tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338584294402051972024-03-05T04:38:10.151+00:00Displacement ActivityAnything beats workMike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-88124315828804555862022-09-08T12:22:00.004+01:002022-09-09T13:21:33.616+01:00SWORDS 'N' STUFF<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 13.5pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZG3clyFr97YVOIw23Dl1D-dPyB6AQxUHoKSgn9IIpQGJYVxB_XH64kX5_bgl_KqLd7Fj_7P8Q9YjepwPx17plrlmHKvkvTFFhzUlgO20a5BAtRAvw344xLNRKaI-p5FffNNFhe3puF9siq91JIFfp9LJjfgD_y2-JOxo5f5JEekBaytQFK_wu8TE/s1198/WIN_20220908_10_53_05_Pro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1198" height="570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZG3clyFr97YVOIw23Dl1D-dPyB6AQxUHoKSgn9IIpQGJYVxB_XH64kX5_bgl_KqLd7Fj_7P8Q9YjepwPx17plrlmHKvkvTFFhzUlgO20a5BAtRAvw344xLNRKaI-p5FffNNFhe3puF9siq91JIFfp9LJjfgD_y2-JOxo5f5JEekBaytQFK_wu8TE/w640-h570/WIN_20220908_10_53_05_Pro.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><p style="text-align: justify;">I’ve
recently gotten back into writing sword and sorcery fiction again. Don’t know why (although by a strange coincidence, S&S does seem to
be getting popular again, so maybe, for once, I’m tuned into the zeitgeist). I
dug out some old stuff and gave it a good polish (or major re-writes, to be
fair) and, miracle of miracles, actually had some of it published: in two of
Parallel Universe’s <i>Swords & Sorceries</i> anthologies, and an
edition of <i>Phantasmagoria</i>. Naturally, spurred on by this, I just
had to have a crack at some new stuff.</p><o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p>
<p style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">The story published in issue 18
of <i>Phantasmagoria</i> in 2021 – “Face of Heaven, Eyes of Hell” – was set in
a corner of my own multiverse (known variously as the Internection, the
Boundless, the Infinite Tiers) where immortals have finally tired of their
immortality and descended to the earthly plane in order to fight themselves
into extinction, causing inevitable mayhem among humans as they go. They’d call
it collateral damage these days. At some point I even jotted down a few notes
(a grandiose term for the odd sentence, or even just a word or two) for more tales set
in the same milieu, building up to a grand finale (with hints of <i>The
Magnificent Seven</i>, or more appropriately, <i>The Seven Samurai</i>).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Recently
I needed to submit something to a writers’ group I’m involved with and, firmly
believing that no one should suffer alone, rattled off a second tale set in
this universe (now labouring under the trite and – I hope – temporary title of ‘the
God War’). However, I couldn’t find the notes I’d originally set down
(imagining I’d deleted the file, either by accident or due to a lack
of enthusiasm) so I used what was lodged in my memory (always a mistake).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Needless
to say, when the hurley-burley was done, I found the original notes, stuck in a
folder marked ‘Archive’. I had of course</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> misremembered quite convincing</span></span><span style="color: white; font-size: medium;">ly, with
what I’d written actually being a mash-up of two separate ideas. Never mind: I now
have half a dozen separate notes that I can fill out into proper plots at some
point (one of which is a cheeky reworking of Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”,
but with a red sword) and what I think is a more apt title for the second story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: white;">It does
go to show, though, never throw anything away. You never know when – or even
how – it’ll come in handy.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-35502116153618564002022-01-03T15:24:00.004+00:002022-06-30T21:00:30.790+01:00THAT WAS 2021, THAT WAS<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">As 2022 kicks into high gear, I thought
it might be about time to look back at what I’ve published in the last twelve
months (and maybe a hint of what’s to come).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;">The year started with the delayed
first issue of the relaunched <i>Startling Stories</i> from Wildside Press, and
edited by Douglas Draa. The lead story was my “Cradle of the Deep” – ostensibly
a Damian Paladin story it was also what they call in TV land a backdoor pilot. Leigh
Oswin and Damy investigate something lurking off the US Atlantic coast on board
the new, 400-foot long experimental submarine cruiser the <i>SC-1</i>. By story’s
end the boat had been officially named the <i>USS Oswin</i>, much to Damy’s
disgust (I think he was expecting it to be <i>USS Paladin</i>). Sub and crew
resurfaced later in the year in <i>The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors: A
Miscellany of Monsters</i> in “Echoes of Days Passed”, a tale deliberately
constructed to mimic its<i> Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea </i>TV series<i> </i>inspiration,
with something big in the North Atlantic sinking a Royal Navy secret testbed
and eating its crew, before the <i>Oswin</i> gets involved due to a somewhat obsessional admiral. Death and destruction inevitably follow.</div></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVvtB-uLXzM5_UW2E9H1Xe4uWGPOuqdmqdScGuNh7z_bvN5CBgnq2Q9wbu8-Dwap1Fxp8Oqbgs53sC1LLOForsrEpHfXGrEA8uRKJS99xS_-8neLOcgA3_gXOo8OQTm7sYbcSA2B8ooFee7UggXZKCy0gH0z-bydIbVF8Pm2x2dTNd-QtrW8wa4Is=s1752" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1272" data-original-width="1752" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVvtB-uLXzM5_UW2E9H1Xe4uWGPOuqdmqdScGuNh7z_bvN5CBgnq2Q9wbu8-Dwap1Fxp8Oqbgs53sC1LLOForsrEpHfXGrEA8uRKJS99xS_-8neLOcgA3_gXOo8OQTm7sYbcSA2B8ooFee7UggXZKCy0gH0z-bydIbVF8Pm2x2dTNd-QtrW8wa4Is=w320-h232" width="320" /></a></div>There’s a third <i>Oswin</i>
story in the works – “Drawing Down Leviathan” – about to be revised and
polished, involving a worldwide, seaborne organisation with huge ships that
make 1930s aircraft carriers look like pedal boats, and an aircraft inspired by
a Bel Geddes design. And even though a couple of Nazis get a walk-on part, I think
I’ve found my series’ main baddies.</span></div></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Next up was <i>Phantasmagoria
#18.</i> This not only had a previously unpublished sword & sorcery piece
of mine – “Face of Heaven, Eyes of Hell” – but also included me being
interviewed by Allison Weir. A double strike if ever there was one.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLzJ2lpG_-RttXYFEbqIGzkrrGBgVnB-p4KKDOX7LFR4y5lmECHWpLXZgAV5cCTysyGCS_Uvc17OhmT1SwbTGo5O46ELPr0cNHY8r-h-n1-fJorg9lHGkC9w5rQ9mzduNw19qXPRe-24sQ_b7T9ik4tHBu-PAaEo8_E3KDi06-utGIGxlYabNWJrM=s2556" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1270" data-original-width="2556" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLzJ2lpG_-RttXYFEbqIGzkrrGBgVnB-p4KKDOX7LFR4y5lmECHWpLXZgAV5cCTysyGCS_Uvc17OhmT1SwbTGo5O46ELPr0cNHY8r-h-n1-fJorg9lHGkC9w5rQ9mzduNw19qXPRe-24sQ_b7T9ik4tHBu-PAaEo8_E3KDi06-utGIGxlYabNWJrM=w400-h198" width="400" /></a></div>And by one of those minor
coincidences, Parallel Universe Publications’ <i>Swords & Sorceries volume
2</i> also published a fantasy story of mine almost simultaneously, “The
Essence of Dust”, which was an old piece that consisted of the original plot
and very little else, having been pretty much rewritten from the ground up. And
like “Face of Heaven, Eyes of Hell” it took place in my own fictional multiverse
(although I prefer the terms Internection, or the Boundless), so there were the
most tenuous of links. There’s also a vague connection with some of the fantasy
strips I wrote for DC Thomson’s <i>Starblazer</i> (and illustrated by Quique
Alcatena) for those who care to look. A few months later, <i>Swords &
Sorceries volume 3</i> published “The Rains of Barofonn”, a follow on from “Essence
of Dust”, once more an old piece that has been revised, polished and expanded slightly.
The submission period for volume 4 starts on April 1<sup>st</sup> (I hope the
date’s not significant) and I will be most definitely throwing my hat in the
ring once more.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another Wildside publication
edited by Douglas Draa – the <i>Weirdbook</i> annual, <i>Zombies</i> – contained
“O Mary <span style="line-height: 107%;">Don’t </span>You Mourn”, a story set in mid-1860s New Orleans and featuring a
Native American protagonist I dreamed up decades ago for an absolutely dreadful
Western novel I abandoned halfway through (you’re welcome). He felt like the
perfect fit for the story, and I may well write more Mattan fiction in the
future.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAtUq9gsO0Vx2PhrHOmhRLK5fxAL6DpOqWtKVAJxuZFKbl0hazEYWJUrrLBC2IXo-N8jwZPnT3KRc7-HANi5rGZmTrGRl6uogMEfZtYnfsaB7aY7C-Ooks4ye3aRwkIoJfkGHDmPdwxGnQqQKN0GfbVCYFcOXqKWIcbNC2O8ghshvw64DMAQpSed0=s1696" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1274" data-original-width="1696" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiAtUq9gsO0Vx2PhrHOmhRLK5fxAL6DpOqWtKVAJxuZFKbl0hazEYWJUrrLBC2IXo-N8jwZPnT3KRc7-HANi5rGZmTrGRl6uogMEfZtYnfsaB7aY7C-Ooks4ye3aRwkIoJfkGHDmPdwxGnQqQKN0GfbVCYFcOXqKWIcbNC2O8ghshvw64DMAQpSed0=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Another anthology that was
delayed for a year, due to the Covid pandemic, was <i>The Mammoth Book of Folk
Horror</i>, from Skyhorse and edited by Stephen Jones. My contribution, “All I
Ever See” took its title from a line in Status Quo’s early hit, “Pictures of
Matchstick Men” (repurposing song titles or lyrics is something I’ve been doing
for a long, long time). Anyone who’s read the story will have made the
connection, I hope.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally there’s <i>Gruesome Grotesques:
Carnival of Freaks</i> from TK Pulp. Editor Trevor Kennedy asked me if I’d like
to contribute and I said I’d do what I could. Inspiration came from a weekend
break to the Lake District. I wasn’t entirely happy when the final documentation
came and I found that not only would we be staying in Blackpool (a town I have
no love for, embodying as it does – in my opinion – all the worst aspects of
British seaside resorts) and a Britannia hotel. Luckily, the hotel had previously
been the Blackpool Hilton and the shine hadn’t rubbed off yet (although
Blackpool remained Blackpool). The first night, the sound of small feet running
up and down the corridor outside our room – combined with what I later realised
was a slight panic attack at breakfast the first day (the restaurant became
increasingly full as we finished eating, and I’d grown unused to crowds) – were
the seeds which quickly grew into “Hall of Dreams” and its dark themes of
childhood abuse and repressed memory. The small fictional seaside town of
Byemouth was no Blackpool, though.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAJ9w72WrMUWqnmsB2_Ix42S5hlWaoKfMh1S47Qi_4mLp-JXsVC9SsVssTJfPTkqXd9i5uFdft2hPKUI_638sEngbzvmnWfCzVLEfpU_HKS-y464rPfjFmcknDIfE8QBNaVBTNN3Exeng1VzZaNOAO3VTmCnZ0ApbgWAKpc8pR1RIqHxK87-FYVgw=s1276" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1276" data-original-width="857" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAJ9w72WrMUWqnmsB2_Ix42S5hlWaoKfMh1S47Qi_4mLp-JXsVC9SsVssTJfPTkqXd9i5uFdft2hPKUI_638sEngbzvmnWfCzVLEfpU_HKS-y464rPfjFmcknDIfE8QBNaVBTNN3Exeng1VzZaNOAO3VTmCnZ0ApbgWAKpc8pR1RIqHxK87-FYVgw=w134-h200" width="134" /></a></div>And that’s it for 2021. I already
have a list of stories to be written, polished or edited within the first
quarter of 2022. Beyond that there’s nothing planned. No doubt something will
turn up. It always does.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Happy New Year!</div></span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></p>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-92151161518118891432021-10-09T15:04:00.002+01:002021-10-09T15:07:55.110+01:00ZOMBIE SEE, ZOMBIE DO<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG1SjgY_wKdZlGnWHmGdDUgfxc4cVHu4HeGZc88U0lzt24HW3zoGH_6f-s6tjZUSF_daTLNi0FhkhzU_rC4WXAvgq7JD_ejkKuUwPpNDPyLtTUXn5QiHtDmLTVuiT4aUguYjzAiBjYuw/s1500/61OSa518AJL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG1SjgY_wKdZlGnWHmGdDUgfxc4cVHu4HeGZc88U0lzt24HW3zoGH_6f-s6tjZUSF_daTLNi0FhkhzU_rC4WXAvgq7JD_ejkKuUwPpNDPyLtTUXn5QiHtDmLTVuiT4aUguYjzAiBjYuw/w266-h400/61OSa518AJL.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I’m no great fan of modern,
so-called zombies in fiction (written or filmed). Mainly because most of the
time the revenants aren’t really zombies – just the living dead (by means
explained or not), and generally with a taste for living flesh (brains!!!!). I don’t
think anyone has ever explained how they’re supposed to digest their meals, or
moan, for that matter (they’re dead – they don’t breath!).<o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yes, I get that Romero’s living dead are meant to be metaphors for capitalism, but most of the time the so-called zombies are clichéd, shambling corpses that can still
somehow overtake a running healthy person (<i>The Walking Dead</i> TV series really
did miss the clue in the title).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: medium;">However, I have been guilty of committing my own zombie stories a couple
of times – although in my defence I do try and go for the traditional, raised
from the dead and used as slaves motif (no doubt clumsily).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The first was “Zombie Dance” in the second Damian Paladin collection, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1546353410" target="_blank">Walkers In Shadow,</a></i> and the second has just been published in the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1479463310" target="_blank"><i>Weirdbook Annual</i>: <i>Zombies!</i></a>.
