Wise Words

"Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot." - Morpheus, The Sandman - Dream Country (Neil Gaiman)

"A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensly right words in a book or a newspaper the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt." - Mark Twain

"At the beginning there was the Word - at the end just the Cliche." - Stanislaw J Lec

Small Press

I’ve been really looking forward to the release of this book and it’s finally here in paperback as well as ebook. The ebook has been out for ages, but I saved mentioning it here until the print edition was available too. It contains my story, “Shadows of the Lonely Dead”, which is probably the most personal story I’ve ever written. I drew extensively on my experiences surrounding the deaths of people very close to me in the writing of it. It’s sharing the pages with a plethora of amazing people and I’m sure their stories will be excellent. Here’s the skinny and some sweet blurbs:

“Disquieting and at times terrifying, SUSPENDED IN DUSK shows that horror can, and should, have substance.” ~ Kaaron Warren, Shirley Jackson Award winner, and author of Slights, Mystification, Walking the Tree.

“SUSPENDED IN DUSK offers a delicious assortment of chills, frights, shocks and very dark delights!” ~ Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of Fall of Night and V-Wars

DUSK
A time between times.

A whore hides something monstrous and finds something special.
A homeless man discovers the razor blade inside the apple.
Unlikely love is found in the strangest of places.
Secrets and dreams are kept… forever.

I decided it would be really cool to put together a list of great books by Australian Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror writers so people could essentially have the best Xmas shopping list of Aussie SFF and horror books ever. After drowning in an inbox full of Aussie spec fic goodness, I now have this sweet megapost of Aussie spec fic goodness. It’s far from definitive – there are loads more out there – but it’s pretty impressive nonetheless. There really is something for everyone. Have a scroll through, enjoy the covers, read the blurbs – if you like it, buy it! Links to places of purchase are right there with every book. Books are listed alphabetically by author surname. And don’t forget to buy loads of books for your family and friends for Xmas too. There’s really no better gift than a book. (Unless you need a new bodily organ or something, but you know what I mean.) Amazon allows you to gift ebooks as well, don’t forget, as do several other outlets and publishers. Have it at!

Dean J Anderson

Unnaturals

Unnaturals tried to kill Mason Douglas and his family. Big mistake.

He became The Butcher, a cold relentless Hunter with a vendetta that took him across the world.

And now, on his return home to Australia – to mend his heart, soul and family – his destiny collides with a millennia-old struggle between strange Gods.

Their prize is Earth. Their warriors are warring races of Unnaturals: the Bloodells and the Darkells.

As an unlikely alliance forms between Natural and Unnatural – between the Douglas clan and the Darkells – Mason’s family grows in unexpected ways… not all of whom are human.

In a far future where technology is all but indistinguishable from magic, Tanyana is one of the elite. She can control pions, the building blocks of matter, shaping them into new forms using ritual gestures and techniques. The rewards are great, and she is one of most highly regarded people in the city. But that was before the “accident”. Stripped of her powers, bound inside a bizarre powersuit, she finds herself cast down to the very lowest level of society. Powerless, penniless and scarred, Tanyana must adjust to a new life collecting “debris”, the stuff left behind by pions. But as she tries to find who has done all of this to her, she also starts to realize that debris is more important than anyone could guess.

The bitter war between the sinister Puppet Men and the nebulous Keeper for the control of the ancient city of Movoc-under-Keeper has intensified. For Tanyana, imprisoned within her extraordinary suit and cast down as a lowly debris collector, choosing a side should be simple. But when even her own suit becomes aggressive against her, Tanyana must weigh some very personal issues against her determination to serve the greater good.

The grand city of Movoc-under-Keeper lies in ruins. The sinister puppet men have revealed their true nature, and their plan to tear down the veil between worlds. To have a chance of defeating them, Tanyana must do the impossible, and return to the world where they were created, on the other side of the veil. Her journey will force her into a terrible choice, and test just how much she is willing to sacrifice for the fate of two worlds.

Enter a world where terrible secrets are hidden in a wind chime’s song

Where crippled witches build magic from scrap

And the beautiful dead dance for eternity

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories collects the finest science fiction and horror short stories from award-winning writer Joanne Anderton. From mechanical spells scavenging a derelict starship to outback zombies and floating gardens of bone, these stories blur the lines between genres. A mix of freakish horror, dark visions of the future and the just plain weird, Anderton’s tales will draw you in – but never let you get comfortable.

Alex Caine is a martial artist fighting in illegal cage matches. His powerful secret weapon is an unnatural vision that allows him to see his opponents’ moves before they know their intentions themselves.

An enigmatic Englishman, Patrick Welby, approaches Alex after a fight and reveals, ‘I know your secret.’ Welby shows Alex how to unleash a breathtaking realm of magic and power, drawing him into a mind-bending adventure beyond his control. And control is something Alex values above all else.

A cursed grimoire binds Alex to Uthentia, a chaotic Fey godling, who leads him towards destruction and murder, an urge Alex finds harder and harder to resist. Befriended by Silhouette, a monstrous Kin beauty, Alex sets out to recover the only things that will free him – the shards of the Darak. But that powerful stone also has the potential to unleash a catastrophe which could mean the end of the world as we know it.

Alex Caine is looking for direction and trying to build a new life with his recently acquired magical talents, and Kin girlfriend, Silhouette. He is recruited by a secret organisation to head off an impending doom, foretold by Seers as already somehow linked to his destiny. Claude Darvill is desperately trying to get in touch with his father, Robert Hood. When the company, Black Diamond, reveals that Hood had gone missing after chasing Alex Caine, Darvill takes over control of Black Diamond and starts hunting Caine himself. Alex and his crew close in on three amateur mages in Britain’s north, who think they have uncovered ancient magic that will reveal great powers. But they are caught in a vortex and pulled through to a strange lost city, isolated in the void. Trapped in a place removed from everything they know, ruled by a hierarchy of monsters, Alex and his friends must find a way to escape Obsidian.

Alex Caine has been suffering the weight of the world, and some days it’s hard to even get out of bed. Alone one night, a band of Fey overwhelm him and steal him away from the mortal realm. Silhouette, desperate to save her lover, calls in Armour, but the organisation seems reluctant to help.

Claude Darvill, his fragile alliance with Alex at an end, is still searching for the remains of his father, Robert Hood. In frozen wastes of Iceland, Darvill is driven by a deep-burning grudge and a need for revenge. His efforts are backed by all the considerable resources of Black Diamond Incorporated.

Silhouette must overcome her greatest fears and use all her skills to locate Alex. But even if she can find him, that’s only the start of their problems.

In this third Alex Caine book, sequel to the bestsellers Bound and Obsidian, old enemies and new share a common goal. Alex Caine hates to be the centre of attention, but he and Silhouette need to pull together as the world is threatened once more and only Alex can save it.

The future does not belong to us anymore. The mighty Wolfen of Valkeryn, descendants of the canines of the era of man, have ruled for many millennia. But now their kingdom has fallen to the monstrous hordes and the remaining Wolfen scattered.

Arnold ‘Arn’ Singer, a youth from the past and perhaps the last human being alive on the planet, finds himself cast into this maelstrom of chaos and horror. He seeks answers to the missing Ancients – mankind itself. But back in his time the world continues to destabilize. The portal through which he fell is destroying the planet. The portal must be closed. Arn holds the key, and our world and its future is at stake.

