Yet more growth on the chapbook wall

The chapbook wall has grown again. I now have 15 color chapbooks lined up with http://www.thepennydreadfulcompany.com/

I recently finished a new Augustus Seton adventure, pitting my Scottish swordsman against the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDui in the chapbook Fear Liath Mor - the gaelic name for the Gray Man.

Neil has designed new color covers for the original B&W issues "The Castle of Blood" and Seraphim" Two more are waiting new covers which will bring the running total to 17.

4 of these are currently available: Ghost Writer, Truth Decay, Cold as Death and Brotherhood of the Thorns. The rest will be rolling out over the next three months.

The chapbook wall has grown again

The chapbook wall has grown again. I now have 12 color chapbooks lined up with http://www.thepennydreadfulcompany.com/

4 of these are currently available: Ghost Writer, Truth Decay, Cold as Death and Brotherhood of the Thorns. The rest will be rolling out by the end of the year.

The Penny Dreadfuls are coming along in leaps and bounds

Neil Jackson has a fine set of new Penny Dreadfuls coming in November.

Work by Rhys Hughes, Steve Lockley, Stuart Neild, Brooke Vaughan, Frazer Lee, Carson Buckingham, Sarah Whyberd, Neil Jackson, Rakie Kieg, Ian Faulkner... and three new tales from me.

Unstrung

Puppets are harmless.

Dancing on the end of their strings, obeying your every whim, only going where you want them to go. That’s all they are. But what if one wanted to be just a little bit more?

Meet ‘The Red McGregor.’

He’s nobody’s puppet. He has no strings to hold him down. What he has is a lust for life… and death.

Samurai

When a storm throws five Scottish seamen onto a remote Japanese island their first priority is shelter and food.

A ruined temple provides both, and a cache of treasure promises comforts to come.

But there is something else on the island with them, something that has been waiting for someone to come.

It has a duty to perform, and the ties of duty are strong.

Stronger even than death.

The Chamber of Tiamat

Jake and Fiona Simmons have a dream of finding fame and fortune among the sunken ruins of an ancient Greek city.

But there is a another dreamer already down there, an ancient one.

And she has dark dreams of her own, of creation...and destruction.

Waking her might not be the most prudent plan.

ALL CHAPBOOKS - £2.99 each (unless stated on the website)

POSTAGE & PACKING - £1.50 per title

Check them out here:

http://www.thepennydreadfulcompany.com/page4.html

Single-Author Horror Short Story Collections

One of those Facebook apps got me thinking. It wanted Single Author horror collections not by Stephen King

It was hard to choose, so I went with the ones that got me started on reading beyond Dennis Wheatley in the days before Stephen King and/or The Exorcist.

1. Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
2. H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America)
3. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
4. The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson
5. The October Country

All of these were on the shelves of a small library in a steelworking town in Scotland. I doubt that is the case nowadays.

Staggering to think that I first read Lovecraft and Bradbury forty years ago now! I'm officially an old fart.

That does also mean I've read a -lot- of other collections, so here are five more, from more recent times.

1. Alone With The Horrors - Ramsey Campbell
2. The Dark Country - Dennis Etchison
3. The Ice Monkey - M John Harrison
4. The White Road - Ron Weighell
5. The Books of Blood - Clive Barker

In doing this I realize I'm missing many of my favorites, from Arthur Machen through Joseph Payne Brennan, Karl Edward Wagner and up to people like Conrad Williams, Steve Duffy and Tim Lebbon. But these are the ones that I go back to and re-read so I'll stick with these choices.

For today at least

Shiny chapbooks and more to come

For the past couple of months my writing has been focused towards writing short stories. Several are out on submission at anthologies, but the bulk of them have gone to the Penny Dreadful company for their color chapbook line.

These covers are stunning, kudos to Neil Jackson (and Bob Freeman for Truth Decay)

Ghost Writer, Truth Decay and Cold as Death are all out now, ( http://www.thepennydreadfulcompany.com/page30.html )with the others in the picture above coming over the next month or so.

The Penny Dreadful Company are in the throes of launching a book club, so look out for these and many more available in bulk and with discounts, coming soon.

On top of that lot, there's a proposed "William Meikle's Creature Features" series of my stories that I've written 4 stories for so far, a chapbook with 6 flash stories of less than 1K words, and a new Midnight Eye novella (Rhythm and Booze).

And that's before we get to the delayed but coming soon novels, starting with Island Life in the next few weeks.

Exciting times ahead. At this time last year I was considering giving up writing completely. I'm very glad I didn't.