Entitled “O Mary Don’t You Mourn”, it’s a kind of Weird Western (if New Orleans
can be said to be in the West), set around 1866/67, and featuring a Navajo
character I came up with back in the late 1970s (when I started work on a truly
appalling Western novel – long consigned to the trash-heap of history), and resurrected
not-quite-dead that are a little closer to the zombie of voodoo legend – and inspired
by that nasty fungus which turns insects into suicidal spore spreaders (not to
mention imagery from William Hope Hodgson’s “The Voice in the Night”, which
gave me the heebie-jeebies the first time I read it as a kid).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So, Weird Western zombie story. Another phrase I never thought I’d be
applying to my fiction.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-90592738838774633892021-09-10T21:52:00.001+01:002021-10-09T12:51:17.181+01:00HORRORS OF ALL SORTS<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjEtG_jJdO_UNxsWOWW1otXq4Wn4QJbgbAyQc0ARWAbd0d6jEM67f0wOwzyn1zbb_dJ61Pe7or70lW32-OUQtaezVLNkbutH2-rN9JWgrp8GUm5q6rcg7D3YBDt5sN1PZgphZdcinz9g/s2509/Untitled-1+copy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1253" data-original-width="2509" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjEtG_jJdO_UNxsWOWW1otXq4Wn4QJbgbAyQc0ARWAbd0d6jEM67f0wOwzyn1zbb_dJ61Pe7or70lW32-OUQtaezVLNkbutH2-rN9JWgrp8GUm5q6rcg7D3YBDt5sN1PZgphZdcinz9g/w640-h320/Untitled-1+copy.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">There seems to
be an unwritten rule with regard to writing. As time passes we edit and polish
our work, submit it, and await the acceptance (hopefully) or rejection (sadly
inevitable sometimes). Then we sit back and wait for publication.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">And that’s where
this rule comes in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">You can have
stuff accepted over a period of a year or more, then – because of the vagaries
of the publishing world (and the last couple of years has seen more vagaries
than usual) – nothing for months. Then, like buses, everything turns up at once
(which is fine in a way, because if people aren’t paying attention, it can look
like you’re really prolific).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Which is a
roundabout way of explaining why three short stories of mine are all seeing publication
within a short time of each other, when they’ve been accepted over quite a
range of time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">“All I Ever See”
was accepted for <i>The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror</i> (Skyhorse, ed. Stephen
Jones) back in 2020, but due to the pandemic the book was delayed for a year or
so. The Kindle edition is now available, while the paperback will be out in
October (and is available to pre-order <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1510749861" target="_blank">here</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Echoes of Days
Passed” is the second salty tale of the submarine USS Oswin (first encountered
in “Cradle of the Deep”, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1479457566" target="_blank">Startling Stories magazine 2021</a> </i>[Wildside, ed.
Douglas Draa]) and was accepted for <i>The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 3: A Miscellany of Monsters</i> (The Alchemy Press, ed. Peter Coleborn & Jan Edwards) at the
beginning of the year. This anthology is also due out in October, and is available
to pre-order <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alchemy-Press-Book-Horrors-Miscellany/dp/1911034111/" target="_blank">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Hall of Dreams”
is the baby of the bunch, conceived during a couple of nights’ stay in
Blackpool in July. It will be seeing the light of day in <i>Gruesome Grotesques
Vol 6: Carnival of Freaks</i> (TK Pulp, ed. Trevor Kennedy) in – you guessed it
– October. You’d think there was some sort of festival celebrating spooks and
other horrors at that time of year. Details for this as and when.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Three tales, acceptances
spread over more than a twelve month period, being published within a few weeks
of each other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: medium;">Odd business,
this writing one.</span></span></p></div>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-40712708429879034272021-05-31T15:20:00.005+01:002021-09-09T22:35:02.411+01:00RETURN OF THE SWORDS<div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj48RCMP7zK-yapSY2CYL3tAFxOIcahXyRg3Buq0KaKgCvWwIRr5TdsFOW5KBM1sn75i73Yt5BscyZ8wZGSlvR2hOR4Gd6ZMyVadf4Qah_gQAGmjy8Trk3aUjM1ffg_tAMgfmWybKc7Bg/s2044/Untitled-1+copy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1502" data-original-width="2044" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj48RCMP7zK-yapSY2CYL3tAFxOIcahXyRg3Buq0KaKgCvWwIRr5TdsFOW5KBM1sn75i73Yt5BscyZ8wZGSlvR2hOR4Gd6ZMyVadf4Qah_gQAGmjy8Trk3aUjM1ffg_tAMgfmWybKc7Bg/w640-h470/Untitled-1+copy.png" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span>Decades ago, back
in the mists of time, my earliest attempts at writing revolved around what I
later came to know as Sword & Sorcery (somewhat influenced initially by
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ </span><i>Mars</i><span> series, and then Michael Moorcock’s Eternal
Champion books). These primitive, immature scribblings morphed over time, and
my earliest printed work was a very short story in the British Fantasy Society’s
magazine, </span><i>Dark Horizons</i><span> #10 – “Designs of the Wizard” – in 1974. Two
sequels followed – “Shadows of the Weaver” and “The Closing of the Days” – in </span><i>Dark
Horizons</i><span> #12 and #14 respectively. All were bundled under the overarching
title of “The Second Dragons”, and told an epic tale of human versus humanoid lizards
in a post-apocalyptic desert Earth in well under 10,000 words. I returned to
that particular world a couple more times – “Nightfall of a Dying World” (</span><i>Dark
Horizons</i><span> 28, 1985) and “Fair Dues” (</span><i>Dark Horizons</i><span> 33, 1992) – when the
mood struck, and may well do so again. I even wrote a novel, expanding on the original three stories; posterity will be relieved to know it no longer exists.</span></div></span><p></p></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Now and then I’d
dabble in other S&S tales [“The Pistol and the Sword” (<i>Dark Horizons</i>,
1979), “But the Stones Will Stand” (<i>Fantasy Tales</i> 10, 1982), “Sword of
Light” (<i>Victor Summer Special</i>, 1987), and “Day of the Dark Men” (<i>Fantasy
Tales</i> Vol.12 #6, 1991)], but over time I drifted away from that particular genre, for some reason. (Although I never entirely left: the jokey “Saving
Prince Romero” was published in <i>Unfit for Eden: Postscripts</i> 26/27, in
2012).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Then, during 2020 –
whether it was the unusually summery weather, or lockdown madness, who can say –
I discovered a new enthusiasm for the form. I found time to dust off some of my
unpublished S&S fiction and give it a good polishing (read: re-writing from
the ground up) and I’m glad to say the exercise bore a little fruit. And so – by
one of those typical coincidences which often plague the writer’s world – two
pieces are appearing within a sort time of each other. “Face of Heaven, Eyes of
Hell” has just been published in <i>Phantasmagoria</i> #18, while “The Essence
of Dust” will shortly be released on an unsuspecting world in <i>Swords &
Sorceries</i> <i>Volume 2</i>. And although there is little to connect either tale, they do take place in a shared universe (or should that be multiverse?).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">I think it’s fair
to say my S&S days are actually far from over.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-71825328801585356652020-09-30T17:57:00.002+01:002020-09-30T17:57:22.518+01:00PALADIN FLIES AGAIN<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The new expanded edition of <i>The Paladin Mandates</i> is now out from <a href="http://prose-press.com/" target="_blank">Pro Se Press</a>. In addition to "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (which was only in the original Kindle edition), and "Deck the Halls" (published in the <i>Occult Detective Monster Hunter</i> anthology in 2015) there are two pieces unique to this new edition: "Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking" and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBpVLcv0AJSrf8FOkAn-WYTYjUszMBIh0OCyvEMl2nMvY79CNeg7lV8ViptKMBlCIHlJqU2puEDDdYVPWk27SZO9pzkCpFpQGH9t8botMD7YyCH8xVTwrld7RgxvYq6RPpKzlteubBRQ/s960/Mandates+2020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="633" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBpVLcv0AJSrf8FOkAn-WYTYjUszMBIh0OCyvEMl2nMvY79CNeg7lV8ViptKMBlCIHlJqU2puEDDdYVPWk27SZO9pzkCpFpQGH9t8botMD7YyCH8xVTwrld7RgxvYq6RPpKzlteubBRQ/s320/Mandates+2020.jpg" /></span></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Available in paperback and Kindle from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paladin-Mandates-Mike-Chinn/dp/B08JVLBVZ9/" target="_blank">Amazon US</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Paladin-Mandates-Mike-Chinn/dp/B08JVLBVZ9/" target="_blank">Amazon UK</a></span></p>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-60094800458538063842020-09-30T17:31:00.001+01:002020-09-30T17:31:29.179+01:00MORE HOLMES, GARDENS, AND SINGULAR WORMS<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">As I mentioned in my previous
post, where I mused on some of my published Sherlockian pieces, I briefly
mentioned my contributions to the long-running MX series of charity anthologies
which are compiled for the restoration of Undershaw – the former home of
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and now a Stepping Stones school.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXYO24dZOfxHQUldqQY_9chw2cf5MrxiGqxYu5t-6m6FQNQhmSoH1aveJqJ1WJvA6IP45Ec6awiRrwNzfr5WyYuzcTELsl34iSlLLEflxfWDcYN-V3nQ95VhVLG9Jr4V80dGT4O26nw/s2048/BANNER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="2048" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXYO24dZOfxHQUldqQY_9chw2cf5MrxiGqxYu5t-6m6FQNQhmSoH1aveJqJ1WJvA6IP45Ec6awiRrwNzfr5WyYuzcTELsl34iSlLLEflxfWDcYN-V3nQ95VhVLG9Jr4V80dGT4O26nw/w573-h299/BANNER.jpg" width="573" /></span></a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The first was “The Adventure
of the Vanishing Man” which saw print in <i>The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes
Stories Part V: Christmas Adventures</i> in 2016. This has the honour of being the
first canon Holmes story I ever wrote – since the Steampunk mashup <i>Vallis
Timoris</i> certainly doesn’t count. Next came “The Adventure of the Haunted
Room” in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>The MX Book of New Sherlock
Holmes Stories Part VII: Eliminate the Impossible,</i> <i>1880-1891</i> the
following year – investigations of possibly supernatural events which always have
a rational explanation. A third – “The Adventure of the Singular Worm” – will
debut in <i>The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part XXIII: Some More
Untold Cases, 1887-1894, </i>the middle volume in a trilogy exploring the references
