Andy Graham Author

Author of dark fiction and fantasy, dystopia, horror.

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One Book Interview #50 – David Hambling (Author)

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The One Book Interview hits its half-century this week and we have a great set of answers to celebrate.

(There may be a moderate amount of alcohol consumed sensibly later too.)

Author #50 is an author of both fiction and non-fiction.

His technology journalism has appeared in New Scientist magazine, Aviation Week, Popular Mechanics, WIRED, The Economist, The Guardian newspaper and others.

His novels have their roots in the myths and legends that stalk the streets and fields of South London.

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Norwood, London – David Hambling

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It’s a rip-roaring adventure – and arguably the first superhero story. The protagonist has multiple secret identities and the best technology money can buy, including ultra-accurate pistols and concealed body armor. But there’s more to it than simple adventure; it works on other levels as well, and as a study of the art of vengeance and its effect on the revenger it has never been bettered. It’s a real swashbuckler, but it is also a lot more, with some striking characters rather than just placeholders and truly memorable scenes.

Reading a work like this, you start to appreciate how the standard of popular fiction has declined over the last 170 years, and how much we can learn from earlier writers. Dickens and Shakespeare may not be to everyone’s taste, but Dumas is a joy. The phrase ‘entertainment for all ages’ fits perfectly.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

You mean as well as the Bible and the complete Shakespeare?  (The traditional literary gifts on Desert Island Discs).

If I was marooned on Mars I probably wouldn’t survive long enough to do any reading, and if I did survive I would probably be concentrating on staying alive and getting home rather than poring over literary works…

…but if I had to pick a stunning, long book to re-read, I’d pick Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. It’s an epic trans-European WWII sci-fi adventure with bizarre Nazi goings-on centered around the V-2 rocket attacks on London. It also manages to pack in esoteric lore, Pavlovian psychology, plenty of sex, and a great cast of characters. While the central story features a mission to discover the secret of a mystery device fitted to a V-2, subplots spin off in all directions. It’s a book that bears a lot of re-reading, and Mars – reached by rockets directly descended from the V-2 – might be a good place for it.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles may not look promising – you’ll find it in the literary fiction section. It’s a surreal horror story which starts with a missing cat and gets steadily darker and weirder as the protagonist’s wife vanishes, and he gradually learns more about the forces working against him. It all centers on an ancient well, now dry, which he descends and starts to dream strange dreams.

The evil is subtler and menacing than in in genre horror (though there is a certain amount of gore), and there’s an amazing flashback as one character recounts his experiences during the Japanese campaign in Manchuria during the 1930s. (Spoiler: it was not a happy time for any of those involved).  There is philosophy, but there are also surprising dashes of humour… one character’s impassioned diatribe about microwaved rice pudding reads like a stand-up comedy routine.

Murakami’s work also bears distinct traces of HP Lovecraft and his notion of Cosmic Horror, and for me that it very much a bonus.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

Never ask a parent to choose between their children!

As an author you’re always going to be most excited about the one you’re writing now. I’m just in the final edit stages of Master of Chaos, the fourth of the Harry Stubbs series. This is a sci-fi adventure set in 1920’s London involving Cthulhu-mythos mischief, with the lead character going undercover to work in a mental institution. Madness and mayhem abound…as usual there was a mountain of research to be boiled down and distilled, and some complex plot mechanics going on, plus this time I tried to do something more ambitious with the writing itself.  Overall, I feel I’m getting better.

Hence, of the books that are in already in print the one to recommend is the third Harry Stubbs, Alien Stars, in which our hero is searching for what his employer believes to be the Holy Grail – and which turns out to be something far more alien, and far more dangerous to our world.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

“Godel Escher Bach: an eternal golden braid.” by Douglas Hofstader is perhaps the most mind-expanding book I have ever read. It takes some intriguing mathematical ideas, in particular self-reference and paradox and shows how they apply to everything from music to the way that DNA replicates, and of course Escher’s amazing ‘impossible’ images, taking in Zen, human (and artificial) intelligence, meaning and meaninglessness.

It’s a far more whimsical book than this bare summary makes it sound, with the subtitle “a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll,” and it is, to coin a phrase, a book that makes you think.

