'Great example of a short story...'

F.R. Jameson is reviewing in Goodreads story-by-story my first collection of short stories, Gifts from a Dead Race. There are 18 previously published science fiction/horror/ghost/fantasy tales ranging from 1972 to 2010.

This is what he says about the fourth story in the collection (which was previously published in 1985):

On A Shout
One of those great examples of a short story I just wish was longer. There's so much crammed in there, so much beautifully evoked, that even though it has a perfect economy of scale as a short story, I'd have happily read the same material novel length. I don't want to give much away, but essentially it's survivor guilt in a nuclear war and it's brilliant!

Thank you very much, F.R.!

Gifts from a Dead Race
Paperback and e-book from Amazon.

'An entertaining grisly satire on the financial crisis...'

Gifts from a Dead Race - Volume 1 of collected short stories contains 18 of my previously published sci-fi, horror, fantasy tales (published from 1972 to 2010).

Reviewer F.R. is reading the stories and reviewing them individually. He begins with the first story in the collection, 'Spend it Now, Pay Later':

'An entertaining grisly satire on the financial crisis and debt bubble...'  You can read the full review of the story here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2107440564


Thank you, F.R. I hope the remainder appeal in due course!

The story was originally published in 2010.

Gifts from a Dead Race - e-book and paperback from Amazon outlets

 

Volume 2 - Nourish a Blind Life  contains 21 sci-fi, horror, and fantasy tales from 1975 to 2013.

Writing - more branches from the ideas tree (2)

This is an afterword for my second collection of science fiction, horror, fantasy and ghost short stories, Nourish a Blind Life. The printing history of these tales range from 1975-2013.

I’m against ghost story collections because sometimes you want the fact that the character is a ghost to be a surprise – and you can’t do that with an avowed ghost collection. Here, there are some surprise ghost stories though for at least one it’s clear the character’s a ghost from the outset.

There are several downbeat endings but if there’s a thread running through these supernatural stories, it’s the power of love and the triumph of good over evil; plus I’m a sucker for a bad pun or a twist ending.

Genre short stories tend to be relatively low in the word-count, some markets wanting only 1,000 words, and therefore they don’t have the scope for deep literary characterisation. Still, character can be gleaned from action. Generally, for these stories, every word has to count; there’s little room for introspection or in-depth scene-setting. As these stories span a writing career of over forty years, it has been a long learning curve, and it never ceases; I’ve resisted the temptation to ‘improve’ the older tales!

Here, then, is the background to the stories in this second collection.

Cassandra Anthology was a popular magazine produced for love and not profit, as are many Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy small press publications. It was good value for money but the increases in paper costs and printing spelled its doom. One young writer who honed his skill there went on to success as a popular children’s author. At a Cassandra workshop attended by Ian Watson and Garry Kilworth, the story A SENSE OF WONDERMENT received plenty of praise; they particularly liked the ‘mortally punctured rail ticket’, but that went in the rewrite. Unfortunately, the story never seemed to fit into any magazine’s format; it’s still one of my favourites – a time-travel love-story, sort of, subconsciously echoing a tale I’d read years previously.

IF WE SHADOWS HAVE OFFENDED gestated for over twenty years until I felt ready to do the idea justice; I sent it out on Shakespeare’s anniversary but the few magazines available didn’t respond. I still think it’s a pretty good story, so have included it here.

OUTCAST was commissioned for a Christmas edition of the in-house company magazine and has a simple message.

THE PETITIONER began as a response to publicity at the time regarding traffic deaths.

WORKS WONDERS was inspired by the fantasy quest novel Wings of the Overlord I co-wrote with Gordon Faulkner and was a little piece of whimsy. However, I liked it so much that I included it in the finished novel.

THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY is observational around its time of publication; there was a cairn and its silhouette just looked like a highwayman or footpad – unfortunately when it was printed, ‘footpad’ was put in as ‘footpath’ which lost the meaning entirely!

Over the years I’ve always been fascinated by time travel stories, particularly where time paradoxes are concerned. REMORSELESS TIME and WITH MALICE AFORETHOUGHT are variations on that theme. FROM THE MEMORY A ROOTED SORROW resulted from my studies of psychology with the Open University, but has a time aspect too. BID TIME RETURN re-uses a very common title; it was a nod to H Rider Haggard adventures, with a fantasy element included.

