WIN 4 Books, including SIGNED books by Ramsey Campbell and Douglas Thompson (International Entry Allowed)

Another Hic Dragones giveaway... this time with 4 fantastic books as a prize. Entry via the Rafflecopter widget below.

Impossible Spaces, edited by Hannah Kate (published by Hic Dragones)

Sometimes the rules can change. Sometimes things aren’t how they appear. Sometimes you can just slip through the cracks and end up… somewhere else. What else is there? Is there somewhere else, right beside you, if you could only reach out and touch it? Or is it waiting to reach out and touch you?

Don’t trust what you see. Don’t trust what you hear. Don’t trust what you remember. It isn’t what you think.

A new collection of twenty-one dark, unsettling and weird short stories that explore the spaces at the edge of possibility. Stories by: Ramsey Campbell, Simon Bestwick, Hannah Kate, Jeanette Greaves, Richard Freeman, Almira Holmes, Arpa Mukhopadhyay, Chris Galvin Nguyen, Christos Callow Jr., Daisy Black, Douglas Thompson, Jessica George, Keris McDonald, Laura Brown, Maree Kimberley, Margrét Helgadóttir, Nancy Schumann, Rachel Yelding, Steven K. Beattie, Tej Turner, Tracy Fahey

Obsession, by Ramsey Campbell (SIGNED COPY) (published by Samhain Publishing)

The deal seemed too good to be true. Until it came time to pay.

The letters said, “Whatever you most need, I do. The price is something that you do not value and which you may regain.” To four teenagers, it seemed an offer too good to pass up. They filled out the enclosed forms. Indeed, they soon got what they needed most, but in shocking ways they never imagined. Twenty-five years later, they have never been able to forget the horror. But it’s not over yet. In fact, it’s about to get much worse. Now it’s time to pay the price.



The Seven Days of Cain, by Ramsey Campbell (SIGNED COPY) (published by Samhain Publishing)

Is anyone really innocent?

On two continents, weeks apart, two people are brutally murdered: a Barcelona street performer and a New York playwright are each gruesomely tortured to death. In Britain, photographer Andy Bentley begins receiving mysterious emails. The messages refer to the killings and contain hints that the murderer has a personal connection to Andy. But what is it? Are the emails coming from the killer himself? And what, if anything, does Andy’s past have to do with the deaths? As the answers begin to take shape Andy will be forced to confront not only the consequences of his actions, but also the uncertainty of reality itself. Before that happens, how much that he loves will be destroyed?

Entanglement, by Douglas Thompson (SIGNED COPY) (published by Elsewhen Press)

In 2180, travel to neighbouring star systems has been mastered thanks to quantum teleportation using the 'entanglement' of sub-atomic matter; astronauts on earth can be duplicated on a remote world once the dupliport chamber has arrived there. In this way a variety of worlds can be explored, but what humanity discovers is both surprising and disturbing, enlightening and shocking. Each alternative to mankind that the astronauts find, sheds light on human shortcomings and potential while offering fresh perspectives of life on Earth. Entanglement is simultaneously a novel and a series of short stories: multiple worlds, each explored in a separate chapter, a separate story; every one another step on mankind's journey outwards to the stars and inwards to our own psyche.

Enter now to win this fantastic prize...

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Summer Sale from Hic Dragones!

All paperbacks are £4.99 for the whole of July!

To celebrate the publication of Hauntings: An Anthology later this month, all our titles are now just £4.99 (plus p+p).

Check out our catalogue for more information about our titles.

My Favourite Fictional World... a guest post by Tracy Fahey and Laura Brown

As part of the Impossible Spaces blog tour currently being run by Hic Dragones, I've been inviting some of the authors onto my blog to talk about their favourite fictional worlds. So far, I've had guest posts from Douglas Thompson and Margrét Helgadóttir. Today I'm very pleased to welcome Laura Brown and Tracy Fahey to the blog.

A lover of all things strange and unusual, Laura Brown is a fantasy author and artist from Hampshire, England. A self-proclaimed Goth, geek, bookworm and bunny-rabbit, Laura has been writing and drawing ever since her fingers could manage a pen. She is also a writer for online magazine EGL Magazine (under the penname Blackavar), for which she writes lifestyle articles, music reviews and interviews. Since the summer of 2012, she has been writing fiction professionally, with her first short story, ‘Alone in the Dark’, being published in an eZine in July 2012, and ‘Candlelight’ appearing in print for the first time in October 2012. ‘Skin’ (her short story in Impossible Spaces is her third story in print.

