Review: Black Flowers by Steve Mosby

I don’t read tons of crime fiction – I'm a dabbler. But Steve Mosby's name has been floating around the part of my mind devoted to the ever-present ‘what book to read next?’ question for some time, partly because of his excellent short stories in both Off The Record 1 & 2, and partly from seeing a recommendation for his book Black Flowers from Ramsey Campbell. 

So I was expecting this one to be a bit tasty. I wasn't wrong.

 

Black Flowers tells the story (and I use that word deliberately) of Neil Dawson, a young writer looking into the apparent suicide of his father, who was also a writer. His investigations dig up not just real life clues, but links to his father’s writing and that of another writer, who wrote a book called The Black Flower. Extracts from that book feature as a story within a story in Black Flowers.

Things get even stranger when a story that Neil wrote himself, expressing some of his temporary unease at the idea of becoming a father, seems to start to come true. And it wasn't a pleasant story; not at all. 

His partner is kidnapped, and the only way to save her appears to be to understand events buried in the past, and in the pages of The Black Flower. Side by side with this, the book also tells of Hannah Price, a police detective also finding out disturbing things about her own father and the stories he may have told her…

 

Black Flowers is obsessed with the way stories and narrative shape our lives – and not just stories in books, but those told to us by those we trust. The book presents two opposing, but equally disturbing ideas. Firstly that the stories we have based our beliefs and principles around might actually be false, and that one day we might find our world crumbling as we face up to that. But secondly, that stories have power over our lives regardless of whether they are true or false; that as well as fearing stories turning out to be false we should also fear stories that might start to become all too true.

 

Lots of books that use meta-fictional trickery do so in a playful way, but Black Flowers plays it straight off the bat and is as dark as hell. It’s this, over and above the horrifying specifics of the crimes featured in the story, that for me makes this book as much horror as a crime novel. I've blogged before about how I don't view horror as a genre as such, but as an ingredient that features in many books that aren't marketed as such. Mosby certainly seems to prove my point here, although the crime genre elements are equally strong and gripping.

The prose is tight, the setting vivid, the characters realistic (even the doubly-fictional ones in the book within a book). Most memorable for me is the imagery of the black flowers themselves, and what the reader comes to understand they represent...

So all in all, very strongly recommended. Dark, clever, and compelling. As I said, I knew it would be a bit tasty.

Occupy!

"The revolution is underway. The mindlessly commercial, the undistinguished and barely literate will no longer be allowed to utterly dominate the genre. Not without a fight anyway." 

I'm delighted to say I've been interviewed over at Uninvited Books - the questions were posed by Robert Dunbar as part of his Occupy Darkness series of interviews, which has featured lots of great authors so far (including Ramsey Campbell) so you can imagine how chuffed I was to be included.

You can read the interview here.

Five Reasons I Loved The Hoard by Alan Ryker

Five reasons I loved Alan Ryker's new novella from DarkFuse, The Hoard:

1. The story tells of Anna, a compulsive hoarder; in lesser hands such a character would merely be the subject of mistrust but Ryker deals with the theme subtly, showing her actions and their emotional consequences not just on herself but on her family too. The interior of Anna's house, full of junk and grime, is described with clarity and detail, and it is a vivid and original setting for a horror story. Similarly, the wider setting of a Kansas small town is made real to the reader, much like in the author's equally impressive Burden Kansas.
2. It's got a pun in the title. The title!
3. There's a low key start, where the main focus is on the revelation of Anna's hoarding to her family, but when the horror comes, it really comes. The story ends with a deluge of rain after a summer draught, and the change in the narrative feels much like that: foreshadowed by an increase in pressure, but still shockingly sudden and violent.
4. Despite the fact I normally hate any story with a chapter from the point of view of an animal, I didn't hate this one, even though really early on there is a part from the point of view of a rat. *
5. Whilst I'm not sure that any monster in horror fiction can be 100% original any more, the one in The Hoard is at least originally unoriginal - The Thing crossed with The Bodysnatchers crossed with the alien possession of The Autopsy (by Michael Shea), perhaps.

