Nautical Horror Ahoy! It’s Stranger Seas At Last

February 9, 2016 greydogtales 2 Comments

Not strange seas, not strangest seas, but Stranger Seas. Yes, our Nautical Weird Theme leaves port, sailing cheerfully towards the Iceberg of Exhaustion over the next five or six weeks. What’s on board this wondrous vessel? Let us give you a taste, before we get short of really bad sea-based similes and metaphors, like a sailor who’s run out of tar for his jolly jacks:

Brand new interviews with authors such as Steve Vernon, Ray Cluley, Matt Willis and Cameron Trost.
Classic supernatural fiction set on and under the briny – ghost ships and things which come through the porthole.
Dagon and his denizens of the Deep, for the H P Lovecraft folk, plus graphic Phoenician-0n-Phoenician action as they complain about their god being nicked.
Lurchers for Beginners all at sea (or pretty damned wet, anyway).
Sea-faring fantasy novels.
Sea monsters! We have to have them. And sea-peoples. Not everyone with a tail is a monster.
Writer on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson, the master of the maritime, returns.
And maybe even aquatic superhero comics – Prince Namor and Aquaman dry out together in a seedy Arizona clinic?

If we get desperate, we’ll add pictures of fish who look stupid. We have no pride, as you learned long ago. If you are oceanophobic, there will be non-wet articles in between these, by the way.

More launch-time adventures at the end of the week, but for now we go straight to Steve Vernon, Nova Scotian and author of, amongst other things, the Sea Tales series of strange stories. Here’s the man himself to tell you all about it…

greydog: Welcome to greydogtales, Steve, and thanks for joining us. Let’s start with what brought us together, our nautical horror theme, Stranger Seas. We saw you as an ideal guest for this theme – despite your wide range, you’ve returned to maritime myth and horror many times. Is this because of your personal roots in Nova Scotia, or did something else draw you in this direction?

steve: About forty years ago I came to Nova Scotia to visit my mother. I fell in love with the ocean and I have stayed here ever since. I’ve hitchhiked right across this country and stood in the Pacific Ocean, but my heart has always belonged here in Nova Scotia – here by the strong deep water of the Atlantic Ocean.

greydog: Do you sail, scuba or anything like that?

steve: Nope. I am a land-lubber. All of my sailing and deep-sea adventures take place in the imagination.

greydog: That is the safest, and driest, way. Tell us a little about the mythic side of our theme, and your 2006 book Haunted Harbours: Ghost Stories from Nova Scotia. These are traditional ghostly legends which you collected, and in some cases re-told, is that right?

steve: I’ve been writing short fiction for about thirty-five years. In 2004 I attended the VERY first “Pitch the Publisher” event at Halifax’s annual Word On The Street festival. Pitch the Publisher is a little bit like Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank in that a group of want-to-be authors stand up and pitch a novel submission to a trio of local publishers. That first year over thirty books were pitched and Haunted Harbours: Ghost Stories From Nova Scotia was the ONLY book to actually be published. Each of the stories in the book are tales that I have taken from Nova Scotia folklore. I painstakingly tracked them down in the archives and in the pages of old newspapers and I wrote them with a strong storyteller voice.

greydog: And because we are grey-dog-tales, after all, what was the Black Dog of Antigonish Harbour?

steve: The Black Dog of Antigonish Harbour is also known as Old Shug or Old Shuck. He is a legend that spans all the way back to the highlands of Scotland. The Black Dog is said to be able to foretell death. When you see the Black Dog you know without a trace of doubt that there is going to be a death in your family. The Black Dog is basically a tone-deaf banshee in dog tags.

greydog: We’ll add him to our list of spectral hounds. A couple of years later you wrote Maritime Monsters, for younger children, and then a Young Adult book Sinking Deeper. What interested you in writing for younger audiences?

steve: For many years I have worked as a Writer in the School, thanks to a local program backed by our local Writers Federation. As a Writer in the School I go to schools all over the Maritimes and I teach the kids about storytelling and the art of writing. I got tired of younger kids asking me if I had written anything for them to read – so I decided to write Maritime Monsters – a children’s picture book with fifteen individual short stories and fifteen wicked-cool kid-friendly illustrations. After that, as you say, came the young adult novel Sinking Deeper: My Questionable (sometimes heroic) Decision to Invent a Sea Monster.