Colonel Marion Briggs leads a team of Special Operations soldiers into the distant future, fully armed and with one order – bring back Arn or his body.

But there are more dangers in this strange and beautiful world than anyone knew. More horrors dwell in the deep jungles, below the inland seas and deep below the earth. There are things that can change the shape of two worlds, tear at sanity, and stretch friendships and loves to the limit.

Valkeryn is an epic adventure that spans worlds and time itself.

“… mixed in fantasy with hard, biological, and evolutionary science. Beck has yet again created fast-paced, literary escape that I just couldn’t put down.”

War is Hell…
Soldiers fight to survive.
They fight each other, and they fight the demons inside.
Sometimes, they fight real monsters.
SNAFU collects stories of ancient myths, time travellers, horrors in the old west…
And the soldiers who fight them.

Featuring some of the best writers working in the field today.

Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, Greig Beck and James A Moore lead the way, with a contingent of emerging authors to back them up.

Fight or die.

Available on:

Amazon, Kobo, Nook, and as a signed limited edition from the publisher.

In a climate-changed future, after the gene and borders wars of the 2060’s, and in a world governed by the Alpha-Omega Accord and its Interplanetary Exchange, Capra Jane fights a never-ending battle against crime.

Things change in unexpected ways, however, when she is teamed up with the enigmatic and beautiful Zanzibar Black of HomeWorld Security, and Decker, a returned astronaut who’s never been in

Waking in Anaskar Prison, covered in blood and accused of murder, nobody will listen to Notch’s claims of innocence until he meets the future Protector of the Monarchy, Sofia Falco.

But Sofia has her own burdens. The first female Protector in a hundred years, her House is under threat from enemies within, the prince has made it clear he does not want her services and worst of all, she cannot communicate with her father’s sentient mask of bone, the centuries-old Argeon. Without the bone mask she cannot help anyone — not herself, and certainly not a mercenary with no powerful House to protect him.

Meanwhile, far across the western desert, Ain, a young Pathfinder, is thrust into the role of Seeker. Before winter storms close the way, he must leave his home on a quest to locate the Sea Shrine and take revenge on the people who drove his ancestors from Anaskar, the city ruled by the prince Sofia and Notch are sworn to protect, whether he wants their help or not.

The stories you are about to read showcase a wonderfully talented writer; someone with a vivid imagination and the unique ability to create stories that can just as easily shock and frighten as they can move and disturb (often all in the one story). These are serious works, not merely light entertainment designed simply to give the reader a quick jolt or a nervous chuckle, but designed to make you think and feel.

You’re about to embark on a dark and wondrous journey through the mind of a very talented young writer. Be prepared to visit strange worlds and even stranger beings. Horror and violence abounds, but there’s also time for reflection, to ponder some of life’s most important questions.
– Brett McBean, 2014

Caeli-Amur: an ancient city perched on white cliffs overlooking the sea; a city ruled by three Houses, fighting internecine wars; a city which harbours ancient technology and hidden mysteries. But things are changing in Caeli-Amur. Ancient minotaurs arrive for the traditional Festival of the Sun. The slightly built New-Men bring their technology from their homeland. Wastelanders stream into the city hideously changed by the chemical streams to the north. Strikes break out in the factory district.

In a hideout beneath the city, a small group of seditionists debate ways to overthrow the Houses. How can they rouse the citizens of the city? Should they begin a campaign of terror? Is there a way to uncover the thaumaturgical knowledge that the Houses guard so jealously? As the Houses scramble to maintain their rule, it becomes clear that things will change forever in Caeli-Amur.

What would you do if you woke in a room filled with strangers, with no memory of how you got there, and no way out?

Morgan Drimmel wakes to find herself in the midst of this nightmare. The gouged, blood-splattered walls scream of terror and torture, and the unrelenting light that shines between the cracks in the walls fills her with dread.

When the others in the room wake, they form alliances, and Morgan finds herself drawn to rogue biker Slade Rivers. But dependence, for her, has always come with a deadly price.
Those inside the room have secrets too; dark secrets they will go to any length to keep from getting out. When evil rears its ugly head, Morgan will not only have to fight to survive—she will also have to trust.

The newly widowed Queen Ellyria just wants her sick triplet sons to live, each ruling over a third of the kingdom as their dying father decreed. When she finds herself trapped in a deadly bargain with a dark spirit, she recruits a band of young mages to help – but a terrible curse takes over.

Young guitar virtuoso Clarice Marnier is on the verge of success when she crosses the wrong A&R man. Suddenly, instead of being signed to the major label that’s been courting her, she finds herself blacklisted.

So Clarice makes a deal with the Devil: the soul of her greatest enemy for a record deal and a second chance.

As Clarice and her band, Bloody Waters, begin their ascent to rock stardom they are are beset by a strange array of enemies. Has-been guitar heroes, popstar succubi, spell-slinging DJs, angry divas and killer angels—every occult freak and music industry player in LA wants something from them, whether it’s a slice of their fame or a bite out of their souls.

Clearly, there’s more at stake than just a record deal—but what does the Devil really want, and how far will Clarice go to protect what’s hers?

An exciting adventure story in the style of the classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series. Seven companions set out to free the woman trapped in the moon, and change the world along the way. In this exciting story that allows the reader the choice of following different characters, young, sheltered Branguin discovers that his ancestor, Marama, has been trapped in the moon, and sets out to free her. But he must first unravel the mystery of how she got there, confront and defeat the sorcerer Raul, and counter a menacing new force that’s assembling an army to attack the capital. Branguin deciphers the clues with the help of his companions, several lost relatives along the way. The Lunation Series is a modern-day moon myth about ordinary people discovering their inner strength and overcoming extraordinary challenges, in order to solve a great mystery.

Follow murderous trails into the bloody foothills of Kathmandu; destroy yourself with obsessive sexual jealousies; disappear into the drug-hazed dust of the Baluchistan desert; and share health-conscious recipes with a gourmet cannibal. Read Paul Haines’s dark, hard-edged fantasies about real people dealing with strong emotions in impossible situations and experience the paranoia, fear and lust that lurks in the shadowy recesses of the human soul.
With an introduction by Jack Dann, this anthology contains twenty-one stories, including the Aurealis Award and Ditmar winning novella “The Last Days Of Kali Yuga”. It also includes two previously unpublished stories “Burning From The Inside” and “Mnemophonic”.

Paul Haines sliced through the Australian writing scene with his twisted and murderous black humour in 2002. he has since won many awards and praise for his dark and surreal stories that make you think twice about his sanity and good taste.

Published here together for the first time are the Ditmar winning story “The Devil In Mr Pussy”, the Aurealis Award shortlisted horror story “Doof Doof Doof” and the complete “Slice of Life” series of stories, including the previously unpublished “Slice of Life – A Spot of Liver” which also won the Aurealis Award 2009 for Best Horror Short Story.

HAINES’ SLICE OF LIFE – seventeen glistening stories, sweating with twenty first century paranoia and anxiety from the decaying mind of the winner of the 2005 Ditmar for New Talent.

These are the last days …
Travel the blood-stained trails of Kathmandu.
Explore doorways to other worlds.
Fight for humanity’s darkening soul.
… when the powers of the Gods wane and evil walks the Earth.

