|
Post by David A. Riley on Oct 16, 2015 10:55:38 GMT
Having just read one of the new stories in that collection this very afternoon I can confidently announce with tremendous pleasure that STAINES IS BACK! Does Mr. Stains' forthcoming collection include (at least) two football-themed horrors? Glad to see the cover scans & Co. are back up - catch them while you can. Richard Stainsthe Old Psycho Slasher's book is tentatively called England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell. Six tales of foorball at its very, very worst. 70's style non-PC mayhem, debauchery and downright utter nastiness. Don't say I haven't given fair warning. I've never stopped showering since reading them.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 16, 2015 16:16:55 GMT
the Old Psycho Slasher's book is tentatively called England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell. Six tales of football at its very, very worst. 70's style non-PC mayhem, debauchery and downright utter nastiness. Stainsy's football macabre/ Sport is horror special! I was hoping that would be the case!
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Oct 16, 2015 18:03:59 GMT
Fantasycon is being held next weekend (24th and 25th October) and one of the most exciting things for me is to see how one of the stories in Johnny Mains' upcoming collection, A Little Light Screaming will do as The Girl on the Suicide Bridge is one of the four short-listed nominees for Best Short Story for the British fantasy Awards. This is a brilliant achievement and I'll be having my fingers crossed till the winners are announced. Mind you, whether this story wins or not it is still a nominee and that in itself is important. The full list is: A Change of Heart, Gaie Sebold (Wicked Women) The Girl on the Suicide Bridge, J.A. Mains (Beside the Seaside) Ptichka, Laura Mauro (Horror Uncut: Tales of Social Insecurity and Economic Unease) A Woman’s Place, Emma Newman (Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets) BEST OF LUCK, JOHNNY!
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 18, 2015 10:49:25 GMT
Re; A Little Light Screaming. If you're up for a taster, Mr. Mains' Sticking Your Head Out Is Dangerous premiered (?) on the 2014 Vault Advent Calendar
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Oct 29, 2015 0:16:54 GMT
The latest trade paperback from Parallel Universe Publications is now available: A Little Light Screaming by Johnny Mains. Johnny Mains is the award winning editor of Back From the Dead. He is also the editor of Best British Horror and, along with Robin Ince, of Dead Funny, both from Salt Publishing. This is his third collection of short stories, which includes Resuscitation Andy, The Case of the Revenant, Blossom, The Girl on the Suicide Bridge, The Foul Mass at Tongue House, Paintings, A Forest of Lonely Deaths, Sticking Your Head Out is Dangerous, The Curse of the Monster, and The Gamekeeper. Amazon.co.uk £8.00 Amazon.com $10.00 Kindle versions will be available within the next twenty-four hours.
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Dec 1, 2015 10:51:02 GMT
Kate Farrell's brilliantly disturbing collection of stories, And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After, is now available in paperback for a mere £8.00. It has a Vincent Chong cover and an in-depth introduction by Reggie Oliver. A kindle version for £1.99 is also available. Some of Kate's stories have appeared in the Black Books of Horror, Kitchen Sink Gothic, The Screaming Book of Horror and Terror Tales of the Seaside. The stories in this collection are: Mea Culpa Helping Mummy A Murder of Crows No Junk Mail All in a Row Dad Dancing The Way and the Truth and the Life My Name is Mary Sutherland The Efficient Use of Reason How I Got Here His Family The Sands are Magic Once Upon the End A. Reeves Tale Las Cosas Que Hacemos por El Amor Peacock Blue Dress Alma Mater Waiting Amazon.co.uk And Nobody Lived Happily Ever Afterkindle version
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Mar 4, 2016 13:29:08 GMT
A quick update. We now have two new collections to be published within the next few weeks: Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis's The Winter Hunt and Other Stories and Andrew Darlington's A Saucerful of Secrets: Fourteen Stories of Fantasy, Warped Sci-Fi and Perverse Horror. Both will be published as paperbacks and ebooks. The artist for The Winter Hunt is Joe Young, who did the covers for Goblin Mire and Kitchen Sink Gothic, while A Saucerful of Secrets is by Vincent Chong, who did Kate Farrell's collection And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After.
