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One Book Interview #42 – Rob Hayes (Author)

December 8, 2017 by andygraham Leave a Comment

After a collection of posts by dark fiction and horror writers, we move sideways, via steampunk, into fantasy and grimdark.

Author #42 also gives us the most authentic profile picture to date.

(And a stunning book cover for question 7.)

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Derbyshire, UK – Rob Hayes

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

Retribution Falls (1^st in the Tales of the Ketty Jay series) by Chris Wooding. Followed quickly by the Black Lung Captain, because you really need to read the 1^st book first, but the 2^nd book is better. Honestly, I just love the entire Ketty Jay series so very much. They have it all: gun fights, sword fights, dog fights, thrilling chases, epic swashbuckling action, demons, warlocks, golems, a fist fight with a cat, devious religions, ancient secrets, and so very much more, all wrapped up in Chris Wooding’s explosive style.

I first read the book one day when I came down with the flu and it might well be the fastest I’ve ever read a book. I zipped through it and couldn’t put it down. So yeah, everyone should read Retribution Falls so I can have endless conversations about it, and maybe one day we can all convince Chris to write more stories in that world.

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

How about I answer by pointing out that I was once marooned on an island in Fiji for 3 months… Well it wasn’t so much marooned as stationed there while researching coral reefs, but that’s beside the point. I actually took 2 books with me during my maroonment and they were Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton because I figured if I was going to live on a desert island for a bit I should probably dream of dinosaurs. And the other book I took was Game of Thrones by the GRRM Reaper himself. Actually that was the very first time I read anything by George and it was so very painful not having access to any of the later books. Of course now I realise that 3 months waiting in GRRM time is nothing.

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

I’d go with Damoren (book 1 of the Valducan series) by Seth Skorkowsky. It’s an urban fantasy series where demons are hunted by templar knights who wield semi-sentient holy weapons. The hunters form bonds with their weapons which gives it a sort of dual peril aspect. It’s bloody and nail biting and gruesome and again it only gets better as the series goes on.

Now I’m not usually fan of urban fantasy, in fact I have never read another urban fantasy that I liked, but Seth’s stuff is brilliant. It reminds me of the Hellsing anime and has that same dark feel to it.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

I could cheat a little here and say City of Kings (coming 2018), but I’ll stick to the books I’ve already published. I’d go with The Fifth Empire of Man (Best Laid Plans Book 2). It’s actually my most recent release and continues the piratical story I started in Where Loyalties Lie.

I had an absolute blast writing about my pirates and the vulgar, dangerous world they inhabit. But for me I would say the 2^nd book in the series is my favourite because it has so much more going on in it with crazy treasure hunts, massive naval battles, and a race to see who will get to sit on the pirate throne.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

I think I’d say The Dark Portal (book 1 of The Deptford Mice) by Robin Jarvis. I’m a lifelong fan of the fantasy genre and I’m fairly certain it was this book that kicked it all off for me back when I was still but a child. I was a fairly sickly child and my mother and father both worked, so I often found myself alone during those sick days. Sometimes my mother would rent a video from Blockbuster for me, and sometimes she nip to the library to borrow a book or two. One such time she borrowed The Dark Portal and I devoured it as quickly as I was able. I may even have claimed I was ill for a little longer than I actually was just to finish the book. It was the very first fantasy book I can remember reading, and it set me down the path I’m on today

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

On a professional level. I’d go with Aurian (book 1 of The Artefacts of Power) by Maggie Furey. This was the book, and the series, that made me want to give the whole writing thing a go. I’d always made up stories here and there in my head, but it wasn’t until reading Aurian that I started sitting down at a keyboard and trying to turn those dreams into coherent stories. I failed. Back then I failed so very hard. But it was a starting point for me. Twenty years (or so) later and here I am, a professional author. So I’d say Aurian was pretty influential.

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

I would start with The Heresy Within (The Ties that Bind Book 1). It’s the book that started my career and the first in the much longer First Earth Saga, which will eventually encompass multiple series. It’s a sort of fantasy spaghetti western where the Bad, the Worse, and the Ugly have to put aside trying to kill each other to face a common enemy. You can expect magic wielding witch hunters, legendary swordswomen, and a world that is trying its very best to kill them all. And you can find it on Amazon, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble

You can find Rob at www.robjhayes.co.uk

Rob J. Hayes is a UK based fantasy author of both Grimdark and Steampunk. His love of pirates, witch hunters, vikings, and cowboys has influenced his work far and wide and they can all be found in the pages of The Ties that Bind and Best Laid Plans.

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One Book Interview #41 – Matt Hickman (Author)

December 1, 2017 by andygraham Leave a Comment

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 #40 – A Birthday

November 24, 2017 by andygraham Leave a Comment

The One Book Interview reaches forty this week. It has a few more aches and pains in the morning than it did when it turned eighteen, but it’s still going strong.

To celebrate its 40th birthday, here’s a look back through the last few months – words seen through numbers.

We’ve had:

39 interviews, of which 38 are authors and 1 is an editor;

3 book reviews;

7 questions to each person;

a total of 270 different books mentioned (39 people picking 1 book for 7 questions should be 270, so we’re almost exactly right).

Which books?

Classics, indies, short stories, epic fantasy series, and even a photographic book of sharecroppers in Alabama in the early-mid 20th century.

Some books have appeared more than once (I’ve excluded multiple mentions of people’s own books).

Before we get to the answers, most of the participating authors write dystopia, horror and dark fiction so their book choices may not be a complete surprise. If you fancy, have a guess at what the top choices could be.

I’ll wait.

Done?

In reverse order, and starting with the new entries, these are the top choices:

(All book covers link to Amazon UK)

The Wheel of Time – 2x

The Shining – 2x

Ready Player One – 2x

1984 – 2x

Neuromancer – 2x

Imajica – 2x

The Dice Man – 2x

Animal Farm – 2x

The following books appeared in the 18th Birthday post.

The number of times they have appeared in total is given first; the number of times they appeared in the 18th Birthday is given in brackets.

Death Becomes Her – 2x (2x)

Little Bee – 2x (2x)

Pride & Prejudice – 2x (2x)

Think & Grow Rich – 2x (2x)

The Name of the Wind – 2x (2x)

Harry Potter – 3x (Did not appear in the 18th Birthday)

To Kill a Mockingbird – 3x (3x)

The Lord of the Rings – 4x (4x)

A song of Ice and Fire – 6x (2x)

The Martian – 6x (3x)

The Bible – 7x (6x)

The Bible still has reviews on Amazon! GOD hasn’t struck down the non-believers since I pointed it out last time.

The Stand – 8x (2x)

On Writing – 8x (3x)

The fact that there have been some additions since the eighteenth birthday edition is not surprising given there have been 38 interviews rather than 18. What is interesting is that most of the book choices remain unchanged. ASOIAF and The Martian have gone up a few places. LOTR is a non-mover. Stephen King, however, has knocked The Bible off the top spot with not one, but two books.

Mr King deserves a special mention, in that his books have cropped up more than anyone else’s:

The Talisman

The Running Man

Roadwork

Rage

The Long Walk

Gerald’s Game

Different Seasons

Carrie

On Writing

The Stand

Once more, a huge thank you to all the authors that have taken part up to this point.

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One Book Interview #39 – Christina Bergling (Author)

November 13, 2017 by andygraham Leave a Comment

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)

November 2, 2017 by andygraham Leave a Comment

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)

October 26, 2017 by andygraham 1 Comment

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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