It even inspired some of the core ideas in my latest work, Master of Chaos.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Professionally, the most inspiring books are the bad ones. Reading a good book makes me think I should just give up; reading a terrible one makes me think, “dammit, I can writer better than this!” and inspires me to try.

For me, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is a truly great bad book. It’s tautly written and the plot has you on the edge of your seat. It’s a real page turner…but the contrived plotting, cardboard characters and clunky dialogue had me howling with disbelief. (And don’t get me started on his legal but questionable misappropriation of the historical research by Baigent, Leigh and others).

I’m never going to write The Count of Monte Cristo, but I hope that any writer worth their salt who encounters Dan Brown will think “maybe I can do something in this vein, but not quite so terribly.”

To be fair, I have not read any of EL James ‘Fifty Shades’ series, so there may be even more stupendously great bad books out there, and I’m sure every reader will have their own favourite. I have enough inspiration for the meantime though, thanks.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

That would have to be The Elder Ice. It’s short – barely a hundred pages – and introduces Harry Stubbs, a former heavyweight boxer and sometime debt collector in 1920s South London. Now trying to make it working for a legal firm. Harry is tasked with tracking down a legacy left by a polar explorer – real life Antarctic legend Ernest Shackleton, who lived in this area.

Shackleton left behind a pile a of debts and hints that he has discovered something valuable, and much of the story centers on the question of what he could have brought back which was worth more than its weight in gold…which also kills people…

You can find David here.

David Hambling aims to bring authentic 1920s Lovecraftian horror to Norwood, his corner of South London, a little-known and haunted place where taxis dare not go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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One Book Interview #45 – Ty Arthur (Author)

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Metalhead.

Gamer.

Author.

And now winner of the best answer to question one to date!

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Great Falls, Montana – Ty Arthur.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

This is a really subjective issue, since obviously not all readers are going to love the same style of writing or be interested in the same subject matter. I could say start off The Song Of Ice and Fire saga with first entry A Game Of Thrones, but not everyone wants to read about royal incest and the good guy getting his head chopped off because he wasn’t conniving enough (although those people would, of course, be wrong). I could recommend trying out Malazan or Wheel Of Time, but not everyone wants to get dragged through a never-ending mammoth fantasy series that becomes a marathon to finish. I could say that people should see where cosmic horror got its legs with Lovecraft or Chambers, but the dense style and off hand racism from another era would be off-putting to many modern readers. No matter what book I think is perfect, someone out there would be able to discover flaws or find it just doesn’t suit their tastes.

Rather than giving a specific title, I’d say the one book everyone needs to read is an indie book from a self-published author or someone on a small time publisher. While there are literary disasters out there to be avoided (that were rejected by all the publishers for very good reasons), I absolutely guarantee if you dive into the indie world you will find a book that’s leagues ahead of anything published by King, Jordan, Sanderson, and so on. Spend some time joining online groups of readers and writers in whatever genre you prefer, whether that’s urban fantasy, grimdark, sci-fi romance, or whatever, and you will find a book that you didn’t know you couldn’t live without.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

When it comes to re-reading books, I find I usually only devour a fiction novel once or at most twice, but I really like diving back into RPG manuals again and again, especially if they are heavy on the story fluff (as opposed to the mechanics crunch) and marry their substance with a distinctive style. If I could only read one book over and over again while stuck on Mars, it would have to be something that was visually interesting and had themes I wanted to keep going back to, so I’d probably pick something like Earthdawn, Warhammer 40: Dark Heresy, or perhaps one of the many Call Of Cthulhu tabletop RPG iterations.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

Back in high school years ago, I picked up The Gathering Dark by Jeff Grubb, which is a tale of a magician’s apprentice trying to stay alive during Dominaria’s Ice Age when a powerful religious group is busy persecuting wizards. To be blunt, novels based on game franchises like Magic The Gathering or Forgotten Realms are often terrible, so that was a gamble. The book has always stuck with me over the years though, both for its interesting commentary on real world groups, and for its usage of game mechanics to bring scenes to life. A segment where wizards of various colors are trying to vex each other in entertaining ways at a fest hall – like reanimating the chicken through necromancy – has always stayed with me as a great example of how to use a setting’s quirks to your advantage.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

My fiction, whether short stories for anthologies or stand alone novels, is always based on a personal experience that gets translated into a fictional medium like horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. Almost universally, its the negative experiences that provide the most drive to write, so honestly I couldn’t say that any of the books I’ve written are my “favorite” in the sense that I actually enjoyed them.