So, Laura, what's your favourite fictional world?

This is a question not easily answered! I'm sure depending on what day of the week it could have been different (and my recent leisure activity has possible influenced my answer!). However, I'm going to be a bit of a cheat by choosing... the worlds of Kingdom Hearts.

You have may have noticed I've used the plural word, 'worlds'. Hehe, yes, I've cheated.

For those unfamiliar with it, Kingdom Hearts is a video game series that combines Disney and Square Enix's Final Fantasy characters and aesthetics - the short description could possibly be Disney meets Final Fantasy. The game series has been hugely popular, and brings a wonderful sense of nostalgia combined with a storyline that is sweet and heartening but not without its depths and dark side. The adventures take the player through various Disney-inspired worlds, such as Wonderland, Halloween Town, Agrabah, and even the Hundred Acre Woods. But the worlds I enjoy the most are the original ones created for the series.

They are beautiful - some are ethereal, or grand and Gothic structures, or mystical looking landscapes. Some are dark and mysterious, and others are sweet and cosy. Some even manage to appear cyberpunk. Creating already set worlds did not stop the creators of the game series from flourishing with their own creativity.

What is it in particular I like about these worlds? Well, despite their differences and individuality, all have a lovely dreamlike quality about them that particularly appeals to me. Fiction is a living dream state for me, taking me away from reality, and these worlds work in the same way (arguably more vividly, as they can be seen on the screen, although I have certainly never had trouble painting a landscape mentally). Combining the emotional aesthetic of the games' storylines with these surroundings that are beautifully crafted and lovingly presented (be they frightening places or comforting ones), that dreamy quality is what appeals to me so strongly. I enjoy looking at the tiny details, and find them very inspiring in my own work also. As a fantasy writer who spends much of her time in a dream-world, it would make sense that these fictional environments would appeal to me so much.

Thanks, Laura! And today's second guest... Tracy Fahey.

Tracy Fahey is a Gothic devotee whose research interests lie chiefly in Gothic domestic space and its various interactions and intersections with literature, art, design and folktales. She works as Head of Department of Fine Art at Limerick School of Art and Design. She also runs a fine art collaborative practice, Gothicise who have carried out a number of site-specific projects in Limerick, including ghostwalk/ghosttalk (2010), The Double Life of Catherine Street (2011) and A Haunting (2011). Tracy has published in the Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies and the Gothic Studies Journal. She has given papers in New Zealand, California, Denmark, Scotland, Wales and England on a variety of topics including Irish castles, domestic Gothic, folklore and the Gothic, fairy-tale architecture, and werewolves.

So, Tracy, tell us about your favourite fictional world...

I started this piece still wondering which of all these fictional worlds I would choose. In The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter’s velvety, sinister prose paints all kind of unlikely and glittering worlds, half-fairytale, half-nightmare, wholly sensual. I feel like I’ve lived through Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, attending enchanted classes in Greek culture, and lolling round ancestral homes soaked in gin and murder. But if I had to choose one fictional world which has haunted me since I first read about it, it has to be Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, the supreme novel of dark domesticity.

Be warned. This is not a pleasant place. From the second chapter, the world shrinks to the size of one intimidating, watchful, sepulchral house. The opening sentence tells you everything you need to get your bearings in this universe:

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

So. Not sane. Holding darkness within. And worst of all, the awful, casual reference to “whatever walked there”. From the beginning, the figure of Shirley Jackson stands to the side of the Victorian monstrosity that is Hill House, arms folded. You are warned. Last chance to get off the rollercoaster before it starts.

Ostensibly a story about a group of paranormal investigators, the novel is much, much more. The world of Hill House is a waking nightmare, a swelling undertow that pulls you in, and traps you within its dark walls. The interiors are designed to confuse and chill:

“It had an unbelievably faulty design which left it chillingly wrong in all dimensions, so the walls seemed always in one direction a fraction longer than the eye could endure, and in another direction a fraction less than the barest possible tolerable length...”