greydog: But you moved on to create maritime myths of your own with your Sea Tales series, far darker and more adult in nature. Some of these are quite brutal, not always in the sense of gore but in facing aspects of life and death without a comfy get-out clause. Was this an intentional move for the series?

steve: You have to realize that when I started writing back in the mid-80’s I wrote an awful lot of short horror stories for such magazines as Cemetery Dance, The Horror Show, Flesh & Blood, as well as horror anthologies such as Karl Edward Wagner’s Year’s Best Horror and the Hot Blood series – so I have been writing dark adult horror stories for a lot more years than I wrote for children. So Sea Tales wasn’t REALLY all that out of the ordinary for me.

greydog: One Sea Tales story stands out both for its emotive nature and its viewpoint – I Know Why the Waters of the Sea Taste of Salt. A young kamikaze pilot of mixed-Chinese/Japanese descent flies into the hell of the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. It’s a striking, sympathetic and very original tale which we would recommend. Where on earth did this come from?

steve: My imagination is a gigantic stew pot that I have been chopping up bits of meat and vegetables for every year that I have walked upon this earth. A story like I Know Why… is just a bit of strange meat that I stirred up out of the deepest end of the stew pot. I’d say that the roots of the story lie in an early fascination of mine with World War II in general and the Pacific island campaigns in specific. There was also a touch of an article that I read a very long time ago in a Fine Woodworking magazine that dealt with the carving of netsuke. A writer is like a crazy quilt maker – somebody who gathers up scraps of rags and creates beautiful blankets from these scraps and rags.

greydog: Will you be continuing with Sea Tales, or is that a ‘chapter’ in your career that’s largely done with?

steve: Oh I have no doubt that like the tide I will continue to return to the sea. In fact the latest novel I just completed is entitled Kelpie Dreams, involving a mermaid, a kelpie, a Sea Hag and a two hundred year old ghost. I don’t think I am ever going to get over my fascination with the ocean. You have to remember, after all, that our blood is basically nothing more than sea water.

greydog: Let’s escape the briny. As we said earlier you have a wide range, and you’re quite prolific. We get the feeling that you admire the pulp writers of old who could turn out a story in almost any genre, an age of slamming the typewriter keyboard as long as the bourbon held out. Is that true?

steve: Well, aside from the bourbon part you have got it dead right. Unfortunately bourbon always gives me heartburn as well as making me kind of cranky. I am more of a dark beer kind of a fellow – and I never drink anything stronger than good black coffee while I am writing. But there is nothing that I like better than sitting in my writing cave banging out a good old fashioned story.

greydog: We were interested in the Tatterdemon trilogy, all three of which are now available to buy in a single volume (see sidebar on right). Is this series inspired by actual legend, given that in the books the roots of Tatterdemon go back to the 17th century, or did you conjure this one up out of the air?

steve: Tatterdemon has to be one of my favorite novels – and definitely my best selling independent novel. I wrote the novel thinking about Stephen King’s Salems Lot. I have always loved using small towns as a setting for my horror novels. I grew up in a small town, way up in the Northern Ontario attic, about twenty miles north of Sudbury. I have always been fascinated by the isolation you can find in certain small towns. The scarecrows of Tatterdemon are definitely my own invention – although I sewed it strands of voodoo and the paranormal all through it.

greydog: Is there any aspect of horror that you’d like to write but haven’t got round to, any secret authorial dream that you’ve still to fulfil?

steve: I have got the makings of a Nova Scotia zombie novel that has been kicking around my workspace for an awfully time now. One of these days I am going to have to sit down and write it out.

greydog: Sounds fun. Finally, we like to keep in touch with anyone who appears on greydogtales to see what happens next, so what can we expect to see from you in 2016?

steve: As I mentioned, I have just completed a novel that I am intending will be the first in a series of at least three books, entitled Kelpie Dreams. It is a kind of a paranormal action-packed shoot-em-up-supernatural romance novel written for folks who truly hate reading romance. I have submitted that book to the Kindle Scout publishing program and over the month of February I will be actively campaigning and seeking out Kindle Scout nominations to hopefully get that book selected by Kindle Scout. I really feel that if I can get Kelpie Dreams picked up by Kindle Scout and get the weight of the mighty Amazon promotional team behind it that I will raise my indie author profile in a way that helps a lot more people find out what a truly mind-warping experience a Steve Vernon novel can actually be.

greydog: Many thanks again, Steve Vernon.