Watson makes to some of Holmes’s undocumented cases over the years 1877 to
1903.</span></p><span style="background-color: black; font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: times; font-size: medium;">If you’d like to contribute to
the Kickstarter for those books, the link’s <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mxpublishing/the-mx-book-of-new-sherlock-holmes-stories-xxii-to-xxiv" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-65141056619955829442020-08-04T19:36:00.010+01:002020-09-30T17:33:48.862+01:00HOLMES IS WHERE THE HEART IS<div style="text-align: justify;"><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Many years ago there was an independent bookshop in Birmingham by the name of Hudsons. During its declining years they introduced a bargain basement (no doubt to get rid of odd items of stock) where all sorts of goodies could be found. One time I came across a thin coffee table edition entitled <i>THE SHERLOCK HOLMES SCRAPBOOK</i> (dated 1973), edited by none other than Peter Haining, with a foreword by the one and only Peter Cushing.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJB87IackRsmXxte_-D-dX_xqF__eoD8kCu2sIrDW6AlioG7vFqqAdH0p_iLevu9gUq19v5HtC4YVLVICbIXaob-yz-RoBXAI05s-YHPOkUEWivZfYArlevIuY1tjJPqFQ_Zo6NCR5Fw/s2048/943976434.0.x.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1432" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJB87IackRsmXxte_-D-dX_xqF__eoD8kCu2sIrDW6AlioG7vFqqAdH0p_iLevu9gUq19v5HtC4YVLVICbIXaob-yz-RoBXAI05s-YHPOkUEWivZfYArlevIuY1tjJPqFQ_Zo6NCR5Fw/w146-h210/943976434.0.x.jpg" width="146" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">It was a fascinating book, filled with articles, artwork, ads – in fact any kind of Sherlockian ephemera you can imagine. And it also mentioned new Holmes fiction had continued to be published after Conan Doyle’s death in 1930. That made me sad because I quite fancied the idea of writing a Holmes pastiche, but imagined the day for such things was gone (and I wouldn’t have known where to find a possible market at the time, anyway).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Fast forward to the 21st century,
and that daydream finally came true. Not only did I end up writing that Holmes
pastiche, I somehow managed a mash-up novel (<i>VALLIS TIMORIS</i>, Fringeworks, 2015), and a
couple of shorts for David Marcum’s MX series of anthologies besides (“The Adventure of
the Vanishing Man”, “The Adventure of the Haunted Room”) with a third – “The
Adventure of the Singular Worm” – due out later in 2020. I even sold a
Professor Moriarty story, “A Function of Probability” to Maxim Jakubowski’s <i>THE
MAMMOTH BOOK OF THE ADVENTURES OF PROFESSOR MORIARTY</i> (Skyhorse, 2016). And did I stop there? Oh no. The latest to see
print is in Belanger Press’s second volume of <i>SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE OCCULT
DETECTIVES</i> anthologies, edited by John Linwood Grant: “The Direction of
Sunbeams”. Once again proving, it’s never
too late.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAVaMS8bkQDzOZHjoDIydeGtI-qZSLuIj8XL9dYtcuD-uqpyNyF3PwBNsdFOUjxYRsaG4E0LsSDhy6w_WqKdlw9ZJkuziW_fk-ARHKDMs2T3-_BqM9OU-JNBtWmyIjUe7LqDzzOd6BdQ/s1360/71V4yeabL6L.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAVaMS8bkQDzOZHjoDIydeGtI-qZSLuIj8XL9dYtcuD-uqpyNyF3PwBNsdFOUjxYRsaG4E0LsSDhy6w_WqKdlw9ZJkuziW_fk-ARHKDMs2T3-_BqM9OU-JNBtWmyIjUe7LqDzzOd6BdQ/w140-h210/71V4yeabL6L.jpg" width="140" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">And if I’d told that
impressionable younger person as he bought that original Haining book, I wonder
if he’d consider the idea “Incredible!” or “Elementary!”.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-50076641109633238462020-02-27T11:40:00.000+00:002020-02-27T12:14:05.841+00:00IT'S PHANTASTIC<br />
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It’s all happening as 2020 kicks off. No sooner is Stephen
Jones’ <i>THE LOVECRAFT SQUAD: RISING</i> published, but Trevor Kennedy’s <i>PHANTASMAGORIA</i>
magazine is running a special (#2, if we’re counting) based around the book and
Lovecraft. Among its many delights will be a brief life and times of one Damian
Paladin – which means I get to share cover billing with some quite delightful
people. Probably be the one and only time, so I’d best make the most of it (and
since it’s alphabetical, I get to be on top).</div>
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<i>PHANTASMAGORIA #14</i> will also include my short story “Chasing
the Dragon” (originally published in Emby Press’s <i>SUPERHERO MONSTER HUNTER:
THE GOOD FIGHT</i>), and elsewhere in that issue there may even be some of my artwork.
So don’t say you haven’t been warned.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Both mags will be available later in March, with an official
launch at StokerCon, Scarborough, in April.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Also launching at StokerCon is <i>THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF
HORRORS 2: STRANGE STORIES AND WEIRD TALES</i>. Damian Paladin – along with
Leigh Oswin, Andy Raven, and Leo Saint-Germain – crop up, the proverbial bad
pennies, in “Digging in the Dirt”: an indirect sequel to the “Hastur La Vista,
Baby” crossover with Adrian Cole’s Nick Nightmare published in <i>THE LOVECRAFT
SQUAD: RISING</i>. Almost as if it was planned (and if you believe that, you
give me <i>way</i> too much credit).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-37518963056538924362019-12-28T17:48:00.001+00:002019-12-28T22:21:16.742+00:002019: THE YEAR THAT WAS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This year’s annual round-up is pretty brief. One of those outwardly calm years when nothing much seems to be happening.</div>
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It started with a short SF piece seeing publication in <i>KZINE </i>#23 in January – “A World in Aspic”. Set in the Derry & Toms roof garden, in an alternate 1920s/30s, with the sort of clunking robots that graced the old movie serials I’d catch the odd episode of at the Jacey cinema in Birmingham during rare childhood Saturday afternoon visits.</div>
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I also worked on a couple of novellas I’d promised people in moments of weakness. One was for Fringeworks: a steampunk Sherlock Holmes sequel to my <i>VALLIS TIMORIS</i> mash-up; the second for Dion Winton-Polak’s <i>TWISTED EARTH</i> shared world. All that interspersed with editing a couple of novels for a friend.</div>
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During the latter half I teamed up once again with old mate Adrian Cole to co-write another Damian Paladin/Nick Nightmare team-up for Stephen Jones’ <i>THE LOVECRAFT SQUAD: RISING</i>. Entitled “Hastur La Vista, Baby”, we somehow kept things going over two separate timelines that eventually merged; and I took the chance to shake things up a little in the Paladin-Oswin universe.</div>
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Speaking of Paladin and Leigh, they continue to fight the good fight in “Digging in the Dirt” for <i>THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF HORRORS 2</i> (out early 2020), and their decidedly <i>VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA</i>-inspired adventure “Cradle of the Deep” is due to appear imminently in <i>STARTLING STORIES</i> #1.</div>
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I also kept the Sherlock Holmes banner flying with the decidedly non-canon “The Direction of Sunbeams” for the self-explanatory <i>SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE OCCULT DETECTIVES</i> anthology coming from Belanger Books.</div>
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And in late 2020 I’ll be making another appearance in a Stephen Jones edited anthology, <i>THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF FOLK HORROR,</i> with “All I Ever See”.</div>
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The year ended with one of those coincidences that crop up infrequently: two interview requests, each coming hard upon the other. One was for Trevor Kennedy’s <i>PHANTASMAGORIA </i>#13, the Christmas special, and the second for an article by Stephen Jewell on DC Thomson’s <i>STARBLAZER </i>digest comic of blessed memory, commissioned by the <i>JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE</i>. Both issues emerged just in time for Christmas.</div>
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As for 2020 itself? Who can say. I continue to fly by the seat of my pants, with little to no planning – but at least I’m keeping boredom at bay. And life still, on occasion, surprises me.</div>
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And so may I take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year, and continuing good fortune in these trying days. </div>
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Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0Priory Rd, Birmingham B28 0TG, UK52.4138634 -1.856217199999946452.4114419 -1.8612596999999464 52.416284899999994 -1.8511746999999463tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-66831697385726543682019-08-12T18:36:00.001+01:002019-08-12T18:36:59.448+01:00ALL I EVER SEE<div style="text-align: justify;">
Really happy to announce my short story "All I Ever See" has been accepted for Stephen Jones' forthcoming anthology <i>The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror</i>. And chuffed to find I'm also going to be sharing it with such luminaries as David A Sutton, Alison Littlewood, and Jan Edwards.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzXO9eAQrGm_MKedjK-QYSvfaAKXUhRiPad-3rgG4x4wviAZwGu6lZLxrrlPS_UPaiJXQ_yzlxYSupQygeVPlFGTwoFqnkXh6fTuaMSt6LpcrqUBpUTb69uDIrkzdyjEIPRzKlBr7oA/s1600/Stickman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="896" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzXO9eAQrGm_MKedjK-QYSvfaAKXUhRiPad-3rgG4x4wviAZwGu6lZLxrrlPS_UPaiJXQ_yzlxYSupQygeVPlFGTwoFqnkXh6fTuaMSt6LpcrqUBpUTb69uDIrkzdyjEIPRzKlBr7oA/s400/Stickman.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The title's a line from an old Status Quo single. That and the above image are all the clues you're going to get.</div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-38704115300622127872018-12-22T11:10:00.001+00:002018-12-22T11:27:13.599+00:002018 AND ALL THAT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">As the year
grinds inevitably towards its end we come, with equal inevitability, to the
annual round-up and hopeful glances towards the future. Not a very long post,
you’ll be glad to hear since 2018 has been fairly quiet with regard to
publications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In June I achieved a lifelong ambition, and had a Jerry Cornelius story published on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/faojc/" target="_blank">Further Adventures of Jerry Cornelius</a> website. Titled <a href="http://www.faojc.com/pierrot-in-bombazine/" target="_blank">"Pierrot in Bombazine"</a> I had fun playing with steampunk tropes, among other things.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcqWaXVbnWmtm3w8erN4q7-bxMZrSqe_gK5GpN0c8ogWqccJAkW58BaPOesTPiFqBlWDCqIbor6Vt4w1afipKcTXnPSIB5tjKtkeAudjl3lDd7DahIybNrFcV6qroTJzp99k42OovSRw/s1600/Pickman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcqWaXVbnWmtm3w8erN4q7-bxMZrSqe_gK5GpN0c8ogWqccJAkW58BaPOesTPiFqBlWDCqIbor6Vt4w1afipKcTXnPSIB5tjKtkeAudjl3lDd7DahIybNrFcV6qroTJzp99k42OovSRw/s200/Pickman.jpg" width="133" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">July saw a story
