Dark Muse award for Best Novel 2015 – is Ghosters by Ralph Robert Moore. Taking the format of ten stories liked by shared characters and an overarching storyline, Ghosters is a work of genius. The author’s imagination shines out from every page and he’s created a wonderful set of characters to populate the alternate reality he’s built around them. Scary and profound, disturbing but at the same time darkly funny I enjoyed the experience of reading Ghosters immensely. I may never look at oregano in quite the same way again but I sincerely hope this isn’t the last we see of the titular protagonists.

 

Best Novella

The general consensus appears to be that the novella is the perfect length for a horror story. This view, of course, has no factual evidence to support it nor is it based on any extensive research. Also, it has nothing to do with the fact that I’ll be having one of my own published next year. Nothing at all. No Siree. Certainly, this year delivered a rich crop of novellas of such high quality that the decision as to which I regarded as the “best” was an extremely difficult one.

The first review I did in 2015 was for a novella – Leytonstone by Stephen Volk. This tale of the young Alfred Hitchcock proved equally as impressive as Stephen’s previous novella in the Dark Masters series Whitstable, showcasing the author’s innovation and craftsmanship to great effect.

Rich Hawkins provided a smaller scale end of the world scenario than his Last… novels with the stars becoming right over a small town in the west Country with his hugely entertaining Black Star, Black Sun whilst remote locations were used to equally potent effect in Willie Meikle’s Tormentor – the location in this instance the Isle of Skye, lending itself to some proper creepy goings-on.

I really liked Andrew David Barker’s debut novel The Electric so was looking forward to reading his follow-up novella Dead Leaves. Whilst I enjoyed it, I was left a little disappointed, feeling the story lacked originality (especially in the “love” story) and relied a little bit too much on name-dropping songs and films to create a sense of nostalgia.

Cate Gardner showcased her distinctive, quirky style of writing with The Bureau of Them, a high-concept story packing an emotional punch where ghosts mingle with the living in a moving story of loss, love and longing.

Pendragon Press provided a special treat for novella-lovers with The Lost Film – two for the price of one with a story each from Stephen Bacon and Mark West. I loved them both and think it’s one of the best things Mark in particular has written. His protagonists are often decent, honest and downright nice people so it was nice to see him have a “hero” who wasn’t quite as pure – and the concept underlying the story was brilliant.

And so to the winner… As with the novels I’ll announce the runner-up and then the champion. Second place goes to Albion Fay - a beautifully written story from Mark Morris which combines all-too-human horror with nicely ambiguous supernatural elements seamlessly to create a deeply moving, affecting piece of writing.

The actual winner of the Dark Muse for best novella is a different kettle of fish altogether. Which is not to imply that it’s not beautifully written – it is. And very clever too, providing some nice insights into the human condition at the same time as hurling an alien invasion at them and killing them in fiendishly outlandish ways. Just for the sheer bravura of it, and the feeling of being well and truly entertained by the whole thing when I finished it, The Last Bus by Paul Feeney gets my vote.

Best Multi-Author Collection

Aickman’s Heirs, published by Undertow Publications and edited by Simon Srantzas brought together fifteen brilliant stories inspired and influenced by the writing of Robert Aickman. An easy option would have been to have gone with pastiches and that probably would have been an entertaining enough book to read but that isn’t the case with Aickman’s Heirs – his ghost may not haunt the pages within but his spirit is certainly there.

Game Over was a collection of stories which used video gaming as its inspiration. Being as old as I am, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a high proportion of the stories used older generation games as their influence, providing a bit of a nostalgia-rush for me. All the stories were of a high standard but I have to say that Simon Bestwick’s take on Frogger – The Face of the Deep - was a highlight, and quite one of the strangest stories I’ve read for some time.

Joe Mynhardt’s Crystal Lake Publishing gave us The Outsiders this year, a five author collection of interlinked stories on a Lovecraftian theme. All the stories are centred around the fictional gated community of Priory but there were many more connections between the individual stories, with shared characters and events. I’m guessing quite a lot of work and planning was involved to achieve this but it was definitely worth it. It was good to see the racism angle examined too – a bold move but again, one which paid off handsomely.

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories effortlessly maintained the high standard of Volume 1 and Mark Morris has done a sterling job of whittling down the massive response to the open submission to the final line-up.

The anthology I enjoyed the most this year however is the first in what I hope will be a long series. It was a dark day when Michael Kelly announced that there would be no more Shadows & Tall Trees – a publication which had always guaranteed the highest quality, literary weird fiction and horror. Step in CM Muller, who – with the publication of Nightscript 1 – has filled the void left by the departure of S&TT, producing a lovingly crafted collection of “strange and darksome tales”. I loved all the stories in here, all were of the highest quality and all were, indeed, darksome – creating images that still lurk in the dark recesses of my imagination. The 2015 Dark Muse for a multi-author collection therefre goes to Nightscript 1.