The Last Days Of Kali Yuga is dark urban fantasy at its darkest. You won’t find traditional vampires or werewolves in Paul Haines’s stories. Instead, you will stare deep into the heart of the cruelest monster of all: man.

Paul Haines is one of Australia’s and New Zealand’s leading dark fiction authors. He pioneered the ‘backpacker horror’ sub-genre with stories of Westerners confronted by dark powers and corrupted souls in India and Asia. His novellas “The Last Days of Kali Yuga”, “Doorways for the Dispossessed”, and “Wives”—all of which appear in this book—have won Australia’s highest honours for speculative fiction. The Last Days of Kali Yuga is a collection of Paul Haines’ best work.

“Paul Haines knows what it is to be human, in all our cruel beauty, with all our vile dreams. His stories tear the masks off our civilised faces and expose the raw, bleeding apes beneath” – Sean Williams, New York Times Bestselling author of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the Books of the Cataclysm series.

“Paul Haines has an unnerving sense for the softest, most secret corners of the male psyche, and in this collection dissects them excruciating skill. There is no better horror writer working in Australia today.” – Max Barry, author of Syrup and Jennifer Government.

Lisa L Hannett’s debut collection, Bluegrass Symphony, deals with cowboys and fallow fields, shapeshifters and rednecks, superstitions and realities in harsh prairie country — and a whole bunch of other things thrown in the mix.

Introduction by Ann Vandermeer.

Finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Collection.

In The Female Factory, procreation is big business. Children are a commodity few women can afford.

Hopeful mothers-to-be try everything. Fertility clinics. Pills. Wombs for hire. Babies are no longer made in bedrooms, but engineered in boardrooms. A quirk of genetics allows lucky surrogates to carry multiple eggs, to control when they are fertilised, and by whom—but corporations market and sell the offspring. The souls of lost embryos are never wasted; captured in software, they give electronics their voice. Spirits born into the wrong bodies can brave the charged waters of a hidden billabong, and change their fate. Industrious orphans learn to manipulate scientific advances, creating mothers of their own choosing.

From Australia’s near-future all the way back in time to its convict past, these stories spin and sever the ties between parents and children.

When Mymnir flees the devastation of Ragnarok, she hopes to escape all that bound her to ?sgar?r ? a heedless pantheon, a domineering brother, and her neglectful father-master, ??inn. But the white raven, a being of memory and magic, should know that the past is not so easily left behind. No matter how far she flies, she cannot evade her family?

In planting seeds of the old world in the new, Mymnir becomes queen of a land with as many problems as the one she fled. Her long-lived Fae children ignite and fan feuds that span generations; lives are lost and loves won because of their tampering. Told in thirteen parts, Midnight and Moonshine follows the Beaufort and Laveaux families, part-human, part-Fae, as they battle, thrive and survive in Mymnir’s kingdom.

Midnight and Moonshine is a collection of interconnected tales with links between them as light and strong as spider-silk. From fire giants to whispering halls, disappearing children to evening-wolves, fairy hills to bewitched cypress trees, and talking heads to moonshiners of a special sort, Midnight and Moonshine takes readers on a journey from ninth century Vinland to America?s Deep South in the present day. Hannett and Slatter have created a mosaic novel of moments, story-tiles as strange as witchwood and withywindles.

Midnight and Moonshine is a rich tapestry of dark fantasy, fairy tale and speculation.

One false step could undo everything the Timekeepers hope to accomplish…

Earth’s ancient past, the future of the planet Kila – the Timekeepers universe of origin, the primordial era when the Nefilim first ruled the galaxy and a timeless universe of utter darkness are all vital periods to advancing human consciousness.

After surviving Ancient Zhou, the Timekeeper’s efforts turn to rescuing Kila from its ill-fated future. But a mishap in the remote mountains of Tibet before departure provides a nemesis with the perfect opportunity to launch a time-hopping vendetta against them. There is no where in this universe to hide.

The discovery of a gate thought to lead to several universes promises more than just the means to undermine their stalker; it offers the chance to remember their lives as the Grigori, who once dwelt with the fallen Elohim in the dark universe beyond the Eternity Gate.

Steam clouds rise off the water as a ferry approaches a jetty in ancient China. On board is Hudan, one of the mysterious Wu who reside on the sacred mountain of Li Shan.

The Wu have been living in isolation for decades, while the arrogant Shang emperor and his enchantress have ruled the land. It has been a terrible time for the common people and the noble Ji brothers – Dan and Fa – are keen to bring the emperor’s reign of terror to an end. They are told a Wu prophecy has predicted the fall of the emperor, but first they must journey to Li Shan to learn the truth.

When the Ji brothers join forces with the enigmatic Hudan and her equally mysterious tiger sister, Huxin, they begin a powerful journey of love and adventure.

But the Shang emperor is not their greatest threat. There is a dark curse that has plagued the rulers of the land for generations. The mysterious Sons of the Sky who visit Hudan in her dreams have a plan to destroy it., but can they be trusted?

Dreaming of Zhou Gong is a beautiful, evocative journey through ancient China.

Lissa Wilson’s life hasn’t been quite the same since people she cared about started getting themselves killed.

By vampires.

And Lissa learnt that the opposite of life is not always death. On the plus side, she made a new friend.
Gary Hooper may be the worst best-friend a librarian could have – and easily the worst vampire ever – but he has taught Lissa the real meaning of life. Gary’s world view has also improved remarkably since meeting Lissa, but all that could be lost if she discovers what services he provides Melbourne’s undead community.
Meanwhile, as their friendship brings him closer to the humanity he lost, it also puts them both in grave danger.
And there’s a big chance that the evil stalking them could them both killed – in his case, for good this time.

Fifty years after a second Dark Age has nearly destroyed humankind, the World Union is now confronted with a new threat that doesn’t just challenge their survival but also the nature of life and civilisation itself.

The Hunt for Pierre Jnr is the first book in a trilogy of futurist thrillers that follows the attempts of a powerful world government to track down and kill a telepathic eight-year-old boy.

In Manifestations, a mysterious new threat has been unleashed that destroys an entire city. As tensions with the psis rise and political fortunes shift, the World Union appears perilously close to collapse.

From geopolitical convergence to emergent online super organisms, the future is coming. Henley’s books explore themes of technological evolution, species diversification and takes the ‘all-powerful creepy child’ theme to a scary new level.

In a land where no stars appear in the night sky, a group of strangers with ancestries reaching back to an earlier apocalyptic disaster come together to track down a resurrected corpse whose very existence portends the End of the World. Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead is an epic tale of greed, dying magic, distorted monstrosities and a motley group of heroes, with a strange and breathless climax you won’t easily forget.

“This is a tale of heroes. It includes all sorts — born of the gods, descended from ancient, magical bloodline, member of a legendary order, reincarnated, last of their tribe and way too intimate with their own sentient weapon — cycling through various degrees of reluctant and unlikely. There is a villain, of course, although he’s thoroughly sick of the whole business; dark gods, giant monsters and an ancient magical artefact. But principally it is a tale of heroes, heroism and what it means to be in such an uncomfortable position.” (Review, Kyla Ward)

She hates school and only has a few friends. She has an obsession with angels and fallen angel stories.