As it would be churlish to have Steve here and not support his Kindle Scout campaign, here’s the link where you can back him:

kelpie dreams kindle scout bid

You can find out lots more about his writing at his site here:

steve vernon – yours in storytelling

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As we’re heading back into William Hope Hodgson territory later on, this would also be a good time to remind listeners of Sam Gafford‘s great site on Hodgson. We say this because greydogtales is a compendium of weird things but an authority on none. Sam is the most dedicated scholar and collector of Hodgsoniana we’ve ever encountered, and there’s loads of interesting stuff there. Go browse.

whh william hope hodgson

And don’t forget that the new Carnacki audio from Big Finish should now be available. Six of Hodgson’s original stories, lovingly and faithfully rendered for your ears in a high quality production:

carnacki on audio

That’s it for today, we fear. Back to hauling longdogs and writing for a living. More greydogtales on Friday, if we remember where we put the fishing spears…

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Carnacki Lives!

February 7, 2016 greydogtales Leave a comment

Joyous news, dear listeners (except for the lack of longdogs today, boo!). We return to our William Hope Hodgson roots, with a super exclusive. Producer Scott Handcock talks about his brand new Carnacki production, what Sontarans think of Hope Hodgson, and what Mark Gatiss will be doing next. Yes, we’re back on The Voice of Horror. Be still, our ex-sanguinated hearts.

Some will already know Big Finish Productions because of their Dr Who audio stories, but the company’s range expands every year, and includes Dark Shadows, The Avengers (no, not Thor & Iron Man – the proper UK ones, silly) and many others. We’ve long been fond of The Scarifyers series, a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at occult mysteries with the renowned David Warner and Terry Molloy (the early episodes also starred the late Nicholas Courtney, the renowned Brigadier from Dr Who’s UNIT).

With both direct adaptations and adventures inspired by original stories, the Big Finish catalogue already includes Sherlock Holmes (with Nicholas Briggs and Richard Earl), the Confessions of Dorian Gray, and Frankenstein. To our delight they are now adding Carnacki to their range, covering six tales of the Ghost Finder:

The Gateway of the Monster
The House Among the Laurels
The Whistling Room
The Horse of the Invisible
The Searcher of the End House
The Thing Invisible

The collection stars Dan Starkey (Thomas Carnacki) and Joseph Kloska (Dodgson), with music by Ioan Morris & Rhys Downing. Let’s turn to the producer, Scott Handcock, to explain things in more detail…

greydog: Welcome to greydogtales, Scott, and thanks for putting time aside for us. We’ll get straight down to it. You’ve chosen six of the nine Carnacki stories for this collection. We can understand you not using The Find, which is a bit of a throwaway, but that leaves The Hog and the Haunted Jarvee. These two are rather strange and disturbing tales. Any plans for them?

scott: No plans at the moment – but never say never. I’d love to tackle the remaining tales at some point, but for the initial release, it made sense to stick with the six core stories that act as a foundation for the character and his world.

audio clip from “the gateway of the monster”

greydog: Did you find you could take the stories and translate them easily to audio needs, or did you have to re-interpret the original text to achieve the effect you wanted?

scott: The Carnacki stories work so well because of Hodgson’s original style – they’re direct, intimately told, and filled to the brim with glorious language. Yes, we could have had a stab at translating them into something akin to a full-cast audio, with guest characters popping up, but you’d have needed to invent so much new dialogue for those characters, it would have detracted from Hodgson’s writing.

