Sacculina

I have to admit to being a sucker for a good old creature feature. There’s nothing quite like a story of man against monster, whether those monsters are of the supernatural or natural kind. Shark movies seem to be making a bit of a resurgence lately but none will ever top the magnificence which is Jaws. Perhaps it’s the combination of the isolation of being out on the open sea and the threat of the creature itself which makes maritime monsters especially terrifying. Cast adrift on open water, it’s feasible that any creature can be made scary – certainly the case with sharks, giant squid and killer whales. Even as benign a creature as a whale can be rendered terrifying – especially if it’s white.

Such is the setting for the new novella from Philip Fracassi, Sacculina which is published by Journalstone. The monsters faced here are a mutated species, a surprising choice on the face of it perhaps but, as it turns out, an inspired one, the scenes at the book’s conclusion deftly handled by a writer with abundant skill and technique, creating real tension amidst the more visceral elements.

Brothers Jim and Jack charter a boat to go on a fishing trip with friend Chris and their father Henry, a chance to re-forge old ties and bond following the release of Jack from prison. There’s a little bit of foreshadowing before the boat even leaves port with the captain trying to warn them off because of bad weather, only to accede to their wishes but taking them to a different, safer(!), location…

It’s all lovely, traditional stuff and it’s the familiarity of the set-up which creates a warm glow of recognition in the reader, a sense of anticipation at what is still to come once our heroes are out in the middle of nowhere.

Given the environment the men find themselves in, the opportunities are there for much discourse and recollection with back stories floating to the surface, revealing much about the characters, revealing hidden depths. Tensions – familial and otherwise – are exposed, nicely adding to that of the overall narrative; the journey out to sea mirrored by that into the souls of the protagonists themselves. These sections are nicely done, allowing insight without slowing the pace or being a distraction. There’s even space for a little profundity, musings on life and the nature of existence – again without holding up the narrative which slowly ramps up the tension and feelings of dread until the real horror arrives.

And it is real horror. The attack of the creatures is handled with as much skill as the character development which has preceded it. Trust me, this is intense stuff with some sequences definitely not for the faint-hearted. The pacing here is superb, exciting and frantic, a lovely counterpoint to the slow build of tension which has gone before.

I loved Sacculina; pulpy enough so as not to betray its creature-feature origins but elevated by very skilful writing so that while you still may not care for some of the characters, at least you’re interested in them. Having already released a collection which is a contender for year’s best, Philip has here provided a novella with an equally strong claim to that title.

Sacculina is released on May 12^th and you can buy it here.

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.

The Little Gift

One of my favourite things in the world is to read a story and then, once it’s finished, find myself still thinking about it, reassessing and re-evaluating what I’ve read, gaining fresh insights, revealing subtleties which registered only subconsciously on first exposure to the words.

Such was very much the case with the new novella from Stephen Volk, The Little Gift which is published by PS Publishing.

It’s a slim, but beautifully produced (and illustrated), volume and I rattled through it in a single sitting in less than an hour. Its brevity belies its content however as what we’re given here is a tale of massive depth, the words and story undergoing some magical synergy to create a piece of work which stealthily infiltrates your mind, a first person narrative which makes you believe the story is heading in one direction before craftily heading off somewhere completely different.

The first person narrative is absolutely essential to the story. Yes, the narrator is unreliable – but aren’t they all? Narrators (not to say readers) will always superimpose their own interpretations on stories but his unreliability isn’t the most important thing anyway. What the narrative provides here is a beautifully crafted exploration of character. And not a very nice character at that.

It’s difficult to say too much about the Little Gift without giving away key plot developments. Bad things happen, some very bad things happen – both directly and indirectly involving the narrator and it’s his attitudes towards these events which provide the deepest insights into his character.

I chose Stephen’s story The Peter Lorre Fan Club as my favourite of last year because of the skill with which he slowly unfolded the story by means of dialogue alone and there’s as much skill on display here this time using a monologue. Some may find metaphors for society in general in the attitudes of the narrator, but even as “just” a description of a fairly – actually deeply – unpleasant individual, The Little Gift is an outstanding piece of writing.