Life was boring until she one day decided to steal a famous painting from a small art gallery.

Her life will never be boring again.

She meets a stranger at the gallery who claims to know her. She stumbles into a world where cities float in the sky, and daemons roam the barren, magma-spewing crags of the land far below.

But not all is well. Maree is turning into something she loves but at the same time, fears. Most fearful of all is the prospect of losing her identity, what makes her Maree, and more importantly, human.

Guardian of the Sky Realms takes the reader on a journey through exotic fantasy lands, as well as across the globe, from Sydney to Paris, from the Himalayas to Manhattan.

He thought he’d return from Hell a hero. But things are never easy when your business is Death.

Steven de Selby gave up his love, his life, and his lucrative position as Head of Mortmax, the corporation in charge of Death. Then he found himself banished to the briny depths of hell. But hell has never held him before …

Now Steven’s back from hell, after escaping from the cruel Death of the Water, but he’s not sure how or why, or even if. No one at Mortmax trusts him, and he’s running out of time to prove he is who he says he is.

Steven is about to discover that hell really is other people, and the worst of them may well be himself.

On remote Rollrock Island, the sea-witch Misskaella discovers she can draw a girl from the heart of a seal. So, for a price, any man might buy himself a bride; an irresistibly enchanting sea-wife. But what cost will be borne by the people of Rollrock – the men, the women, the children – once Misskaella sets her heart on doing such a thing?Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire and revenge, of loyalty, heartache and human weakness, and of the unforeseen consequences of all-consuming love.

Daniel Rolan is bored. Not your average, everyday kind-of bored. The seriously mind-blowing I’m-stuck-here-at-the-end-of-the-universe-surrounded-by-nerds kind of bored. Living on a space station might sound like an adventure straight out of a science fiction movie, but in reality – as Daniel was discovering day after boring day – it was really, well… mostly boring.

But Daniel will soon come to regret wishing for an action and adventure filled life. One seemingly innocent decision – and a catastrophe he could not have foreseen – is about to change his world forever.

It will set him on a path he never imagined, introduce him to new friends and even aliens he could not have thought up in his wildest dreams. Eventually it will even challenge his notion of where the end of the universe actually is.

Meanwhile, on the alien world of Nomassaii, the larger of the two planets through the Veil, Jacdan would love a bit of boredom. He has far more action and adventure in his life than he’d like. Sentenced to die in the arena, he’s fighting – battle by battle – to survive another day. But it’s one thing to fight for your own life – quite another to discover you are fighting for your little brother’s life, as well.

These alien worlds are about to collide, changing the lives of Daniel and Jacdan forever.

In a post-apocalyptic Australian landscape dominated by free-wheeling cyborgs, a young man goes in search of his lost lover who has been kidnapped by a rogue AI truck – the Brumby King. Along the way, he teams with Sinnerman, an independent truck with its own reasons for hating the Brumby King. Before his final confrontation with the brumbies, he must learn more about the broken-down world and his own place in it, and face his worst fears.

I am in a world deeply strange and strangely deep, a world as different from my old life as it’s possible to be, and it feels completely natural.

An unexpected encounter with a handsome stranger in a Russian wood changes the life of 22-year-old traveler Helen Clement forever, catapulting her into a high-stakes world of passion, danger, and mystery. Tested in ways she could never have imagined, she must keep her own integrity in a world where dark forces threaten and ruthlessness and betrayal haunt every day.

Set against a rising tide of magic and the paranormal in a modern Russia where the terrifying past continually leaks into the turbulent present, Trinity is a unique and gripping blend of conspiracy thriller, erotically charged romance and urban fantasy, laced with a murderous dose of company politics. With its roots deep in the fertile soil of Russian myth, legend, and history, it is also a fascinating glimpse into an extraordinary, distinctive country and amazingly rich culture.

A girl in a tower. An underground kingdom. A crystal heart split in two, symbolising true love lost . . .

When Kasper joins the elite guard watching over a dangerous prisoner in a tower, he believes he is protecting his country from a powerful witch.

Until one day he discovers the prisoner is a beautiful princess – Izolda of Night– who is condemned by a prophecy to die on her eighteenth birthday. Kasper decides to help her escape. But their hiding place won’t remain secret forever.

Will they find their happily ever after?

‘A deftly woven tale of warring kingdoms and the redeeming power of love. Another winner from Sophie Masson.’ – Juliet Marillier, author of the Shadowfell series .

Antoinette and Jacqueline have little in common beyond a mutual antipathy for their paranoid, domineering mother, a bond which has united them since childhood. In the aftermath of a savage betrayal, Antoinette lands on her sister’s doorstep bearing a suitcase and a broken heart.

But Jacqueline, the ambitious would-be manager of a trendy Melbourne art gallery, has her own problems – chasing down a delinquent painter in the sweltering heat of a Brisbane summer. Abandoned, armed with a bottle of vodka and her own grief-spun desires, Antoinette weaves a dark and desperate magic that can never, ever be undone.

Their lives swiftly unravelling, the two sisters find themselves drawn into a tangle of lies, manipulations and the most terrible of family secrets.”

The debut collection from multi-award nominated author Andrew J McKiernan brings together 14 of his previously published short stories and novelettes, plus two brand new tales unique to the collection.

Often defying conventions of genre and style, these stories range from fantasy and steampunk to science fiction and horror, but always with an edge sharper than a razor and darker than a night on Neptune.

From the darkly hilarious “All the Clowns in Clowntown” to the heart-breakingly disturbing title story, the collection pulls no punches. Delving deep into what scares us most, McKiernan’s tales are by turns heartfelt and gut-wrenching.
With an Introduction by Will Elliott, Last Year, When We Were Young is a collection of horror and dark fantasy from one of Australia’s finest new authors that should not be missed.

There are people involved. That’s the first mistake. Scientists were never meant to be part of history. Anything in the past is better studied from the present.
It’s safer.
When a team of Australian scientists – and a lone historian – travel back to St-Guilhem-le-Désert in 1305 they discover being impartial, distant and objective just doesn’t work when you’re surroundedby the smells, dust and heat of a foreign land.

They’re only human after all.

But by the time Artemisia is able to convince others that it’s time to worry, it’s already too late.

‘Viscerally powerful, deeply felt, strongly written: Langue[dot]doc 1305 challenges reader expectations of time travel, of ‘Grim-dark’ and of mediaeval life and brings a haunting, authentic voice both to the past and to the struggles facing the present.’

Elizabeth Smith, recently made redundant, thinks that her life is deadly dull. She feels like cellophane like people look right through her, like she’s not even there. A simple redecoration job involving a mirror turns her life upside down.

Through ominous horror and an unexpected romance Liz learns to become a whole person someone who takes up space in the world, and demands to be herself.

Part gentle love story, part bizarre horror tale, but never, ever boring, Ms Cellophane is a revealing look at one woman’s nightmare transforming her reality in unexpectedly amusing ways.

In 2010 the best-selling book at the world science fiction convention was…unexpected.

Humankind carries the past as invisible baggage. Thirteen brilliant writers explore this, looking at Australia’s cultural baggage through new and often disturbing eyes.

Baggage explores layers and complexities that are oddly Australian. If you think Australian culture is all about surfboards and mateship, you may find Baggage distressing.