In that sense, no work at all was needed. Hodgson’s work serves as a perfect monologue, performed in character, with an occasional external commentator in the form of Dodgson. We toyed with a bit of sound design, but again, that weirdly undermined the beautiful language that makes the original stories so unique, so even that was pared back. The result is that Carnacki is unlike most Big Finish ranges, in that it’s really stripped back to the text and performance alone, supported by a lovely, brooding musical score from Ioan Morris and Rhys Downing.

greydog: Someone once described the setting of the Ghost Finder stories as akin to M R James’ tales, to be told around a roaring fire in a safe place. It sounds like that’s the result here.

scott: As I say, the Big Finish Carnacki stories are more straightforward productions than adaptations – we take no liberties with the text at all – and I like that fact. Hodgson’s format is, after all, why people love the Carnacki stories, and why they still serve as the ideal introduction to the character over a century later. The stories themselves are so dependent on mood, and the thought processes of Carnacki himself, I think you’d have lost a great deal by trying to extrapolate a larger world from these original stories.

So yes, these feel very much like fireside reminiscences, as each case is recounted and relived by Carnacki himself, taking us through the events of each mystery, blow by blow. And because we let the writing take centre-stage, each and every listener will experience the stories differently depending on how they interpret the words and temper the scares to suit them. I love that!

dan_starky_biopic-1 — the talented dan starkey

greydog: Dan Starkey, who’s rathered cornered the market in Sontarans (sorry, Dan, you’re great in other roles as well!), is playing Carnacki. We have to say that he really sounds the part. Are we right in thinking that Dan was already familiar with the Carnacki stories?

scott: Dan Starkey is a brilliant, brilliant actor. I’ve worked with him a few times at BBC Wales, where he appeared frequently on Doctor Who, and as a regular in Wizards vs Aliens, as well as Big Finish’s production of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He’s simply delightful to have around – utterly professional, fun and hugely talented. Plus, his radio training with the BBC’s Radio Drama Company means you can throw all manner of characters, accents or voices at him, and he’ll tackle it with aplomb!

How he came to be Carnacki was slightly strange. I’d recommended Dan to another Big Finish producer, James Goss, who was pulling together some DVD extras for BBC America about the Daleks and Cybermen and needed a presenter. I knew Dan was the man, and thankfully we got him, which meant a very enjoyable if hard day’s work at the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, filming with all manner of sets and props – including a Dalek voice coaching session with Big Finish’s executive producer Nicholas Briggs.

Quite by chance, over lunch, Nick and I were chatting about some of the things I had coming up on the Big Finish slate – one of which was the series of Carnacki audiobook readings – and Dan’s ears pricked up at the very mention of his name. Suddenly, he was gushing about the stories and the character, and was clearly very familiar with Hodgson’s work, so I couldn’t resist asking him if he wanted to actually be our Carnacki on audio. Thankfully, there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation, and he inhabits the character splendidly. I mean, Dan’s a terrific audiobook reader at the best of times, but his pre-existing familiarity and enthusiasm for the stories really has brought a lot of nuance and charm to the character. I can’t praise him highly enough!

greydog: You yourself have produced other horror for Big Finish, including The Confessions of Dorian Gray. Are you cautious about dipping your toe into this genre market, or do you think there is room for a much wider range of horror and weird fiction audio adaptations?

scott: You’re always cautious whenever you tackle something new, as you never know quite how an audience is going to respond, and if they’ll embrace it. I do, however, think that horror is ideally suited to audio. Fear is such a personal thing, as is listening to audio drama in a lot of ways, you’re able to really get into people’s heads and imaginations. With horror films, for instance, what you see if what you get – for some people it will be far too explicit, for others the same sequence can be incredibly tame. It all depends on who you are, and what you respond to.

On audio, everyone reacts differently. How you perceive the same effects and words and vary wildly, depending on how scary you want things to be. It’s what appeals to me so much about the medium. Not only can you do anything, and tell all manner of tales, but no one listener will ever see it in exactly the same way. The Carnacki tales are no different in that regard, and we deliberately hold back on any effects so as not to detract from the tale you’re being told. Carnacki is telling his stories to you and you alone, and that should hopefully make for something very special.

greydog: And are there other classic horror works of the same era which you would like to produce if you had the chance?

scott: It’s no secret that I adore horror, and I’ve been quite lucky to have tackled the big three gothic horror novels for Big Finish Productions. In 2013, we produced The Picture of Dorian Gray with Alexander Vlahos as a tie-in to our Confessions range. Then, in 2014, I lured the brilliant Arthur Darvill into studio to play my Frankenstein, with voice maestro Nicholas Briggs as his Creature. And of course, even as we speak, I’m pulling together a dream project, as Mark Gatiss plays Dracula himself in a new three-hour production for May 2016! It’s hard to think where you go after that.