A week after reading it, I’m still mulling over The Little Gift. It’s a very, very clever piece of writing and I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.

Behold the Void.

One of the many highlights of 2016 for me was “discovering” the writing of Philip Fracassi, with two novelettes, Mother and Altar and a novella Fragile Dreams. Much joy then, at the prospect of starting 2017 (kinda) with a collection from him, Behold the Void, which is published by Journalstone.

The two aforementioned novelettes make up part of the collection and my reviews for them can be found here and here. It’s with much joy again that I can report that I found the rest of the stories in Behold the Void to be of as impressively high standard.

Soft Construction of a Sunset opens the collection, a gloriously constructed tale in which the horror gradually reveals itself, a slow build-up of tension from the almost poetic opening lines to its twisted conclusion. Told in present tense, the narrative immerses the reader in protagonist Tom’s response to friend Marcus’ plea for help, a technique that pays of supremely when the reader realises the final horror just before Tom himself does.

Family dynamics have a big role to play in two of the stories, Coffin and Surfer Girl. Both are incredibly dark tales, with subject matter not for the faint-hearted and teenagers as their protagonists. The former delves into folk mythology with hints at a Green Man type character – although with a less than benign nature than would be traditional whilst the latter charts young Adolf’s trip to Acapulco with his mother and her new boyfriend Steve. It’s a marvellous character study of a disturbed psyche and has an opening line which is destined to feature in any number of “best ever” lists.

The Baby Farmer provides a potent cocktail of priestly indiscretion, child murder and apocalyptic prophesy in a story which switches between present day narrative and the historical diaries of a woman incarcerated for the kidnap and murder of children. It’s another cleverly constructed story, jumping between the two narratives and the voice employed for the diaries is impressively convincing.

Big decisions are required in Fail-Safe, a monster movie wrapped up in a psychological drama. At its heart is a moral dilemma, a classic head and heart conflict. It’s an almost Schrodingeresque scenario facing the son of two loving parents, one of whom definitely is, and the other who might be, a ravenous, blood-thirsty monster. Open the door and let them out? You decide…

The Horse Thief is one of my favourite stories in the book. There are hints of the surreal in this tale of the titular villain and his services to provide horses to clientele with very specific, and very strange requirements. The story’s strange nature, and darkness, put me in mind of the writing of Ralph Robert Moore – which is praise indeed. Tales of redemption are always winners for me and the route this story takes towards that end point (whether or not it’s achieved is open to discussion) is a hugely entertaining – if slightly disturbing – one. It’s strange and weird and I loved every moment of it.

The final story in the collection is Mandala and is probably my favourite of all of them. It’s also the story which most effectively encapsulates the theme suggested by the book’s title as it’s an exploration of the forces which dictate our destinies. Are our actions truly our own or are they guided by forces way beyond our imagining? It’s another impeccably constructed story – the major themes are introduced early on with descriptions of celestial bodies and tides – with a succession of inter-related events ultimately leading to tragedy. There’s a certain inevitability about what happens in the story – which, I guess, is the whole point of it - and the writing is so good that the reader cannot help but be drawn into the action which unfolds. There’s a long scene, on a beach, which is one of the most terrifying and tense I’ve read in a long time. It’s a story which is, well… cosmic. It’s also got scary ghosts in it.

Behold the Void is a stunning collection and one which I enjoyed immensely. I anticipate seeing it mentioned in many year’s best lists to come. I thoroughly recommend you check it out for yourself.

Fungoid.

Fungoid is the new novel from William Meikle and is published by DarkFuse. It’s an apocalyptic tale from an author who, over the course of his writing career, has wiped out huge swathes of the world’s population by means of alien invasion, cosmic seaweed and giant crabs (to name but a few) this time choosing to bring about the end of the world with a fungal infestation.

It’s an original take on the apocalypse and, it has to be said, an entirely plausible one. Just Google “largest organism on earth” if you need proof. The fact that any organic material can provide a home for the organism means that the world itself is infected – not just the people living on it and, throw in the fact that the fungal spores are dispersed by wind and rain and you have a truly terrifying scenario.