If I had to pick one of these vile, misbegotten bastards though, I’d probably have to go with my short story A Church Full Of Lovers, which features an atheist, an agnostic, and a true believer all experiencing a terrible apocalypse together. It was the first short I actually put serious effort into and intended other people to read, and it has a revolving perspective mechanic that makes it quite different from many of my other releases.

The anthology that A Church Full Of Lovers eventually landed in is no longer available, but a revamped version of the story will be making an appearance in an upcoming release that goes a direction readers may not be expecting.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

There are a lot of books I could list here that had big impacts on me, from Seyonne’s tale of being relentlessly downtrodden in Carl Berg’s Transformation, to the surprising revelations and genre mixing in C.S. Friedman’s Black Sun Rising, to the unforgettable portrayal of the devil and his motivations in Anne Rice’s Memnoch The Devil. The collision of punny humor with fantasy storytelling in the Xanth series also played a big role in crafting my early years.

Going back the farthest though, I’d have to say the book that influenced me most as a person was Redwall, as that was probably the book that most ignited my imagination and made me fall in love with fiction in general and fantasy in particular as a kid. I think its safe to say I wouldn’t be a roleplayer, an author, or an all around geek today if it weren’t for those books. That love really got a surprise re-ignition with the Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 graphic novel when I discovered it out of the blue at my local library years ago, and I highly recommend it to anyone of any age.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Although I don’t try to emulate his writing style at all, a book that strongly influenced me as an author would have to be Clive Barker’s Weaveworld. The mashup of fantasy with horror in a modern day setting showed me that you don’t always have to color within the genre lines, and there’s plenty of room for characters and themes from one genre to land in another.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

The place to start with me is definitely my grimdark fantasy / cosmic horror mashup Light Dawning that released back in May. Its a story that turns the standard fantasy tropes on their heads, so don’t go in expecting to meet any chosen one farm boys, brash rogues that evade the authorities and get the girl, or wise old wizards who will help the underdogs save the world.

Most of my other work is currently unavailable or about to become unavailable as contracts with publishers end and I re-launch as an indie self-published author. Those stories are all getting ready to be released again with new covers in the near future.

You can find Ty at www.tyarthur.wordpress.com

Ty Arthur has the good fortune to meld his passions and hobbies with his work while freelancing for the likes of Metalunderground, GameSkinny, and WorldStart.

He’s been busy writing a variety of gaming, heavy metal, and tech-themed columns since 2008.

Following a string of anthology appearances, Arthur’s debut standalone sci-fi / horror novella “Empty” was released in early 2016, with many more dark tales still to come.

 

Arthur writes to exorcise his demons and lives in the cold, dark north with his amazing wife Megan and infant son Gannicus Picard.

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One Book Interview #41 – Matt Hickman (Author)

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The hangover has cleared after last week’s 40th birthday  celebrations, and The One Book Interview is back with what counts – the authors.

This week, I’m very happy to have with us a British author who is rapidly carving out a name for himself in the UK horror scene.

Not literally, you understand.

(I hope.)

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Tipton*, UK – Matt Hickman

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

Since a young age, I’ve been a massive fan of the work by Roald Dahl. The man had an imagination that was out of this world, I can still picture him scribbling his crazy ideas in his notebooks in the hut where he wrote at the bottom of his garden. His writing manages to cross any boundaries of age or sex; they’re as much loved today as they were when I was a boy, and the joy between those pages has been passed down to my two children. I would find it difficult to pick a certain title as a favourite, so as a book that everyone should read, I would choose Tales of the Unexpected, his eclectic short story collection which really showcases his diverse literary talents.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

Damn, I knew there would be one of these types of questions. If you were stranded on Mars, aside from playing volleyball against little green men, you would need something fairly substantial to keep the boredom at bay, a book where you could get immersed into its pages again and again. For my choice, it would be The Stand by Stephen King. Weighing in at over 1000 pages, it’s a massive read, and also one of the best takes on an apocalyptic pandemic, threatening to wipe out humanity that you’ll find.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