So there you have it. You can buy The Hoard in Paperback (UK | US) or Ebook (UK | US).

* I admit this dislike may be slightly irrational. I don't mind books told entirely from the point of view of animals like Watership Down. I just can't stand it when, in the middle of an ordinary narrative, suddenly there's a section where we see events from a Llama's point of view or whatever. Particularly when the animal seems to have human-esque feelings or be 'thinking' in English. **

** I reserve the right to use animal points of view in my future stories should the need arise.

Too Big For My Boots

My thanks are due to Dan Howarth, who has nominated me as a 'Next Big Thing' on his blog - an act both extremely generous and wildly optimistic... This nomination means I have to answer some questions and then I get to nominate some fellow writers as up and coming hotshots too, and they have to answer the same questions and then get to nominate in their turn.

Oh, and as well as checking out Dan's personal site you should also bookmark This Is Horror (he writes for it) a site I genuinely check every few days for it's excellent reviews and articles about all aspects of horror.

Anyway, the questions:

What’s the working title of your next book?

It's working title is Short Story Collection #3. Snappy, huh?


Where did the idea for the book come from?

It's a collection of four stories which all take their cue from fairy tales in one way or another, although they are set in the modern world and are pretty damn dark and adult, with elements of black comedy. Three of them are about wishes - how we want to change our lives is pretty revealing about the lives we actually live, I think. The final one is about attempting to predict the future, which really is just another form of wishing it will turn out as we want it to, at least in this story.


What genre does the book fall under?

Is dark-contemporary-fairy-tale-inspired-horror a genre? If not, why bloody not?

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I would have to be an old-fashioned portmanteau horror film. For the first story Kelly MacDonald; for the second, William H. Macy circa Fargo; for the third, I dunno, Maggie Gyllenhaal? The person playing the lead in the fourth story would need to be the same as the first as the two stories mirror each other, so Kelly MacDonald again.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I'm not sure if it will be self-published or not at this stage; although I've self-published a few things now, I am hoping to get the book before this one (Short Story Collection #2) published by a small press, if any are interested - watch this space.

This project is smaller though, just four stories (unless it grows) so self-publishing might make more sense as it won't be the length of a 'proper' book.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Hard to say - the first story was written years ago when I was at university, and I recently came across it again and decided to redo it. That didn't take long but I was really just getting rid of some of my hideously pretentious prose (ah, to be a student again!) and updating some details that had dated in the years since I originally wrote it.

The other three have been written since then; I'd say the first drafts of all of them took maybe six weeks in total.


What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Um, I don't know - I say this out of ignorance not arrogance. I'm sure many writers have used fairy tales as inspiration for darker, modern day stories, and done it a whole lot better than me.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

The individual stories have influences ranging from Neil Gaiman; a specific line from Middlemarch; internet shopping; Stanley Donwood; the lyrics to the Nirvana song Very Ape, and how much I hate Heat magazine.

The actual idea of writing a collection of stories based on fairy tales and wishes came from Iain Rowan, who was kind enough to read the first one and suggested I do more.

What else about this book might pique people’s interest?

Well the first lines are these: Once upon a time we lived happily ever after. Or so we are told.

Piqued?

And finally, a reminder…

Okay, I'm not sure how many people I am allowed to pick to answer these questions next, but I am going to arbitrarily nominate five writers, all of whom I think you should be reading and showering with money and/or Galaxy Minstrels:

Iain Rowan
Alan Ryker
S.P. Miskowski
Robert Dunbar

... and I was going to pick Cate Gardner but someone has beaten me to it!

Review: The Little Stranger

A quick review of The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. I thought this was a stunning achievement in terms of character voice and point of view; in terms of period detail and depiction of a changing society; and in terms of its use of an unreliable narrator.

The book is set in post WW2 England, and the narrator is a local Doctor with self-confessed humble beginnings, who gradually becomes involved with the old-money family who live in Hundreds Hall. As in all classic ghost stories, the house is central to the tale, and Hundreds, with its boarded up wings and echoes of former glory, is a great haunted house.