By concentrating on a handful of characters, Willie manages to corral what could have been a sprawling epic of book into a tightly constructed, fast-paced narrative – a cracking read that homages the pulp novels and B-Movies which must surely be its inspiration. Whilst greatly enhancing the pace of the book, this approach can have some drawbacks – most notably when world events are touched upon, outbreaks of wars and civil unrest relegated to a few lines or a paragraph almost making them seem like an afterthought. There are some scenes of environments overgrown with fungal hyphae which were very effective but again, a few more of these set-pieces may have enhanced the book.

It could be argued that this is the quintessential William Meikle book, combining as it does so many of the tropes and themes which have been a feature of his writing thus far. The fungal threat will be familiar to those who read his highly entertaining Professor Challenger collection The Kew Growths – which allows for a little in-joke within the narrative – but another recurring theme, the power of music also crops up here, most overtly in a reference to being “lost to the dance”, a literary motif used to great effect in the author’s collection Dark Melodies.

There’s science too – some real, to add verisimilitude and some made up, to add entertainment value. This is no ordinary fungus, it’s an escapee from a lab – situated in the same country that made Trump’s “Make America Great Again” caps (i.e. not America).

I regard Fungoid as the literary equivalent of North by Northwest – a screenplay that was written for Hitchcock which contained as many Hitchcockian themes and set-pieces as it was possible to cram into one film. The director was in effect making a homage to his own work and there’s maybe something of the same going on here. Whatever, the end result is a deeply entertaining piece of writing which takes a number of well-established tropes and characters and moulds (yes – that was deliberate) them into something new.

From its small beginnings in a traffic accident on Watson Drive (there was always going to be trouble on a street with that name…) to its stirring conclusion on the Newfoundland coast I loved every moment I spent in the world of Fungoid. The end of the world is probably on a lot more people’s minds right now so it was nice to enjoy a fictional interpretation of that scenario.

You can, and should, buy Fungoid here.

Under a Watchful Eye.

Under a Watchful Eye is the new novel from Adam Nevill and is published by Pan Macmillan. It’s an early release date for the book and follows closely on the heels of Adam’s self-published collection of short stories, Some Will Not Sleep.

Anyone who has read that collection – and if you haven’t, you absolutely should – will experience a frisson of recognition at the title of the first of three parts into which the novel is divided, Yellow Teeth, as it shares it with one of the stories in the SWNS. The short story took as its subject matter the “lodger from (perhaps literally) Hell” and that narrative is reproduced here, in a much-expanded form as author Seb begins to catch glimpses of old acquaintance Ewan, a friend from his student days, a mentor even for his burgeoning writing career before the friendship broke down acrimoniously.

A ghost from his past then – a phrase given a possible literal interpretation from the descriptions given of these opening encounters. Much creepiness and unease is generated in these opening passages with Ewan mysteriously appearing and disappearing, sometimes in seemingly impossible locations…

The ambiguity ends when Ewan finally turns up as a creature of flesh and blood and Seb reluctantly take him in as a guest. The horror then shifts from the supernatural to a combination of gross-out verging on body horror (although I felt this was more effectively done in the short story) as Ewan’s disregard for anything even resembling personal hygiene impacts upon Seb, but also the horror of the loss of control and order as the entropy of his unwanted lodger’s lifestyle and beliefs comes into conflict with Seb’s neatly ordered existence.

With Ewan comes much exposition and the introduction of the one of the book’s central themes – astral projection. Such was the technique used by Ewan in his early appearances and such is his obsession, in particular the life and work of M L Hazard, author and researcher into the esoteric and the subject of Ewan’s magnum opus. Despite himself, Seb finds he is drawn into the dark web his guest is weaving around him…

Under a Watchful Eye is a slight departure in style from Adam’s other novels (although perhaps not so much as the more overtly thriller aspects of Lost Girl), relying more on psychological and supernatural terrors than the more visceral fears engendered by the Blood Friends or the denizens of shadowy houses and Scandinavian forests. The tone is possibly most similar to his debut novel Banquet for the Damned and it’s probably no coincidence that a terrifying dream described in this book features a golf course… There are subtle references to Adam’s other novels, a technique I’m glad to see he continues to use, most notable Last Days.