Back when I was living at home, my dad was studying for an Open University course in the classics, and I picked up a battered, dog eared copy of The Iliad (a poem) by Homer that he had left on the kitchen table. Oblivious to the theme of the book, and it being a modern version of the translated text, I started to browse the contents and found myself blown away. I’d never seen such a cocktail of sex, violence, deceit and revenge. Those Greeks really knew how to do a number on each other.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

That would be one of two, but I think I’ll go with my novel, Amnesia. I awoke suddenly one morning in a hotel while working away in Crawley, with an intensely violent and disturbing scene running through my mind. I’m not sure whether I dreamt it, and it etched itself into my psyche. That scene was the only thing I knew I wanted to write. Without any other ideas for plot or the story, I went to work, blind. A few months later, the novel was complete. A slow burn and build in tension until it erupts into hell. I have recently received the digital rights back from the original publisher, so I will be writing the prequel, Flashbacks, and releasing them together. The paperback is still available.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

I think that would have to be Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. I read a copy of the book when I was about fourteen years old and it scared the living shit out of me. It was the first time I’d really looked at any depth into the depravity of humanity, and the way that realism can, in some ways be more horrific than monsters or the supernatural. In addition, the book introduced me to a character that was to become a lifelong obsession, Hannibal Lecter.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

That’s a really difficult one to answer, as I don’t really consider myself anything like professional. I’ve certainly never studied any books on writing techniques or taken any creative writing classes. I kinda just fell into this after years of being an avid reader with an astute eye. I haven’t dodged around the question properly have I? Okay, I’ll pick a book from a writer that I would say is one of the biggest influences on my style of storytelling, Endless Night by Richard Laymon. When I first read this book, I knew immediately that I would be pursuing more of his work. The story is an intense, harrowing, and adrenaline fueled piece of fiction. For me, it was all about the characters, good and bad, an equation that ultimately works for me.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

As with most authors, my work varies in content and style. I think the best place to start would be with my short story collection, Sinister Scribblings. There are thirteen of my own stories ranging from seasonal horror, to extreme, nasty shorts, to tales underpinned with dark humour. The book also contains additional stories from other emerging authors within the indie market.

You can find Matt at : www.matthickman.co.uk

Matt is an avid fan of horror fiction. He spends a majority of his free time reading books from both established and independent authors. With a diverse knowledge of the genre, and an astute mind for the macabre, he has taken to writing his own brand of horror – dark, relentlessly violent and blood-soaked, and often peppered with dark humour. With the support of his peers, some of which are established writers themselves, he has taken on a new career, one that has seen him take the genre by storm. He currently resides in Tipton, a small town in the West Midlands with his partner and two children. He travels the width breadth of the UK on a regular basis as a Sales Manager for a construction company.

 

Since his debut eighteen months ago, he has been featured in numerous short story collections, including anthologies for charity, as well as releasing numerous novels and novella’s and collaborations with Stuart Keane, Andrew Lennon, and Matt Shaw including his first solo collection of short stories – Sinister Scribblings.

 

*Not to be confused with this place. (Sorry, Matt. It’s lame, but I couldn’t resist.)

 

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One Book Interview #39 – Christina Bergling (Author)

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In association with Confessions of  a Reviewer, I’m very happy to be able to bring you another interview/ review post-pairing. (Is that even a word?)

You can find out what I thought of Author 39’s most recent book tomorrow, but today, here’s a taste of her favourite books.

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Colorado Springs – Christina Bergling

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman. The multiple narrations in this book blew me away. All seven circle around a central event to become a brilliant examination of perspective and distortion. It is one thing to understand that everyone sees things differently, it is more impactful to experience that seven times.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

Different Seasons by Stephen King. “The Shawshank Redemption” is one of my favorite novellas ever. It is simply intoxicating. Yet all four novellas in the collection contain an entire and fascinating world. If I was stuck reading the same book over and over, I would want one with multiple stories.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. I knew I always wanted to read the book because it spawned the concept of BDSM. However, I had my reservations because it is so old. I worried it would be as neutered and unemotional as all the British literature I studied in college. Instead, it is brilliant, racy, and raw.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

It is a solid tie between Savages and The Rest Will Come. Savages was the world I could keep living in. When I was writing, I thought about it all day, dreamed about it. The story just poured out of me. However, The Rest Will Come was the most fun to write. I was able to include people in my real life in the process.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. I went to Iraq as a contractor in 2009, and nothing there made sense to me. This book explained some of the irrational and upsetting paradigms and procedures I encountered. It did not make the things acceptable, but it at least established cause and effect.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

Gerald’s Game by Stephen King. I read a lot of Stephen King’s work in my youth; however, this is my favorite novel of his. This book taught me about crafting horror in a restricted setting with very few characters, showing me the horror in the mind. I found that restrained horror far more terrifying than his more fantastical works.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

The Rest Will Come offers a good taste of horror with some levity. It is available on Amazon and through other online book retailers.