Hill House is sentient, that much is apparent from the first paragraph. But it is also malicious. It preys on the protagonist, timid Eleanor, freed at last from servitude to her bullying mother and unpleasant family who treat her with a calculated brutality. Eleanor is a non-person, a service provider, someone who has been almost painted out of existence. All she wants is to find her place in the world: “I never had anyone to care about... I want to be someplace where I belong.” When Hill House wraps itself around her, calling to her, knocking on her door, writing messages to her on its own walls, she is terrified, excited and ultimately seduced.

So come in. Visit. This is not a pleasant world. But I do guarantee that once you’re in, you’ll never forget the experience. Once you step into the world of Hill House it will grip you. Even when you come out of it and close the covers of the book, darkness will seem a little darker, noises heard in the night will be just a little more frightening.

Be warned. Now come in.

Laura Brown's story 'Skin' and Tracy Fahey's story 'Looking for Wildgoose Lodge' are among the short stories in Impossible Spaces - out now from Hic Dragones.

November eBook Bargains

To celebrate the release of Blood and Water, the fantastic debut novel by Beth Daley, my publisher is having an eBook sale! All other titles are just 99p for the whole of November.

If you haven't already, take this opportunity to get your hands on:

Impossible Spaces

Aimee and the Bear 

Wolf-Girls: Dark Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lycogyny 

Variant Spelling

 

My Favourite Fictional World... a guest post by Margrét Helgadóttir

As part of the Impossible Spaces blog tour currently being organized by Hic Dragones, I'm inviting some of the writers onto the blog to talk about imagined worlds. I've asked each guest to name their favourite fictional world (a tricky question, I know, but a fun one). My first guest was Douglas Thompson. Today I welcome Margrét Helgadóttir.

Margrét Helgadóttir is an Icelandic-Norwegian writer who was born and lived parts of her childhood and youth in East and West Africa. Margrét started to submit fiction in English for publication in autumn 2012. So far she’s mainly written short stories and flash fiction, but she’s working on a couple of novellas and a collection as well. She loves to write dark, weird and quirky stories, often set in the future, mostly within the speculative genres, and often influenced by Nordic culture, climate and folklore. Margrét’s stories have so far appeared in magazines like Tuck Magazine, Luna Station Quarterly and Negative Suck, and she’s got stories in the 2013 anthologies Fox + Fae and Piracy. Her first story was one of the winners of Fox Spirit Books’ International Talk like a Pirate Day story competition in 2012.

So, Margrét, what's your favourite fictional world?

I had to think hard when Hannah sent me this question. I’ve been a dedicated bookworm since I learned to read as a little girl, and was drawn early on to the spectacular stories that took place in fictional fantasy worlds, be it fairy tales, folk tales or dark science fiction from outer space. I don’t have a favourite fictional world. I have several, created by great authors like Tolkien, Lewis, Le Guin, McCaffrey, Kafka, Murakami, Ende and Nordic authors like Jansson and Lindgren. Many other wonderful Nordic writers’ works are unfortunately not translated to English, and their amazing stories remain hidden from the world except for the few who can read the languages.

One of these writers is the Norwegian author, illustrator and cartoonist Thore Hansen. Seventy years old, Hansen has written and illustrated numerous lovely stories throughout his many years, like Enhjørninger gresser i skumringen [Unicorns grazing at dusk] and De flygende hvalers land [The land of the flying whales]. He’s also co-operated several times with another lovely Norwegian author: Tor Åge Bringsværd. Hansen has received many awards for his illustrations and books and he’s written in several genres, such as crime fiction, children books and fantasy. But from what I can gather, most of his work remains untranslated.

One of my favourite fictional worlds is a book series written and illustrated by Hansen. The series goes by the name Skogland, which translates to something like ‘Forest Land’. These books I visit again and again, and I never become tired of them. It’s one of my sorrows that these books haven’t been translated to English, because I think many people would enjoy these books.

The story starts with the grieving and lonely forest man-creature Gwan killing a dragon. In its nest he finds the little human boy Kaim, unconscious and wounded, and a golden dragon egg. Human bones lie scattered around the nest — probably Kaim’s family. Gwan, having no respect for humans, reluctantly takes care of the boy. And when the dragon egg hatches a little dragon and the boy defends it, the brusque and rugged forest man suddenly has two orphans to nurture. (Kaim’s family had escaped from slavery and run into the woods, wanting to travel to a legendary city in the north.) Gwan agrees to take the boy to the inn at the big crossroads in the deep woods, thinking someone going north would stop there and maybe take the boy with them. And so the tales of the human, the dragon and the forest man who share a camp fire begin.