There’s still room for some trademark Nevill horrors though, with fiendish entities scuttling across the pages. These are most effective in two sequences, one aboard a train and the other in the darkness of the abandoned house used by Hazard as his research headquarters. The book also introduces us to Thin Len, an archetypal Nevill creation and destined to fuel nightmares for years to come.

I have a feeling Adam had a blast writing this novel. The old adage of “write what you know” has been well used here I believe as it’s hard to imagine that Seb – at least in terms of his writing career – isn’t based on the author’s own experiences. It is, I have to say, an extremely cleverly constructed book and one of the biggest revelations within it comes very – and I mean very – unexpectedly. The chapters are named, something I like to see, but there’s some puzzlement as to what the titles mean as many bear little relation to the events described following them. Finding out the reasoning behind them is one of the many joys of reading Under a Watchful Eye, a novel in which the metaphysical becomes the metafictional. It’s a book which is as much about the process of writing as the horrors contained within its twisting and surprising narrative.

I loved it and can’t think of a better recommendation to begin 2017’s horror reading experience.

2016 Review.

In 2016, it’s not been so much “whither the small press?” as “wither the small press” with a number of independent publishers calling it a day. Chief among these were Boo Books and Gray Friar Press, both of whom consistently produced excellent books and it’s a real shame to see them go, not just on a personal level but for the whole independent press scene.

Whilst upsetting, it’s not entirely surprising. My own involvement with Dark Minds Press has shown me just how much work is involved in producing a book for publication, time and work – and money. Most small presses are run, I guess, because of the enthusiasm of their proprietors who are willing to dedicate their own time and money towards the job of getting books they care about out there. Very few, I would imagine, are able to turn any kind of profit, the sales from each book pretty much pay for the production costs of the next one – if they’re lucky.

Support for small presses comes in all shapes and forms I guess, but really, the absolute best way to show support is to - wait for it - buy a book. Breaking even at best is a precarious business model but that’s the reality for many small presses. If books don’t sell then the losses incurred will be too much to bear. Art for art’s sake is a motto I thoroughly approve of but art has to be created in the first place and that creation involves a lot more than the inspiration and skill of the artist themselves. Horror is, I believe, undergoing somewhat of a revival at the moment and that really is in huge part due to the efforts of the independent presses who provide some of the best, and most stylishly produced books out there. Be a shame if we lost that…

Here endeth the lesson.

And so we come to my annual appraisal of the horror literature I’ve had the pleasure (mostly) of reading this year, and the presentation of the Dark Muse awards for those pieces of writing which in my opinion, were the best of the bunch in the categories of Best Novel, Best Novella, Best Anthology, Best Collection and Best Single Story.*

*NB No actual award will be presented, the prize for the winning authors is simply my undying admiration for their skill and craftmanship.

The (albeit virtual) award has been designed by 77studios, the same team (kind of) who have created all the covers for the Dark Minds Novellas. Check out more of their work here.

So, without further ado, the Dark Muse Awards for 2016 go to:

BEST NOVEL

I’ve read almost thirty novels which can be classed as horror this year – that total would have been even higher if I’d managed to motivate myself to pick up Justin Cronin’s City of Mirrors, the final book in his epic vampire trilogy but it’s been so long since I read the second book, The Twelve, that I’ve completely forgotten what was happening and who all the characters are. One day perhaps.

I had similar issues with the third Obsidian Heart book from Mark Morris – The Wraiths of War. If ever a book needed a recap at the beginning, a “story so far”, it was this one. The plot was complex enough as it is, with the main character jumping backwards and forwards in time, meeting different iterations of himself and the people around him as well as a shape-shifting villain who could mimic them all too. I did enjoy the book, but have to admit I was in the dark for most of it, trying to remember who was who and why they were doing the things they were. The conclusion is entertaining enough – with a few twists –and I’m a sucker for anything set in World War One but I would have enjoyed it all the more had I not been fumbling around in the dark for most of it. Perhaps a single volume omnibus of all three is the way forward. Or backward. Or sideways.