If the Carnacki readings prove popular, and there’s an appetite for more, I’d love to tell some original stories with the character – stories that could be more full-cast mysteries with an element of narration to frame them, rather than full-length monologues. And there are obviously so many hinted-at cases and references from Hodgson’s own stories that we could pick up on and explore in the Big Finish universe. But we’ll see what the response is like.

greydog: As positive as we can make it. Many thanks, Scott Handcock.

This is one of those rare moments where we throw caution to the wind and say – buy, buy this now. Not only does it sound good, but every time someone purchases the new Carnacki, a little accountant angel in Heaven smiles and whispers “Produce more Carnacki. Now!” Which would be a Good Thing. You can click below to pre-order your own copy, out any day now:

carnacki the ghost finder

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We were also quite interested to see that Big Finish have recently released a new dramatisation of Ray Bradbury‘s The Martian Chronicles (December 2015), starring major players Derek Jacobi and Hayley Atwell. We haven’t had a chance to listen to this one, so can’t tell you much more, but we thought you might like to know.

b7-slides_015-1024x658 — the martian chronicles

The full range of their productions can be found here:

big finish productions

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Next time on greydogtales – Strangers Seas! The storm is rising, and we start with writer Steve Vernon, who tells us all about his own nautical myths and legends. Sou’westers on, everybody…

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Once in an April Moon

February 5, 2016 greydogtales Leave a comment

Do you want to be published? Do you want to be a publisher? Is that a big YES? Is that your life-long dream, the one which will finally justify your expenditure on catfood? Which ever way your keyboard hangs, we have a great interview with publisher Neil Baker of the Canadian small press April Moon Books.

Neil is also a writer, of course, and the author of the wonderful children’s book A Picnic at the Mountains of Madness (which all parents should steal from their kids and read themselves).Today, though, we’re focusing on his company. Settle yourselves quietly, listeners, and let Uncle Neil tell you the ins and outs of what it’s like to run one of the presses which give so many writers their first big break.

Warning to starving authors: This article is absolutely nothing to do with submission calls. It doesn’t mean that Uncle Neil wants all the boys and girls to send him crayon copies of their latest story about zombie elves. Don’t get over-excited now. Although, hmm, zombie elves – must make a note of that one.

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April Moon, based in Ontario, has published a fascinating selection of books, from madness in the English countryside (Black Star, Black Sun) to A Picnic at the Mountains of Madness for young and old. Then there are their anthologies, such as a new look at the werewolf trope in Flesh Like Smoke, and the Dark Rites of Cthulhu collection, which features two writers we’ve already interviewed here on greydogtales, Ted E Grau ( a voice from the nameless dark ) and Willie Meikle ( william hope hodgson: the inheritors ).

So let’s get the lowdown…

greydog: Welcome to greydogtales, Neil, and many thanks for participating.

neil: Thanks for having me.

greydog: You’re our first publisher on the site, so we’ll be gentle and start with a basic question. Some would say that it’s an insane idea to set up a small press, given all the known trials and tribulations of such a venture. What inspired you in particular to do it?

neil: You are right about it being an insane idea, but then most acts of passion are. There are a couple of reasons why I set April Moon up; firstly, I was at a low point where nothing seemed to be panning out in the other avenues I was pursuing (film/animation), and I needed to do something creative to keep the drive going. I have always been a writer, but for most of my life I have forced my stories into other fields. Then I saw some sub calls on Facebook and thought I might as well have a bash at it – and enjoyed some success straight off the bat with my first couple of stories. However, that brings me to the second reason. I wasn’t happy with the overall experience and thought I could make a better job of it. I had sent a story to Brian Sammons around this time and we became social media buddies – then he learned of my ambition to start publishing, and pitched The Dark Rites of Cthulhu to me. From that moment on, there was no turning back.

greydog: They say that everyone has a book inside them, though possibly some should stay there (we know, we’re being mean). With so many books competing for publishers, where do you start when building up your list? Do you approach authors you admire, or do you sift through hopefuls who contact you first?

neil: I regularly have writers contact me with regard to publishing their work, but I have to let them down gently. I am fully aware that this venture is a long game and really, as a small (some might say micro) press, I’m in no position to make anybody rich. That puts half of them off straight away.