NOURISH A BLIND LIFE was a fictional treatment of a real person’s life and also a prize-winning story. The judge said: ‘I read a lot and like to think that I’m fairly hardened to the human experience. Your story, however, moved me enormously. With a powerful understanding you avoided any mawkish melodrama. The ending, although sad, gave satisfaction knowing the narrator was soon to be free! Thank you.’ – Eve Blizzard, judge of the competition for the Livinia Hammond Cup.

Ghost stories are always popular, but I wanted to treat the theme differently. One has humour – PHANTOM WITHDRAWALS while the other – TIERS OF SORROW – is quite poignant.

I like my villains to get their comeuppance and this is what SEWER RATS’ ROUT is about. I was surprised how much research went into sewers for this quite short piece!

For TALENT QUEST I created a unique predicament for the female protagonist and wanted to say something about loneliness and exclusion.

THE RELUCTANT KILLER evolved as an exercise in writing a story as a brief report; the ending, I found, was satisfying and even uplifting.

THE HOUSE OF AUNTY BERENICE emerged from my early novel writing days (1960s), researching New York. This story seemed to appear fully formed; Alann Swan was one of the heroes of that (unpublished) novel. He survived, and became Alan Swann in the Tana Standish psychic spy series.

The two stories WITH SONGS BEGUILE YOUR PILGRIMAGE and NOT TO COUNT THE COST feature the crime-fighting nun Sister Rose. The novel that tells her story was published as Pain Wears No Mask, now republished as The Bread of Tears. She was a cop in Newcastle upon Tyne and suffered such severe trauma that she was put in a hospital run by nuns; eventually, she decided to take the veil. But her past had a knack of catching up to her, even when she moved to London. The tagline reads: ‘When she was a cop, crooks had problems; now she’s a nun, God help them.’ Anyway, a novella featuring Sister Rose – Silenced in Darkness – was a finalist in the 1995 World One-day Novel competition and received glowing comments from judges Terry Pratchett – ‘I was very impressed’ and Kathy Lette, who remarked, ‘The nun’s story was great. I kept wanting to turn the pages, and it’s an original idea!’ These two stories happen before the start of the novel and touch on mystical events rather than crime. NOT TO COUNT THE COST also won a short story award, adjudicated by playwright David Compton, who commented that ‘it has character, action, and that extra dimension which brought a familiar theme up to date, showing what can be done within the limitations of the 1,000 word story.’

ALWAYS THE INNOCENT was inspired by the story of Sarajevo, the two lovers shot on the bridge. It’s still one of my favourites.

I decided to end with a story offering hope for the future, albeit a radically altered future: THE END IS NIGH.

Nourish a Blind Life - Collected short stories volume 2

Paperback and e-book available from Amazon here

Other books in this series:

Gifts from a Dead Race – Collected stories vol.1 (science fiction, horror, fantasy, ghost)

Visitors – Collected stories vol.3 (westerns)

Codename Gaby – Collected stories vol.4 (historical)

I Celebrate Myself – Collected stories vol.5 (crime and adventure)

 

Writing - from the ideas tree (1)

Introductions to short story collections can seem a bit pretentious. Most readers just want to get on with the stories – which should speak for themselves. However, there are some readers who are interested in the origins of stories, even asking where do writers get their ideas. Well, they come from the ideas tree, of course. Seriously, though, I can’t promise to offer up the origins of all the stories in my collection Gifts from a Dead Race, but a few after-words here may be of interest – and if they’re not, then skip them.

            I’ve also sold non-supernatural tales – twist-endings about adventure, the Mafia, plus romantic confession and romance – many under my original pen-name of Platen Syder, which was misspelled as ‘Playten Syder’ in at least two by-lines. But none of these have a place in this collection; other collections will cover those. The printing history for these stories ranges from 1972 to 2010)

ON A SHOUT was an attempt to highlight the bravery and dedication of fire-fighters, particularly during times of disaster – and nuclear war seems disastrous enough. It was touted for a British SF Association nomination many years ago. Cassandra Anthology was a popular magazine produced for love and not profit, as are many SF and Fantasy small press publications. It was good value for money but the increases in paper costs and printing spelled its doom. One young writer who honed his skill there went on to success as a popular children’s author.