Another trilogy came to an end this year too – Rich Hawkins’ incredibly impressive Last Plague series. The third and final book was The Last Soldier and I loved it, the author cleverly focusing in on individual stores amidst the apocalypse he has created, making this a moving and emotional piece of writing.

Some of The Last Soldier is set in my home county of Northumberland and I still get a kick out of seeing places I’m familiar with appearing in books. Such was the case also with Benedict J Jones second Charlie Bars novel The Devil’s Brew a potent blend of London nous and pagan horror with some interesting character names and also in Gary Fry’s Siren of Depravity which I regard as one of the best things he’s written, certainly his best novel, getting the balance absolutely right between big ideas and narrative thrust. (The book gets extra marks for allowing me to pun in Latin when reviewing it).

My biggest disappointment this year was Joe Hill’s The Fireman simply for creating a brilliant, new way of bringing about an apocalypse and then pretty much ignoring it to focus in on a bunch of petty-minded people for most of its impressive word count. Having been impressed with much of her short fiction, I was very much looking forward to VH Leslie’s novel Bodies of Water. Whilst there is much to commend it – not least its politics – I felt it drowned somewhat in its watery metaphors which were so abundant I found myself groaning when the next one came along. At one point “navel” was mis-spelt as “naval” and I’m still not sure whether this was intentional or not. My final disappointment was Hex, Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s novel of witchcraft in small town America. Again, I so wanted to like this book but very quickly became annoyed with the smart-arse tone of the narrative voice.

A couple of creature-features passed before my eyes this year, Pressure by Brian Keene and Invasive from Chuck Wendig. Of the two, I preferred the latter but felt both were lacking in some set-pieces which might have been expected given the sub-genre they inhabited, instead focusing in on the human monsters caught up in things.

In what may prove to be the ultimate in prescience, a good number of novels have featured post-apocalyptic worlds. Aside from Joe Hill and Rich Hawkins, other authors taking up the mantle have included Steve Byrne, whose Craze combined plague and sorcery to chilling effect and Terry Grimwood who provided a neat variation on zombie lore with Deadside Revolution. Both were high concept books which I enjoyed very much but I felt Steve’s book was probably three novels worth of ideas crammed into one whilst Terry’s may well have benefited from a shorter word count.
The post-apocalyptic world that Simon Bestwick created in Hell's Ditch received another airing in the second of the four books which will make up the Black Road quartet, Devil's Highway. The end of the year proved a real treat for fans of Simon's writing (myself very much included) with the publication of another novel, the genre-bending quantum physics expounding The Feast of All Souls.

I’ve often thought of writing a ghost story set on Everest and even have the locations on the Southeast Ridge planned out in my head. Probably won’t bother now as there’s no way I could better Michelle Paver’s Thin Air – even if it does use Kangchenjunga as its haunted peak instead. I loved this old-school horror for its brilliant evocation of the period – including its casual racism – and for generating some truly scary scenes, making full use of its treacherous and isolated location. A similar cold and remote location was put to extremely good effect in Stranded by Bracken Macleod.

Duncan Bradshaw provided possibly the most entertaining of the novels I read this year with his time and location jumping epic of ancient rituals and cosmic horror Hexagram. I’m a sucker for a historical horror and Duncan definitely put in the research miles here, creating authentic recreations of, among others, Civil War America and Ripper-era London.
The Hellraiser mythos was much better served this year after the crushing disappointment of 2015's The Scarlet Gospels with the publication of Paul Kane's Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, a thoroughly entertaining crossover novel which honoured, and added to, the traditions of both mythologies.

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones is a superbly original take on werewolf mythology, cleverly combined with a coming of age story set in the backwaters of the USA whilst Paul Tremblay followed up the brilliant Headful of Ghosts with the equally compelling and mysterious Disappearance at Devil’s Rock.