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Mar 14, 2016 15:10:24 GMT
Parallel Universe is pleased to announce the publication of two new outstanding collections of stories: The Winter Hunt and Other Stories by Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis, and A Saucerful of Secrets by Andrew Darlington. Both are available in paperback, priced £8.99, and will be available as ebooks shortly. These mark the fourteenth and fifteenth books published by Parallel Universe. The cover for The Winter Hunt is by Joe Young, while Vincent Chong did the artwork for A Saucerful of Secrets. The Winter Hunt - Amazon.co.ukA Saucerful of Secrets - Amazon.co.ukMore details here: Parallel Universe Publications
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Mar 17, 2016 18:52:23 GMT
Parallel Universe's next book will probably be Jessica Palmer's Other Visions of Heaven and Hell, which is a wickedly funny, offtimes irreverent and dark (sometimes very dark) collection of stories set in the afterlife. This is the proposed cover for the book, though there will probably be some minor alterations to the lettering before publication.
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Jun 8, 2016 18:38:53 GMT
Really pleased to be able to reveal the cover for Adrian Cole's collection of three novellas and one short story, Tough Guys, which will be published shortly - and which will be launched at fantasycon in September. The artwork is by Jim Pitts and the book boasts an introduction by David A. Sutton. And, believe you me, the stories definitely live up to the book's title!
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Jun 18, 2016 21:01:44 GMT
I am really pleased to announce that Adrian Cole’s latest collection, Tough Guys, is now available from amazon. The 204-page book contains three previously unpublished novellas and a short. Based on the title theme, these four works are completely different in subject matter and tone. There is, of course, A Nick Nightmare story herein, ‘Wait for the Ricochet’, in which the gumshoe is entrusted to convey a message about “The Malleus Tenebrarum”, a book that names the properties and powers of dark and light, to the Mechanic, one Oil-Gun Eddy... His adversary is the sinister Lucien de Sangreville, plus assorted non-human denizens of the murky lower levels, and his sidekick the sword-wielding business-woman Ariadne Carnadine. In contrast, in ‘If You Don’t Eat Your Meat’ the reader enters a post-apocalyptic world where the very unsavoury Ryan relates his story of rival families and cannibalism. It is gruesome and unflinching horror. In ‘A Smell of Burning’ a hospital patient finds he is having out-of-the-body experiences. On his astral journeys he visits a man recalling his abused childhood and this leads to a shocking revelation... Finally, ‘Not If You Want to Live’ explores the fate of Razorjack, who is a Redeemer, a dead man used by a shady organisation to bring back others from death. An intriguing and engrossing story of love between Razorjack (aka Jack Krane) and mobster’s moll Rebecca Fellini, with science fictional and satanic elements. We'll have stocks of our own at Parallel Universe within the next month or so, but it can be ordered immediately from amazon, and ebook versions will be available within the next few days. There will be a major launch for this at Fantasycon in September, when Adrian will be present. Amazon.co.uk £8.99 www.amazon.co.uk/Tough-Guys-Adrian-Cole/dp/099357422X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466270660&sr=8-1&keywords=tough+guys+adrian+coleAmazon.com $11.99 www.amazon.com/Tough-Guys-Adrian-Cole/dp/099357422X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466270781&sr=8-1&keywords=tough+guys+adrian+cole
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Jun 28, 2016 18:44:54 GMT
Andrew Jennings' horror crime noir novel Into the Dark is Parallel Universe's nineteenth book. It is now available in papereback and an ebook. "There's a serial killer at loose in London. Janice, who has a chronic fear of the dark, stumbles into a relationship with the man who may secretly be the murderer. Neither know that in the North of England, in a place previously owned by his dead mother, activities are taking place that may unleash a horror that could spell the end of civilisation in Britain - an ancient evil that would make the activities of any serial killer look like child's play by comparison. Could a psychotic killer be the only man capable of ending this?" trade paperback: Amazon.co.uk £8.99 Amazon.com $11.99 Ebook: Amazon.co.uk £2.99 Amazon.com $4.30
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Aug 2, 2016 12:59:19 GMT