of mine appear in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GNW765R" target="_blank">PICKMAN’S GALLERY</a> from Ulthar Press: an anthology of
Lovecraftian fiction that took its cue from the original HPL story, “Pickman’s
Model”. My own contribution, “Eigenspace X”, was an askance look at the modern
art world, and what happens when sculpture meets multi-dimensional mathematics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Western I’d
always wanted to have a go at was published by Pro Se Publications in August:
REVENGE IS A COLD PISTOL. I was surprised (and delighted) to discover that not
only were there <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revenge-Cold-Pistol-Mike-Chinn/dp/172451038X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">paperback </a>and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07G2M8D1B" target="_blank">Kindle</a> editions, but also a <a href="http://www.lulu.com/shop/mike-chinn/revenge-is-a-cold-pistol/hardcover/product-23748004.html" target="_blank">hardback</a>. To my mind,
the publishers should have scrapped the paperback and just gone with hardback
(while maybe reducing the price a little): the whole product looks so much
sharper, the cover art more vibrant.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGKBSM3MhoxlIWZIr3yLZLdPsDqLRv68z6uXRkDGDqYJU55HBpEAwG5SPh4BOQAc0gzo6jQ3LzUW1zMORd_CTqor-mY_2NAMs67ppO_5g7OhyphenhyphenVnTlZIoe6U1G6e1nmLUz28Xph7p2MQ/s1600/515boti-r7L._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGKBSM3MhoxlIWZIr3yLZLdPsDqLRv68z6uXRkDGDqYJU55HBpEAwG5SPh4BOQAc0gzo6jQ3LzUW1zMORd_CTqor-mY_2NAMs67ppO_5g7OhyphenhyphenVnTlZIoe6U1G6e1nmLUz28Xph7p2MQ/s200/515boti-r7L._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="133" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/147944085X" target="_blank">WEIRDBOOK #40</a>
included my “And the Living Is Easy”: a short story which started life as a
one-act play, believe it or not. Concerning two sun gods hiding away from a
poisoned or dying sun, it probably works best as short fiction (a good man
always knows his limitations). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And my final
appearance of the year was in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07K37QSM9" target="_blank">THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF HORRORS</a>. Unable to
resist diving back below the deep blue briny and mixing up a Kate Bush track
with a Japanese monster, I came up with “Her Favourite Place”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And for 2019? It’s
often difficult to be precise, because publishing is rarely an exact science,
but I can say that Graeme Hurry’s KZINE #23 is out in January and includes a
short SF story of mine: “A World in Aspic” (which you might describe as valvepunk, if we’re throwing labels around).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_Ch3YaoMJYMWHjr952yeAM9filxNwlDno5SEB-KWDPY4LkfKZrDf7COosAyo__xzplr73e0V8q_O9Wsq9O0RIkeTmhhlsEVYgHyojMEu52-8YTg8g_3OqkaCRRcJvPLbYPWudQhhmg/s1600/kzine+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_Ch3YaoMJYMWHjr952yeAM9filxNwlDno5SEB-KWDPY4LkfKZrDf7COosAyo__xzplr73e0V8q_O9Wsq9O0RIkeTmhhlsEVYgHyojMEu52-8YTg8g_3OqkaCRRcJvPLbYPWudQhhmg/s200/kzine+cover.jpg" width="150" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;">Damian Paladin
will be returning in “Cradle of the Deep” in the first issue of the relaunched
STARTLING STORIES (you guessed it: more underwater frolics), and a revised and
expanded edition of THE PALADIN MANDATES (includes two previously unpublished
adventures for Leigh Oswin and Paladin) should be heading your way. And
elsewhere, if the stars are right, another team-up with Adrian Cole’s Nick
Nightmare. Those two do get around.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Finally, there is
another short novel ready to be unleashed on the unsuspecting world: involving
an updated masked avenger which, no one will be surprised to hear, involves
quite a lot of flying. And hand to hand fighting. And gunplay. Details as and
when. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">* * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And that’s it.
Just remains for me to wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous 2019. Be good to
each other.</span></div>
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Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-3449880084521787992018-10-18T12:33:00.004+01:002018-10-18T12:34:41.094+01:00WHAT'S THAT WEIRD BOOK...?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09UjZcgULClvHgmiXB-FkVNPUoM4PI5zIwEDNxSD56hiDRULs5s1zFVXijOohKR_UorgcmfoUGMIb9uRNd6q1d_T9Q7h5Orpa5M6wmcXWTe4KDDHiomQ9KhhE8cDflTmQ-2Z_eYJDrw/s1600/DSCF1555.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1407" data-original-width="1600" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj09UjZcgULClvHgmiXB-FkVNPUoM4PI5zIwEDNxSD56hiDRULs5s1zFVXijOohKR_UorgcmfoUGMIb9uRNd6q1d_T9Q7h5Orpa5M6wmcXWTe4KDDHiomQ9KhhE8cDflTmQ-2Z_eYJDrw/s320/DSCF1555.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://weirdbook-magazine.com/about-weirdbook/" target="_blank">Weirdbook </a>has existed, in a variety of iterations, since the late 1960s, coming into its own in the mid-1970s. It was a quality small press magazine long before the term <i>Small Press</i> was coined, and I discovered it in the early 70s. I'd joined the British Fantasy Society and was rapidly becoming aware of a hitherto unknown world of authors, books and magazines. The society's annual convention, FantasyCon, gave these publications flesh and I gladly offered up all my hard-earned cash to get my hands on them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Edited by W Paul Ganley, Weirdbook looked the business. It had covers by Stephen Fabian, poems by Robert E Howard and Joseph Payne Brennan, fiction by the likes of H Warner Munn, Brian Lumley, Eddy Bertin, Adrian Cole, Darrell </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Schweitzer and L Sprague de Camp. It was as professional as it was possible to be on a tiny budget</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">. It never occurred to me - fledgling writer that I was - that one day I'd by </span>published<span style="font-family: inherit;"> within its pages.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKtKw1rEvYSFCAP0HT7P5BZu0KuPEVgFYhd7pecK69hp3iI_tdA6pomqzjD3Bs8PhP6nF1M-vf5csFmDUP88zpJ0TXICeeKWw3vL8GnOujxOvaP7aJ8jTa0cRk68mi53e7tVBMmLDk8g/s1600/weirdbook_1984spr_n19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKtKw1rEvYSFCAP0HT7P5BZu0KuPEVgFYhd7pecK69hp3iI_tdA6pomqzjD3Bs8PhP6nF1M-vf5csFmDUP88zpJ0TXICeeKWw3vL8GnOujxOvaP7aJ8jTa0cRk68mi53e7tVBMmLDk8g/s320/weirdbook_1984spr_n19.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Unlike its contemporaries, Weirdbook has managed to survive – now published by Wildside Press and edited by Douglas Draa, with W Paul Ganley as consulting editor - looking to the developing styles of weird fiction of the 21st century whilst unashamedly celebrating its roots. Once again, Darrell Schweitzer and Adrian Cole are regulars, along with plenty of fresh blood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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And I've made it too. Issue 40. Check it out.</div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-3168575833762451132018-08-10T13:28:00.002+01:002018-08-10T13:56:04.837+01:00HAVE PEN WILL SCRIBBLE<br />
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I’m of that generation where Westerns were everywhere:
films, TV, books. I just about remember watching Richard Boone as Paladin (now
where’ve I heard that name before?) in <i>Have Gun, Will Travel</i>, along with <i>Sugarfoot, Rawhide, Wagon Train,</i> and in later years <i>Alias Smith & Jones</i> and <i>The
High Chaparral.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPvUW675kVyow948Orc7H8NkR0SN9FaZSFKQ8yujqyHp-brBDUvyZX2ENjNdXTiOkfAMZTkqnNzUmSjB0lolmmQ1UwcjUfDPyeSwvLe20bu-S4t_Z2UMx-VNI1g7bOXCCmyasKswew-g/s1600/have-gun-will-travel-wire-paladin-72356049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="332" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPvUW675kVyow948Orc7H8NkR0SN9FaZSFKQ8yujqyHp-brBDUvyZX2ENjNdXTiOkfAMZTkqnNzUmSjB0lolmmQ1UwcjUfDPyeSwvLe20bu-S4t_Z2UMx-VNI1g7bOXCCmyasKswew-g/s320/have-gun-will-travel-wire-paladin-72356049.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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But I did lose interest in the movies sometime in the mid-1960s.
Back then the BBC would show a Saturday Western every week and, to be honest,
most were poor quality, assembly-line films lacking in originality, budget, or
decent actors. I reached a point where I just couldn’t bring myself to watch
another Western movie. That is, until I was at polytechnic.<br />
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I was far too young to see <i>A Fistful of Dollars </i>when it
first came out; though I do remember the fuss caused by its amorality and
perceived sadism. Several years later, though, I was a student at Lanchester Polytechnic.
On Wednesday afternoons a film club ran in a lecture theatre; one film I watched
was <i>For a Few Dollars More</i>. It was like a slap around the face. That same year <i>High Plains Drifter</i> was released and I watched it at a Coventry flea-pit on a
double bill with <i>Two Mules for Sister Sara</i>. In no time I was a fan of both Clint
Eastwood and Italian Westerns.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBcg8IwgUr94vr-PhaM53RFMTJUD933WMvLLh4sMbHEHiEBudmr3Z5GZDt7izR-wP6BhW_t3RQj1NCwXK-37yr94x5xF_BbDLJUwNSkIGo02lpfKRtNzNF3ifRUUaBLsRWu5oLjTngRQ/s1600/big_1472957832_image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="1280" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBcg8IwgUr94vr-PhaM53RFMTJUD933WMvLLh4sMbHEHiEBudmr3Z5GZDt7izR-wP6BhW_t3RQj1NCwXK-37yr94x5xF_BbDLJUwNSkIGo02lpfKRtNzNF3ifRUUaBLsRWu5oLjTngRQ/s400/big_1472957832_image.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I never read many Western novels – although paperbacks by British
authors such as Terry Harknett (under a variety of pseudonyms) and JT Edson
were everywhere throughout the 1970s. I did peruse the odd novelisation (such
as the first two “Dollar” films and <i>A Fistful of Dynamite</i>) and Glendon
Swarthout’s <i>The Shootist </i>(the film adaptation of which is still my favourite
John Wayne film). I was – and still am – mainly into Horror, Fantasy and
Science Fiction, and writing same.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then, towards the end of the 70s, I hit a period of enforced
idleness. I don’t know how many of you remember the smallpox outbreak at
Birmingham University’s Medical School, but my department was caught up in the
tragedy. We were sent home for an open-ended period while part of the building
was decontaminated. I grew bored rapidly and, for reasons I no longer remember,
started writing a Western. It was pretty bad: the central character, Quarrel,
was an obvious Man With No Name knock-off, everyone else an assembly of clichés.
