Hi folks, well this is officially the last post on the the old Hagelrat blogspot address. This site will remain up as an archive but for all the great new posts , reviews and appearances we have scheduled you now need to head over to
www.unboundblogzine.com
The home page links through to all three of the blogs (video editions gets is own spanking new logo soon) and if you are a little patient the latest posts will load so you can see what activity there has been on the sites.
We will be rotating the artwork every month or so too, so it's well worth going through the front page.
Thanks for following this far and we hope to see you on the other side.
Sunday, 25 September 2011
Friday, 2 September 2011
Just one more thing,
before we disappear for around a month
____
“I know if you try to explain it, whatever reason you come up with, it’ll be wrong.”
‘The Office of Lost and Found’ is now available in hard copy. Published as an ebook
through Anarchy Press, VHK has now made the book available through Lulu for
those who still crave the pleasure of a physical book.
Available now as paperback with a version of the ebook cover and as a hardback with the original ‘logo’ cover, these editions of ‘The Office of Lost and Found’ include notes and sketches by the author not previously released.
Paperback: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-office-of-lost-and-found---paperback-artwork-edition/16801793
Hardback/Casewrap: http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/the-office-of-lost-and-found---logo-cover---casewrap/16534562
eBook Link (Anarchy Books): http://anarchy-books.com/books/the-office-of-lost-and-found/
A new trailer is available to view and embed on You tube
Release Video link: http://youtu.be/HKKvNbangrA?hd=1
Release Video Embed:
POD is by it's nature a little more expensive but costs have been kept as low as possible and the extra content makes these versions well worth it.
____
“I know if you try to explain it, whatever reason you come up with, it’ll be wrong.”
‘The Office of Lost and Found’ is now available in hard copy. Published as an ebook
through Anarchy Press, VHK has now made the book available through Lulu for
those who still crave the pleasure of a physical book.
Available now as paperback with a version of the ebook cover and as a hardback with the original ‘logo’ cover, these editions of ‘The Office of Lost and Found’ include notes and sketches by the author not previously released.
Paperback: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-office-of-lost-and-found---paperback-artwork-edition/16801793
Hardback/Casewrap: http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/the-office-of-lost-and-found---logo-cover---casewrap/16534562
eBook Link (Anarchy Books): http://anarchy-books.com/books/the-office-of-lost-and-found/
A new trailer is available to view and embed on You tube
Release Video link: http://youtu.be/HKKvNbangrA?hd=1
Release Video Embed:
POD is by it's nature a little more expensive but costs have been kept as low as possible and the extra content makes these versions well worth it.
Friday, 26 August 2011
Fork in the Road
It's time for a change, so Un:Bound will be effectively closed over September. This will all still be here or the time being, but there will be no new posts.
In October we will return from FantasyCon refreshed, reinvigorated, refurbished, revamped and probably other stuff beginning with RE.
In the mean time feel free to browse the archives, revisit old interviews, I will be putting up more of the alt.fiction audio so follow @unboundblog on twitter for updates on that and I hope you will think the disruption was worth it when we are done.
In October we will return from FantasyCon refreshed, reinvigorated, refurbished, revamped and probably other stuff beginning with RE.
In the mean time feel free to browse the archives, revisit old interviews, I will be putting up more of the alt.fiction audio so follow @unboundblog on twitter for updates on that and I hope you will think the disruption was worth it when we are done.
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Events | Theakstons Crime Harrogate
Our ‘occasional’ team member, Keith B Walters was at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival last month.
Not that we saw too much of him as he was busy attending all the events with his ‘blogger in residence’ hat firmly in place and a Press pass which he assured us he hadn’t made at home.
Whilst all of his other crime related reports can be seen over at his own blog http://booksandwriters.wordpress.com , he has offered one for the team here with a report on one event which was probably better placed on UnBound.
He hopes you like it and, who knows, maybe we’ll hear from him again in another year…. unless an unfortunate accident involving a candlestick and a library occurs at H'gate 2012.
_____________________________
The Outer Limits.
This could be a case for Mulder and Scully. Instead it’s Special Agent Andrew Taylor who will be delving into strange new worlds as he investigates the growing popularity of novels which blend paranormal elements with crime fiction.
Sarah Pinborough, S.J.Bolton, Patricia Duncker and Phil Rickman are the authors whose books go bump in the night.
This was a slight break from the norm for the Harrogate Festival, but with so many novels currently straddling the crime and horror genres it was a very welcome addition to the panel.
If it had been held as part of next year’s festival then I am certain that John Connolly (one of the finest exponents of the blending taking place) would have been on the panel.
But, as is often the one of the best things with the festival, there was a great range of authors on the stage, only two of whom I’d read and so was sure to go away with another list of books to seek out – and I did.
S.J. Bolton kicked off proceedings as chair Andrew Taylor asked each of them to speak a little about their books and their own interests.