                GIFTS FROM A DEAD RACE started life as an explanation for the human appendix and was first written as a sexier and longer version and was accepted for publication in MEN ONLY, but due to editorial staff changes it never saw the light of day until featured in AUGURIES in a tamer offering. In the middle of last century there was a minor trend to whip out the appendix with the slightest excuse; the same applied to tonsils and adenoids. Over-zealous surgeons pre-empting any risk of appendicitis, since that had the potential to create a fatal infection; I’d extrapolated on that. For many years the appendix was considered a useless organ, a hangover from our evolution. Believed at one time it might have had a function, but is now vestigial. Yet according to a report (2017) published by a researcher of the Midwestern University in Arizona suggests that when the gut is affected by unwelcome bacteria the appendix can help good bacteria to grow and recolonise the digestive system. It seems the appendix has a higher concentration of lymphoid tissue, which is vital to the immune system.

Another story aimed at men’s magazines was turned down by PENTHOUSE because it addressed all the fears of the male readership; however, DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE was also accepted by MEN ONLY but it too never saw print until many years later on an excellent US webzine. Another story was accepted – by EXUBERANCE – but never printed, which is a pity as that too was in gestation for a long period and I thought I’d managed to get it right; so I’ve included THE ROSTRON ULTIMATUM.

CAN’T SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES was simply based on the old story of the drunk who told the police that a tree must have jumped out in front of his car. Only in this case, the tree was an alien...

MAN’S BEST FRIEND pushed the ‘what if?’ envelope at a time when it seemed many world leaders had pet dogs. What if the dogs could be controlled? A couple of bad puns are in there, too – and the hero had to have a dog breed’s name, of course! I’ve since used Pointer and his sergeant Basset in my ‘Avenging Cat’ series – ‘the dogs of law’, a play on Shakespeare’s phrase from Julius Caesar.

OH, WHAT A LOVELY SURPRISE isn’t very long but it contains enough menace to be effective, I think; it started as a 250-word competition entry to THE WRITER in the 1970s and received an honourable mention. Coincidentally, a film was made along similar lines about a year or so later.

THE FIRST IS THE WORST is also based on a time-worn phrase when someone’s expecting a baby and the question of the child’s sex crops up: ‘I don’t care what it is, so long as it’s healthy.’

There’s a dark side to love, too, and MEET THE WIFE examines that aspect in its few words; it too was based on a ‘what if?’ premise – ‘what if you had to celebrate Christmas Day early?’ At the time I was enjoying a reasonable success with action-adventure/ghost-horror short stories in Parade magazine; then a new editor took over and acceptances stopped – and not long after, they ceased publishing short stories entirely and another short story market bit the dust.

TEN YEARS HENCE started life in a serial in a ship’s newspaper, THE WARRIOR – for HMS ZULU – but it had no science fiction elements; it was one of my first ‘published’ pieces. It was gratifying for crew-members to ask me ‘what happens next?’ Many years later I re-wrote it about a futuristic Royal Navy and it sold first time out. Most stories set in the future transpose everything, so all dwellings are glistening, nothing is old, when of course civilisation and the real world isn’t like that – for example, there are still old manual typewriters being used even in the age of the word processor, Internet and txt mobile phones.

I decided to end this collection with A GIGANTIC LEAP, a variation on Armstrong’s words, when he landed on the moon all those years ago, when the promise of manned space exploration seemed a real possibility.

Gifts from a Dead Race - Collected short stories volume 1

Paperback and e-book from Amazon sites here

Other books in the series:

Nourish a Blind Life – Collected stories vol.2 (science fiction, horror, fantasy, ghost)

Visitors – Collected stories vol.3 (westerns)

Codename Gaby – Collected stories vol.4 (historical)

I Celebrate Myself – Collected stories vol.5 (crime and adventure)

 

 

#Writing - Spine-chilling fiction writing competition

Spine-chilling fiction writing competition 

http://creativecompetitor.com/creative-writing-competitions/creative-writing-competitions-2016/haunted-writing-competition/

Length - maximum 1,000 words (including title)

1st Prize: £500

2nd Prize: £300

3rd Prize: £200

4th Prize: £100

Closing date: 31 October 2016

 (plenty of time!)

Entry fee: £3.50 

[Payment must be made via PayPal.]

Do you love writing spine-tingling fiction and have a fascination for horror stories? If so, enter this new writing competition from the Creative Competitor. You can use the above photo for inspiration but they welcome imaginative interpretations of the theme. They recommend that 'to be in with a chance of winning, make sure you have a strong opening and you hold our attention throughout.'

Your story must be unique and previously unpublished.

You must be aged 18 or over

Open to writers worldwide

You may include reference to the above photo

You may enter multiple submissions providing the correct fees are paid

You must enter on or before the closing date

Submissions must be pasted into the body of the email (unless otherwise specified) and sent to: info@creative-competitor.co.uk

Please mark the email subject line with the name of the competition i.e. Spine-chilling Fiction Writing Competition 

Good luck!

