Sunday 28 September 2014

New story up on Popcorn Horror & the inspiration behind it

Popcorn Horror have kindly put another one of my stories up on their site:

http://popcornhorror.com/matter-destiny/

It's a gruesome tale set in two very different pubs in two contrasting parts of London. The inspiration for this story came on a recent visit to London's famous Theatreland. We called into an old Victorian pub on Drury Lane before going to our show, and while knocking back a pint or two of London Pride, I looked around me at all the theatre memorabilia dating back maybe a century or so, and wondered what kind of characters must have sat in my very seat drinking just as I was.

The idea fascinated me. Actors, musicians, writers, politicians? Almost certainly. Gangsters, thieves, murderers, fraudsters? Quite possibly. Thinking of what those four walls have seen in all the years the pub has been running sparked my interest. But it was the collection of rather ghastly looking clown masks behind the bar made me want to develop my interest into a story. I felt uneasy as I looked up at them and wondered what it would be like to be alone in the bar in the dead of night and see one move it's eyes, even talk to you...

And so 'A Matter of Destiny' was born. Please do check it out and feel free to let me know your thoughts. And maybe next time you're in an old pub, or indeed any old building, have a little think who and what those four walls have seen. What might even still be there. Watching. Listening. Waiting.

Sunday 21 September 2014

Tears in Joyland - My thoughts on Stephen King and his recent novel 'Joyland'

So, ten minutes or so ago, I finished Stephen King's 'Joyland', and I am so moved by its tragic and bittersweet majesty, that I just have to write about it. If I don't, I could sit here weeping like a baby. You will find no spoilers here, but that book moved me more than any other for a very, very long time.

First things first: wow.

I've been a Stephen King ever since I read 'Salem's Lot' as a petrified 13 year old, quaking in my bed, dreading having to get up and put out the light. Terrifying as that first experience was, I've been hooked on horror ever since. As years went by, I worked my way through all of King's classic work, with perhaps 'The Shining' being the highlight for me, closely followed by 'The Stand'. Thrill after thrill, terror after terror followed, and for many years, he could do no wrong.

But then, somewhere in the mid 90s it all started to go horribly wrong. His novels failed to grip me, often seeming like horror-by-numbers, perhaps even that King essentially didn't really care. Anything with his name on it was going to sell, so what the hell? By the time the millennium dawned, many of his novels had gone from steady mediocrity into the murky depths of the almost unreadable; 'Cell', 'The Duma Key', and the atrocious ending to the already deteriorating 'Dark Tower' series, led me to adandon King, so I thought, for good.

I only picked up 'Joyland' because it's part of the 'Hard Case Crime' series I've been enjoying lately, featuring hard-boiled crime fiction from old masters like Donald Westlake and Mickey Spillane, as well as badass modern noir from the likes of the delectable Christa Faust. Well, how glad I am that I did give my old hero another chance. 'Joyland' is a beautiful, funny, tragic and at times devastating ride; full of incredibly well-drawn characters, and a  magical setting. A park 'selling fun' at the end of an era as the corporations grew ever more powerful and squeezed out the independents, a time when the magic of a carnival was real, not carefully planned and scripted. A time that is now long gone, but, thanks to the imagination of Stephen King, is relived in all it's glory.

Looks like I'm getting back on that ride I stepped on as a scared kid all those years ago.

Wednesday 10 September 2014

The King is Dead: An abominabal Royal Succession. Stately terror in 100 wicked words!


The King is Dead

The old man had been in bed for weeks. Too sick to move his brittle, creaking carcass. Rotting from the inside, his decomposition already begun. His courtiers, practised in sycophancy, masked their distaste at the cloying stench.

Only his eyes seemed alive. Bright, sharp. They darted around the royal chamber, following every movement of the chosen few allowed to witness his demise.

His latest demise. Not his final demise, that wouldn’t come for centuries, perhaps not at all.

His Grandson and his wife were, as carefully co-ordinated, expecting a baby.

Here one goes again, what?