What is Australia? What baggage do Australians carry? Pick up this book. Have a read. You know you want to.

“Baggage collects many of the finest voices in Australian speculative fiction. Each author contributes a unique cultural perspective, with stories ranging from the deeply personal to the highly disturbing. Baggage is an anthology not to be missed.”

Shane Jiraya Cummings, OzHorrorScope

“Baggage is a fascinating exploration of Australian issues through characters and situations that feel immediate and real. There’s little in the way of escapism here, but instead much subtlety and nuance, combined with stunning writing. From the incendiary, no-holds-barred ‘Acception’ by Tessa Kum to the quiet power of K.J. Bishop’s ‘Vision Splendid’, and beyond, this anthology tackles difficult and diverse subject matter.”

Rawk is one of the great Heroes. He has travelled the world for forty years, hunting exotic creatures, battling magic and fighting evil wherever he found it. But he has been fighting mostly mundane battles since Prince Weaver outlawed magic. And with no great deeds left to be done, Rawk is afraid he’ll soon be the old man in the corner of the tavern, dreaming of the good old days and telling tales for anyone who will buy him a drink.

But when a huge wolden wolf is spied from the walls of Katamood for the first time in a decade, Rawk is the man the city looks to once more. He’ll save them. He always has.

Rawk will fight to ensure the Age of Heroes doesn’t slip away into history, but what if the good old days aren’t quite as good as he remembers?
Links…

Welcome back to the magic and pathos of Angela Slatter’s exquisitely imagined tales.

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings returns to the world of Sourdough and Other Stories (Tartarus, 2010), introducing readers to the tales that came before. Stories where coffin-makers work hard to keep the dead beneath; where a plague maiden steals away the children of an ungrateful village; where poison girls are schooled in the art of assassination; where pirates disappear from the seas; where families and the ties that bind them can both ruin and resurrect and where books carry forth fairy tales, forbidden knowledge and dangerous secrets.

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings is enhanced by eighty-six pen-and-ink illustrations by artist Kathleen Jennings.

In the cathedral-city of Lodellan and its uneasy hinterland, babies are fashioned from bread, dolls are given souls and wishes granted may be soon regretted. There are ghosts who dream, men whose wings have been clipped and trolls who long for something other. Love, loss and life are elegantly dissected in Slatter’s earthy yet poetic prose.

Blurb Black-Winged Angels is a collection of 10 incredible contemporary retellings of fairy tales, and will be available in a limited hardcover edition illustrated by the multiple World Fantasy Award nominated Kathleen Jennings.

The book will appeal to fans of Angela Carter (“The Company of Wolves”) and Emma Donoghue (“Kissing the Witch”).

Murder and betrayal in deep space, with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance…

Thirty-four light years from Earth, the explorer ship Magellan is nearing its objective – the Iota Persei system. But when ship commander Cait Dyson wakes from deepsleep, she finds her co-pilot dead and the ship’s AI unresponsive. Cait works with the rest of her multinational crew to regain control of the ship, until they learn that Earth is facing total environmental collapse and their mission must change if humanity is to survive.

As tensions rise and personal and political agendas play out in the ship’s cramped confines, the crew finally reach the planet Horizon, where everything they know will be challenged.

“Refreshingly plausible, politically savvy, and full of surprises, Horizon takes you on a harrowing thrill-ride through the depths of space and the darkness of the human heart.” – Sean Williams, New York Times bestselling author of the Astropolis and Twinmaker series

Journey beyond the borders of the real with our first annual collection of stories appearing in Dimension6 magazine, with all new stories from some of the best speculative fiction authors working in Australia today including Richard Harland, Dirk Strasser, Jason Nahrung, Alan Baxter, Robert Hood, Cat Sparks, Robert N Stephenson, Steve Cameron and Charlotte Nash.

A businessman staying in a Scottish manor makes the mistake of deciding to spend the evening in the library. A group of unpopular teenage girls uses witchcraft to pursue their aims. A rich banking tycoon has forgotten his university days when he and his friends dared to imagine a world ruled by social justice and working class ideals. The estranged family of a deceased aristocrat bicker over their inheritance. A botanist’s love for his plants is unnaturally deep-rooted.

“Hoffman’s Creeper and Other Disturbing Tales” is the first short story collection from Cameron Trost. It plunges the reader into a world of mystery, suspense, obsession and greed. From the Scottish highlands and the jagged peaks of the Pyrénées to the streets of Brisbane and the Australian countryside, Cameron Trost provokes the reader by ensnaring recognisable characters in disturbingly plausible situations. His writing seeks to entertain while exploring the absurdities and peculiarities of society and the human mind.

Subtropical Suspense Anthology of Suspense and Mystery Tales set in Brisbane

“Cameron Trost has brought together a dark pantry of crime stories and mysteries, and cooked up a gumbo rich and spicy enough to befit any of the world’s sultry cities… but these happen to be set in Brisbane. Sixteen short stories take the reader from Morningside to Indooroopilly, from Hamilton to Acacia Ridge. There is baking sun and flooding rains, police procedurals and criminal capers, murderous mermaids and poison pens… all give a ripple of pleasure to the reader who knows Brisbane – or wants to know it – and who has wondered why stories of murder, malice, and magic couldn’t be set here. And of course, they should be: Brisbane’s shadows are as dark and good to hide in as any in the world – and Subtropical Suspense revels in this.”

Clair and Jesse have barely been reunited when the world is plunged into its biggest crisis yet … It’s the end of the world as Clair knows it – and it’s partly her fault. A brilliant science-fiction thriller, the second in the Twinmaker trilogy. This edition includes a bonus short story.

Stranded in the desert, the last of mankind is kept safe by a large border fence… Until the fence falls.

Squid is a young orphan living under the oppressive rule of his uncle in the outskirts of the Territory. Lynn is a headstrong girl with an influential father who has spent her entire life within the walled city of Alice.

When the border fence is breached, the Territory is invaded by the largest horde of undead ghouls seen in two hundred years. Squid is soon conscripted into the Diggers – the armed forces of the Territory. And after Lynn finds herself at odds with the Territory’s powerful church, she too escapes to join the Diggers.

Together Squid and Lynn form an unlikely friendship as they march to battle against the ghouls. Their journey will take them further than they ever imagined, leading them closer to discovering secrets about themselves, their world, and a conspiracy that may spell the end of the Territory as they know it.

Arrabella Candellarbra is like no one you’ve ever met before; even though her questy thing is the stuff of legend.

Arrabella, a beautiful, flaxen-haired maiden trained in all things warrior-like by The Reginas – the most famous warriors of all – embarks on a quest to claim her birthright and to wield the power of all the lands.

The Four Adventurers soon find themselves pitted against the Evil Betty-Sue – the meanest of evil beings in all of the lands – and her scary minions: the Saw-Toothed Bunnies, the Viscous Tongued Frogs and the Barella Monkeys – to rescue The Reginas from… something!

Arrabella Candellarbra and the Questy Thing to End All Questy Things, a fairy tale for grown-ups, features love and lust, action and inaction, battles, incantations, sexual shenanigans and high-kicking sing-a-longs.

And it promises that all those epic questy things will never be the same again.

Fourteen year old Byron James wishes he’d never been dragged to Parkton.