I abandoned it when I returned to work.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OHgct0kqcHBS_P1_Y9OQPx-s5VSq8-Gpj8EyGpTcViSBZbzZTq44OW5NuZuE0UHg2L0kcvYwd_qcCwfL4HOs4JMfCAx5WNgRhenE0NO_rIEbPctr_DYuy9_Gn3ZueKj3YYY2jbwiVA/s1600/hqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OHgct0kqcHBS_P1_Y9OQPx-s5VSq8-Gpj8EyGpTcViSBZbzZTq44OW5NuZuE0UHg2L0kcvYwd_qcCwfL4HOs4JMfCAx5WNgRhenE0NO_rIEbPctr_DYuy9_Gn3ZueKj3YYY2jbwiVA/s400/hqdefault.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But the odd thing was, I’d enjoyed it – purple prose and
stupid plot notwithstanding. And it had swiftly become clear that, unless you
were writing a strictly historical one, Westerns were as much Fantasy as
anything from the pen of Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber or Robert E Howard (who
did write Westerns, of course). And Quarrel never went away: lurking in the
depths of my head, biding his time. Eventually, his time came.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A couple of years back, <a href="http://prose-press.com/blog/" target="_blank">Pro Se Publications</a> accepted a
Damian Paladin book, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Walkers-Shadow-Mike-Chinn/dp/1546353410/" target="_blank">Walkers in Shadow</a></i>, for publication, and I found myself wondering if there was
something else I could try out on them. A Western? I thought. Pro Se is a New
Pulp publisher, and Westerns are one of the oldest forms of pulp fiction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
With a new look and a first name – Arieh – Quarrel came
a-knockin’. Shamelessly borrowing the plot of Walpole’s <i>The Castle of Otranto</i>
(well, adapting Samurai movies hadn’t done Sergio Leone or John Sturges any
harm) and going for a slightly more Italian Western vibe, I pitched the idea at Tommy Hancock at Pro Se. “Write it,” he said. And thus was <i>Revenge is a Cold Pistol</i> born. I am now a published Western author – words I never thought I’d
write.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revenge-Cold-Pistol-Mike-Chinn/dp/172451038X/" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="637" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1aRZotEVgpOgut0y-_EOmumiN5ETORadtOi7VBIL57Iu8hUhLW0kq1dEAKO3PJt3DQWr7iluen9PTnC2rq8Gg-I2IYBhg7patJ_SHRAh78gipA-zm4NvDlLVkeHCeszK8AMR99G_scg/s400/38457965_908482129353778_8083737795262152704_n.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Will Arieh Quarrel return? Well, I’m working on a storyline
at the moment, and I’ll pitch it once it’s complete. Then we’ll see.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-2152874722779539692018-04-10T11:11:00.001+01:002018-04-10T11:11:45.650+01:00Review of RADIX OMNIUM MALUM<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">"Anyone who wants to spend time with the uncanny and horrific will find this volume contains gems"</span></i></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Pauline Morgan has reviewed <i>RADIX OMNIUM MALUM & OTHER INCURSIONS</i> for both the <i>SFCrowsnest</i> website and the <i>Birmingham SF Group'</i>s newsletter. With Pauline's permission, I happily repost the review.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Anyone
who has heard of Mike Chinn will probably be familiar with either his steampunk
versions of Sherlock Holmes or his Damian
Paladin stories. Since the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are now out of
copyright, there have been a number of stories and novels (of varying degrees
of competence) using this character. Mike Chinn’s rank in the higher echelons
of the sub-genre but there is a danger of them being lost. Damian Paladin has,
so far, two collections devoted to his exploits which are well worth hunting
down. Mike, though, has written and had published a wide range of other
stories, some of which are included in this new volume. From a man who keeps
guinea pigs they are often surprisingly dark.</i></div>
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<i style="text-indent: 1cm;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2TVhiCVNLDbHZ2HlZjzOZXu60tHpM1zo-KgDVimgEIJM7uokNuh_vepOspiy85JONI10-Ou_WOBHZ2o3zCBocrH78zcl6r7DiEdztPUdUwB8W_ojZGBcGiWsoL824-Y7e6zDM5x7yvg/s1600/Radix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1484" data-original-width="989" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2TVhiCVNLDbHZ2HlZjzOZXu60tHpM1zo-KgDVimgEIJM7uokNuh_vepOspiy85JONI10-Ou_WOBHZ2o3zCBocrH78zcl6r7DiEdztPUdUwB8W_ojZGBcGiWsoL824-Y7e6zDM5x7yvg/s200/Radix.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;">Devising ways to end the world, or at least
human domination of it, is a favourite pastime of horror writers. ‘Radix Omnium
Malus’ (loosely translates as ‘The Root of Evil’) is reminiscent of Brian
Lumley’s ‘Fruiting Bodies’ but here the malicious growth has been magically
invoked and is out of hand and is consuming everything. In ‘Blood of Eden’
instead of an indestructible plant it is Dracula threatening world domination
using corporate means. ‘Cheechee’s Out’ is the start of an alien invasion, with
Cthulhu-type creatures taking over men in high positions. Inevitably, there
will be collateral damage.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;">Monsters of several varieties occur within a
number of these stories. The trick is doing something new with them. In ‘Sons of
the Dragon’ the road builders in Romania encounter vampire worms and
‘Considering the Dead’ relates the history of Cthulhu, but the biggest monsters
are human. ‘Kittens’ begins as an urban myth, this time the story of kittens
being dumped in a glass recycling bin and morphs into serial killer
nastiness. In ‘Only the Lonely’ the
monster is a female sexual predator. Instead of being a warning for young girls
it is the middle-aged man that needs to beware.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;">One of the causes of people believing they have
had supernatural encounters is anxiety. ‘Two Weeks From Saturday’ is one of
those stories that anyone who has been reluctantly included in an event will
understand. For Cliff it is the impossibility of writing a decent story for the
writers’ meeting run by his boss’s son that creates nightmares. Grief, too, is
an emotion that can affect the mind. ‘The Streets Of Crazy Cities’ demonstrates
an extreme reaction that Martyn has after the death of wife, child and several
other people that he knows. It is a story that initially misleads and shows the
skill of the author in its construction.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;">These and the others stories in this volume
challenge the reader. They meld folklore and myth into, mostly, modern
settings. There is one historical story there, ‘Suffer A Witch’ which
demonstrates petty human jealousy and the danger of drawing conclusions. Like
the characters it is unwise to assume that you have all the knowledge needed to
understand the situation. In ‘The Pygmalion Conjuration’ both Dennis, who finds
a conjuration to bring to life photographs of desirable women for sex, and Miss
Grant, the librarian who pointed him towards the relevant book, find to their
cost that they have missing information.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;">Folklore doesn’t have to have an ancient
pedigree. The urban myth behind ‘The Owl That Calls’ has a more recent genesis,
but even these may have some reality behind them as Tomas Ullerden discovers
when expecting to debunk the sighting of a Mothman on Bodmin Moor. While many
myths have their roots in a pagan or superstitious past, the coming of the
steam age has imbued trains with a degree of mysticism, often involving death.
Two train stories are included here. ‘Rescheduled’ sees Graeme having to go
home to fetch the office keys and having distinct problems with trains, while
in ‘The Mercy Seat’ Jim catches up with two friends from his youth. The
memories revolve around the railway bridge by the station and the trains that
run over it</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i style="text-indent: 1cm;">Some of the stories in this volume need to be
read more than once to find the subtleties in the story telling, but for anyone
who wants to spend time with the uncanny and horrific they will find this
volume contains gems.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-60451592972893530902018-02-12T16:35:00.000+00:002018-02-12T16:36:18.697+00:00THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF HORRORS Table of Contents<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJYJ53-UTtSGKtE4SybbFMhWWOxf7b63HaIdXe-BQNo0sQd7Kxnss5Ft2NJeRGq9wKybExrTzMbFhqW5yTy9HN4RoOxUQhTDyDN2hj1a-iK3Z7yWr008FkRLk8e4_2IqptaCwmnLVcA/s1600/horrors-vol-1-ver-3c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="419" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGJYJ53-UTtSGKtE4SybbFMhWWOxf7b63HaIdXe-BQNo0sQd7Kxnss5Ft2NJeRGq9wKybExrTzMbFhqW5yTy9HN4RoOxUQhTDyDN2hj1a-iK3Z7yWr008FkRLk8e4_2IqptaCwmnLVcA/s400/horrors-vol-1-ver-3c.jpg" width="261" /></a></div>
British Fantasy Award winning The Alchemy Press have announced the ToC for their forthcoming anthology (publication date TBA): <i>The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors</i>. It's an impressive lineup. Details can be found on their <a href="https://alchemypress.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/whats-in-horrors/" target="_blank">website</a>.<br />
<br />Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-47822242367386186962018-01-15T22:21:00.000+00:002018-01-15T22:25:37.968+00:00Voyage to the Bottom of the Barrel <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgipu1p1pe3qaL9t_7Njb_4FL6Etk9cCxXqNDQEPoXHAElWT_iwVL22iQ5LCkr564oL8o2IZlS6WQeGQrcYK28G-nPDg0iU5BoF50vA79x2W2Q3OhYXnV7rMahcLUeIZNmbV3jRtlZwYA/s1600/Voyage.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="207" data-original-width="207" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgipu1p1pe3qaL9t_7Njb_4FL6Etk9cCxXqNDQEPoXHAElWT_iwVL22iQ5LCkr564oL8o2IZlS6WQeGQrcYK28G-nPDg0iU5BoF50vA79x2W2Q3OhYXnV7rMahcLUeIZNmbV3jRtlZwYA/s200/Voyage.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
I’ve
always been a ridiculously big fan of the 1960s Irwin Allen TV series <i>Voyage
to the Bottom of the Sea</i> (this will come as no surprise to those who
know me). Submarines, sea monsters, aliens – what’s not to like? And for years
I’ve wanted to write a kind of tribute story, without actually delving into fan
fiction. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
My first
attempt, “Welcome to the Hotel Marianas”, appeared in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0984261028" target="_blank">The Bitter End: Tales of Nautical Terror</a></i> (Pill Hill Press, 2009), and
later republished in my first collection, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992980968" target="_blank">Give Me These Moments Back</a></i> (The Alchemy Press, 2015). I say attempt, since at
some point it drifted away from a <i>VttBotS</i> tribute into slightly more
Lovecraftian territory. Still, the clues were all there: character names, sub
with a glass nose. More recently I submitted another underwater tale for <i>The
Alchemy Press Book of Horrors</i>, and again, although that was set in an
underwater habitation there was nothing about it to suggest an old, cheesy TV