Hansen’s beautiful writing about Skogland bears strong resemblance to the oral tales told around camp fires: legends, fables, folk tales. Skogland is a place of humour-filled tales and gruesome tales, and quiet tales told in hidden inns where all kinds meet in peace over good food and beer, sheltering from the harsh winter storms. And in between are Hansen’s gorgeous drawings.

He has created a world filled with strange animals, shadow people, elves, demons, humans and forest people. Some are evil, some are kind. But this is not the classical fantasy story about the battle between evil and good. This is a story about living side by side in peace and understanding, respect and tolerance, never enslaving each other. It’s an eco warrior tale about humans destroying the climate and the balance in the nature. It’s a story about ethics, morals and taking care of each other. The back of the collection says: “There is a world only a step to the left from our own world. It’s called Forest Land. It’s a world filled with hope, one thinks.” It’s one of my biggest wishes that these books will one day get the attention they deserve and be translated. I feel that Hansen’s underlying message in these books is something we all need to hear today.

Thank you, Hannah, for letting me spread the word about these books.

Margrét Helgadóttir's short story, 'Shadow', is one of twenty-one weird and dark tales in the Impossible Spaces anthology - out now from Hic Dragones.

My Favourite Fictional World... a guest post by Douglas Thompson

As part of the Impossible Spaces blog tour currently being organized by Hic Dragones, I thought it would be nice to invite some of the writers onto the blog to talk about imagined worlds. I asked each guest to name their favourite fictional world (a tricky question, I know, but a fun one). Today I welcome my first guest, Douglas Thompson.

As well as numerous short stories in magazines and anthologies, Douglas Thompson is the author of seven novels: Ultrameta (2009) and Sylvow (2010) both from Eibonvale Press, Apoidea (2011) from The Exaggerated Press, Mechagnosis from Dog Horn (2012), Entanglement from Elsewhen Press (2012), and Volwys and Freasdal from Dog Horn and Acair Publishing respectively, due in late 2013/early 2014.

So, Douglas, what's your favourite fictional world?

That’s a tough one. It tends to send one’s brain off in sci fi directions I suppose, in which case I’d go for something by Ursula Le Guin for sure. Probably the two worlds she creates in The Dispossessed, one of the greatest books of the twentieth century in my opinion - not just in sci fi, but in literature generally. In the book there are two worlds described, a little like The Earth and The Moon. The first one is rich and basically Capitalist, but the second one has been settled by people who create an Anarchist society. Martin Bax, the editor of Ambit magazine told me to read it, which was weird because Ambit is a mainstream literary mag and I thought at that point I was a mainstream writer. But he told me I should write sci fi. I know the words of a visionary when I hear them, and genre boundaries and prejudice must die! Before I read the book I’d have thought the idea of an Anarchist society was some kind of joke... I’d heard that the Anarchist regiments in the Spanish Civil War were useless because nobody could agree who was giving orders! But one of the many, many extraordinary achievements of the book is that it meticulously demonstrates how an Anarchist society might actually work, and indeed ultimately be superior to either a Marxist or a free market model. It also demonstrates how censorship is most insidious of all in a supposedly free Capitalist society, because there the censorship becomes consensual and takes place inside everyone’s head even before they speak. What we call “political correctness” in its most extreme form, in America and Britain, is the

best example of this, and I think Le Guin foresaw this decades in advance. For instance, I suspect that my work has sometimes been rejected by American magazine editors for exactly this reason of political correctness. A little voice in their heads goes “Hey, might this offend someone?” and just to be on the safe side they turn it away with a lame excuse about plot or narrative to cover up their own fear. But I want to offend people. Indeed, it’s probably the only reason I write. At least in an oppressive Communist society, everyone could see the censorship and choose to keep their minds free, but when our minds themselves have become the censors, just where have we left to hide or to escape to?

I make it sound as if The Dispossessed is a dry political diatribe, but it is nothing of the sort. It is a hugely gripping and completely alive novel with deeply imagined characters and situations. It will make you laugh and cry. It is compassionate. Like all great sci fi, it is also a metaphor for own planet, which gives it at times an eerie déjà vu sort of feel, a magical mirror in which we see ourselves and what an exotic, beautiful and terrifying world we are living through.