It’s a crazy sideshow of a town in the middle of damn nowhere, and he’s stranded there. To make matters worse, his two new friends – his only friends – turn out to be class rejects with an unhealthy interest in monsters. They want to discover the truth to the infamous monster house at number 809 Jacob Street.

Joey Blue is an old bluesman who fell into his songs and couldn’t find his way out again. Now he’s a Gutterbreed, one of the slinking shifting shadows haunting the town’s alleys. When an old dead friend comes begging for help, Joey’s world is torn apart. He is forced to stare down the man he has become in order to rescue the man he once was – and there is only one place he can do that.

The house on Jacob Street calls to them all, but what will they find when they open its door?

By now you all know I’m good friends with Angela Slatter. You should also know that I’m a huge fan of her work – it’s great when one of your friends is also one of your favourite writers. One of the best books I’ve read in recent years was Sourdough & Other Stories, Angela’s collection of short stories published by Tartarus Press. Not only is it a collection of brilliant stories, it’s a beautiful artifact of a book too. Tartarus make wonderful things. Well, Angela was supposed to write a sequel collection, but being the contrary writer she is, she wrote a prequel collection instead. It’s called The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings. Tartarus agreed to publish it and Angela scored the amazing Kathleen Jennings to do internal illustrations for it. The result is a book even more beautiful than Sourdough, and equally chock full of amazing stories. I know that, because I’ve read it. The book’s not out til September 1st, but we’re friends, remember? So I got Angela and Kathleen to talk a bit about it and the process of its creation. You can read that below. At the end is a link to the Tartarus Press website where you can pre-order the book, and I really, really recommend that you do. And if you haven’t read Sourdough, buy that too and you can read it while you wait. I’m not just talking up my friends here, either – Sourdough was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the Aurealis Award for Best Collection. These are books you do not want to miss. Over to Angela and Kathleen.

***

Angela:

My Author’s Note to Bitterwood goes thus:

The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings is intended as a prequel to Sourdough and Other Stories. It was meant to be a sequel, but the tales were determined to defy me—they insisted upon telling what had happened before, to show how the books of Murcianus came to be, how Ella came into the world, where Hepsibah Ballantyne—who appears only as a name on a headstone in Sourdough’s Lodellan cemetery—began the chain of events that are traced through the mosaic of this book. Bitterwood expands and builds upon the world of Sourdough and, I hope, makes readers feel they are coming home once again.

I’d written “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter” in 2011 as a standalone story for Steve Jones’s A Book of Horrors anthology, and that seemed the place to start. Hepsibah had gone from being a name on a grave to a powerful presence, so that story is one that threads through the whole of Bitterwood. As I wrote the stories fell into place and I can honestly say that this collection was one of those rare things that a writer dreams of: knowing exactly what was going to happen, when, and to whom. I was able to weave together so many of the things I love: elements of history and myth and fairy tale and folklore. There are little nods to writers as diverse as Umberto Eco and Kim Newman. There are vampires, boarding schools for assassins, pirates who are being hunted to extinction, a brazen head that tells the future, bakeries and rats, transformed badgers and dreadful revenges − and books. So many books.

As the narrative came together I started to think not about a cover, strangely, but about internal illustrations. I love Kathleen Jennings’ artwork and I knew she had an ambition to do endpapers, so I asked if she would like to beta read the stories as I finished them and, if perhaps the spirit moved her, do some illustrations as she read? She said yes, which was lucky for me; luckier still the lovely people at Tartarus took both the collection and agreed to use Kathleen’s illustrations. I feel very fortunate and privileged to have drawings done that truly capture the spirit of the tales I wrote. And of course there was the absolute wicked delight of having Kathleen text me photos of what she’d done as she read a story.

It was such a pleasure to work with her and I hope I was a well-behaved author! I don’t think I was critical or asked for any kangaroos to be added to The Last Supper. I’m doubly spoiled because Kathleen also did the artwork for my limited edition collection of Black-Winged Angels (Ticonderoga Publications), which echoes the silhouette technique of Arthur Rackham, but has its own wonderful unique beauty.

Kathleen:

Angela would keep dropping hints about the most beautiful parts of her stories, often before they were written – badgers (sigh) and a school for poison girls, doors in trees, dangerous quilts… so any workload-related resolve was fairly well weakened by the time she sent me the manuscript, because now they were here! They were real stories in the world, and I could read them!

I spent a lot of time in cafes, reading and sketching, sending Angela texts with reactions and pictures – each gaining energy from the other’s excitement! We’re still doing this, if you saw our comments back and forth when Tartarus released pictures of the Actual Book.

It was a lovely way to work, actually: just a free hand to sketch my way through the book. Because the original plan was to try and sell Tartarus on the idea of endpapers, I was going for multiple small images and the individual pressure was off – I could just draw anything that caught my fancy. And then Angela would edit it out of the manuscript. But anyway.

I’m still haunted by images from this book. Images and titles (‘Now all pirates are gone’). And Tartarus did a lovely job of putting the pictures in just where they ought to be – Angela and I had to check in with each other to say, “Did you see where they put the badgers? I knowwww!”

This has come up a couple of times in various conversations recently, so I thought I’d talk about it here. Ebooks are here to stay, obviously. While there will always be print books too, even if that does eventually reduce to Print-on-Demand and collector’s folio editions, ebooks will only continue to gain strength. There’s the whole format and DRM thing to still sort out – Amazon aren’t about to give up the mobi format any time soon, and a lot of places are struggling with where they stand on DRM – but these are all ongoing teething problems. I’d like to imagine a utopia where ePub is the standard across all vendors and publishers (which it already is if you don’t include Amazon) and where DRM is a thing of the past. But regardless of how it all shakes down, ebooks are mainstream now.

I love ebooks. I dig that I can carry hundreds of books around on my phone. Honestly, how living-in-the-future is that shit? And I do read on my phone. But primarily I read from an iPad Mini. I love my Mini – it’s the perfect size and does all the things I want. Plus, I have this sweet leather cover for it that makes it look like a cool old hardback book. Here it is:

Pretty sweet, huh? I use it for internet, email, videos, TV, games and loads of other stuff as well as reading. It’s just the best thing ever, technology-wise.

But I didn’t always read ebooks on the Mini and I use several apps even now. Other people I’ve spoken to use a variety of devices and all swear by them. Some people consider dedicated ereaders a cul-de-sac technology that’ll die down to almost nothing because tablets are so much more versatile, while others love their dedicated ereader precisely because it’s just for reading and has no other distracting functions.

I got onto the whole ebook bandwagon pretty early on. For example, when I originally self-published RealmShift back in the day, it was the 376th book to be uploaded to Smashwords, as evidenced by its URL there. There are now over 300,000 books on Smashwords. I would read ebooks on my PC from very early on too. I guess I knew right off the bat that this technology was going to quickly become the norm and it most certainly did. Interestingly, that massive rush into the mainstream that ebooks made was largely encouraged along by Amazon and their Kindle device. They really saw an opportunity and exploited it with expert (some might say evil) skill.