series.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEvpi7ZmKaeqLmqDlC1IPiu50v0sa8PC2XvuDovC_F-lwTedl8DIp0UcbBNeGG4bKWzdt-t1RO8Sqa2Eb7XNT4KS32KAlQi634gRQCSLNVy0WyI5xI5kw8_sfAGDKefLvBFUjiBTYyg/s1600/nintchdbpict000364040991.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="960" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEvpi7ZmKaeqLmqDlC1IPiu50v0sa8PC2XvuDovC_F-lwTedl8DIp0UcbBNeGG4bKWzdt-t1RO8Sqa2Eb7XNT4KS32KAlQi634gRQCSLNVy0WyI5xI5kw8_sfAGDKefLvBFUjiBTYyg/s200/nintchdbpict000364040991.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
Then,
while watching <i>Blue Planet II </i>on BBC TV recently, I was struck by the (speeded up) image
of a sea cucumber stuffing its maw with prey the tentacles on the tips of its
arms had snared. I had to use that in a story somehow, and within a day I knew
it was going to be a Damian Paladin tale; and there was going to be a submarine
in it. An experimental one: bigger and able to dive deeper than any other sub
that existed in the 1930s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
A while
back I was playing around with the idea of writing an adventure novel featuring
a boat based on the French submarine cruiser <i>Surcouf</i>. It was a big old
thing: armed with a twin 8 inch deck turret (the largest allowed by treaty at
the time) and a variety of machine guns, along with a hanger abaft of the
conning tower that housed a reconnaissance seaplane. That vessel fed into
my new US Navy boat and became the blueprint for it – just a little longer, and
minus the hangar (which had caused the <i>Surcouf</i> no end of
trouble). And just for my own amusement (and because I like to have help
visualising stuff) I adapted an image of the <i>Surcouf</i>: trimming back
the hangar, altering the colour scheme, and replacing the French Naval ensign
with the US flag.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBB5SMEXbAlgYRe6Vghj8e_kaBqti2weS3_Qs5BX5UNVLo2JO-QmfUXDgup5yieb2ppGINs7wGGGU9u1O1F3AmMVzbCzZu8pPmATHYZ2g_9CST6z5_QfoUlkViEBM_yDAQeBGz5Y0IbA/s1600/USS+Oswin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="1600" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBB5SMEXbAlgYRe6Vghj8e_kaBqti2weS3_Qs5BX5UNVLo2JO-QmfUXDgup5yieb2ppGINs7wGGGU9u1O1F3AmMVzbCzZu8pPmATHYZ2g_9CST6z5_QfoUlkViEBM_yDAQeBGz5Y0IbA/s640/USS+Oswin.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
As for
the story, “Cradle of the Deep” – I even lifted that from a <i>VttBotS</i> episode
– of course there’s a huge sea monster, and crew members being thrown about inside
the boat.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
The
submarine <i>SG-1</i>, under the able command of Captain Bannon and Lieutenant
Commander Munrow, will be back: helping Paladin in another adventure, and
maybe even plotting its own future course.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-61489964482413545342018-01-07T14:35:00.000+00:002018-01-07T14:35:01.781+00:00Courtesy of Pablo Cheesecake at The Eleoquent Page: a great review of <a href="http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2017/12/07/walkers-in-shadow-by-mike-chinn/" target="_blank">Walkers in Shadow</a>.Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-12413141003520947222018-01-01T16:14:00.001+00:002018-01-05T12:53:11.413+00:00That Was The Year That Was<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A new year, and inevitably thoughts turn to what’s going to
happen over the forthcoming months, as well as back at what was achieved in
2017.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-5gWsqWKVNIrfoNkW1V2tUVUzHfnDdUmCpeUA6bo_rpSmmXGZb2SYJH2hRp_FT-rNQf1ZpZyAXoDpIuOomQruGkTo99Y1s5gvzYTlVhqKhm-5yF7qf1iatV59-eD7We98gFoFVU_INA/s1600/Export+Wizard-1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1225" data-original-width="1600" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-5gWsqWKVNIrfoNkW1V2tUVUzHfnDdUmCpeUA6bo_rpSmmXGZb2SYJH2hRp_FT-rNQf1ZpZyAXoDpIuOomQruGkTo99Y1s5gvzYTlVhqKhm-5yF7qf1iatV59-eD7We98gFoFVU_INA/s320/Export+Wizard-1.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">I had two books out – treading on each others’ heels, it
felt like – quite early on. </span><a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Radix-Omnium-Malum-and-Other-Incursions-Mike-Chinn-David-Riley/9780995717305?ref=grid-view&qid=1503943477917&sr=1-1" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank"><i>Radix Omnium Malum & Other Incursions</i> </a><span style="text-align: justify;">was a
collection of horror tales from </span><a href="http://paralleluniversepublications.blogspot.co.uk/" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Parallel Universe Publications</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, while Damian
Paladin – my 1930s, New York based occult detective and monster hunter –
reappeared on the scene in the collection (or portmanteau novel, if you
prefer), </span><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Walkers-in-Shadow-Mike-Chinn/9781546353416?ref=grid-view&qid=1501238595730&sr=1-11" target="_blank">Walkers in Shadow</a></i><span style="text-align: justify;">, courtesy of </span><a href="http://prose-press.com/" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">Pro Se Productions</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. Paladin also made
his presence felt in issue two of </span><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Occult-Detective-Quarterly-Electric-Pentacle/dp/1546562370/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514818303&sr=1-1&keywords=occult+detective+quarterly" target="_blank">Occult Detective Quarterly</a></i><span style="text-align: justify;"> in “The Black
Tarot”; which was a backdoor way of introducing a new masked character to my
fictional universe: the eponymous Black Tarot. Expect to see more of him in the
future.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59a8mvAXGntppVZgU0ciHKU_gwBryD1q9v9YKflgH2-_vSFX0fg-AQjalnlVKXLp2I6NkiuOUx63GQa7v4k0zCySU1yEE3MPfr98iwz3uY2Iuja8G9iS15EmbvXD5evjKi8hTTDA73g/s1600/51ovdOP-XfL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59a8mvAXGntppVZgU0ciHKU_gwBryD1q9v9YKflgH2-_vSFX0fg-AQjalnlVKXLp2I6NkiuOUx63GQa7v4k0zCySU1yEE3MPfr98iwz3uY2Iuja8G9iS15EmbvXD5evjKi8hTTDA73g/s200/51ovdOP-XfL._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: justify;">On the short story scene I had a Sherlock Holmes tale, “The
Adventure of the Haunted Room”, published in the </span><i style="text-align: justify;"></i><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-New-Sherlock-Holmes-Stories/dp/1787052028/ref=sr_1_2_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514819273&sr=1-2&keywords=the+mx+book+of+new+sherlock+holmes+stories" target="_blank">The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part VII: Eliminate the Impossible</a></i><span style="text-align: justify;">, and a science fiction short,
“More Than Meets” in </span><span style="text-align: justify;"><i>Nebula Rift </i>vol.4 #11</span><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The middle of the year saw me drifting further into the
world of Pulp fiction when I wrote a digest novel, <i>The Griffon: Renaissance</i>,
for Pro Se. An updating (and well ahead of <i>Doctor Who</i>, a sex change) of the
Arch Whitehouse character into a modern, shared universe, it involves plenty of
intrigue, air battles and fire fights (all with technology just a shade more
advanced than our own – well, it is Pulp adventure stuff). Great fun to write
and, I hope, to read, when it’s published.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9fYpM6aeDnj7sEMxPmOB0ibQNDcSAHUWynp00dW_DDG5bv6LrB5qyzMCOcYu11gagKjiYbAuvKJEvk0hDsGCgHCuNe_ADSw4MtKuL6zHIb8wbZbwsvgok1oJdbtHqxy7ff33h7_2WQA/s1600/51oWVvMQfnL._SX384_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="386" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9fYpM6aeDnj7sEMxPmOB0ibQNDcSAHUWynp00dW_DDG5bv6LrB5qyzMCOcYu11gagKjiYbAuvKJEvk0hDsGCgHCuNe_ADSw4MtKuL6zHIb8wbZbwsvgok1oJdbtHqxy7ff33h7_2WQA/s200/51oWVvMQfnL._SX384_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="154" /></a></div>
And for 2018? The above novel, fingers crossed, along with two
more from Pro Se. There’s a post Civil War Western, <i>Revenge is a Cold Pistol</i> and if all goes well, a revised and expanded reprint of the first Paladin book,
<i>The Paladin Mandates.</i> There are a couple more short stories due to see print –
one SF, one Lovecraftian – and partway through a new Paladin story I realised
that the experimental US submarine and crew I’d created would definitely be
back in a later adventure, maybe even spun off into their own series. The Paladin
universe expands apace. I also have a Holmes novella to finish – one set in the
same Steampunk universe as <i><a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Vallis-Timoris-Mike-Chinn-Sir-Arthur-Conan-Doyle-Guy-Adams/9781909573246" target="_blank">Vallis Timoris</a></i> – and a Fantasy novella to rewrite
and update (which already got put back last year, so I need to focus), tentatively
entitled <i>Warriors of the Endless.</i></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I’m sure that won’t be the end of it: life takes odd, unpredictable
turns (this time last year, if you’d said I’d be writing a Griffon adventure, I’d
have patted you on the head and advised taking more water with it). But for
now, it’ll do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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Happy New Year.<o:p></o:p></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-51789477532455420012017-09-16T14:43:00.003+01:002017-09-16T15:42:18.118+01:00Thoughts on 1968 movie HANG 'EM HIGH<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfGFIXQmk_p47O4HjU0jf9M2R6pNp4iVXCww-whqeoZVXK5d6aq5cBGI4qPrJQrBkcn_CksNq4_uF6uiG4dlPh4FQkglveA7elJucbV87Ij5MdVVgUvwfDFoKX26dMkxYokFRGlRXGBQ/s1600/Hang_Em_High.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="299" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfGFIXQmk_p47O4HjU0jf9M2R6pNp4iVXCww-whqeoZVXK5d6aq5cBGI4qPrJQrBkcn_CksNq4_uF6uiG4dlPh4FQkglveA7elJucbV87Ij5MdVVgUvwfDFoKX26dMkxYokFRGlRXGBQ/s320/Hang_Em_High.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
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Watched the Clint Eastwood Western <i>Hang ’Em High</i> (1968) last
night – only the second time I’ve seen it. The first time, some decades back, I
was sorely disappointed; I think I was expecting something more like the <i>Dollar </i>films, or <i>High Plains Drifter</i>, while this offering is more traditional
(although I’ve seen it described as revisionist, which I’d dispute). I
thought I’d be fair and give it another go.<br />
<br />
It’s not as bad as I remember it – but it’s a long way from
good. With an almost 2 hour (sometimes too leisurely) running time it could
benefit with at least half an hour snipped off. The mass hanging scene, especially,
feels interminable. I appreciate the director wanting to convey some of the
inappropriate carnival atmosphere such an event would have generated, but it
could have been conveyed just as well – or maybe better – with the judicious application
of scissors. The story line meanders too, and feels unfocused.<br />
<br />
There’s a parade of familiar and famous faces – such as
Dennis Hopper, Alan Hale Jr., Bruce Dern, James MacArthur and Ben Johnson – but
too often they’re little more than extended cameos or filler material; their characters flitting
across the screen in the service of Eastwood’s, then discarded as though the writer/director
had grown bored with them. All Hopper is given to do is escape from a holding
cell and get shot down in the street for his trouble – not exactly stretching his talents.