Two novels in particular blew me away with their style, books where as much pleasure was to be gained by the way they were structured and their technique as the narratives they contained. Unger House Radicals by Chris Kelso is an assault on the senses, a whirlwind of imagery and ideas which paints a very dark picture indeed, with much to say about the nature of art and those who create and align themselves with it. James Everington finally managed to bring The Quarantined City to the wider world, having fallen foul of the Spectral Press debacle, being in the midst of publishing the book in serial form as the Press imploded. (Actually, he was pretty much the last author to be published by Boo Books too. There appears to be a pattern developing here…) I’m glad he did though because the book is a triumph. Structured as a series of stories within stories, its twisting, turning narrative constantly wrong-foots the reader before finally – and very satisfyingly – wraps itself up in a breath-taking conclusion.

It was reviewed in The Guardian too.

The Quarantined City very nearly made it to number one spot but had the misfortune to be published in the same year as the novel which I have judged to be the best I’ve read. (Something else Spectral can be blamed for then). The “honour” of receiving the Dark Muse for Best Novel 2016 goes to a truly incredible read, a story whose imagery remains with me still, a tale both intimate and epic all wrapped up in beautiful prose. My favourite novel of 2016 is John Langan’s The Fisherman.

BEST NOVELLA

2016 has certainly been the year of the novella for me, having managed to publish two of my own but also having the privilege of working with three fantastic authors, Gary Fry, Paul M Feeney and Rich Hawkins for the Dark Minds Novella series. Given my own involvement in these books, it would be inappropriate to consider any of them for a Dark Muse, but - should you be interested -  links to buying themcan be found at the side of the page...

It was great to see a new book from Gary McMahon with the publication of his novella The Grieving Stones. I have to say it wasn’t archetypal McMahon (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), abandoning much of the bleakness you would normally associate with him to tell a more traditional tale combining haunted house and folk horror tropes. It’s still quite bleak, just not – well, you know. I did like it though.

New pretender for the crown of King of Bleak, Rich Hawkins had a prolific year in 2016 with – among all his other work – five novellas to his name. I’m very pleased to have been involved in the publication of Ruin but Rich also added to the world he created in the Plague trilogy with stand-alone novella The Plague Winter as well as the not-for-the-squeamish excesses of Deathcrawl and Scavengers. Best of all though, was King Carrion, his visceral take on vampire lore.

Gary Fry produced two novellas set in the place he grew up in and the place he now lives. The latter featured in The Doom that Came to Whitby Town which unleashed cosmic horror on the seaside town amid some nicely barbed observations whilst Scourge used Bradford as a melting pot of humanity and ideas in a though-provoking read.

Paul Kane’s The Rot used the device of presenting the story in the form of transcripts from a recording made by a survivor of a zombie-esque apocalypse, something that lost some of its impact, and authenticity as the – really quite long – story continued, the narrative lapsing into more detail than realistically would have been err… narrated. I can, and have, found exceptions for this before (and have argued the case) but much is made of “testing… testing” type dialogue at the beginning of chapters to reinforce that this is a recording. Clever story though even though some of the science might be a bit dodgy.
Medical matters, mythos and murder were all combined in two extremely entertaining novellas from John Llewellyn Probert, Knife to Skin and Dead Shift - both prime examples of John's trademark mix of horror and dark humour. Very Proberty both.

Hersham Horror released four novellas simultaneously, spoiling everyone for choice. James Everington provided a politically nuanced ghost story in Paupers’ Graves whilst Stephen Bacon went all Dickensian (with a touch of Steampunk) for his highly entertaining Laudanum Nights. Mark West tapped into the creepiness of deserted buildings most effectively with The Factory but I think my favourite of the four was my first reading encounter of Phil Sloman and his serial killer with a twist story Becoming David.

Philip Fracassi obviously took Samuel Goldwyn’s (possibly apocryphal) recommendation to “start with an earthquake” literally in his novella Fragile Dreams with such a natural disaster opening the story, tumbling down a building on his protagonist, trapping him and leaving him as prey to visitations form real and/or imaginary friends/foes. I loved the blend of psychological, physical and cosmic horror on display here.