The author of great novels such as ‘Blood Harvest’ and her latest ‘Now You See Me’ said that the best quote she had was from her husband, who compares her work to Scooby Doo and tells her that she writes great ghost stories without ghosts. Taylor bolstered her confidence by stating that, with her latest novel, she has written a ‘wonderful contemporary rift on the Jack the Ripper case.’
Patricia Duncker is a Professor of English Literature at Manchester University, but she doesn’t think she’s slumming it now that she’s considered as having written a ‘crime’ book. ‘Check out ‘The Lifted Veil’’, she encouraged the audience, ‘Classic literature with dead rising!’ Her book uses a religious sect and has been likened to Jekyll and Hyde. The sect idea has always been of interest to her, with a particular interest in the Jim Jones religious cult and the Temple of the Sun sect mass suicide in 1988. She also spoke at length about some great mysteries, some that are never discussed and have never been explained away, such as an eclipse that covers a star for three whole years every nine years, but no one knows what it is that’s covering the star for that period.
Sarah Pinborough said that it was John Connolly who inspired her to see that horror and crime can work together, and also that she was fascinated by Milton’s Paradise Lost. But, despite using horror and the supernatural, she never wanted to rely on a supernatural element to wash away the ending or conclude the book. Her second novel in the Dog Faced Gods series ‘ Shadow of the Soul’ is out now. She mentioned that for research for the book she googled some information on bomb-making for tension in her book but, realising the Police might come after her for searching for such information on the web, she thought it’s best to google some porn quick!
When she was at Harrogate a few years back a crime writer told her that the crime genre was frowned upon in general – her response to this was ‘Jesus Christ! – You should come to my neck of the woods’ Horror is a lot less ‘pushed’ in bookstores than crime fiction.
She reads more crime than horror these days ‘I like a good serial killer…story. I still see ghosts – but sometimes it’s because I’m drunk.’
In 1992 Phil Rickman was told by Macmillan Publishers ‘You are the new Stephen King’ – He’s since found out that there were about seven authors all told that at the same time. He decided that he had to get off of the ‘horror’ shelf as it was getting too small.
So, he set to write a cosy mystery with a serial killer – ‘and they put it on the horror shelf!’
Phil is best known for his Merrily Watkins series and he recalled with fondness that a reader thanked him for finally getting rid of the Derek Nimmo character/perception of a priest. He went on to speak for a while about ‘Deliverance Consultants’ (Exorcist is not a word used much any more) and a case in Yorkshire in 1974 where a man was ‘exorcised’ and then went home to kill his wife and remove her face! This was after the ‘exorcism’ – so that one had clearly failed. ‘You’re supposed to take the demon out!’ It was after that case that the term ‘Exorcist’ was pretty much dropped in favour of ‘Deliverance Minister or Consultant’.
Phil’s next book (11th in the series) ‘The Secrets of Pain’ will be published in November. His phrase he uses for his work is that ‘A crime can be resolved.’
‘So’, Andrew Taylor asked, ‘Are we the new spearhead in crime? Are we the new Scandinavia? I certainly hope so!’
S.J. Bolton said of the books they write, that it’s almost like writing two books at once. The crime elements need to be credible but they also need to weave a ‘spooky’ story – AND weave the two together.
Patricia Duncker ‘We’re going back to writing Medieval ‘Mysteries’’
Andrew Taylor ‘We’re escaping from the ‘cul-de-sac’ of a whodunit.’
Patricia Duncker then had a Donald Rumsfeld moment when she said that it is ‘The mystery that we know, the mystery that we do not know, the …….’
The panel then spoke of their influences and favourite books and authors – Daphne Du Maurier and Rebecca came up quite a lot at this point.
Sarah said her influences were primarily Du Maurier and John Wyndham.
Phil went with Enid Blyton and her supernatural mysteries which began with the ‘Rubber Duck Mystery’ – comparing them to the same style of storytelling that S.J. Bolton now uses.
S.J. cited Stephen King and Charlotte Bronte – ‘Jane Eyre was the finest thriller ever written’ – she them went on to give spoilers to the plot!
Patricia added that ‘Rebecca’ is basically a rewrite of ‘Jane Eyre’. She then added The Bible as it has everything - Stephen King scenes, people eaten by dogs, homosexuality and, it’s written by God!
Both Phil and Sarah spoke highly of another author, Graham Joyce – labelled as a fantasy/magical realism author – which kicked off a whole ‘labelling’ discussion, to which I think the outcome was they really didn’t mind too much as long as they weren’t labelled paranormal romance!