And Johnson’s Marshal Bliss – after cutting down Eastwood's hanged but still living Jed Cooper and delivering him to Pat
Hingle’s Judge Fenton – is written off in a couple of lines of dialogue (killed in a
gun down, off-screen). Alan Hale Jr. fares little better. And the inevitable love interest, in the shape of Inger
Stevens, feels just as incidental, her own tragedy denied any type of closure.<br />
<br />
The film was, of course, an attempt to cash in on Eastwood’s
rising star and, since he’d come to fame in an Italian Western trilogy, what
better than to cast him in an American Western. At the time, <i>Variety </i>described
it as “a poor American-made imitation of a poor Italian-made imitation of an
American-made Western.” Which is a bit harsh (many Americans felt the Italian cinema
was trampling all over a beloved art form and only the US should be allowed to
make Westerns), but close to the truth. For a while Hollywood, recognising the box
office appeal of so-called Spaghetti Westerns, tried to copy their style, with
little success. It occurred to me that the film has a slightly unfinished feel
to it, as though rushed out to capitalise on Eastwood’s name (after all, they
probably weren’t to know he’d still be a major earner almost half a century
later: movies and their audiences are fickle things). Judicious editing and overall
tightening would make a better film – although still not a great one. Those were
still in the future.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-58708395723385618752017-09-13T17:02:00.001+01:002017-09-13T17:07:14.074+01:00MY FANTASYCON 2017 SCHEDULE<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Somehow, I find myself on three panels in this year's convention. And all on Saturday. What did I - and you, dear attendee - do to deserve that?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u>OCCULT DETECTIVES<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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<b><u>Saturday 12 Noon (Panel Room 1) </u></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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With Dave Brzeski (mod), Mike Chinn, John Linwood Grant, Chico Kidd, Autumn Barlow, A. K. Benedict, Ben Aaronovitch.</div>
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<i>Arthur Conan Doyle popularised the concept of the series
character in detective fiction with Sherlock Holmes. It wasn’t long before
authors of supernatural fiction swiped the idea and invented their own
investigators, who didn’t share the Great Detective’s disdain for all things
paranormal. There are now as many variant types of these ghost-breakers and
monster hunters as there are ab-natural threats (as Hodgson’s Carnacki would
have put it) for them to protect humanity from. Our panel discusses these variations
and their experiences. Join us for an enlightening conversation.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u>PLAYING WITH THE REAL</u></b></div>
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<b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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<b><u>Saturday 1.30pm (Panel Room 3)</u></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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With Peter Coleborn (mod), Andrew Hook, Tej Turner, Mike Chinn, Tracy Fahey, Jacey Bedford.</div>
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<i>Weaving memories, true life experiences and human responses
into the fantastic, the monstrous and the alien can really bring life to
strange characters. Join us to explore examples of how strange characters can
relate to us through human experience and how real life can be a source of
inspiration for genre fiction.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u>UNRULY AUTHORS: THE PERILS OF BEING AN EDITOR</u></b></div>
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<b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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<b><u>Saturday 5pm (Panel Room 1)</u></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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With Juliet Mushens (mod), Tim Major, Colleen Anderson, Mike Chinn, Rose Drew</div>
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<i>The relationship between an editor and a writer is intimate
and essential. Our panel of editors will discuss some of the difficulties that
can arise during this relationship, without breaching any doctor/patient
confidentiality! Along the way, you may find some tips on how to best manage
your part in a writer/editor relationship.</i></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-6269046346617389952017-06-26T20:28:00.000+01:002017-07-25T17:54:05.530+01:00THE RETURN OF THE PALADIN - PART TWO<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Back in 2009 I wrote in this ’ere blog about it being over
ten years since <i>THE PALADIN MANDATES </i>was published by The Alchemy Press, and
how a review of same in <i>THEAKER'S QUARTERLY DIGEST</i> provoked
me into writing a sparkly fresh Paladin story: “Sailors of the Skies” for <i>DARK
HORIZONS</i> #55 (The British Fantasy Society, 2009).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim4azgwWiPkqrrr7KLsLXJgLjpBnHnsUMcNX48CBF3d-ovc3iDdvMBn5xR1M4YG72ih-3n9Jyhb5a_ugfXjnddOCqt0-WUPdOvU06Cn-FMNPn59m9pkvHLJjr5m8NWMh6EwF2SmleUtA/s1600/kadath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1104" data-original-width="1600" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim4azgwWiPkqrrr7KLsLXJgLjpBnHnsUMcNX48CBF3d-ovc3iDdvMBn5xR1M4YG72ih-3n9Jyhb5a_ugfXjnddOCqt0-WUPdOvU06Cn-FMNPn59m9pkvHLJjr5m8NWMh6EwF2SmleUtA/s320/kadath.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Paladin himself had been born many years earlier, in “Death
Wish Mandate” published in <i>KADATH </i>#5, by Francesco Cova. He’d had a long
gestation.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Ever since he drew <i>SWORD OF SORCERY</i> for DC Comics (1973), I’ve
been a fan of Howard Chaykin. In 1975 he wrote and drew the first two issues of
<i>THE SCORPION</i> for Atlas/Seaboard Comics. Set in the 1930s, it pitted an
apparently immortal character – Moro Frost – against slightly more mundane
villains. At the time I didn’t know much about the rich history of masked
avengers who had graced the pages of pulp magazines back before the Second
World War (with the exception of Doc Savage and the Shadow), so I was pretty
ignorant of where Chaykin was coming from. After <i>THE SCORPION</i> ceased publication,
he took the idea over to Marvel and created, with a slight change of costume
and dropping the immortal bit, Dominic Fortune. Despite my ignorance of
history, there was something about both characters that sparked an interest in
me. I wanted to do something similar. But what, and how? I couldn’t quite nail
it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpkpYr3cQ4PfcIg26vSUrYSkRBiT5hEqVMRTqL593s65M-dB31sgHViDQgqHVCfa3AHX3iBXd_uYFMgI4qj7G410-bQCoCSjLXSxbSLNc1UVXhS_fOoGES5VY9PBsw4wbf4DSCgCr5RA/s1600/Chaykin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1222" data-original-width="1600" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpkpYr3cQ4PfcIg26vSUrYSkRBiT5hEqVMRTqL593s65M-dB31sgHViDQgqHVCfa3AHX3iBXd_uYFMgI4qj7G410-bQCoCSjLXSxbSLNc1UVXhS_fOoGES5VY9PBsw4wbf4DSCgCr5RA/s320/Chaykin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It took a phone call from David Sutton to crystallise the
idea. He told me that Francesco Cova wanted to do an occult detective issue of <i>KADATH</i>,
and there was space left if I wanted to submit. That was all I needed. An occult
detective – of course! Set in 1930s New York, and dressed in a style not unlike
the Scorpion. Over the following years I wrote a few more Paladin tales –
selling a couple – before The Alchemy Press collected them for their first
publication in 1998.</div>
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</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN3YlT-1wUokRSHyarh3wNZDBj0f6UCnWDW_VTEly55SRzdZnSg7R53EI0EW8M3TnMP_pmNkXQi1UnBpkn1D5-DteF3BJOPBh5NFpuCHdB_2Z_zPTJkwmbEAjjfY_RjYf0xW4HQ1c9BQ/s1600/Mandates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="443" data-original-width="641" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN3YlT-1wUokRSHyarh3wNZDBj0f6UCnWDW_VTEly55SRzdZnSg7R53EI0EW8M3TnMP_pmNkXQi1UnBpkn1D5-DteF3BJOPBh5NFpuCHdB_2Z_zPTJkwmbEAjjfY_RjYf0xW4HQ1c9BQ/s320/Mandates.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The character went into something of a hiatus for over a
decade, until his resurrection in <i>DARK HORIZONS</i>. Again it was just the spark I needed.
I wrote several more Paladin stories, including: “There’ll Be A Hot Time in the
Old Town Tonight”, for an expanded Kindle edition of <i>THE PALADIN MANDATES</i> (The
Alchemy Press, 2012); a cross-over with Nick Nightmare (co-written with Nick’s
creator, Adrian Cole) “Fire All of the Guns At One Time” for the British Fantasy
Award winning <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nick-Nightmare-Investigates-Adrian-Cole/dp/0957348983/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498504173&sr=1-1&keywords=nick+nightmare+investigates" target="_blank">NICK NIGHTMARE INVESTIGATES</a></i> (Alchemy Press/Airgedlamh, 2014); and
the Christmas-themed “Deck the Halls” in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Occult-Detective-Monster-Hunter-Reynolds/dp/1940344212/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498504340&sr=8-2&keywords=occult+detective+monster+hunter" target="_blank"><i>OCCULT DETECTIVE MONSTER HUNTER</i> </a>(Emby
Press, 2015).</div>
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<br /></div>
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And finally, in 2017, almost treading on each other’s heels,
<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Occult-Detective-Quarterly-Electric-Pentacle/dp/1546562370/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498504408&sr=1-1&keywords=occult+detective+quarterly" target="_blank"><i>OCCULT DETECTIVE QUARTERLY </i>#2 </a>included “The Black Tarot” (in which I sneakily
introduced the world to a brand new masked vigilante character – having learned
a little more of the Pulp tradition in the intervening years), and <a href="http://prose-press.com/blog/2017/5/4/death-defying-occult-adventurers-walkers-in-shadow-debuts" target="_blank">Pro Se Productions</a> published the eagerly-awaited (well – I was all agog anyway)
collection/portmanteau novel, <i>WALKERS IN SHADOW</i>: six new tales of adventure,
plus a revised “Sailors of the Skies”).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtxxsraRkTsYEwKx5SwSN93fxqxe_Ldfmuob4ZnAqa-9v_iB-A9GSdeElM49OP-Jh3Le31ya7KeXWUCi1Dw0TnXeYwZKPW9I9RltiES3SK_mrNzMWqVPCGl6-Cy3N1zFNb84Fqi2AjiA/s1600/banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="1600" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtxxsraRkTsYEwKx5SwSN93fxqxe_Ldfmuob4ZnAqa-9v_iB-A9GSdeElM49OP-Jh3Le31ya7KeXWUCi1Dw0TnXeYwZKPW9I9RltiES3SK_mrNzMWqVPCGl6-Cy3N1zFNb84Fqi2AjiA/s400/banner.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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So what’s next? Well, there are plans to re-issue <i>PALADIN
MANDATES</i> in expanded form, and “The Black Tarot” is intended to be the first in
a new bunch of adventures for Paladin, Leigh Oswin and his expanding repertory
company.</div>
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<br /></div>
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One thing’s for sure: the world shall hear from Damian Paladin
again.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-35852525852163512042017-02-25T15:16:00.001+00:002017-02-25T20:23:46.856+00:00Collective Lunacy<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Up until three years ago it had
never crossed my mind to have a collection of my short fiction published. Over the
decades I’ve sold something like sixty-plus short stories, but even my closest friends
– at their most charitable – would agree the earlier stuff isn’t worth
collecting.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Yet, in a moment of
uncharacteristic optimism, I selected eighteen pieces and approached <a href="https://alchemypress.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">The Alchemy Press</a>. In 2015, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Give-Me-These-Moments-Back/dp/0992980968/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488034943&sr=1-1&keywords=give+me+these+moments+back" target="_blank">GIVE ME THESE MOMENTS BACK</a></i> was published (a
title which, I am told, Alchemy Press supremo Peter Coleborn keeps wanting to
correct to something less poetic and more grammatical). The contents were,
typically, somewhat – shall we say, eclectic? I’ve always been something of a
gadfly: hopping from one genre to another without any obvious plan or
direction, and the collection reflected that. I’ve no idea if, from a marketing
standpoint, it was a good thing or not.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Then, as 2016 tailed off, it
occurred to me that I actually had sufficient material for a more horror (or
dark fantasy, if you prefer) based collection. I put together sixteen dark
tales – two previously unpublished – and asked David A Riley of <a href="http://paralleluniversepublications.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-us.html" target="_blank">Parallel Universe Publications</a> if he’d like to take a look at <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radix-Omnium-Malum-Other-Incursions/dp/0995717303/ref=la_B001IZTG92_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488035008&sr=1-1" target="_blank">RADIX OMNIUM MALUM & OTHER INCURSIONS</a></i>. Next thing you know, I have a sale; and better yet:
David A Sutton agreed to write the introduction (to my embarrassment, making me
sound like some kind of Renaissance Man). </div>
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However, at some point in the
past I think I must have irritated the gods of publishing. When I was editing <i>SWORDS
AGAINST THE MILLENNIUM</i> for The Alchemy Press, the signature sheet for the
limited edition hardback got lost in the post, delaying publication; a few
years later Amazon questioned whether Fringeworks had the rights to publish my
Sherlock Holmes steampunk mash-up, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vallis-Timoris-Arthur-Moriarty-Paradigm/dp/1909573248/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488035193&sr=1-2&keywords=vallis+timoris" target="_blank">VALLIS TIMORIS</a></i> and held it up; and
just as <i>RADIX</i>’s publication was announced, Amazon took <i>that</i> down
for some reason. I began to detect a theme.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Luckily the problem was resolved
