A new home for Horror Reanimated!

Welcome to Horror Reanimated, the voice of Bloody Books.

We’ve only gone and bought ourselves a URL haven’t we? A Universal Resource Locator, no less.

Or a web address.

So please go to www.horrorreanimated.com from now on, and don’t forget to update your bookmarks and feeds.

This URL will live on for a few weeks only; then it’s the knacker’s yard…

Bill and Joseph’s series on novel writing Part II: Research

Bill Hussey

Well, Joseph, we’ve discussed The Idea. The germ is in place. After a bit of story development next comes research. How do you approach research?

Joseph D’Lacey

I usually approach it with a very long, sharp object and give it a quick poke to make sure it’s safe to proceed. It usually isn’t – I’m not very keen on research, I’m afraid. Reminds me too much of being at school. That said, there are some subjects you have to look into if you want to avoid producing badly informed fiction. I usually do most of my research online. How about you?

First Review of ‘The Absence’!

An extremely early mini-review of ‘The Absence’ has appeared online! With a little under five months to go until publication I was really surprised to find this review appearing on the Waterstones website. Steve Birt reviewed ‘Through A Glass, Darkly’ earlier this year (‘a great debut novel’) and was kind enough to give it 4 stars. He’s now boosted ‘The Absence’ with a 5 star review saying ‘Bill Hussey just gets better and is in my new all time favourite horror authors list.’

Check out the full review at the website.

Breathtaking by Bill Hussey

Joseph and I have agreed that we will rarely, if ever, write book reviews for Horror Reanimated. We’ll leave such back breaking labour to Mathew. From my point of view, the decision is because I would feel uncomfortable writing reviews of books whose authors I might meet up with at a convention or on a panel in the not too distant future. I’m just cowardly that way! That said, I have felt compelled to tap out a little piece about a book I have just finished. Put simply, it is possibly the best children’s ghost story I have ever read. Actually, let’s not be mealy-mouthed: it is one of the best children’s stories I have ever read full stop.

 

Interview with Sarah Pinborough

Sarah Pinborough is a horror and thriller writer with a string of successful novels.

Her titles include The Taken (‘Her writing is full of dread and passion’, Christopher Golden) and Breeding Ground (‘… beautifully wrought by an author with an unflinching eye and a steady hand. This is scary stuff’, Creature Feature). Seek Sarah out at her website… 

BILL HUSSEY:     So, Sarah, it seems to me that horror writers, perhaps more than any other genre practitioners, are heavily influenced by their early exposure to the form. What are your earliest memories of horror fiction?

SARAH PINBOROUGH:      When I was at boarding school there were lots of tatty 70s Pan style horror anthologies on the shelves of the boarding house and I read a lot of those. My first real horror memory though, and I do think this really did unlock that part of my imagination, was of going to see Dracula as a school play when I was five…

The Garbage Man cover: Take II by JD’L

I’m finally able to reveal the cover you’ll see on the shelves when The Garbage Man is released in May ‘09!

Once again, like Bill, I’d like to talk about ‘mood’ and ‘subtlety’ as key aspects of my latest cover.

I’d like to but I can’t.

Here’s why:

Digital Wasteland #2

Er, not exactly digital this one I’m afraid, more televisual and print-based oddities of evil deliciousness really.

As previous posts attest, there’s some good, (or potentially good), viewing around for us genre folks thesedays. Not sci-fi, (or is it sf?), or fantasy, but good old horror… or a sub-genre thereof.

Sunday night sees the first Survivors, an updated version of Terry Nation’s post-apocalyptic serial that ran from 1975 to 1978 over three series on the BBC. Here’s an article in The Independent. A poll on the above linked BBC website shows that 24% of respondents are ‘sure they’ll like it’; 51% including myself are ‘cautiously optimistic’; 7% are ‘undecided’; 16% are worried it ‘might not be that great’, and 2% are ‘sure they won’t like it’. If it’s anything as convincing as Apparitions, it’ll be another Sky Plus series linker. Here’s a rather nice fan site concerning original said series from which I purloined the truly terrifying image of mid-seventies crockery.