Phil added that there is now a sub-genre label ‘Clerical Mystery’ – ‘You don’t want to go there!’ And then, for reasons I cannot recall, the subject turned to Fred and Rosemary West - I think because Phil had some work done on his house in Herefordshire and discovered the builder was a relative of Fred’s. He went on to say that nobody knows how many he really killed – it’s suspected it could be up to forty – when he killed himself the case was closed but many are left wondering if their daughter or girlfriend might have been a victim of his. The gallows humour of an Estate Agent in the area being able to advertise a ‘nice terraced house, 2 up, 7 down’ put the end to that part of the conversation and it seemed a bit odd that a fantasy/horror crime discussion had suddenly lurched into a very grim reality.
They spoke about labelling and type of book again- to ensure that a reader gets exactly what they came in for, and Patricia noted that this forms ‘comfort reading’.
The conversation turned to titles for books and the struggles they sometimes have in getting the title they want – authors want the book ‘tin’ to tell the reader what’s inside the ‘tin’. At this point (and I think it was Patricia) a recommendation was made to read a book entitled ‘In the depths of the forest’ which features a murder at the start of the book from the point of view of the victim who is stabbed in the eye!
Patricia rounded things up by stating that ‘We need to stick to what we’re good at. There are occasional squabbles over titles and things, but publishers know their stuff.’
And then it was time to step back out from The Outer Limits – a very welcome change of pace and style from the rest of the festival, and something I’m sure we’ll see more of at future Harrogate festivals as crime and horror fiction boundaries merge further still.
Already lined up for next year’s event are John Connolly and Charlaine (True Blood) Harris – so prepare for the criminal activities to get ever darker.
To keep up with next year’s events and author announcements and to start making your plans and bookings, go to www.harrogate-festival.org.uk/crime
Keith
Not that we saw too much of him as he was busy attending all the events with his ‘blogger in residence’ hat firmly in place and a Press pass which he assured us he hadn’t made at home.
Whilst all of his other crime related reports can be seen over at his own blog http://booksandwriters.wordpress.com , he has offered one for the team here with a report on one event which was probably better placed on UnBound.
He hopes you like it and, who knows, maybe we’ll hear from him again in another year…. unless an unfortunate accident involving a candlestick and a library occurs at H'gate 2012.
_____________________________
This could be a case for Mulder and Scully. Instead it’s Special Agent Andrew Taylor who will be delving into strange new worlds as he investigates the growing popularity of novels which blend paranormal elements with crime fiction.
Sarah Pinborough, S.J.Bolton, Patricia Duncker and Phil Rickman are the authors whose books go bump in the night.
This was a slight break from the norm for the Harrogate Festival, but with so many novels currently straddling the crime and horror genres it was a very welcome addition to the panel.
If it had been held as part of next year’s festival then I am certain that John Connolly (one of the finest exponents of the blending taking place) would have been on the panel.
But, as is often the one of the best things with the festival, there was a great range of authors on the stage, only two of whom I’d read and so was sure to go away with another list of books to seek out – and I did.
S.J. Bolton kicked off proceedings as chair Andrew Taylor asked each of them to speak a little about their books and their own interests.
The author of great novels such as ‘Blood Harvest’ and her latest ‘Now You See Me’ said that the best quote she had was from her husband, who compares her work to Scooby Doo and tells her that she writes great ghost stories without ghosts. Taylor bolstered her confidence by stating that, with her latest novel, she has written a ‘wonderful contemporary rift on the Jack the Ripper case.’
Patricia Duncker is a Professor of English Literature at Manchester University, but she doesn’t think she’s slumming it now that she’s considered as having written a ‘crime’ book. ‘Check out ‘The Lifted Veil’’, she encouraged the audience, ‘Classic literature with dead rising!’ Her book uses a religious sect and has been likened to Jekyll and Hyde. The sect idea has always been of interest to her, with a particular interest in the Jim Jones religious cult and the Temple of the Sun sect mass suicide in 1988. She also spoke at length about some great mysteries, some that are never discussed and have never been explained away, such as an eclipse that covers a star for three whole years every nine years, but no one knows what it is that’s covering the star for that period.
Sarah Pinborough said that it was John Connolly who inspired her to see that horror and crime can work together, and also that she was fascinated by Milton’s Paradise Lost. But, despite using horror and the supernatural, she never wanted to rely on a supernatural element to wash away the ending or conclude the book. Her second novel in the Dog Faced Gods series ‘ Shadow of the Soul’ is out now. She mentioned that for research for the book she googled some information on bomb-making for tension in her book but, realising the Police might come after her for searching for such information on the web, she thought it’s best to google some porn quick!
When she was at Harrogate a few years back a crime writer told her that the crime genre was frowned upon in general – her response to this was ‘Jesus Christ! – You should come to my neck of the woods’ Horror is a lot less ‘pushed’ in bookstores than crime fiction.
She reads more crime than horror these days ‘I like a good serial killer…story. I still see ghosts – but sometimes it’s because I’m drunk.’