 

Best Single Author Collection

A couple of the single author collections I read this year were actually published in 2014 so, purely because of my negligence, they fail to qualify for inclusion in the Dark Muse awards. I’m certain both authors will be utterly devastated by this news so by way of some recompense I offer up honourable mentions for Simon Kurt Unsworth’s Strange Gateways and Scott Nicolay’s Ana Kai Tangata. Both were packed with imagination and originality but the latter in particular was a revelation, here is an author genuinely doing something different and producing amazing work. I look forward with great anticipation to whatever he comes up with next.

I’ve long been a fan of Ray Cluley’s work so it was great to see his first collection, Probably Monsters, come out this year. Being a fan (though not in any creepy, stalking kind of way. Yet.) meant that I’d read many of the stories already but there was much joy to be had in revisiting them and the ones I hadn’t read confirmed that he’s one of the best, and cleverest writers out there at the moment.

Sing Me Your Scars was a collection of deeply emotional and moving stories from Damien Angelica Walters. A potent blend of original ideas and re-workings of established mythologies the writing here is of the highest order, poetic and elegiac and proof that the most effective horror is that which is hidden inside beauty.

The Swan River Press published The Anniversary of Never, a posthumous collection from Joel Lane. It’s a beautifully produced book and an excellent collection of stories which serve both as a fitting tribute to Joel and also a reminder of just how much he will be missed.

This year’s Dark Muse for a single author collection goes to one of my “discoveries” of the year. I’m frequently late to the game, stumbling upon authors who have been grafting away for years but often, and certainly in this case, it’s worth the wait. The collection of stories which had the biggest impact on me in 2015 is Ted Grau’s The Nameless Dark. There are fourteen stories in the book, with the majority using Lovecraftian tropes and themes as their inspiration but it’s the variety of styles and narrative voices that author uses to tell his tales that most impressed me. It’s an excellent collection.

 

Best Single Story

Black Static continued to provide some of the best horror writing of the year in the six editions published in 2015. Whilst some failed to hit my own personal mark (another stream of consciousness from some bloke down the pub? Really?) I always regard that as a plus, it would be a tedious and bland world where I liked everything. Highlights this year were Laura Mauro’s The Grey Men, Stephen Bacon’s Bandersnatch and Ralph Robert Moore’s Dirt Land – an incredibly dark piece of writing that leaves you feeling absolutely desolate when you finish it. (This is a good thing). Another of Rob’s Black Static stories, Men Wearing Makeup provide the best last line of a story I’ve read for quite some time with second prize in that category going to Andrew Hook’s Blood For Your Mother.

Ray Cluley’s Within the Wind, Beneath the Snow provided an excellent post-Christmas read. More trademark wordplay, metaphor and allusion conjuring up a winter’s tale with as much psychological drama as Shakespeare’s play but without the happy ending. It's a Siriusly good piece of writing.

The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories contained a number of stories which could vie for the best of year slot, Paul Meloy's Joe is a Barber and Robert Shearman's Lump in Your Throat were stand-outs but my personal favourite was Stephen Volk’s Wrong which I read as a deeply touching love story.

Gary McMahon showed a lot of soul in his beautifully crafted (in all aspects) chapbook There's a Bluebird in my Heart whilst in Nightscript 1 David Surface showed us that The Sound that the World Makes is a deeply unsettling one.

However, the single story which had the biggest effect on me in 2015 – and thereby the winner of the Dark Muse – came by way of the This is Horror chapbook series. Nathan Ballingrud’s The Visible Filth is unsettling, disturbing and speaks to the darkness that is within us all. It’s an incredibly powerful piece of writing that fills your mind with images you’ll never really get rid of.

 
So that’s it. Another year, another review. Who knows what lies in store for 2016, but if it produces horror writing of the same quality as this year it won’t be half bad.

Merry Christmas – and a happy 2016.

 

Hell's Ditch: Blog Hop - War Without End.

I was honoured to be asked to review Simon Bestwick's new novel, Hell's Ditch (you can read the review below this post) and equally as honoured to be asked to participate in his blog tour promoting the book.
So here is the latest instalment, a thoughtful essay on a different kind of fall-out, and a salutary reminder that the consequences of military intervention last far beyond the end of hostilities...

War Without End

When I was working on my new novel Hell’s Ditch, set in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, I watched Peter Watkins’ ‘after the bomb’ film The War Game. It touched on an aspect of post-apocalyptic fiction that often gets overlooked: the psychological.

Along with the physical casualties of nuclear attack in the film – victims of blast, heat-flash or firestorm, and those suffering lingering deaths from body burns, radiation poisoning, malnutrition and previously treatable disease, Watkins also depicts thousands of survivors suffering ‘complex states of shock’ following their experiences – PTSD, as we’d call it now.