After reading on my laptop and phone for a while, my first dedicated ereader was an old generation Kindle 3, like the one pictured on the left, and I got hooked fully into the Amazon ecosystem. I was already there really, using the Kindle app – I even converted ePub files to mobi to use on the Kindle. I didn’t mind at all at the time – Amazon always had the most content, you could buy with one click and it would roll straight onto your reader. And the battery life of the Kindle is awesome. The reading experience is great too, with no backlight and all that jazz. Apparently, the new Paperwhite is even better, but I’ve yet to see one of those in the flesh… plastic… whatever. But I don’t use my Kindle any more. My wife uses it a bit and I do actually miss it in some ways, but it became superfluous to my needs.

I used the Kindle app on my phone while I used my Kindle 3 and that was awesome. If I was out and had ten minutes to spare, I could dial up whatever book I was reading and the app would automatically sync it to the last place I’d read. But I began to get more and more disillusioned with Amazon and at the same time, more or less, got my iPad Mini. The Kindle was no good for comics and I read a lot of those, so an iPad was a great choice. I got the Kindle app for it and discovered that the backlit screen really doesn’t bother me at all. So the Kindle 3 became unnecessary luggage.

Now my phone and iPad are all I carry, and they do all I need. But I’m not all about Kindle any more. There are so many reading apps out there. Rather than buy in to the Amazon ecosystem entirely, I started looking at other options. I found that a lot of publishers sell direct from their own websites, a lot of small press use places like Smashwords as well as Amazon, and I recently discovered that the Kobo store is great. All of these use ePub, and don’t tie you to Amazon. And I particularly like ePub because I discovered a couple of years ago an app called Marvin. It’s only for iDevices at the moment, but apparently an Andriod version is in the works. It’s my favourite ereader now and I’ll always look for an ePub file that I can sideload to Marvin as my first port of call when I want a new book. If I can’t find that, I’ll shop at Kobo and use the Kobo app. As a last resort, I’ll go back to Amazon and read with the Kindle. I also still use the Kindle app to read PDFs and Word documents that I send myself using my Kindle email thing. It’s really a case of what’s best for any given situation, but always looking for ePub first.

So while I almost exclusively read ebooks on the iPad Mini now (with occasional forays on my phone), I do it with a variety of apps and stores. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a dedicated ereader. And I read about 50/50 ebook/print, so I’ll certainly never abandon paper books. I’m an utter bibliophile and love my bookshelves. I love to get beautiful editions, especially hardbacks, of my favourite books, though income doesn’t allow me to indulge that as much as I’d like. And if I read an ebook that I really enjoy, I’ll get the paper edition for my shelves. Most recently that happened with Nathan Ballingrud’s amazing debut collection of short stories called “North American Lake Monsters”. I bought the ebook, absolutely loved it and, as soon as I’d finished reading, I flipped from the reading app to the browser on my iPad and bought the last signed hardcover from the Small Beer Press website. All without leaving my couch. There’s that living-in-the-future shit again. So brilliant.

So what about you? What’s your ereader of choice? How do you shop for ebooks? Let me know in the comments and let me know too about any great apps or readers I might have missed out on.

I’ve been going on a lot lately about Bound. It’s no surprise, really. I have a book out from a major publisher and it’s on shelves in bookstores and everything! I’m still finding it hard to believe, but I’m certainly enjoying it. However, now I want to spread the love – I’ve been going on so much lately about myself, it’s time I talked about other people a bit. Below are the books and stories I’ve been really enjoying lately and I highly recommend you check them out. Let’s go:

The Hunt for Pierre Jnr By David M. Henley (the sequel, Manifestations, is out now too.) As the blurb says, “He can make you forget, he can control you and he is only eight years old. Three months after his birth he escaped. An hour later he was lost to surveillance. No one knows where he has been for the last eight years … Now Pierre Jnr is about to return.” Sounds good, right? It is.

Last Year, When We Were Young by Andrew McKiernan. I had the pleasure of MCing the launch of this excellent debut collection of short stories. It’s fantastic and Greg Chapman sums it up nicely in this review here.

Exile by Peter M Ball. Okay, I haven’t read this one yet as I’ve only just bought it, but Peter Ball’s stuff is always good and I expect this novella to be up there as well. So I’m including it here.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. I mean, really, it’s enough that it’s by Gaiman, right? But this is a wonderful book and very British in style and setting. As an ex-pat Brit, that appealed to me a lot. But whether you’re British or not, it’s well worth your time.

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror edited by Geoff Brown and A J Spedding. I had the honour of writing a foreword for this collection of military horror short stories. There’s fantastic variety here and it’s a tremendous collection. You’ll be surprised at the scope.

Trucksong by Andrew Macrae. A post-apocalyptic Australia with sentient trucks fighting and fucking and stuff. I know, right? It’s written in an incredibly well-developed Australian voice and is something quite different.

Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto. This is the guy who wrote True Detective, which is some of the best television I’ve seen in recent years. This is a southern crime noir kinda thing, fantasically written. I loved it.

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud. Possibly the best short story collection I’ve read in recent years. Again, I reviewed it for Thirteen O’Clock, so go here to read me gushing about it.

Lexicon by Max Barry. My book of the year last year and it won an Aurealis Award. A fantastic story about the power of words and language and modern magic rolled up with science and it’s a thriller and… and… Just read it.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. A superb supernatural serial killer, crime thriller thing. This book has had loads of attention and all of it well-deserved. A must read.

And next up on my list are Guardian by Jo Anderton (which will be great because it’s book three after Debris and Suited, which were great), Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes (after the awesomeness of The Shining Girls, I can’t wait for this one) and Dreaming of Zhou Gong by Traci Harding (which I only got yesterday, signed no less, and I’m looking forward to a lot). Very exciting reading ahead, I think.

A quick web search will reveal any of these to you, so off you go and get some good stuff. Let me know what you think. And if you’ve read something simply brilliant lately, drop a mention in the comments and we can keep this sharing of good stuff going.

You guys have heard me talk about Angela Slatter plenty before. She’s a good friend of mine, but more than that, she’s one of the best writers I know. Specialising in dark fantasy and horror, she’s the author of the Aurealis Award-winning The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, the World Fantasy Award finalist Sourdough and Other Stories, and the Aurealis finalist Midnight and Moonshine (with Lisa L. Hannett). And that’s just a fraction of her bio. She’s the first Aussie to win a British Fantasy Award too. Check out all about her publications and awards here.

Angela has a new chapbook out from Spectral Press called Hearth and Home. It’s a great read and I’ve asked her five questions about it and about horror and her writing in general. The questions are below, but before you read them, go and get the chapbook, as it’s limited edition and there aren’t many left. You can send an email to spectralpress[AT]gmail[DOT]com or maybe get one of the last ones from Angela herself by emailing me[at]angelaslatter[dot]com

You won’t be sorry. So, on with the Qs:

1. What’s “Hearth and Home” all about and why did you write this story?

Well, it’s about a woman whose teenaged son has come home after a lengthy trial. He was found innocent but things are not as they should be, life doesn’t return to ‘normal’. Basically it’s the story of Caroline’s journey through figuring out just how far from normal things are. I wrote it because Simon Marshall-Jones from Spectral Press had said ‘Sooo, hey, how about a chapbook story?’ And I’d seen the work he’d done with other authors such as Gary McMahon in the chapbook series and thought ‘Yep, get me some of that!’