In 1992 Phil Rickman was told by Macmillan Publishers ‘You are the new Stephen King’ – He’s since found out that there were about seven authors all told that at the same time. He decided that he had to get off of the ‘horror’ shelf as it was getting too small.
So, he set to write a cosy mystery with a serial killer – ‘and they put it on the horror shelf!’
Phil is best known for his Merrily Watkins series and he recalled with fondness that a reader thanked him for finally getting rid of the Derek Nimmo character/perception of a priest. He went on to speak for a while about ‘Deliverance Consultants’ (Exorcist is not a word used much any more) and a case in Yorkshire in 1974 where a man was ‘exorcised’ and then went home to kill his wife and remove her face! This was after the ‘exorcism’ – so that one had clearly failed. ‘You’re supposed to take the demon out!’ It was after that case that the term ‘Exorcist’ was pretty much dropped in favour of ‘Deliverance Minister or Consultant’.
Phil’s next book (11th in the series) ‘The Secrets of Pain’ will be published in November. His phrase he uses for his work is that ‘A crime can be resolved.’
‘So’, Andrew Taylor asked, ‘Are we the new spearhead in crime? Are we the new Scandinavia? I certainly hope so!’
S.J. Bolton said of the books they write, that it’s almost like writing two books at once. The crime elements need to be credible but they also need to weave a ‘spooky’ story – AND weave the two together.
Patricia Duncker ‘We’re going back to writing Medieval ‘Mysteries’’
Andrew Taylor ‘We’re escaping from the ‘cul-de-sac’ of a whodunit.’
Patricia Duncker then had a Donald Rumsfeld moment when she said that it is ‘The mystery that we know, the mystery that we do not know, the …….’
The panel then spoke of their influences and favourite books and authors – Daphne Du Maurier and Rebecca came up quite a lot at this point.
Sarah said her influences were primarily Du Maurier and John Wyndham.
Phil went with Enid Blyton and her supernatural mysteries which began with the ‘Rubber Duck Mystery’ – comparing them to the same style of storytelling that S.J. Bolton now uses.
S.J. cited Stephen King and Charlotte Bronte – ‘Jane Eyre was the finest thriller ever written’ – she them went on to give spoilers to the plot!
Patricia added that ‘Rebecca’ is basically a rewrite of ‘Jane Eyre’. She then added The Bible as it has everything - Stephen King scenes, people eaten by dogs, homosexuality and, it’s written by God!
Both Phil and Sarah spoke highly of another author, Graham Joyce – labelled as a fantasy/magical realism author – which kicked off a whole ‘labelling’ discussion, to which I think the outcome was they really didn’t mind too much as long as they weren’t labelled paranormal romance!
Phil added that there is now a sub-genre label ‘Clerical Mystery’ – ‘You don’t want to go there!’ And then, for reasons I cannot recall, the subject turned to Fred and Rosemary West - I think because Phil had some work done on his house in Herefordshire and discovered the builder was a relative of Fred’s. He went on to say that nobody knows how many he really killed – it’s suspected it could be up to forty – when he killed himself the case was closed but many are left wondering if their daughter or girlfriend might have been a victim of his. The gallows humour of an Estate Agent in the area being able to advertise a ‘nice terraced house, 2 up, 7 down’ put the end to that part of the conversation and it seemed a bit odd that a fantasy/horror crime discussion had suddenly lurched into a very grim reality.
They spoke about labelling and type of book again- to ensure that a reader gets exactly what they came in for, and Patricia noted that this forms ‘comfort reading’.
The conversation turned to titles for books and the struggles they sometimes have in getting the title they want – authors want the book ‘tin’ to tell the reader what’s inside the ‘tin’. At this point (and I think it was Patricia) a recommendation was made to read a book entitled ‘In the depths of the forest’ which features a murder at the start of the book from the point of view of the victim who is stabbed in the eye!
Patricia rounded things up by stating that ‘We need to stick to what we’re good at. There are occasional squabbles over titles and things, but publishers know their stuff.’
And then it was time to step back out from The Outer Limits – a very welcome change of pace and style from the rest of the festival, and something I’m sure we’ll see more of at future Harrogate festivals as crime and horror fiction boundaries merge further still.
Already lined up for next year’s event are John Connolly and Charlaine (True Blood) Harris – so prepare for the criminal activities to get ever darker.
To keep up with next year’s events and author announcements and to start making your plans and bookings, go to www.harrogate-festival.org.uk/crime
Keith
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Fantasy Con 2010 | BFS Award Highlights
Last year Un:Bound stepped in to film the awards last minute due to a lost camera. If you are going or thinking of going or didn't think your were thinking of going but might, or something, here is a short highlight reel from last years awards ceremony.
More Book related video goodness can be found at www.unboundve.com
More Book related video goodness can be found at www.unboundve.com
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