You can find Christina here.

Colorado‐bred writer, Christina Bergling knew she wanted to be an author in fourth grade.

In college, she pursued a professional writing degree and started publishing small scale. It all began with “How to Kill Yourself Slowly.”

With the realities of paying bills, she started working as a technical writer and document manager, traveling to Iraq as a contractor and eventually becoming a trainer and software developer.

She avidly hosted multiple blogs on Iraq, bipolar, pregnancy, running. She continues to write on Fiery Pen: The Horror Writing of Christina Bergling and Z0mbie Turtle.

In 2015, she published two novellas. She is also featured in the horror collections Collected Christmas Horror Shorts, Collected Easter Horror Shorts, Collected Halloween Horror Shorts, and Demonic Wildlife. Her latest novel, The Rest Will Come, was released by Limitless Publishing in August 2017.

Bergling is a mother of two young children and lives with her family in Colorado Springs. She spends her non‐writing time running, doing yoga and barre, belly dancing, taking pictures, traveling, and sucking all the marrow out of life.

 

 

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One Book Interview #38 – Paul Flewitt (Author)

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A former steelworker turned author who keeps beta-reading demons alongside his kids.

Intrigued?

You should be.

A huge thanks to Author 38 for his thorough answers to my questions.

(And The Stitcher-in-Chief crops up again in this interview. That’s three times: 20, 36 & now 38. Is there such a thing as stalking-by-proxy?)

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Sheffield, in the UK – Paul Flewitt

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

Well, I’m a horror (ish) author, so I guess I should start with horror right? So, my pick for this question is Stephen King’s The Bachman books.

I’m not really a big fan of Stephen King’s later work, but his early stuff is awesome. From Carrie, The Stand and It to The Talisman and The Shining, he really established and pushed the horror genre into the scene that we know today. The Bachman Books are a glimpse at some oddities, originally published under the Richard Bachman pseudonym. Roadwork, Rage, The Long Walk and The Running Man. The first story is nice, showing King’s ability to write a character that you can love and loathe in equal measure. The Running Man is the story that inspired the movie of the same name. As opening and closing stories in a short story collection, they do their job well, but these aren’t the reason for me picking this collection. No. The real meat of this collection is in Rage and The Long Walk. I consider these to be two of the very best Stephen King stories. There’s no bloat or unnecessary excess which usually typifies King’s work. These are straight to the point and hit you right where it hurts. The characters here are truly affecting, the stories more thought-provoking and challenging than almost anything else that King has written. Rage, in particular handles a very difficult theme (school shootings) with sweep, sympathy and I don’t feel that he glamourizes or sensationalizes the subject matter, as some other critics have done. The Long Walk is a tour de force of a story; a very prescient comment on reality TV shows and where they could end up. Sadly, King saw fit to withdraw Rage from the collection a few years ago, but if you can track down an older copy then you will not regret it.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

I reckon that if you were marooned then you’re going to be waiting a while for rescue, so any book that you want with you would have to be pretty long. I reckon it would also have to be a book that you can read, read and read again without getting bored by it.

Before embarking on the journey that is answering these questions, I read a couple that have been done before. I didn’t really want to repeat something that someone else had said, because that’d be pretty damned boring. However, after reading Mark Cassell’s interview I couldn’t help but agree with him, and so I’m going to second his pick here.

Clive Barker is the best writer I have ever read, his imagination and grasp of language is second to none, without ever coming across as unnecessarily clever or hyper-intellectual. There, we’ve got that out of the way early and so I can just carry on gushing, right?

Imajica is a 1000 page + book which demands repeated reading. There’s a hell of a lot in here, from the history of the Godolphin family to the origins of our tortured and damaged hero, Gentle. It’s a story of love, obsession, sex, horror, greed and divinity. It’s a journey through our own world, into other plains and then flying off into the heavenly pantheon. He creates monsters the likes of which only Barker could conceive of, but he also creates beautiful creatures with the same abandon (Pie-oh-Pah, the Mystif.) He holds our hand through all of this journeying, whispering the tale into our ears as if he was sitting in the room with you. It’s a quality that I have very rarely experienced with any writer, and this is the book in which Clive Barker achieved a kind of perfection in his literary art.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

It’s not often that I buy a book by a writer I’ve never heard of. Usually I have to have them recommended to me, or read a review about them. I took a chance on Alex Laybourne’s Diaries of the Damned because the style of the work was different and interesting. In its original form, The Diaries were a series of short works which centered on one particular character caught up in a zombie apocalypse. Nothing too new there, it’s a trope that is often used these days. The thing is that Laybourne’s DID do something a little different. He pushed the limits of what some might find acceptable, created a group of characters that you can immediately identify with, love, hate and sympathise with. Laybourne proved here that he understands human nature, people’s motivations and how to pull on the heartstrings. Laybourne was really writing dispatches here, reporting from the front line. A job very, very well done.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

There are two that I’m particularly proud of, so I’m going to cheat and mention them both. Both are short stories, since I’ve spent the last few years writing for anthologies in an effort to hone my craft. Climbing Out appears in the Demonology collection, and is a story that I’d wanted to write for a little while. It centers on a demon, climbing from the depths of Hell. On the climb, the demon reflects on what brought him so low. It’s a journey through ancient times and tells the story of misunderstanding, human error and the consequences of them… and redemption.

The second choice is The Silent Invader. I wrote this for an independent TV show named Fragments of Fear, which was being optioned at the time and can still be viewed on YouTube. I finished this one in 12 hours, it really just flowed out of me. It is a monologue from a possessing spirit, recounting its favourite atrocities in a very intimate manner. I really enjoyed the narrator’s telling of the tale, truly embodying the character and making the experience extra creepy. The resolve at the end is engaging, and just a little bit terrifying.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

I don’t read true-drama books too often, but a title that kept on being mentioned to me was A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer. It’s the story of his childhood and is a painfully frank account of the life of an abused child. It really upset me and affected me deeply. One of those books that make you want to embrace your own kids and keep them safe, to be a better parent because you are aware that there are children in pain all over the world. These are the real horrors.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

This is going to be a repeat, I’m afraid. It’s Imajica again.

I learn from everything that I read, and I’ve learned more from this book than any other. From characterization to world-building, it’s a tour de force of dark fantasy. This is the book that made me realise that my eyes had been closed, that there were more possibilities in the realms of horror/fantasy than I had imagined. This is where I understood what it was to let your imagination of the leash, to fly off into your own creation. I became a different kind of writer when I read that book, and it’s stood me in good stead. Essentially, to quote Barker himself; “I just had to trust my own madness.”

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

Probably the easiest thing to find would be my debut novella; Poor Jeffrey. You can find it across the Amazons (currently available in paperback only, but will return to ebook soon.) and it really showcases my style well. It’s one of the first things I wrote that was readily accepted by a press, and I still love it. I think I captured the characters very well, particularly the main ones. It also got me my first favourable reviews, so it will always have a special place in my heart.

You can find Paul here.

Paul Flewitt lives in Sheffield, UK with his partner and their two children. He is a writer of horror and dark fiction with CHBB/Vamptasy press.  Paul is the author of “Smoke” a flash fiction which appeared in OzHorrorCon’s Book of Tribes anthology, “Paradise Park” from JEA’s All That Remains anthology and the stand alone novella “Poor Jeffrey” through CHBB/Vamptasy press. In 2014, Poor Jeffrey was nominated in the Preditors and Editors Readers Poll for Best Horror Novel, placing 5th overall. He continues to work on further pieces…

 

 

 

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One Book Interview #37 – CM Saunders (Author)

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The Welshman’s here.

Living in exile.

Fueled by ghosts from his country’s past.

With a writing career that stretches from China all the way back to the Somme. (Via a few lad mags.)

Good people of the Internet, writing out of London, UK – Chris Saunders.

