Fables from the Fountain | edited by Ian Whates

First of all I adore the cover of this book. There is something deeply comforting about the familiar look and feel of an old fashioned British pub that this cover evokes.

Reading is always a personal experience, every reader receives a book differently. This is possibly even more marked in Anthologies. The editor takes time and care in constructing the table of contents just to have the readers approach the book in a variety of ways, often not the order it has been structured in. Then there are different tastes at play, my favourite story may be one you skimmed over, many an unsolvable argument has started over the ‘best’ story in an anthology.

Fables from the Fountain is the Clarke Award fundraiser anthology available in various formats from Newcon press. A collection of tall tales from storytellers sharing a pint of real ale in an old London pub. A tribute to ‘Tales from the White Hart’ by Arthur C Clarke, the various contributors shared a group of characters and a setting, successfully creating the feel of a cozy night or several around a table with familiar faces.

In this case I dipped in first with a couple of stories I was particularly interested in reading. Neil Gaiman’s ‘And Weep Like Alexander’ was excellent and handled with Gaiman’s usual feel for the short form and Tom Hunter’s ‘The Girl with the White Ant Tattoo’. Tom runs the award and his contribution to the fundraiser sits comfortably among more established writers, entertaining, unusual and harking back to some of my favourite takes on SF from childhood this sits as one of my favourites from the anthology.
I then went back to the beginning to read in the order editor Ian Whates laid out, partly because I already find Whates to be a superb editor and suspected it would be worth letting his choices guide me through. I’m not going to break down every story, but will run you through my personal high and low points, feel free to disagree, I’m sure many of you will.

On the low, only one story failed to properly engage me. Charles Stross I know is a superb writer and when I am drawn into his novels I adore them, but I sometimes just can’t connect at all, which was the case here. It’s an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ thing, next time his could easily be my favourite story in an anthology. I can’t even tell you why this didn’t work for me, just that I ended up skimming.

The stand out favourite’s other than Gaiman and Hunter, Eric Brown’s tale of a search for a Russian bigfoot was very entertaining and had some particularly nice moments in the writing. Paul Graham Raven’s ‘On the Messdecks of Madness’ was a fun romp with conspiracy and false trails. Ian Whates, ‘No smoke without fire’ was a light introduction and a neat vote for common sense over science.

It's a tight anthology, packed with endless gems, as I would expect from Whates and should be enjoyed well beyond sci fi readers as a selection of well told yarns.

Lois Gresh | Writers Reading

What's on My Bookshelves?
(with added bonus: What's on My Walls?)

by Lois H. Gresh

Thank you, Adele, for inviting me into your virtual living room today. Nice to be here, and a warm hello to everybody!

While writing this post about what's on my bookshelves, I realized two things: (1) all of these bookshelves were once in a 2-bedroom apartment, and before that, crammed into the living room and hallway of a small ranch house; and (2) I shed approximately 1,500 books before moving to my current residence.

In both the apartment and ranch house, the bookshelves occupied so much space that the places were like labyrinths. The closets stored books rather than clothes. There were books under staircases and tables, books in the dressers. I stopped short at shoving books in the oven or refrigerator -- probably a good thing.

Yes, I have a lot of books.

As you can see from what's on my shelves, I read a wide variety of books and magazines: thrillers, weird fiction, hard science fiction, dark fantasy, horror, literary fiction, mysteries, poetry, sword & sorcery, comics, and nonfiction of all types. I read several books simultaneously, supplemented by news and magazines of all kinds.

My reading habits probably feed my writing habits. I recently figured out that much of what I've been writing for 20 years is now called The New Weird. My stories typically blend thrillers, science fiction, dark fantasy, weird fiction, and/or horror. I try to incorporate action, adventure, and a fast pace. If you click here -- ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS, you can read my 2011 collection of 26 short stories.

Sometimes, I write straight thrillers, such as my first novel, THE TERMINATION NODE (Ballantine/Del Rey 1999). Sometimes, I write straight horror. Sometimes, it's pure science fiction or fantasy. I've even committed mysteries to paper. I also write a lot of speculative books and companion guides about everything from comic book superheroes to James Bond to Stephen King to The Hunger Games.

