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Post by dem on Jan 28, 2014 15:25:00 GMT
The Tasting: An invitation to dine as Bannerman's guest at his private Highland restaurant is blessing indeed, so our financially strapped narrator is delighted that Mulholland should request his company. Among their party, Campbell, the whiskey taster, who would have been better advised to sit this one out. Their first night at Fort William coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of his fiancées disappearance on her hen night. Jeanie Brown inexplicably walked out in the snow, and despite the heroic efforts of MacDonald, the man she jilted in Campbell's favour, her corpse was never recovered from the treacherous Ben Craich. Every year, the once warring suitors - prior to Jeanie's disappearance, MacDonald made a serious attempt on his usurper's life - drink a toast her memory with a whiskey brewed at MacDonald's secret distillery on the slopes. The former arch-rivals are now the best of friends. Tonight MacDonald announces that it is time to reveal all. Should anyone be mad enough to join him in an attempt on Ben Craich, he will lead them to his famous distillery. The harrowing mountaineering expedition almost costs lives, but that's far from the worst of it ... Littered throughout are some none too subtle clues as to where The Tasting is heading but the grim denouement and its immediate consequence still shock. A cameo appearance from frightening Farantino - entirely blameless on this occasion - further racks up the tension. By way of welcome bonus material, incorporated into Craig's introduction you'll find a short-short by his nephew, as premièred on the Vault Advent Calendar for 2011, something I remain very proud of. V. Herbertson - Drip: Someone has been hacking the heads from his men's shoulders and to date, even Inspector M., the best detective in London, has no idea who that someone might be. Now he and his sergeant sit down to study CCTV footage of the culprit at work ...
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 28, 2014 15:56:16 GMT
I'm also very proud that you premiered my little nephew's work on the calendar. Only ten and already churning out the gloom and doom. (I think he still has no idea he's a published author).
I should admit here that the story 'Not Waving' is substantially by V. Herbertson's dad, S. Herbertson, my brother. So far everyone has said it's one of the best which is not only thoroughly depressing to me after years of struggle - it simply confirms what I know of my brother - he is an utterly wasted talent. He's had published a short biography of some fictional detective but, to date, I believe 'Not Waving' is the only fiction he's ever completed and I added very little.
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Post by dem on Jan 28, 2014 17:11:06 GMT
I'm also very proud that you premiered my little nephew's work on the calendar. Only ten and already churning out the gloom and doom. (I think he still has no idea he's a published author). I should admit here that the story 'Not Waving' is substantially by V. Herbertson's dad, S. Herbertson, my brother. So far everyone has said it's one of the best which is not only thoroughly depressing to me after years of struggle - it simply confirms what I know of my brother - he is an utterly wasted talent. He's had published a short biography of some fictional detective but, to date, I believe 'Not Waving' is the only fiction he's ever completed and I added very little. well, I hope young V is in for a very pleasant surprise when he eventually stumbles upon us in a search engine and sees the company he's been keeping. Can't be too many kids in his class have held their own among so many accomplished authors. Yeah, Not Waving is a highlight, one among several if you want my honest. Already familiar with nine of the stories, I had very high expectations for The Heaven Maker .., and to say it better than lived up to them is putting it mildly. Don't keep us waiting so long for the second collection! The Anninglay Sundial: Fitting that Mulholland should feature prominently in the last of our stories, this time in an unwanted antiquarian adventure centring around his snap purchase of a Mezzotint. Goodness, but the 18th Century Mansion House in the print bears an uncanny resemblance to Anninglay Hall, Norton's Uncle's place, except, it is to be hoped, the original does not come replete with a child-stealing bundle of twigs scuttling through its grounds. All of which bodes ill for the very pregnant Lady Norton. With unlikely assistance from a battered copy of Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary a daddy long-legs, and more than a stroke of good fortune, our cycloptic hero averts disaster, and for once we are not too disappointed. After all he's been through, we can hardly begrudge Mulholland some small consolation. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 1, 2014 12:00:52 GMT
This might be blasphemous talk, but will this book be appearing in an electronic format in the future? Difficult one. For my own part I really don't want to do this. I appreciate the many varied and sound reasons for doing this but perhaps because I am a stubborn idiot I just don't like the idea, Nothing against people who do because I have no doubt its the way its all going. |
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Post by David A. Riley on Feb 1, 2014 16:15:02 GMT
I have nothing against ebooks. I have a kindle and do make good use of it. And some books are so expensive that only an e version makes them affordable. The last I bought was Joshi's I Am Providence, which I am enjoying, though I believe the print version is quite formidably large! Another advantage of a kindle. As a publisher, an e version would obviously depend upon the author. If the author prefers not to have one, so be it. There are e versions of my first short story collection and of my novel, The Return, both of which appear to be doing quite well in that format. As a writer I really don't care which version readers buy. The more the merrier.  |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 1, 2014 17:09:01 GMT