This is Horror’s contribution to the novella market came in the form of two books; A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman and They Don’t Come Home Anymore by TE Grau. Both were incredibly good reads, encompassing themes and narratives far beyond the limits of genre writing, both demanding second reads to fully appreciate the depths of the individual narratives. I loved them both.

Such was my appreciation of the TIH novellas that I find myself in the position of announcing a winner of consecutive Dark Muse awards, a hitherto unprecedented achievement. For so many reasons, not least because I’m still thinking about it, the award for Best Novella goes to Ted Grau for his multi-layered, thoughtful and intelligent book They Don’t Come Home Anymore.

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Gray Friar Press certainly went out on a high with the publication, in January, of the latest in the Terror Tales series with a volume of stories set in, and around, the ocean. It’s one of the strongest in the series, with no weak stories and at least two outstanding ones and it’s great news to hear that the series has found a new home with Telos Publishing.

CM Muller easily hurdled the “difficult second album” barrier with another top notch collection of stories in Nightscript 2. Highlights included (what surely must be) a deeply personal story about grief, Apartment B from Steve Rasnic Tem and a concept I think would suit a longer piece involving undertakers to the Mob in Eric J Guignard’s The Inveterate Establishment of Daddano & Co.

Themes for anthologies this year ranged from colours (Chromatics), the Ten Commandments (Thou Shalt Not) and the signs of the zodiac (13 Signs). I enjoyed all of them – on the whole – but there’s perhaps an argument that too specific a theme can hinder the creative process a little.

More loosely themed, and therefore more engaging were Green and Pleasant Land with its stories of folk and rural horror interpreted, in the main, very successfully and The Hyde Hotel whose titular location provided the backdrop for some high quality tales. Worth checking out.

The concept behind Dead Letters was an intriguing one, with each of the authors involved mailed a package containing an item, or items around which their story had to be based. All of the stories were of the highest standard with Ramsey Campbell’s meta-narrative and some dark goings on from Adam Nevill probably the pick of the crop.

Joe Mynhardt’s bid to take over the world with his Crystal Lake Publishing was aided greatly by the Gutted anthology. The book includes some big names, really big names (Barker, Gaiman, Campbell) but their stories are matched by pretty much all the other authors involved. I would always recommend a physical book over an ebook but reading Gutted on the latter increased my enjoyment of Paul Tremblay’s A Haunted House is  a Wheel Upon Which Some Are Broken immensely. Ingeniously constructed, it also has the advantage of being incredibly scary too.
The Sinister Horror Company continue to do great things, not least the publication of their second volume of Black Room Manuscripts, a collection of twenty one stories - with all proceeds going to charity - showcasing a pleasingly wide variety of styles and takes on horror short story writing. Top picks for me were Screams in the Night from JR Park and Laura Mauro's Terry in the Bed by the Window.

My choice as the best anthology of 2016 however, goes to Something Remains, a book dedicated to the memory of Joel Lane who died three years ago. The stories within are inspired by, and based on, notes left by Joel and each individual author has done a remarkable job in creating them in such a way that you would believe Joel had written them himself. It's a superbly produced book and I can think of no better way to honour his memory.

BEST COLLECTION

The news that Shadows & Tall Trees will return in 2017 is wonderful as it was consistently one of the best journals of weird fiction out there. In the hiatus following the publication of Volume 6 in 2014 however, Undertow Publications have produced a number of excellent collections among them Singing With All My Skin and Bone – poetic and eerie stories from Sunny Moraine.

Laird Baron’s Swift to Chase and Michael Wehunt’s Greener Pastures provided intense and unsettling literary horrors but possibly the most disturbing collection came from the ever-brilliant Ralph Robert Moore whose stories in You Can Never Spit it All Out took me to places I didn’t really want to go, mixing the surreal and weird with the mundane in a deeply unsettling series of novelettes.

Lighter fare but with much imagination on display was provided by two alumni of the Sinister Horror Company, with Daniel Marc Chant’s Tales of the Unexpected-esque Into Fear and Duncan P Bradshaw’s variations on a zombie theme Chump.

Tracy Fahey boldly published a collection of stories all told in first person in The Unheimlich Maneuver, a technique which at first seemed to work against itself but ultimately proved to be extremely effective in a book of shifting perceptions and realities. Anyone not lucky enough to have a copy of James Cooper’s first two collections, now out of print, would – and should – leap at the opportunity of purchasing Headspace, which combines the stories from those books along with a brand new one.

A quote from a perceptive reviewer calling Stephen Volk a “master craftsman” appears on the back cover of his beautifully produced new collection The Parts We Play and the stories within are evidence indeed that this is no wild claim. A wide variety of styles and subject matter are on display here, ranging from the not-so-much-envelope-pushing-as-ripping-open-and-contents-spilling The Arse Licker to, in my opinion at least, a tender love story in Wrong.

A similarly wide ranging content is to be found in Mark Morris’ Wrapped in Skin, a book which once again renders him a runner up in the Dark Muse awards. I loved this collection and, in any other year would have easily topped my “best of” list. However, there was only ever going to be one winner this year, with the award for Best Collection going to a book which is outstanding in every way; not just the stories contained within which take you to some very dark places indeed – and sometimes leave you there - but also the production values of the tome itself.

My favourite single author collection of 2016 was Adam Nevill’s Some Will Not Sleep.

BEST SINGLE STORY

Aside from those contained within collections and anthologies, there are so many ways in which single stories can now be accessed and it’s heartening to see the resurgence of the chapbook format continuing alongside the availability of ebook downloads of single stories. Also becoming more common appear to be novelettes, those “in-betweeners” which have word counts longer than that of a short story but not enough to be classed as a novella.

It was the chapbook format which brought Philip Fracassi to my attention, with the publication this year of two outstanding horror stories, Mother and Altar. Both managed to pack great characterisation, plenty of plot and some extremely effective horror into their (relatively) short word counts.

Other chapbooks which made an impression this year were the Kafka-esque Stag in Flight from SP Miskowski and the deeply unsettling cosmic/wilderness horror of Scott Nicolay’s Noctuidae.

Rich Hawkins embraced the single story download route with a couple of crackers, Broken Soldier and Fathoms, haunting tales both.

Released as a very nicely produced hardback with an interior design as impressive as the words on the page, was James Everington’s novelette Trying To Be So Quiet. Death and grief, life and love are all here in a deeply affecting ghost story.

Having already awarded Adam Nevill the Dark Muse for his collection, it would be unseemly to single out one of the stories for an individual prize but to be honest, the standard was so high that any one of them could have won. Not content with producing such an amazing collection, he also provided a stunner in Terror Tales of the Ocean with Hippocampus – a story with no characters which still somehow manages to create a palpable sense of dread.

The story I judged to be the best of 2016 arises from another collection however, namely The Parts We Play from Stephen Volk. The story is a reprint, having first been published back in 2013 but this was my first encounter with it and the feeling of having just read something truly incredible when I’d finished it was so powerful that there was no hesitation in awarding the Dark Muse to The Peter Lorre Fan Club.

The story is presented as a dialogue, a conversation between two old friends, apparently meeting up again after some time apart. As the conversation proceeds, a sense of unease slowly grows as its true nature is gradually revealed. To do all this through dialogue alone is no mean achievement, to do it so effectively is evidence of great skill indeed. At its conclusion, the story breaks away into a passage of third person narrative and the release of tension is like a slap in the face. Then the goosebumps start as the real horror begins. An incredible piece of writing from – yes – a master craftsman.

And so it ends. Another set of awards completed and another great year for horror writing. the choices I've made this year have been some of the hardest so far which can only say good things about the quality of horror fiction in 2016. My thanks to all the authors who have provided me with so much entertainment over the last twelve months and a heartfelt wish that this renaissance in horror and weird fiction continues well into the future. There's a genuine risk that the real world May well Trump fiction in terms of horror, which only means that the role it plays in holding a mirror up to society is all the more important.

Merry Christmas!