I'm more interested in ancient history than modern history, more by foreign history than U.S. history. I devour anything related to the sciences. I have little interest in books about anthropology and sociology. I'm not a business head, so you won't find accounting textbooks on my shelves.

Anyway, without further ado, here are some photos of What's on My Bookshelves.

PHOTO 1 (below) : For the most part, the upper shelves hold double rows of literary books, while the lower four shelves hold stacks of thrillers, horror novels, and old Lovecraftian books.

PHOTO 2 (below): The top shelf contains a double row of modern science fiction, the second shelf has some overflow science fiction with a bunch -- okay, a lot -- of westerns, the third shelf has double rows of thrillers, the fourth shelf contains science fiction, thrillers, and Tom Swift novels.

PHOTO 3 (below): Here's a shot of the Tom Swift shelf. My son and I both loved these books.

PHOTO 4 (below): Various children's books, Donald Duck comics, and a few other comics. A small bookshelf to the right contains westerns.

PHOTO 5 (below): Floor-to-ceiling bookshelf containing copies of some of the books I've written. Additional copies are in storage and scattered elsewhere around the place. Yes, that's a Cthulhu Men in Black puppet behind the candlestick.

PHOTO 6 (below): Floor-to-ceiling bookshelf containing classic science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. This is where Tarzan lives, along with Conan and Zelazny, Simak, Van Vogt, A Merritt, Taine, Bloch, Hamilton, Kuttner, and many others. It makes me tingle just to look at these books.

With the books are toy robots, pretty gifts from my daughter, a few of my ever-present everywhere candles, a chess set in a black hat, and some clickety-clack eyeballs, teeth, and fish. Yes, I still like toys.

PHOTO 7 (below): Floor-to-ceiling bookshelf containing classic science fiction and fantasy magazines.

HOTO 8 (below): Floor-to-ceiling bookshelf containing modern weird fiction, Lovecraft, Conan and Red Sonya comics, thrillers, assorted other books, and Day of the Dead lovelies. This bookshelf is next to my bed and supplies my late night reading fun.

Not shown here, I keep several books and magazines on my nightstand along with my Kindle. I prefer reading paperbacks in bed so I can fall asleep and not have (a) hardcovers crush my head, or (b) the electronic Kindle short circuit in the middle of the night because I've rolled over on it, or God forbid, slobbered into the circuitry. Next to the nightstand are 4-5 stacks of books, magazines, and manuscripts.

But Wait! There's More!

There's no logic behind what's in the basement where I work. Piles everywhere of poetry, literature, art, science, history, mysteries, thrillers, etc. Bins of comics and research books are everywhere. This is a small sampling, complete with a snapshot of the bookshelf of old science fiction and horror movies.

These photos are dark because, well... it's the basement!

PHOTO 9 (below): Floor-to-ceiling bookshelf containing nonfiction books and magazines.

PHOTO 10 (below): In the shot below is my Dilbert aka The Hulk doll, which I slathered with green glittering GOOP for kids at the Perugia Science Festival. Along with nonfiction books and magazines (mostly science), the bookshelf holds some Donald Duck and Dilbert toys. Oh, and a baby photo of my son!

PHOTO 11 (below): Floor-to-ceiling bookshelf containing more nonfiction books and stacks of science magazines.

PHOTO 12 (below): You probably can't see clearly what's on these shelves: a random assortment of mysteries, thrillers, history, nature, science, art, poetry, books I wrote, magazines, a portrait of Lovecraft, a giant red brain, a demonic creature.

PHOTO 13 (below): And of course, what writer's house is complete without a copy of Principles of Chemical Warfare on the coffee table?

PHOTO 14: (below) Old science fiction and horror movies adorned with Black Ooh-Ooh, White Ooh-Ooh -- they're cousins, Pinky and the Brain, and a non-green-GOOPed Dilbert.

As an aside, this is the first bookshelf I owned. It came in pieces of rough-cut oak, which we sanded, then stained, sealed, and assembled. We later had two huge bookshelves that were totally homemade from wood scraps, but they didn't quite make it through the years.