For most of them, of course, the help they’d need would be sparse to non-existent. Similar figures – ‘Spacers’ – appear in Robert Swindells’ 1985 novel Brother In The Land. The country will be filled with the emotionally damaged and shattered, while the children growing up in the aftermath are potentially feral or psychopathic.

There are those who deride PTSD as a wholly modern phenomenon, the product of namby-pamby liberal minds: “Trauma?” one former WWII soldier once said to me? “We didn’t have any of that – we just came home and got on with things.” But coming home and getting on with things doesn’t mean those problems don’t exist; they may be better hidden, may resolve themselves differently, but they’re still there.

Throw that into the mix, and then you also have to take into account a whole new way of life, one that’s a desperate, non-stop struggle for survival. There aren’t any supermarkets any more: food is in short supply. If you want to eat, you grow it, forage it, catch and kill it, or you receive it as a reward for work. Those are the grim realities of a society whose infrastructure has been shattered.

Everyone is, in one way or another, mad; the lucky ones have simply found a brand of neurosis or psychosis that can make a world like this bearable.

In a country like America or Australia, with huge expanses of comparatively unspoilt wilderness, it would be possible to escape the war and its after-effects – not just the ruins, wreckage and corpses, but the awareness that they exist – and start over. Before you can even begin healing from a trauma, getting yourself out of that situation is essential. But in a small country like Britain, where could you go? Nowhere would be untouched: wherever you fled, the ruins would be there. Existing wildernesses would be contaminated; new wildernesses formed out of the rubble and ashes. Wherever you looked would be the ruins of homes like the ones you’d lived in, or dreamed of living in, of shops from which you’d once bought the means of survival or acquired consumer goods you didn’t need with money you didn’t have.

Everywhere you looked, you’d be reminded of the people and the way of life you’d lost. You’d be in a state of permanent trauma, and permanently surrounded by triggers. Small wonder, then, that in the world of Hell’s Ditch people see ghosts: in fact, almost everyone does. They take it for granted; they live with it, and call it ‘ghostlighting’. Wherever you look, it brings the past alive; memories awake, and come to prey on you.

Even with the best will in the world, many who’ve managed to survive horrendous experiences – the refugees fleeing Syria now, or survivors of the recent massacre in Paris – will have memories that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Hell’s Ditch takes that to its logical conclusion: everyone in this world is fighting a war without end.

You can buy Hell's Ditch here.

Hell's Ditch

Hell’s Ditch is the new novel from Simon Bestwick and is published by Snowbooks Ltd. It’s the first in a planned series of four books and is set in post-apocalyptic Britain. The apocalypse in this case has nothing to do with zombies but is instead a result of nuclear war (something that was certainly a concern during my youth and therefore strangely, if not disturbingly, nostalgic) which has eradicated most of the human population and laid waste to huge swathes of the country.

The dominant force in this new Britain is a military dictatorship which has naturally led to the formation of a resistance and although both factions have their share of the narrative, it’s the latter who take precedence, with the narrative focussing mainly on the wonderfully named Helen Damnation, returned to the rebel fold after a closer than normal brush with death. There’s a hint of a resurrection theme to Helen’s story – or rather, backstory – which I’m guessing will be expanded upon in the follow up novels and which confers a messianic vibe to her.

As the first in a series, Hell’s Ditch has a lot of groundwork to do, introducing the new world but also a host of characters. There are plenty of them, operating in three different narrative strands but Simon does a great job of marshalling everything so that at no point do you feel lost, wondering what’s going on or who’s who.

Helen Damnation may be the main focus of the book but another of the characters is possibly the most memorable. He has a great name too – Gevaudan Shoal – which, if my suspicions are correct, nicely combines the two central themes of the book – nuclear warfare and err… wolves. (He could have been called Perigord Niblick but I think Simon chose the right combination). Much fun is to be had with many of the names in this book actually – the secret research programme which makes up one of the narrative strands is called Tindalos which will ring bells with students of Frank Belknap Long (and even Lovecraft) whilst the Styr – mutated creatures found deep underground – have a name which also provides a tenuous link to the consequences of radioactive fall-out.

Gevaudan is the last of the Grendelwolves (yes, I’m guessing – a reference to that Grendel) who becomes a powerful, lycanthropic ally to the rebels but also provides some of the more contemplative moments in the book. Death abounds here – much of it violent – but it’s Gevaudan’s own personal situation that provides some meditation on its true nature.

This is a book bursting with ideas. I particularly liked the idea of ghostlighting – the ability of characters to see the spirits of dead family - but all of them are good and bursting with imagination. The world Simon has created is entirely believable as are the characters who inhabit it. There’s even a little bit of politics – the naming of the military squads as Reapers seems too close to Drone terminology to be a coincidence and one character utters the immortal phrase “we’re all in this together” – and even a bit of ancient Celtic mythology thrown into the mix for good measure.

I loved the time I spent on the world of Hell’s Ditch and I look forward with much anticipation to the follow ups. It’s a book I recommend highly.