During his lifetime Irvin S. Cobb was one of the most celebrated writers in American literature, though nowadays he is almost forgotten, apart perhaps from his Lovecraft connection. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was born in Paducah, Kentucky on the 23rd June, 1876. His father, unable to cope with the death of his own father, succumbed to alcoholism when Cobb was only sixteen. As a result, Cobb’s education came to an end and he started work, first on the Paducah Daily News, then the Louisville Evening Post. By 1904 Cobb’s career in journalism was doing so well that he moved to New York, where he would go on to spend the rest of his life, starting work at the Evening Sun, though it wasn’t long before an assignment to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire so impressed Joseph Pulitzer that he offered Cobb a job at the New York World, where he became the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States. In 1911 Cobb moved to the Saturday Evening Post. Three years later he was asked to cover the Great War. Amongst the many stories he wrote while there were the exploits of the Harlem Hellfighters, a unit of black American soldiers who had gone on to earn distinction for their courage and discipline, which Cobb celebrated in his book The Glory of the Coming. Besides his prolific work as a journalist, Cobb’s fame largely came from his humorous stories, which were published in the leading magazines of his day, and collected in numerous books during his lifetime. But, though he was best known as a humourist, he did have a darker side, exemplified by the tales collected in this volume. Two of the most famous succeeded in catching the attention of H. P. Lovecraft. It is claimed that Fishhead influenced Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. And there is certainly no doubt that Lovecraft was favourably impressed with this tale. In his groundbreaking essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft wrote: “Fishhead, an early achievement, is banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake…” The Unbroken Chain gave Lovecraft the key idea behind The Rats in the Walls, though in all other respects the two tales are totally different. Besides writing and journalism, Cobb’s career extended to Hollywood, where legendary director, John Ford, made two films based on his books: Judge Priest (1934) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953). Other films included Peck’s Bad Boy (1921), starring Jackie Coogan, and The Woman Accused (1933), with a young Cary Grant. Cobb also did a stint at acting himself, appearing in ten movies altogether, including Pepper, Everybody’s Old Man (1936), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) and Hawaii Calls (1938). It’s a sign of the prominence he had achieved that in 1935 he was invited to host the 7th Academy Awards. Other than the tales that inspired Lovecraft, Cobb also wrote some brilliantly dark stories that culminate in a kind of sadistic irony. They are some of the finest conte cruel ever written. Amongst the best of these is the final story in this collection: Faith, Hope, and Charity, whose protagonists, as is often the case in Cobb’s stories, struggle against fates that are not only pre-ordained but are horrendously appropriate! It must be added his hapless victims are far from blameless. What fates await them under Cobb’s pen have most definitely been brought upon them by themselves! Through most of the tales there is a wry sense of humour, so wry, in fact, that it never detracts from the impact at the end; indeed, it often adds to and embellishes it! I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did and share with me the conviction that it is high time they were revived. The book includes a frontispeice drawn by Jim Pitts and an Introduction by Linden Riley. Contents are: Fishhead The Escape of Mr. Trimm The Gallowsmith Mr. Lobel's Apoplexy The Unbroken Chain The Second Coming of the First Husband Masterpiece January Thaw Cabbages and Kings We Can't All Be Thoroughbreds Queer Creek Ace, Deuce, Ten Spot, Joker Balm of Gilead Faith, Hope, and Charity trade paperback: Amazon.co.uk £8.99 Amazon.com $11.99
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Aug 3, 2016 14:36:20 GMT
This looks excellent. By my reckoning, that's thirteen single author collections Parallel Universe have published in two years. Probably too late for this year but strikes me a sampler anthology - one story culled from each - might be an idea for next year's FantasyCon?
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Oct 7, 2016 14:53:37 GMT
I'm pleased to announce that Parallel Universe Publications has recently released two books: Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso's Haunted Grave and Other Stories: Eight Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction from the African Continent.Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso is an MA graduate of Creative Writing, Swansea University Wales. His short stories, poems and non-fiction have appeared in a couple of journals, anthologies and magazines such as Emanation: Foray into Forever, Africa Roar Anthology, Open Road Review, Criterion Journal, ANA Review, Ground's Ear Anthology, Future Lovecraft, African Eyeball, Miracle e-zine, Episteme Journal, Texts on SAVVY Journal. He has been shortlisted in IdeasTap Inspires: Writers' Centre Norwich Writing competition, Ghana Poetry Prize, and Quickfox Poetry Competition. amazon.co.uk £8.99 amazon.com $11.99 The other is David Ludford's A Place of Skulls and other tales. Twelve tales of grisly horror, all of which were previously published in Schlock! magazine: A Place of Skulls Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down Almost Human Bonestaff Bridesmaids Dummies Heretics, Neophytes and Nemesis Killings Clowns Skinnybones Sleepwalker The Box The Burning Tree. amazon.co.uk £8.99 amazon.com $11.99
|
|