PHOTOS 15 & 16 (below): What writer's basement is complete without suitable images on the walls? Here's a tiny sample of what surrounds me when I work in the basement.

Lovecraft and one of his Providence homes

PHOTO 17 (below): This Allen Koszowski painting hangs in my bathroom. I love it! Cracks me up! It's the perfect bathroom adornment.

I have more weird things on my walls, which I should probably post on my blog sometime.

Thanks for letting me share my bookshelves with you. It's been fun!

If you're interested, you can get my latest books from Amazon:

If you're not interested, please excuse the obligatory book promotion. If I didn't add this stuff, my publishers would beat me!

Please feel free to stop by and say hello. I like meeting new people, and I welcome your comments.

Lois Gresh Website

Lois Gresh Blog

Lois Gresh Facebook

Lois Gresh on Twitter: @lois_gresh
LOIS H. GRESH is the New York Times Best-Selling Author (6 times), Publishers Weekly Best-Selling Paperback Author, and Publishers Weekly Best-Selling Paperback Children's Author of 27 books and 45 short stories. Her books have been published in approximately 20 languages. Lois has received Bram Stoker Award, Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, and International Horror Guild Award nominations for her work.

Writer's Reading | Luca Veste

I have a confession to make. The pictures you’re seeing attached to this piece are staged. Well, not staged, more managed. You see, over the last few years I’ve been a bit disorganised with my books. I’ve been buying so many, that to actually place them in size order, alphabetically, has been something I’ve avoided doing until I had to take these pictures. So, lest the world see my untidy bookshelves, with hardbacks placed precariously atop smaller paperbacks, like a ridiculously bizarre game of Jenga, I began the job of arranging my books into some kind of order.

It took me 4 hours.

Now, this wasn’t just because I have a lot of books. More because once I started going through them all, I began discovering ones buried which I haven’t looked at for a while. Like, NIGHT SHIFT by Stephen King. This was the book I read and re-read over and over when I was a teenager. Apart from THE STAND, it was the only Stephen King book I owned, really the only books I owned not written by Enid Blyton. I alternated between the two of them, reading each in turn. Now, I own almost everything Stephen King has written and haven’t read NIGHT SHIFT in a long time. So, half an hour was spent reading my favourite story from the collection (Quitters Inc.) before moving on.

Stephen King has been a mainstay in my reading since I was a teenager. Before that, as a kid I was usually found reading Enid Blyton, Famous Five, Secret Seven and the lesser talked about Mallory Towers series mostly. Either them or the Redwall series by Brian Jacques, a guy from Liverpool who grew up around the docks and went on to sell millions. A true inspiration, a huge part of my childhood, I was very sad when he died earlier this year.

A lot of people usually say their taste is eclectic. I suppose at first glance my bookshelves would attest to this description. However, I don’t really think it is. Sure, there’s horror mixed with crime, a bit of mystery and some thrillers, but really, the lines are so blurred with modern genres, you can pretty much just categorise everything as fiction at this point. Take my current favourite author Steve Mosby. On the surface they are pretty much standard crime/thrillers. Once you start reading though, you instantly recognise other genres within the story. There’s horror in THE 50/50 KILLER, mystery in STILL BLEEDING, sci-fi in THE CUTTING CREW. His latest book, and possibly best of the whole bunch, BLACK FLOWERS, combines a bit of everything to create a beautifully terrifying novel.

Since I’ve started my blog, reviewing all kinds of wonderfully different books, I’ve read more than usual. I was always a heavy reader though, going through 1 or 2 books a week. Now, with a kindle app nicely installed on my laptop as well, I’m reading almost 4 a week (although this has slowed in the past couple of weeks, since I started writing myself). Which means I sleep even less than usual and my wife rolls her eyes every time I come back from picking up milk and bread, armed with another couple of purchases from the local bookshop. I mainly read when I smoke, outside of the house for five to ten minutes every hour or so. Although if it’s a good book, I know instantly because I run out of cigs a lot quicker!