I have nothing against ebooks. I have a kindle and do make good use of it. And some books are so expensive that only an e version makes them affordable. The last I bought was Joshi's I Am Providence, which I am enjoying, though I believe the print version is quite formidably large! Another advantage of a kindle. As a publisher, an e version would obviously depend upon the author. If the author prefers not to have one, so be it. There are e versions of my first short story collection and of my novel, The Return, both of which appear to be doing quite well in that format. As a writer I really don't care which version readers buy. The more the merrier. I appreciate that I am acting like a technophobe. Maybe you'll drag me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 28, 2014 3:45:25 GMT
With the paperback coming out I hope you don't mind a shout for my very good pal Brian Keeley who painted the cover. Brian is a great joker, massive football fan and one of the coolest guys I know. He's a completely unassuming man. I'd known him for years in Dortmund merely as a brilliant joke teller. I mentioned in the course of one drunken conversation that I needed a portrait for my next CD and he replied 'I'm a painter'. I thought he meant of walls but it transpired that not only was he a trained fine artist but also an innovative filmmaker. Never mentioned his talent once in all the years I knew him. Some of his eclectic tastes can be seen here on his youtube channel. www.youtube.com/user/dortmundbrian/videos 'Magazine', 'Hugh reed and the Velvet Underpants'. 'The Glasgow Diamonds'. His early films appeared on channel 4 and various other places. They changed the way music videos were filmed. Apart from Punk Rock, Brian also has a fascination for the seventies show biz idols like Ken Dodd (and me of course) - he just can't seem to get away from all that fakery. To cut a long story short Brian had his own horror story thrust on him, nearly dieing of a Heart attack in 2012. At one point he was the sickest man in Scotland and a step away from death. How close? He married his wife in intensive care to the sound of nurses crying outside the door: www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/health/heart-transplant-patient-who-married-2947724Happy ending though. Brian is back on his feet, painting again - specifically the nurses who saved his life www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-heart-transplant-patient-set-2945983Well, that's as Christmasy as I get. |
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Post by dem on Dec 28, 2014 20:45:02 GMT
Wow, Craig, that's quite a departure from your usual festive offerings! Mr. Keeley sounds a diamond, and a bloody tough one to come through all that. Has he painted any other book covers?
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 28, 2014 22:32:06 GMT
Wow, Craig, that's quite a departure from your usual festive offerings! Mr. Keeley sounds a diamond, and a bloody tough one to come through all that. Has he painted any other book covers? Reality gets in the way sometimes sadly. Brain thought it was a laugh to do the picture (he did it in about a week)and he's not illustrated anyone else's book as far as I know. He's a remarkable man and his many friends feel very fortunate that he's still around. |
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 29, 2014 21:09:30 GMT
With the paperback coming out I hope you don't mind a shout for my very good pal Brian Keeley who painted the cover. That's a great story, Craig - looks like quite a talent and hopefully he'll do more covers. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on May 15, 2015 10:05:07 GMT
With the paperback coming out I hope you don't mind a shout for my very good pal Brian Keeley who painted the cover. That's a great story, Craig - looks like quite a talent and hopefully he'll do more covers. Real life horror but it does have a happy ending. Brian and his lovely wife are now doing a n exhibition of portraits of everyone who participated in saving his life. Any board member who lives near Aberdeen should have a look in. www.list.co.uk/event/480509-brian-keeley-and-bibo-keeley-the-shared-heart/ |
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Post by dem on May 15, 2015 12:55:38 GMT
Craig Herbertson - The Death Tableau (Black Horse Books, 2015) Blurb: DON'T THESE TIMES FILL YOUR EYES?
Like a bad attack of migraine that recedes but never leaves, THE DEATH TABLEAU is a discomforting excursion into the essential seediness and wearisome tedium of real and terrifying 'evil'.
Using word pictures that hit you like a brick wall, Herbertson tests his feisty hero to the limit and beyond.
WHERE THE STREETS ARE COLD AND LONELY
With a backstory already containing enough 'pain' for several lifetimes, the independent Professor Peralis, a widowed academic turned businesswoman, has several seemingly chance encounters and, drawn into a web of low magick, endures a vile process of dehumanisation, involving rape, violence and mental torture.
AND THE CARS THEY BURN BELOW ME
At times touching on the brilliance of Lewis and Priestley with his descriptions of things beyond description, Herbertson takes his readers beyond the wardrobe of fantastical psychic outfits necessary for the performance of our daily masques of mundanity, showing how the true ashlar is wrought only through being hit quite hard with sharp objects.
The dramatic rooftop denouement could be a scene from David Lindsay, transposed to 'eighties Madchester.
ARE YOU ALL ALONE?