Book review - Love Among the Haystacks

David Herbert Lawrence was a prolific writer of short stories. This book collects six: ‘Love among the haystacks’ (1930), ‘The lovely lady’ (1933), ‘Rawdon’s Roof’ (1928), ‘The rocking-horse winner’ (1926), ‘The man who loved islands’ (1929) and ‘The man who died’ (1929). Lawrence died in 1930, aged 44.

‘Love among the haystacks’ is a well-observed bucolic episode in the lives of two brothers, Maurice, the youngest, and Geoffrey. It suffers from the use of dialect, which slows the pace and hinders the reader’s comprehension. The brothers are working in the fields, stacking hay. The local vicar joins them briefly accompanied by his children’s governess, a Pole, Paula, who is about the same age as the brothers. Accidentally on purpose, Geoffrey topples Maurice from the haystack; fortunately, he survives the fall and is presently administered to by Paula: ‘Maurice lay pale and smiling in her lap, whilst she cleaved to him like a mate. One felt instinctively that they were mated.’ (p18)

Geoffrey befriends Lydia, the wife of a tramp who sponges off the field labourers. Lydia’s story is a tragic one, told in the barn while the pair shelter from rain. The boys get their girls.

‘The Lovely Lady’ concerns the unpleasant Pauline Attenborough, 72, her niece Cecilia and her son Robert. Strange, that of all the names to choose, Lawrence opts for Paula in the above story and Pauline in this one. Pauline was ‘lovely’ in the sense that she appeared to most people to be only half her age in looks. Robert’s elder brother died in odd circumstances. Cecilia is attracted to Robert, but his domineering mother is in the way. The only person Pauline ever loved was herself. A story about power and lost love.

‘Rawdon’s Roof’ is a rather slight tale. Rawdon insisted that no woman would ever sleep again under his roof. Laced with wry humour: ‘One looked at the roof, and wondered what it had done amiss.’ The reason for Rawdon’s ire is a failed love affair, of no great consequence.  A little irony and an amusing confusion of names are not enough to quicken interest.

‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ is known as a ghost story, which is a shame, as that fact detracts from some of the surprise. It was published in The Ghost Book edited by Cynthia Asquith.  A beautiful mother found she could not love her children – a boy and two girls. There was never enough money for them to maintain their social standing in the town. ‘The house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money!’ (p82) The family seemed to have no luck in the money stakes. Uncle Oscar visits regularly and catches young Paul on his rocking-horse, riding a ‘winner’ in his imagination. Then he announces the name of the winning horse – Sansovino at Ascot, which won last week! Paul has a strong affinity with the butler, Bassett, who likes a flutter on the horses. Before long, Paul’s racing on the rocking-horse suggests winners of races yet to be run, and both Bassett and Paul and eventually Uncle Oscar dabble successfully. Paul is striving to grasp the luck that his parents lack, so they can be happy. It ends tragically.

‘The Man Who Loved Islands’ is about Mr Cathcart, who bought an island and was master of all he surveyed. There also dwell in a few cottages an old married couple, a widower and his son and two daughters. So he wasn’t quite alone. Financial circumstances prompted the islander to move to a smaller island, where he took the widower and his daughter to work for him. On this second island ‘there were no human ghosts, no ghosts of any ancient race. The sea, and the spume and the weather had washed them all out, washed them out so there was only the sound of the sea itself, its own ghost, myriad-voiced, communing and plotting and shouting all winter long.’ (p110) He has sex with the daughter, Flora, and she becomes pregnant. He flees to a third island, wanting to be stripped of humanity, wanting nothing to do with his fellow men and women. He seeks emptiness. A wasted life.

‘The Man Who Died’ was originally titled ‘The Escaped Cock’. There are echoes from the previous story: ‘In his own world he was alone, utterly alone. These things around him were in a world that had never died. But he himself had died, or had been killed from out of it, and all that remained now was the great void nausea of utter disillusion.’ (p130) The dead man walking is a resurrected Christ who falls in love with a priestess of Isis. It ends with the phrase ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ – the same ending found in Gone With the Wind!

I’ve read a number of D.H. Lawrence’s books and found this one a disappointment. He distances himself from the characters, and tells the stories rather than shows us through emotions. Yet his observation of nature is excellent, so much so that you can almost smell the flowers, feel the stubble of the cut wheat and the damp presence of rain and sea surf. 

The cover of this copy (1981) was one of a series by Yvonne Gilbert.