The best thing about writing about books, is finding new authors. One of the best I’ve read recently, hell in the last few years at least, was THE OFFICE OF LOST & FOUND by Vincent Holland-Keen. Possibly not something I would of come across if I wasn’t writing about books, it’s a fantastically crafted novel. I described it in my review as “gloriously confusing”. I’ve never been so happy to read something that has left me so happy to not have a clue what is really going on for 95% of the book before the end pulls all the strands together so well. I can’t wait to read more from this writer.

Back to the bookshelves, you’ll notice a lot of Harlan Coben, some Linwood Barclay and Gregg Hurwitz. These satisfy the craving I have for well written thriller/mysteries, which more often than not, have a nice twist at the end. Easy to read and very entertaining. Dennis Lehane is another I love to read.

There’s also a distinctly British feel to the books I’ve been reading recently though. Simon Kernick, Mark Billingham, Paul Johnston and John Connolly (OK best specify British AND Irish, I guess otherwise we’ll get letters) will always have a home on my shelves. Perhaps a lesser known author until recently for the crime/thriller genre whom I’ve read for a long time now is Neil White. Excellent writer and good guy (I may seem slightly biased in this case as I admin his fan page on Facebook!) his writing is getting better with every book and I don’t think it’ll be long before he finds himself alongside the more well known writers in his genre.

I’d like to mention one writer in particular though. Sean Cregan (the pseudonym of John Rickards) has authored two full length novels now, with one, THE RAZOR GATE, deserving the praise it has garnered in the past few months. A truly outstanding story, John is a fantastic writer, who really should be on more peoples shelves.

My TBR pile is quite small now, compared to what it was a few months back. This is due to the fact that I tend to buy more on the kindle these days. I’ve discovered some great writers by doing this. Nick Quantrill released his first book this year and he’s definitely one to watch. An excellent first novel (and he writes fantastic short-stoires as well), he writes about Hull so well, it almost makes you want to visit. Almost. Allan Guthrie is another I hadn’t read before and after reading TWO-WAY SPLIT I was a little annoyed with myself that I hadn’t read any of his before. And just so this whole post isn’t one big sausage fest, I’ll give mention to Julie Morrigan, whose debut novel CONVICTIONS was very, very good!

Well, that’ll do I think. I’ve gone on for a long time. I’ve mentioned a lot of writers I guess. But that’s where these books come from. Some guy or gal, who one day sat down and unleashed their imagination onto a blank piece of paper, or to be more ‘with it’ a blank screen. They provide hours of entertainment for less than the price of 20 cigs. And for that, I thank them.

Luca Veste

guiltyconscienceblog.blogspot.com

The Ruby Slippers | Helen Burke

I find it hard to garner any enthusiasm for contemporary poetry so when I say I love Helen Burke's work, her humour an wit, I hope you will all accept that as being all the praise she needs.

Her book The Ruby Slippers is now available and I am ordering a copy for myself so I thought I would share the link to the books site with you all in case anyone else out there is looking for a fresh, entertaining poet. 

http://www.valleypressuk.com/books/rubyslippers/

I first came across Helen performing at Short Fuse and subsequently interviewed her. 

New Project with Jeff VanderMeer

Underland press have a fun new project with Jeff VanderMeer that they thought the Un:Bound readers might be interested in and I agree, so here is the information from Underland.

'The project, authored and edited by Jeff VanderMeer, is called If You Lived Here: The Top 30 All Time Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds. It's a compendium, of sorts, but also a travel guide to places like Dune, Ring World, Middle Earth, Lankhmar . . . and beyond . . . We've all lived in these places--in imagination if not in fact--and we're all united by our common experiences of them. We wanted to collect the worlds together in one place as both a walk down memory lane and a place to start new dreams.

We're reaching out to readers, writers, and booksellers to ask for nominations of worlds to include. We've set up a web form at www.ifyoulivedherebook.com, which takes the nominations and asks respondents to describe what they love about the world. (If things go according to plan, we'll include some of the responses in the book itself.) We're looking for as much community involvement as possible in this project, and we'd love it if you could help with a signal boost, a mention, or even some nominations of your own.'