To edit, change nappies or clean house? That is the question by JD’L

This is a very swift entry about the realities of working part time, writing the other part of the time and being a parent…

Today I’m at home with mini me while her mum is out at work. Tomorrow, the role-reversal reverses and I’m out at work.

Apparitions Appear Tonight on BBC One!

NEWS FLASH: Scanning through my Sky+ programme listings (we have all the mod cons here at the ol’ Hussey homestead) I noticed that Joe Ahearne’s new supernatural drama Apparitions starts tonight on BBC One at 9pm. This six-part series from the writer/director of, among many other televisual treats, Ultraviolet and Doctor Who,follows Father Jacob, played by the gruff and barky Martin Shaw (pictured right), an exorcist in the Roman Catholic church. The opener finds Jacob being approached by a young girl who believes her father is possessed by the devil. Ignoring the misgivings of his colleagues, Jacob is forced to stage an elaborate exorcism to keep the girl safe…

Sounds like intriguing, exciting stuff! And, although I’ve yet to be convinced by Shaw in any role except for that of Cecil Rhodes, a part he played brilliantly in the late ’90s, I’m looking forward to this series. Joe Ahearne has an excellent genre pedigree. Apart from anything else, how great is it to see a new supernatural series on the Beeb? I thought they’d given up after messing about shamessly with the excellent Sea of Souls. One thing strikes me, however, and tempers my enthusiasm: why haven’t I seen any trailers? Why have the Beeb not given Apparitions its own web presence? Maybe I’ve missed all the hype – I have had my head down editing – but I’m hoping that the apparent lack of advertising etc simply means that it has all just passed me by. I think I’m right in saying that the Beeb were so impressed with the show that the original plan for a two-parter was expanded to six, so that at least bodes well.

Anway, good old Sky+ is series linked in anticipation of something special…

Rules of the Living Dead (or should zombies run?) by Bill Hussey

A fascinating and entertaining article has appeared on the Guardian website. Penned by comedy actor and writer Simon Pegg – of Shaun of the Dead fame – it is, in part, a review of last week’s E4 zom-com Dead Set.

As evidenced by his and Jessica Stevenson’s superlative sitcom Spaced, Pegg is a geek of many colours; a lover of comic books and Playstation games, horror and sci-fi movies (just don’t mention those Star Wars prequels! Even though long-time collaborator Peter Serafinowicz provided the voice for Darth Maul, Pegg is not exactly a fan of ‘Vader: the early years’). Pegg’s passion for zombie films is obvious from his work on the lovingly-crafted homage that is Shaun. I’ll never forget laughing like a nitrous oxide doped hyena during the scene in which Nick Frost’s Ed shouts down the phone ‘We’re coming to get you, Barbara!’ – a wicked little Romero in-joke. Pegg has also written a cover quote for Max Brooks’ excellent zombie holocaust novel World War Z . I was interested, then, to read his take on Dead Set.   

On how Stephen King influenced me and what that really means by JD’L

There’s no doubt that Stephen King has affected the writer in me. But he affected the reader in me first.

I wanted to share a few thoughts on which of his works have impressed me the most. I use the word impressed very deliberately. It’s only those tales that psychically ‘pushed into’ me I’m going to talk about, those works whose touch is still upon me. It would be very easy for me to go and pick some of them off my shelf or call them up online to refresh my memory but that would be cheating. I want to comment only what remains with me after all these years.

I was about 13 when I discovered Stephen King. I read his work with commitment and loyalty for many years. The novel I loved the most was The Stand. There was a tale to get lost in if ever such was written. Not only that, aged 14 or 15 by that time, I truly believed the end of the world was coming one way or another. The world in The Stand was therefore all the more real for me to enter and dwell in.

Yet, it wasn’t usually Stephen King’s novels that truly affected me. It’s my belief this gentleman of fiction is primarily an extraordinary craftsman of the short story and it is in those works that I really connected with his imagination – or his connected with mine. Many of his best works were collected in the 1978 anthology Night Shift – in there you can even find one of the seeds that went on to become The Stand; a post viral apocalypse tale called Night Surf.