The supernatural element is disturbing and creepy, and it only gradually dawns on the reader that there might be another explanation other than the rather obvious haunting initially suggested. From the reviews, some people seem to think the twists and ambiguities in the novel end here, but I disagree. There's ample evidence of multiple theories - that there is a specific spirit haunting the house; that someone living is psychically responsible; that someone living is responsible in a rather more mundane way; or that the house itself, like Hill House before it, is preying on each victim's weaknesses. There doesn't appear to me to be any definitive explanation (indeed several of the above could overlap) and foe me the book displays the same kind of eerie ambiguity as The Turn Of The Screw.

What frightens us most is what we don't know.

Good News From America!!!

Sorry for the multiple exclamation marks (which I normally detest) but some things are worth shouting about...



Alan Ryker has a new book out!!!

The Hoard is his first work published by DarkFuse.

A new breed...a new evil... Hidden deep beneath its landfill lair of trash and filth, a strange new organism has come to life. When an accidental fire drives it out, the mysterious creature escapes across the drought-blasted Kansas prairie and finds the home of elderly hoarder Anna Grish. In desperate need of shelter, it burrows in, concealed amidst the squalor and mess. When Adult Protective Services force Anna to vacate her junk-riddled home, she moves in with her son and his family. But there is something wrong with Anna, something more than her declining mental condition and severe hoarding disorder. Something sinister has taken hold of her, and it's not only getting stronger, it's spreading. Amidst the wide-open Kansas plains, with endless blue sky above and flat, open vista stretching from one horizon to the next, there is nowhere to hide from...THE HOARD.

You can (and should) buy it in Paperback (UK | US) and Ebook (UK | US). I hope to read it and get a review up soonish.

Oh, and in other news from across the pond, there was surprise today when a man who told half the population they could go fuck themselves as far as he was concerned, lost an election.

Phew.

Review: Knock Knock - S. P. Miskowski

I first came across the author S.P. Miskowski  when I read her really rather excellent short story A.G.A. in an issue of Supernatural Tales. So I thought I'd try her novel Knock Knock, particularly as it seems to be doing rather well for itself, getting nominated for the Shirley Jackson award and everything.

Knock Knock uses a familiar horror novel device - that of setting a novel firmly in one small, American town and telling of an evil that affects multiple generations in that town. In this case the setting is Skillute, a backwater American logging town, and the novel begins in the Sixties and progresses to the modern day. Miskowski uses this setting to great advantage, both as a realistic backdrop and as a place where it seems quite natural tall tales and superstitions would spring up. The story tells of three female friends from Skillute, and how a childhood pandering to one of these local superstitions brings an old evil back... I mention they are all female purely because this seems to me a novel very much written from a female, feminist perspective - ideas about women, pregnancy, and children drive the plot, although that's not to say there aren't some sharply drawn male characters too. In this sense it's quite original, and it gives the book an structural and thematic coherence that underpins the disturbing and grotesque events brought about by the girls unintentionally awakening an evil spirit.

This is a slow-burn novel, with the significance of certain events at the start of the book not being entirely clear. In this way the tense, oppressive atmosphere builds - Miskowski is great at generating eerie imagery, particularly when describing the woods and forest around Skillute. When the scares come, she can do more with a single, stark line than most authors can in pages and pages of poorly written gore.

If I had one issue with this book, it was the nagging feeling that all of the character's actions didn't matter that much in the end - that the disturbing events of the book were preordained no matter what they did, and that they were just caught up in it all with no agency or control. (I think this is a perfectly legitimate way to approach a short story, but maybe for a novel some sense that the characters actions might affect the outcome is needed.) A minor gripe, but there we are. Knock Knock is certainly worth reading and certainly worth the acclaim it seems to be getting. Even better, I see that S.P. Miskowski is also to release a series of novellas set in the same town, with the first, Delphine Dodd, available now. As I mentioned, one of the great things about Knock Knock is it's setting, so I'll certainly be keen to see what other dark tales are being told there...

Pint Please, Landlord