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

This might a left field choice for a horror buff, but I’m going to nominate The Dice Man by Luke Rhineheart. If you aren’t familiar with the plot, it’s about a psychologist who begins to question his life, and starts making decisions based on the throw of a dice. He uses the dice to determine everything from what to have for breakfast to what to do when faced with huge, life-changing decisions with far-reaching consequences. There are a lot of things you can read into it (forgive the pun) but to me, using the dice in this manner means you remove all responsibility for your actions and put all your faith and confidence into something else. Luck? Destiny? God? Some other higher power? Who knows. It’s the ultimate freedom. Try the dice life for a while and see where it takes you. It’s liberating.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

That’s a good question. If I could only take one book, it would have to be something weighty, complex and fitting, as well as entertaining and somehow relevant. Based on those criteria, there’s only one I can choose, and that’s The Stand by Stephen King. The complete and unabridged version because at over 1100 pages, it’s bound to keep me occupied for a while. It’s not my favourite book of his, but I can’t think of anything better to help herald the birth of a brave new world.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

I’m one of those cheap fuckers who are always browsing Amazon for bargains. Earlier this year, I picked up a couple of books by a writer I hadn’t heard of before called Amy Cross. One was called The Cabin, and I think the other was Battlefield. Both blew me away. Since then I have been reading as many of her books as I can, but it’s difficult as she seems to write faster than I can read. It’s disconcerting.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

Sker House, my paranormal mystery novel. The reason it is so important to me is because much of it is based on fact. The location is real, as is much of the history and even some of the stories I allude to in the book. I also managed to weave in some local folk and ghostlore for good measure. To say the area is rich in source material would be an understatement. The story wrote itself, all I had to do was invent some characters, insert them in the existing framework, and give them something to do. The house is situated on the Welsh coast near Bridgend, and I used to visit a lot when I was a child. I wrote the first draft of the book six or seven years ago when I lived in China, then I put it through another edit and finally released it last year. Funnily enough, it’s also my biggest seller.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

This is too hard. I’m going to have to choose an entire series of books, and can only hope that’s within the rules. That series is Alfred Hitchcock & the Three Investigators. These were the first books I remember reading after the obligatory Enid Blyton period (or was that just me?). More than that, they were the first books I remember actively seeking out, in the way of scouring book shops and library shelves. Apart from being exciting boys adventure stories, the books also helped instill morals and a code of ethics. The truth was always revealed, and good always triumphed over evil. Things are rarely so cut and dried in real life, of course, but when you’re young you believe that’s how the world will (or at least should) be, and for that reason they probably had a profound effect on my formative years. I only realized a few years ago that Hitchcock didn’t actually write any of them. A man called Robert Arthur Jnr did, and just used Hitchcock’s name to attract attention.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

This might not be the most original choice, but I’m going to have to choose Stephen King’s On Writing. I read it when it first came out in 2000 when I was just starting out on my writing career. I’d had a few short stories published in the small press and a couple of anthologies, but that book is a gold mine of solid, workable information and practical advice. Just by reading it my writing improved by a considerable amount. More than anything, it instilled a kind of belief in me and threw open the door to a new world. On Writing breaks down ‘the craft’ and makes it appear simple, giving the reader a deeper, more profound understanding of even the most complex aspects.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

My latest release – Human Waste would probably be a good starting point. It’s the story of a prepper who wakes up one morning to find the world overrun with bloodthirsty zombies. But all might not be what it seems. A couple of reviewers have said that my writing often contains a sardonic twist of humour. It can be quite hard to identify, but it’s nearly always there. With Human Waste I wanted to push that aspect a little further. I usually stay away from the more extreme brand of horror. Too much of it comes across as unsophisticated and tacky. But I wrote a story for DOA 3 earlier this year (a series of anthologies on Bloodbound Books which cater toward the more visceral end of the spectrum) and really enjoyed it so that was something else I wanted to explore further.

You can find Chris at www.cmsaunders.wordpress.com

C.M. Saunders is a UK-based freelance journalist and editor. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in over 60 magazines, ezines and anthologies, including Loaded, Record Collector, Fantastic Horror, Trigger Warning, Liquid imagination, and the Literary Hatchet. His books have been both traditionally and independently published, the most recent being Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Uncut), and Human Waste, both of which are available now on Deviant Dolls Publications. He is represented by Media Bitch literary agency.

 

 

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