ARE YOU MADE OF STONE?As those of you who've read The Heaven Maker will be aware, the going gets very nasty in several of the stories, but not even the likes of Soup , Spanish Suite, Steelworks, or A Game Of Billiards could prepare me for the - literally - soul destroying horror of his recently published novel, The Death Tableau, which I completed last night. At present, I've a jumble of scrawled notes to transcribe, from which I will try to hack out some kind of review over weekend. It won't be a patch on our anonymous back-cover blurbists synopsis which perfectly sums up the bleak mood of the thing. File under not for the faint-hearted.
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Post by dem on May 20, 2015 17:39:54 GMT
"When you die, it's like a waiting room. You don't just pop into the next body with a cheery goodbye to the last. You wait, and while you wait the entire panorama of your previous life is played out like an infinite picture show. It goes on and on and every action you took is played, and every consequence of that action is shown. You hit Billy in infant school and he hurt; well now you hurt. You told lies about Anne when you were six and she cried; well now you cry. you tortured and you teased, you hit and insulted, you cheated and you lied. It's all there, and you become the tortured, the teased, the cheated. You get it all. And it hurts. God it hurts so much. You cannot believe how much suffering stems from a single, ill-thought action."
Terrifying prospect enough that we must ultimately reap what we sew, but imagine if, at the moment of death, a devotee of evil were to steal your soul and replace it with their own? Now you must pay for their deliberate, monstrous sins instead of your own relatively mundane transgressions. And every second lasts an infinity until finally, you're released into another cycle of misery and pain. Welcome to Karmic law. Welcome to the Death Tableau.
Professor Anne Peralis, a rich, highly respected antique dealer, has already seen much tragedy in her life before she takes Kennedy, a fifteen year old runaway, under her wing. Husband Conrad was lost chasing after a woman during a mountaineering expedition, infant daughter, Kirsty, was brutally murdered. All of which is trivial. Nothing she's endured can prepare her for what she is about to face.
Kennedy, street-wise beyond her years, frequents the local Quakers Hall, where Mr. Jarvis and a sinister, silent monocled woman conduct regular spiritualist meetings. One day she brings a hulking, seemingly retarded derelict to Anne's office and begs her to look after him. Professor Peralis, understandably reluctant, nonetheless finds herself lumbered with a vacuous giant. If it wasn't that he occasionally shouts "Ka!" at the top of his voice, you'd swear there was nobody home - and you'd be almost right. With the help of an alcoholic friend, Jamie, whose talent for research has proved invaluable in both her professional and personal life, Anne discovers that 'Ka!' was formerly one Keran Westwood, a Professor of Philosophy and dedicated occultist. What has he been through that would cause him to fall so far?
The Professor is contacted by a potential client, who desperately requires information on a talisman which has come into his possession. Anne agrees to pay Mr. Bower a home visit - and wishes she hadn't. Confined to a wheelchair after being run down by a car - he swears it was a deliberate attempt on his life - the man is a terrified, paranoid wreck. When Anne is unable to identify the talisman off the top of her head (she recently saw its likeness on a pamphlet distributed at the Quaker Hall, but has no idea of its significance) - he presses it upon her. "I feel like I'm casting the runes here, but I have to go through with it." Anne reluctantly accepts the icon on the understanding that she return it once she's completed her research. We suspect Bower won't live long enough to see the day.
On setting eyes on the talisman, 'Ka' snaps out of his trance and slowly but surely gains a foothold back in the land of the living. He knows just how dangerous the symbol is and how crucial to the dark occultists who condemned him to the protracted post-mortem tortures of the the Death Tableau .....
It begins. Anne finds herself subject to powerful and deeply humiliating public attacks of auto-eroticism. She confides in Jamie, a sceptic, that she believes the talisman is genuinely dangerous and he soon has reason to agree. 'Ka'/ Keran, now his old self, takes charge. In a Manchester rife with mystics, theologians, crackpots, violent down-and-outs, and occult practitioners of every stripe, Anne learns that her life experience and enviable achievements count for not a jot against magicians as corrupt and powerful as the Jarvis cult who will stop at nothing to recover the unspeakably powerful talisman.
Eternal non-being never looked so appealing.
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Post by dem on Aug 29, 2015 16:40:29 GMT
I have picked up Black Ceremonies from Amazon.com and will be getting Goblin Mire soon. Any timetable for when the paperback release of The Heaven Maker and Other Stories will pop up there? Been waiting for an affordable copy of that one for a while! Finally, FINALLY ...... out now! The Heaven Maker & Other Gruesome Tales - the paperback! |
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Post by mrhappy on Aug 31, 2015 20:37:00 GMT
I have picked up Black Ceremonies from Amazon.com and will be getting Goblin Mire soon. Any timetable for when the paperback release of The Heaven Maker and Other Stories will pop up there? Been waiting for an affordable copy of that one for a while! Finally, FINALLY ...... out now! The Heaven Maker & Other Gruesome Tales - the paperback! Arrives tomorrow! |
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