How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf | Molly Harper

How to flirt with a naked werewolf
by Molly Harper
pub: Pocket Books

Molly Harper writes sweet, funny romance, with a paranormal twist. In Naked Werewolf her heroine, Mo (not short for Maureen) is running away from overbearing parents to live in Alaska where an attractive young woman is bound to attract attention.

The sweet and lovely Alan is making a definite bid for her affection but it's surly Cooper that makes her head spin, much to her annoyance. Werewolf is a light gentle read, just enough action and tension to keep things moving forward  but action isn't really the point. I liked Mo and inspite of his moodiness I liked Cooper too.

I read very little romance of any flavour but keep returning to Harper's books, they are just very enjoyable.                                                                  

Release Day!! The Office of Lost and Found

Vincent Holland-Keen's 'The Office of Lost and Found' is available now!

HE is trying to track reviews on his blog so you can check those out for yourself, but if you like, quirky, funny, dark and brilliant you want to download Anarchy Books most recent release now!

It's available on Amazon for download NOW!!

There is a new trailer below and now if you'll excuse me I have some serious happy dancing to do.

Alex Keller | Signing

Alex Keller (@locksley_uk ) is signing books in Highcross Waterstones today. I popped down to say hi. Books were selling well and Alex was charming to everyone.

We reviewed Haywired some time ago and I am looking forward to getting stuck into Re-wired, the sequel.

Speaking of which, I have a signed copy of Re-Wired to give away. All you have to do is comment, naming a children's book you love on this post before the 10th of July.
The contest is open internationally.

Iron Crowned | Richelle Mead

Iron Crowned
by Richelle Mead

Ever since I first stumbled onto Succubus Blues I’ve been a fan of Richelle Mead’s books. Falling somewhere between paranormal romance and urban fantasy both Mead’s series are sexy and fun balancing the romantic and sexual tones of PR with a serious amount of ass kicking and brilliant characters that I identify more strongly with UF.

Iron Crowned is the third in the Dark Swan series, set partly in this world and partly in the Otherworld of the Fae. Eugenie (known as Dark Swan) is of both worlds, with a human mother and an estranged but powerful Fairy King for a father. There may be spoilers for the first two books from this point on.

By book three Eugenie is straddling both worlds fighting a war with her ally and lover the Oak King, well in control of her powers but not of her life. Seeking an end to the war she hears stories of the Iron Crown, an item that could stop the war with no further bloodshed.

Iron Crowned maintained the frenetic pace of Eugenie’s life, adding to her problems and confusion both as a queen and a woman, her love life is far from straight forward and dealing with her sister who had ambitions of her own is not easy.

There is some frustration for her in that although a strong heroine Eugenie’s judgement is at conflict with her nature and her choices, this would lead to an annoying and muddled lead character if Mead didn’t handle it so deftly and balance it with the obvious romantic and erotic tones of the book. A heroine who is mislead by strong emotion is something understandable, one who merely contradicts intent with action, less so.

Another enjoyable outing in a world of ghosts, shaman’s, gentry and magic.

Restoration | Guy Adams

Restoration - the world house
By Guy Adams
Pub: Angry Robot

In the first novel Adams created a terrifyingly vivid world, within the constraints of a house, built as a prison, limited only by the imagination of the prisoner. In the Restoration the prisoner is free and our small band of heroes have to try and restore the timeline, knowing what it will cost them to do it but that it will cost us all the world if they don't.

The restoration is brilliant, it's exquisitely twisted and cruel, disturbing all the way through and in spite of the complexity you could probably just about handle it without having read the first book. I wouldn't recommend it, you'd miss a lot, but you could do it.

Restoration is adventure, horror, psychological thriller, supernatural romp and has moments of philosophy, not considering it deeply bur throwing out alternative views on our existence and the nature of faith. This is not a book for the faint of heart, it's a consuming wild ride that will leave you unsettled and thoughtful, but satisfied.

My final comment echoes my initial reaction on finishing: Guy Adams WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO!