Your place is in the bin

Although it's hardly unreserved praise, I got a kick out of seeing this reader review of my little short story collection YOUR PLACE IS IN THE SHADOWS. Of the six stories therein, the review singles out SHITHEAD for the biggest thumbs-up. And do you know what?

That is the only one that failed to get published anywhere else beforehand.

All of the others appeared in either anthologies or small press print magazines. (God, did I love appearing in those things back in the day.) But this one never found a home. And it's not because of the title, because back before I retired it the title was something else. At the time I kind of understood why they were rejecting it (which I won't say here because it might colour your judgement, should you ever read it). But it didn't make me think any less of the story. Sometimes you write something and you're almost crying with satisfaction that you churned out a piece that pretty much resembles that initial vision - and even surpasses it...  but you know it'll be a bitch to sell.

Hey, I sold it now. Or rather I'm selling it:

UK: Your Place is in the Shadows
US: Your Place is in the Shadows
Can: Your Place is in the Shadows

99c/79p. Plus you get those five other fancy pants ones that already got published.

PS: One mag that technically didn't reject Shithead was Psychotrope. That editor was kind enough to send me a letter of unreserved praise, tempered with the news that, alas, Psychotrope was forthwith being consigned to that big magazine rack in the sky.

Free Lunch

Actually I won't be buying you lunch, but I will offer you some free reading reading material instead, which is better. My novella GRAVEN IMAGE and my collection of shorts YOUR PLACE IS IN THE SHADOWS are both going for £0.00 on Sunday 8th September for five days. Americans can get it too (at current conversion rates, that comes up at $0.00 precisely).

UK: Graven Image, Your Place is in the Shadows
US: Graven Image, Your Place is in the Shadows
Can: Graven Image, Your Place is in the Shadows

Dig in.

August charts

Hey, do you like fags? Do you like lager? Good, because FAGS & LAGER (AKA Booze & Burn) was last month's number one seller out of all my books!

1. Fags & Lager
2. King of the Road
3. Deadfolk
4. One Dead Hen
5. Made of Stone
6. Stairway to Hell

A little disappointing for Made of Stone there, pulling up the rear in its year of birth. More effort required there, methinks. Made of Stone, get the hell out there and earn your keep. You want the shame of Stairway to Hell beating you? It can happen, boy - believe me. It's up to you now. It's all about the response.

Erm, what was I saying? Oh yeah - Fags & Lager. Well done to that book, which Metro described as "yokel Tarantino", Birmingham Sunday Mercury called "unputdownable" and Tangled Web hailed as (my favourite quote of all time) "300-odd pages of squalor, f-, s- and c- words, extreme violence and drugs, the odd hint of perversity, monstrous sly humour and all with no redeeming social message whatsoever". 

Have a good month. And if you haven't done so already, consider purchasing Made of Stone. Let's pull it out of the doldrums! This book features Highlander heavenly. I bumped into Greg Widen the other week (he wrote Highlander) and mentioned it to him, and he didn't seem bothered either way about it. Greg, for Royston Blake to be obsessed with a film or TV series is the highest honour affordable in showbiz (thus far awarded to Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Don Johnson. David Rasche, Dennis Waterman - all the greats).

Bill Gates - Reanimator

Hey, I was in the States last week. Or this week. I forget because I am probably still lagged from jetting over 9 hours of timezone. Yes, I was in Seattle (via Amsterdam, hence the extra hour) at the behest of a small company over there name of Amazon. You might have heard of them. You may have heard negative things about them, things about monopolies and doing the independents out of business and destroying the publishing industry. Well, all I can say is that they know how to treat an author. And if they treat you well too, dear reader, then that's a pretty good deal. Right? See them as the dark overlord if you like, but I can assure you that they are a bunch of bright, imaginative men and women trying to find new and better ways of doing things. And they are book people. There is a new paradigm going on and they are at the heart of it, cutting unseen shapes from the rock-face. Lucky them. Lucky you.

Lucky me.

Oh yes, I love going to America. For one, I like hearing that accent. It is an accent purpose-built for pop culture, and having it around makes you feel like you're on a movie set. But Seattle is a bit different. Not that I have even scratched the surface of the USA, but I can tell an anomaly when I look at one. For starters, parts of it stink. Bad. I am talking urine. Also something unidentified but much worse, over by East Pine St. Whatever that thing is, I don't want to see it. I suspect it is Lovecraftian, and better left untampered with. Seattle is that kind of town. To see the Great God Cthulhu rising from the depths of Lake Washington would not surprise me. Of course, my mind would be scrambled before surprise could even register, but you know what I mean.

Maybe that's what Bill Gates is. Maybe he is one of the Old Ones - the tentacled one itself - returned into our midst under a vaguely human form to entrance us with his DOS and Windows 3.1 operating systems. I saw him while I was there, by the way. I took the advice of author William Lashner and went to a Mariners and LA Angels baseball game, and they trotted him out to do some guest pitching before the game. I'm pretty sure I also saw Kurt Cobain, down by that big totem pole near Pike Place Market. Is that possible? Could Bill Gates have brought him back to some awful semblance of life somehow, using ancient and unthinkable magic? Cobain did appear to have small gills on the side of his neck, so who knows?

I Hear Thunder

I have been neglecting this blog of late, so it's good that from now on I have an excuse to update it at least once a month. Yes, I speak of the monthly book charts. July was good, but not as good as June, which was pretty awesome by Mangel standards. (But hey, Mangel standards are pretty low. There probably isn't even a bookshop in Mangel. But there *is* a tattoo parlour.)

So, without further prattle, and with the thunder and lightning kicking off behind me, here are July's charts:

1. Deadfolk
2. Made of Stone
3. Fags & Lager
4. King of the Road
5. One Dead Hen
6. Stairway to Hell

So that's pretty much no change, other than #1 and #2 swapping. And the fact that I called it "Fags & Lager" instead of "Booze & Burn" this time. Obviously Fags is my preferred title, but titles are overrated anyway. Charles Willeford's THE DIFFERENCE is still the same book if you call it THE HOMBRE FROM SONORA. And a hell of a book.

The Hit Parade

Now that I've discovered this books sales thing I can give you the book charts every month, straight from the horse's mouth. (Did someone ever actually get something from a horse's mouth?) Not that I'm hung up on charts or anything. But hey, here they are:

      1. Made of Stone
      2. Deadfolk
      3. Booze and Burn
      4. King of the Road =
      4. One Dead Hen =
      6. Stairway to Hell

Good to see Made of Stone way out in front, where it ought to be in its year of publication. And quite a dog fight there for fourth place, with King and Hen both tied. Stairway to Hell, you need to start performing. They're talking about introducing relegation.

Book charts

Dunno if you're interested in these things, but here are the six novels I have published in order of sales (so far this year):

One Dead Hen (2011)
Deadfolk (2004)
Made of Stone (2013)
Booze and Burn (2005)
King of the Road (2006)
Stairway to Hell (2009)

The year in brackets indicates first publication. You might think that the most recent one Made of Stone would be the winner, but things don't work that way with a series. People often want to go in at the start (even though I sweat BLOOD to make sure you can read each of these things as a standalone, dammit!) But hey, I'm more than cool with that. One Dead Hen's dominance can be explained by one or two special offers from the publisher, I think. Stairway to Hell because it's a different publisher with less marketing effort for back-list titles. Also I guess it's going out of print as a paperback (which is sad but comes to us all in the end). (And hey, it's still there for Kindle (US / UK).)

It bothers me a bit that Stairway pulls up the rear. I like that book. Some of the characters from it still rattle around in the semi-deranged corners of my head, and of course I always think of the final chapter when I see Simon Cowell on the TV. But hey, that's book biz. And if anyone at all is buying it and reading it, I'm happy.

Mangel Daily Deal

Hey dudes, if you:

1. are in the UK
2. are yet to taste the delights of Mangel book #5
3. own a Kindle
4. have a spare 99p rattling around in your pocket

...check out the Kindle Daily Deal today (17th June). All you dreams will come true. Some of them anyway. OK, maybe none of them, but you get get MADE OF STONE cheap anyway.

Charlie at the Beeb

Hey, I was on BBC Hereford & Worcester today, talking about Made of Stone and various other stuff with Mike Wyer, who was standing in for Tammy Gooding. Many thanks to Mike for asking the questions, and to listeners for listening to the answers (plus all the ums and ers).

If you fancy a hark yourself, the show is up online for the next 6 days. My bit starts at 36:30, after "The Going Gets Tough" by the great Billy Ocean. Listen out for an exciting trailer for The Voice UK.

Your Place Is In the FREE Section

Hey man, you can get my short story Kindle collection for free this week. It is called YOUR PLACE IS IN THE SHADOWS and features six short stories from the past 13-odd years. Some noir, some weird... ALL worth more than the asking price of £$D1ddly Squ4t. And what do I ask in return, pray tell? Nothing. Only your happiness. And maybe a review. And hey, the other books are for sale (cough).

Yanks get it here, limeys here, canucks here and other nationalities wherever your local Amazon website is.

Opinions are like chickens

A couple of new ONE DEAD HEN reviews on the Zon this week. But these two critics had mixed feelings about their subject matter. This disturbs me somehow. So let's talk to each one in turn and try to understand the problem.

First up, Edwina. Edwina's favourite books include "A Cup of Christmas Tea", "The Clue is in the Pudding" and "The Holy Bible". Some big hitters there, and a lot to match up to. Let's start by getting the formalities out of the way. Edwina, are you a purist or a prude?

"I am not a purist or a prude"

Thank you. So let's move onto the book. If you took into account every book you have ever read (such as "The Breath of God" and "A is for Annabelle: A Doll's Alphabet""), where would you rank One Dead Hen?

"This is the worst book I have ever read."

I see. But surely there was something of worth in it. The plot, maybe? The characters?

"The plot (?) is rather non-existent and the characters should be."

Right. Well, there are some good actions in it, yes? Also this is a series which has been hailed for its inventive use of language. Would you go along with that?

"It is a series of revolting language separated by ridiculous actions."

I'm starting to see where this is going. Time for a personal question. Did you get turned on when reading it? Just a little bit?

"A definite turn off and an author that goes on my short list which actually is quite short containing only his name."

Well, that's something. That short list of yours sounds really exclusive. And I am on it! So Amazon did something right when they published me, yes? I mean, I'm a real club guy now.

"Sorry, Amazon, you blew it on this guy.."

Oh.

"Oh, yes"

But you gave it one star. That means you liked 20% of this book, doesn't it?

"The one star is because the book is the right height for my coffee cup."

Let's move onto critic #2, Kay Helms. Kay's favourite books include "The Bride of the Wilderness" and "Old Maid's Puzzle (A Quilting Mystery)". So, Kay, what would you say One Dead Hen was about? Would you say it is about the limited life options available to women in oppressive societies?

"This book is more about bad grammar and foul language."

But chapter 28 is about chickens. Did you like that?

"I could not get past the first chapter."

Damn, that is a shame. So you stopped reading? I feel let down by that, Kay. What was your reason for stopping? And make it a good one.

"I had to stop."

Fair enough

Many thanks to this week's literary critics. Next week we talk to another one-star reviewer. Better still, let's talk to a chicken. Let's interview an actual, real life, feathers and beak chicken.

Your Place is in the Shadows

I have put together six of my finest short stories in a little collection for Kindle. It's called Your Place is in the Shadows and is retailing at minimum price.

At first the idea was to get some of my short stuff out there in the hope that it leads people to the longer stuff. But then I read these things again, and I'm not sure how similar they are. Some are crime, some more horror, others kind of sf or slipstream. Some are clearly set in a world similar to Mangel (or Warchester), others clearly elsewhere. The earliest was written way before I even thought about Deadfolk, others way later.

But I'm proud of them all. I have have written plenty of shorts, and I'm only picking what I consider to be the good 'uns for this (and one or two subsequent volumes later this year). Most have been published in mags, anthologies and more recently webzines, others not. And sometimes it's your favourites that don't find a home. In this case (and published here for the first time) it's "Shithead" (based on a card game I came across years ago in France).

If you are a fan of Royston Blake, maybe the story "Punchbag" will reveal a bit of where the old bruiser came from. The main character doesn't have the same dubious charm of Blakey, but he clearly shares some of his appetites. This was first published in the British Fantasy Society's magazine Dark Horizons in 2001.

One particular story I like in this batch is "Some Help From Stanley", featuring a spurned husband who yearns for the family from which he has been usurped. Help comes in the unlikely guise of a phonecall from the late Stanley Kubrick. I consider this my first major sale, hitting the pages of The Third Alternative magazine in 2002, which specialised in horror and weird. But I reckon this story could have just as easily been labelled crime.

See what you think.

Your Place is in the Shadows is on sale in the UK, USA, Canada and everywhere else in Amazon-land.