2. What’s the real draw card for you with horror?

I don’t mind gore if it’s well used and cleverly placed for maximum effect, but I really, really hate explicit shock for the sake of shock. It has a numbing effect after a while and that is not the point of horror for me. Horror is about the creeping shiver that becomes a full-blooded scream … I enjoy the psychology of that journey, that’s what wraps me up in a good horror story.

3. Chapbooks are still cool. Why?

I think they’ve never really gone out of fashion in particular, i.e. genre, quarters, and they’re now riding the wave of small press resurgence. I think that’s because small presses are in a unique position to create books that aren’t your traditional trade paperback with the imperative to sell millions. That’s not to say they don’t want to make money, but there’s definitely a place for books are collectable artefacts that remains even in an age of e-books and the throwaway paperback.

I also like to think that you can see the craft in them, they don’t necessarily look like something that’s from a cookie cutter … there’s an individuality to them that feels very human and person-made.

4. If you could organise one of those haunted house murder mystery dinners, who would you invite? And who would be the killer?

Oooooh. I’m going to ask the living and the dead, the real and the imagined! Angela Carter and Tanith Lee, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Shearman and Lisa Hannett, Mark Gatiss and Christopher Lee, Helen Marshall and Helen Mirren. And Neil Gaiman, who would be the killer and whom no one would suspect coz he always seems so nice.

5. What’s next for Doctor Slatter?

Dr Slatter has three books out this year: The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (from Tartarus Press), Black-Winged Angels (from Ticonderoga Publications), and The Female Factory (written with Lisa Hannett and coming out from Twelfth Planet Press). No matter what anyone tells you, I am open to working with publishers that don’t start with the letter ‘T’.

I currently have a novel called Vigil doing the rounds; I am finishing my novella for Spectral Press, which is called The Witch’s Scale; and I’m finishing up my collection The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales, which is the result of my Queensland Writers Fellowship year; I’m working on another novel called Scandalous Lady Detective, and going back to an old novel called Well of Souls to finish it off.

In between I am occasionally offering an editing and story development service, but it’s starting to feel like a bit of a time-squeeze at this point!

My story, “Shadows of the Lonely Dead”, is coming out in the Suspended in Dusk anthology (Books of the Dead Press, due mid-late 2014) and the editor, Simon Dewar, has just released the full list of contributing authors and their stories. It’s a stellar bunch:

That’s alphabetical, of course. The final order of stories and a cover reveal are apparently coming soon. I think this is going to be a great book. A few of those stories are reprints, but the majority are original, and all follow the theme of “suspended in dusk” to some degree. Should be well worth a read. And can I just point out that I’m going to be in a book with Ramsey Campbell. Achievement Unlocked!

Issue 14 of SQ Mag is out. It’s the Australiana Special Edition and includes loads of great stuff like new stories from Kaaron Warren and Sean Williams, lots of other top stories and features, and my novelette, The Darkness in Clara.

I’m really proud of this story and I hope other people like it too. I was honoured to learn that it inspired the cover for this issue.

The best thing about SQ Mag, apart from the stellar content obviously, is that it’s all free to read online. Here’s the opening to my story:

The Darkness in Clara
by Alan Baxter

Michelle saw Clara’s feet first, absurdly suspended a meter above the ground, toes pointing to the carpet, ghostly pale and twisting in a lazy spiral. The rest of the scene burst into her mind in one electric shock a fraction of a second later; Clara’s wiry nakedness, limp arms, head tilted chaotically to one side. Her tattoos seemed faded against ashen skin. Her so familiar face grotesque and wrong, tongue swelling from her mouth like an escaping slug. And her bulging eyes, staring glassy and cold as Michelle began to scream. Light from the bedside lamp cast Clara’s shadow across the wall like a puppet play, glinted off the metal legs of the upturned chair beneath.

I bought her that belt, Michelle thought, as she stared at the worn black leather biting deep into the blue-tinged flesh of Clara’s neck, and she drew breath to scream again.

I got a wonderful surprise on Saturday when a few messages started coming in saying something along the lines of, “Congratulations on your Ditmar nomination!” I hadn’t realised the Award shortlist had been released, but it only took a moment to see social media alive with the news (at least, spec fic related social media in Australia.) It turns out that my story, Not the Worst of Sins, published in issue 133 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine, has been noninated in the Best Short Story category. Thanks so much to everyone who voted for that, it’s a real honour. The Ditmars are an Australian national award decided by popular vote. Anyone active in the SF scene and fandom can nominate works, then anyone who was at the previous year’s NatCon (National SF Convention) or has a full or supporting membership for this year’s NatCon can vote for the winners.

This year, the NatCon is Continuum X in Melbourne in June. The awards ceremony will be held there. If you went to Conflux in Canberra last year, or you’re going to Continuum this year, you can vote in the Ditmars. I really recommend that you do vote, as the more people who get involved, the more the winners will reflect the opinion of the wider community. If you’re not going to the cons, but you want to vote, you can buy a supporting membership for Continuum X for just $35, which gives you several benefits including voting rights. And you can vote online in a matter of minutes. Couldn’t be easier! Voting is open now until one minute before midnight AEST (ie. 11.59pm, GMT+10), Wednesday, 28th of May, 2014.

I’ll post the full list of nominated works in all categories below, but here are a few relevant links:

So please do get involved. My own inclusion notwithstanding, I honestly think this is one of the strongest Ditmar Award ballots for years, in every category. You could do worse than getting hold of everything on this list (and anything on the Aurealis Awards list from last month) and you’d be set up with some fantastic reading of Aussie spec fic.The AAs and now the Ditmars are showing very clearly that Australian spec fic is stronger than ever.

So, get your membership and get voting (or if you went to Conflux last year, just get voting!) and if you’re going to NatCon this year in June, I’ll see you there!

* Tsana Dolichva, for body of work, including reviews and interviews in Tsana’s Reads and Reviews
* Sean Wright, for body of work, including reviews in Adventures of a Bookonaut
* Grant Watson, for body of work, including reviews in The Angriest
* Foz Meadows, for body of work, including reviews in Shattersnipe: Malcontent & Rainbows
* Alexandra Pierce, for body of work, including reviews in Randomly Yours, Alex
* Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work, including essays and reviews at www.tansyrr.com

Best Fan Artist

* Nalini Haynes, for body of work, including “Defender of the Faith”, “The Suck Fairy”, “Doctor Who vampire” and “The Last Cyberman” in Dark Matter
* Kathleen Jennings, for body of work, including “Illustration Friday”
* Dick Jenssen, for body of work, including cover art for Interstellar Ramjet Scoop and SF Commentary

Saturday was a big day. I drove down to Canberra, took part in the Conflux Writer’s Day minicon, where I did a highspeed “Social Media for Authors” presentation, then went for a quick change of clothes in order to attend the Aurealis Awards ceremony. Nicole Murphy, who organised everything that day, did a truly amazing job. The writers day and awards ceremony were both superb. We caroused and drank and laughed, and fantastic Australian fiction scored very well-deserved awards.

Here are all the fantastic nominees and winners. If you want a sampler of excellent recent Aussie spec fic, here’s your huckleberry:

(The winners are separated at the top of each list of nominees.)

Best Science Fiction Novel

Lexicon, Max Barry (Hachette)

Trucksong, Andrew Macrae (Twelfth Planet)

A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists, Jane Rawson (Transit Lounge)