quickly, and the book back on sale in a day or two.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But for now I’m all out of
material. The next collection will have to wait until I’m rich and famous. <i>MIKE
CHINN: THE FORMATIVE YEARS, </i>and all that early stuff.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-2382071519339920632016-07-07T11:49:00.001+01:002016-07-07T11:49:53.000+01:00Peter Tennant Reviews GIVE ME THESE MOMENTS BACK<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Peter Tennant did a mammoth review of titles from The Alchemy Press in Black Static #50. Below is the review for GIVE ME THESE MOMENTS BACK.</div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Mike Chinn[...]'s collection </span><b style="text-align: justify;">GIVE ME THESE MOMENTS BACK</b><span style="text-align: justify;"> (Alchemy
Press pb, 266pp, £9.99) opens with ‘Welcome to the Hotel Marianas’ in which a
submersible with idle rich passengers voyages to a hotel built in the depths of
the Mariana Trench, only to find that something monstrous is waiting. It’s a
story that’s written with a feel of momentous events taking place and
increasing unease as they unfold, the characters well drawn and the idea of the
ultimate in adventure holidays coming across strongly, all of which can’t
obscure the fact that ultimately it is just a gotcha story, one in which
everything, all the careful preparation, leads up to the moment when the big
bad jumps out.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">There’s a genuinely
creepy feel to ‘Facades’, with a couple on holiday in Venice getting on the
city’s bad side, though you suspect that the fault lies as much in their
natures as in that of the city. The atmosphere of menace builds gradually and
surely, with Chinn showing a fine sense of place and grasp of his characters’ motivations. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">The scientist protagonist of ‘A Matter of Degree’ tries to prove the worth of
the suction cups he’s developed by scaling an unfinished bridge building
project. In a weird dislocation of reality his attempt at exposure backfires,
though he does achieve immortality of a kind in a twist ending, the story
entertaining with its gonzo ideas and the portrait of ambition warped badly out
of true.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">In ‘All Under Hatches Stow’d’ a group of foresters become stuck on a
boat in the middle of a lake when their work unleashes a plague. Again, the
sense of place is strong, with Chinn meticulously filling in the background
picture, but the perils of the plague are overshadowed by the warped
personalities of the people on board the boat, monsters in human form whose ire
is directed at the only woman in their party. There’s a sense here of something
else going on, something that hovers just out of the reader’s view, possibly
related to </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Prospero’s Books</i><span style="text-align: justify;">, a film
one man watches obsessively, and comparisons with Shakespeare’s </span><i style="text-align: justify;">The Tempest </i><span style="text-align: justify;">are there to be made.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Resurrected
musicians play to adoring crowds in ‘Be Grateful When You’re Dead’, but the
reality of their condition repels people when the music ends. Underlying all
this is a subtext about how the dead hand of the past can be an end to future
and present creativity, the suspicion that all our idols have feet of clay and
only their untimely deaths prevents us from realising this.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Japanese whalers
are lured into strange waters and attacked by a terrible beast in ‘Kami Ga
Kikoemasu’, a story that has about it something of the weirdness of Hodgson’s
nautical tales, while at the same time raising vital questions about our lack
of respect for the environment and nature.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">An
advertising executive with a novel idea on how to promote a beauty product
finds herself on the receiving end of the attentions of an otherworldly entity
in ‘All Beauty Must Die’. The story explores our obsession with beauty and the
things we might be willing to do to preserve it, while also casting a jaundiced
eye over the advertising industry, all of which contributes to the ultimate horror
of what is taking place. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">Set in Victorian times, ‘Parlour Games’ has a guest at
a dinner party whose host is renowned for his unusual entertainments finding
that he is to be the subject of tonight’s diversion, the story engaging and
with a nasty sting in the tail. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">‘Cold Rain’ is perhaps the most oblique story
here, with Adam wandering through a watered down landscape, one in which it’s
never really clear if he is a ghost or haunted by others, the surreal feel of
it all unsettling, but at the same vaguely dissatisfying, more mood piece than
story.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">In ‘Once
Upon an Easter’ treasure seekers in Mexico fall out among themselves, with
gunplay and treachery all in a day’s work, the story an exciting read that
doesn’t outstay its welcome, but I suspect won’t be remembered long after the
reading is done either. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">A brother and sister on vacation together have an
unusual encounter in ‘The Appalachian Collection’, a story which is beautifully
written but for my money is a tale where the payoff simply doesn’t justify the
trip there. With its strange museum and overly obliging moteliers it reeks of
the outré and weird, but on this occasion better to travel than arrive, as it
feels like an assemblage of effects rather than a story. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">‘Just the Fare Back
Home’ gives us the tale of a scam, with a man masquerading as a police officer
and his partner a hooker in all but name. It was fun to read, with some decent
characterisation and a fine comeuppance for the two deserving victims, though
from the point of view of Molly for all practical purposes she is prostituting
herself, so I’m not sure what purpose the scam served and I couldn’t really see
any point to the betrayal by her partner in crime.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">Tarl Genin
and his fellows live in the Belows, surviving on whatever scraps fall from the
world above, but in the story ‘Harbour Lights’ their numbers are being thinned
by an unknown killer. Chinn excels here in the creation of a blighted world,
one in which human beings are little different from the vermin with which they
co-exist, and he wraps it up in an exciting and gripping story, one that revels
in madness and bleak characterisation, but ends on a solitary note of hope. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">‘Like
a Bird’ is the story of photographer Connor, taking publicity and promotional
shots in the Azores, guilt ridden over the death of his wife, finding sexual
consolation with two very different women who work at his hotel. It’s an
erotically charged story, but one with something far more sinister going on in
the background as the original inhabitants of the islands return to fill it
with their progeny. At the heart of the story is the concept of taking
responsibility for our actions, and what the failure to contain lust may result
in.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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A chance
encounter with a woman from his past, results in a catastrophe for the
protagonist of ‘Give Me These Moments Back’, the story intriguing but
ultimately a little too off the wall for my liking, the feeling that we’re only
being given clues which don’t quite add up. </div>
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<br /></div>
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There’s a noir feel to ‘Brindley’s
Place’, with a man taking a stripper to a gangster’s crib, but the real slant
of the story is in the background details and the picture that finally emerges
of our protagonist, a man who made one mistake and has been paying for it ever
since. As if to underline the point, Chinn offers no happy ending, no way out
from under, with our hero having to settle for the occasional gesture and
sparks of verbal defiance that mock his fate.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Written in the form of daily
diary entries, ‘Holding It In’ tells of a retired TV personality who works as
Father Christmas at a local garden centre, his big secret that there is a
kidnapped girl kept prisoner in his basement. The thrust of the story lies in
the disconnect between the man’s rambling, self-indulgent memoir and the reality
of what he is doing, with occasional lapses into reality where his real motives
come to the fore and the reader is appalled by what is seen through the bars of
the narrative. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Ending the collection is the fantasy romp ‘Saving Prince Romero’,
a gloriously entertaining melange of wizards and flying boats, swordplay and
double dealing, with larger than life characters and some surprising twists in
the plot. It’s an exuberant and fun note on which to end this assemblage of
work by a writer who wears his influences lightly and seems to find inspiration
in every corner of the genre and its culture.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJp9j-s_Iworn1C5Ok4JujrgeXDQGX3PfpcD2V-26VTuJpGGc3JVo9QqCrlWs4mXrnclijItozPVvhCUwYYlh1B-7EkxxMAwhuh28KWUPxHxssdqA867hbW3WhbGBh8VIdC9dyWgbjw/s1600/61fQGoqJKnL._SX352_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJp9j-s_Iworn1C5Ok4JujrgeXDQGX3PfpcD2V-26VTuJpGGc3JVo9QqCrlWs4mXrnclijItozPVvhCUwYYlh1B-7EkxxMAwhuh28KWUPxHxssdqA867hbW3WhbGBh8VIdC9dyWgbjw/s320/61fQGoqJKnL._SX352_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Reproduced with kind permission of the author. Copyright 2016 Peter Tennant and <i>Black Static</i>.</div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33858429440205197.post-55958035212596523272016-05-09T14:33:00.000+01:002016-05-09T14:33:08.482+01:00VALLIS TIMORIS Reviewed<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p>Pauline Morgan has recently reviewed VALLIS TIMORIS for the Birmingham SF Group's newsletter, and she has very kindly allowed me to reproduce it here.</o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>VALLIS TIMORIS by Mike Chinn and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle</i></div>
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<i>Fringeworks, Kindle edition £3.86, £11.99 paperback, 289 pages.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i>ISBN:
978-1-909573-24-6</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKopyeWCoXS1Uqmd3lZuxojKq4TqPIKYEIfQn1eqLdJ9jBU_q7c1jfFSA73hfe4l1MPonqxlzdGjUsfpRffnSRx4uwLubJzGnYZqCO_dZWRfhhiRZMJtbBCOFR07CHTWfkYk_dLAlkQ/s1600/10947319_10206618314923310_849488022141708790_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFKopyeWCoXS1Uqmd3lZuxojKq4TqPIKYEIfQn1eqLdJ9jBU_q7c1jfFSA73hfe4l1MPonqxlzdGjUsfpRffnSRx4uwLubJzGnYZqCO_dZWRfhhiRZMJtbBCOFR07CHTWfkYk_dLAlkQ/s320/10947319_10206618314923310_849488022141708790_n.jpg" width="229" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;">Copyright is a tricky minefield
to navigate. Different countries interpret it differently. Once an author dies,
there is a period of time before their works become out of copyright. It means
that the publications can be reprinted without any royalties paid or permission
required from the estate. It also means that characters created by the
out-of-copyright author become available for further adventures involving them
to be penned. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is out of copyright and his most
celebrated character, Sherlock Holmes, is in the public domain. As a result,
the BBC have created a modern version of Holmes which worked brilliantly.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;">Adrian Middleton has taken
advantage of the situation by creating a series of books under the general
heading of the </i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Moriarty Paradigm</span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">. The brief for his authors includes using
the original Doyle text and not only adding to improve the flow for a modern
reader but to place the story in a parallel universe. The basis for this
treatment by Mike Chinn is THE VALLEY OF FEAR.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;">The first thing to note is that
this alternative Holmes is set against a steampunk background with a network of
aerostats (dirigibles) across the world. Man has also reached the moon.
Otherwise, it sticks very closely to the original concept for the first two
sections of the book.</i></div>
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<i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;">In both VALLIS TIMORIS and THE VALLEY OF FEAR, Holmes receives a mysterious letter from one Porlock. This is a
coded warning which actually arrives too late since Holmes and Watson are
shortly summoned to investigate the death of John Douglas of Birlstone Manor
House. In both books, this investigation takes up the first part of the book.
Chinn, however, deviates from the original script by adding a race across the
English countryside between a train and an aerostat.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;">The next section in both is an
account of how Douglas made the enemies who pursued his from America to his
English retreat in order to seek revenge for a perceived betrayal. While
Doyle’s account is set in a god-forsaken corner of America, Chinn has
transposed the action to the moon. Same story, different place. Doyle finished
his short novel with an epilogue. Chinn takes that and folds inside it an
expedition by Holmes to the moon to seek the missing pieces of the puzzle.</i></div>
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<i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-indent: 36pt;">The question is not whether this
book is well written – it is – but whether it enhances the body of work that
already surrounds Doyle and Holmes. The steampunk development works well and
since the movement has its roots in Victorian technology it is entirely
possible to envisage Holmes and Watson inhabiting this universe. For those who
are not intimately familiar with Doyle’s stories, then his version is
enjoyable. The purists may wonder why, since almost the whole of Doyle’s text
has been incorporated into this volume. I have yet to be convinced that this is
a worthwhile approach. Having said that, I did enjoy Mike Chinn’s additions.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Mike Chinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193583903619865455noreply@blogger.com0