To be a greatly entertaining writer in a book is one thing, but to also raise and answer big social and anthropological questions at the same time: this is what makes Ursula Le Guin one of the greatest thinkers and artists of our age. Incredible to relate, but I actually gave her a copy of my second novel Sylvow and to my astonishment she emailed me back in thanks a few weeks later... wouldn’t tell me what she thought of it though! Well, it’s enough just so speak to God once, isn’t it, and know she’s there and listening? Seriously, these things are uplifting... the realisation that your heroes are just people and that it might just be your turn one day if you can just stay humble, disbelieve your praise as much as the criticism, and keep on learning.

Douglas Thompson's short story, 'Multiplicity', is one of twenty-one weird and dark tales in the Impossible Spaces anthology - out now from Hic Dragones.

OUT NOW: Impossible Spaces (Hic Dragones, 2013)

edited by Hannah Kate

Blurb:

It doesn’t have to be this way…

Sometimes the rules can change. Sometimes things aren’t how they appear. Sometimes you can just slip through the cracks and end up… somewhere else. What else is there? Is there somewhere else, right beside you, if you could only reach out and touch it? Or is it waiting to reach out and touch you?

Don’t trust what you see. Don’t trust what you hear. Don’t trust what you remember. It isn’t what you think.

A new collection of twenty-one dark, unsettling and weird short stories that explore the spaces at the edge of possibility.

For more information about the book, please visit the publisher's website.

Contents:

Introduction by Hannah Kate
The Carrier by Daisy Black
Trading Flesh by Simon Bestwick
Etherotopia by Christos Callow Jr.
Mistfall by Jeanette Greaves
The Return of the Curse by Arpa Mukhopadhyay
I'd Lock it with a Zipper by Rachel Yelding
Nepenthes by Keris McDonald
Mindswitch by Chris Galvin Nguyen
Skin Laura Brown
Sharpened Senses by Richard Freeman
The Place of Revelation by Ramsey Campbell
Great Rates, Central Location by Hannah Kate
The Meat House by Maree Kimberley
The Voice Withn by Steven K. Beattie
Shadow by Margrét Helgadóttir
Unfamiliar by Almira Holmes
The Hostel by Nancy Schumann
New Town by Jessica George
Multiplicity by Douglas Thompson
Bruises by Tej Turner
Looking for Wildgoose Lodge by Tracy Fahey

Trailer:

Impossible Spaces Book Trailer

The video trailer for Impossible Spaces, published by Hic Dragones and edited by me! The music, written especially for the trailer, is by the awesome Digital Front.



The book is out on Friday July 19th. Check out the publishers’ website for more information.

Impossible Spaces Launch Party

Friday 19 July, 7.00-9.00pm
Free entry

International Anthony Burgess Foundation
3 Cambridge Street
Manchester M1 5BY
United Kingdom

Join us at the launch of Impossible Spaces, a new collection of short stories from Hic Dragones.

Sometimes the rules can change. Sometimes things aren't how they appear. Sometimes you can just slip through the cracks and end up... somewhere else. What else is there? Is there somewhere else, right beside you, if you could only reach out and touch it? Or is it waiting to reach out and touch you?

Don't trust what you see. Don't trust what you hear. Don't trust what you remember. It isn't what you think.

A new collection of twenty-one dark, unsettling and weird short stories that explore the spaces at the edge of possibility. Stories by: Ramsey Campbell, Simon Bestwick, Hannah Kate, Jeanette Greaves, Richard Freeman, Almira Holmes, Arpa Mukhopadhyay, Chris Galvin Nguyen, Christos Callow Jr., Daisy Black, Douglas Thompson, Jessica George, Keris McDonald, Laura Brown, Maree Kimberley, Margret Helgadottir, Nancy Schumann, Rachel Yelding, Steven K. Beattie, Tej Turner and Tracy Fahey.

Free event, with wine reception from 7pm. Readings from Douglas Thompson, Rachel Yelding, Tracy Fahey, Jeanette Greaves, Nancy Schumann, Jessica George and Hannah Kate. Launch party discount on book sales and competition/giveaways.

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