I have always been about the short story – I grew up reading Frederic Brown, Harry Harrison and Roald Dahl’s horror fiction – and I find that just putting out the call attracts the talent hungry to get their work out there. That said, once I have a roster of authors who have written for me, and whom I love, then I regularly dip into their secret plans to see if I can get involved. Now my short stories are getting longer, novellas have crept in, and now there appears to be a novel on the horizon. April Moon is morphing.

greydog: Harry Harrison bought us a whisky or two in the old days, when we were eager fan-pups. Happy times, before we got serious and authorial. You’ve already managed to publish some cracking stuff, as we said earlier. Do you have a set of guidelines in your head which says, oh yes, this could be an April Moon book?

neil: I come from a film background, and I like my stories to entertain me the same way a tent pole blockbuster or a B-movie would. If a story is visually grand, pulpy and well-written, then it has a very good chance with me. You’ll find many of my anthologies laced with humour – this is deliberate and important. I’m always on the lookout for stories that take me by surprise, that lead me by the nose and then spin me around. The short story is not an easy form to do this in, and I admire everybody who succeeds. There are many other excellent publishers out there who produce stories that make you think, that force you to contemplate your very existence. I just want everyone to have a bloody good time.

greydog: Do you keep in touch with many other small and micro presses, or is it a fairly lonely road to take?

neil: We nod politely at each other via social media, but other than that, I haven’t sat down for tea and crumpets with another publisher yet. I’m hoping to get over to downtown Toronto this year and butt heads with some fellow writers/publishers, but in the meantime it’s just me and the shadows in this basement.

old-time-950445_960_720 — april moon headquarters, yesterday

greydog: We imagine that promotion must be a bit of a headache. Do you find it hard work getting your books noticed in the crowd, or do you find that quality wins out in the end?

neil: This is the hardest aspect of small scale publishing, and one that I continue to investigate. You’d be fooling yourself if you thought a hundred Facebook posts would sell your book – you really need to put the big money in to get your name and product in the trades in order to sell well. There are certainly other avenues, but I’ve been crunching the numbers and Goodreads giveaways, Facebook adverts and Google ads amount to nothing. It all comes down to playing with the big guns, and right now I’m in no position to drop $400+ on a full page ad in a magazine, let alone two or three. So, I beaver away, building up trust and good relationships with writers and readers – when the time comes (and I can afford it) I’ll unleash the April Moon catalogue upon the world.

greydog: One thing we know nothing about is the attitude of the large publishers to their feisty kin. Do they connect with small presses and watch what they’re doing – or is there no common ground?

neil: None at all. I suspect the large publishers have no idea April Moon exists.

greydog: Their loss (or maybe it’s safer that way). Now that you’ve been going a while, what sort of advice would you give someone starting up, or hoping to start up, in the business?

neil: First up, do it. If you love something, pursue it. That said, if you are getting into the game because you want a luxury yacht, get out now. You will need capital to get started. Even publishing through someone like Createspace, which is print on demand thus eliminating printer costs, will cost you loads if you intend to pay your authors (and you do, don’t you?), pay for a cover illustration, pay for promotion, send contributor copies out, send copies out to reviewers etc… Also, don’t forget that Amazon, or whomever else you publish with, will be taking a hefty cut. That $15 book will net you about $2.50 after everyone has had their slice.

But, it’s not all doom and gloom and purse strings! You are publishing stories! Little lumps of escapism that other humans will (hopefully) treasure and that will be around forever. That makes you a God.

greydog: We’re aiming for Fallen God at the moment. That way there are less expectations. So, small press or self-publishing? With the rise of easy-to-use self-publishing platforms, what would you say are the pros and cons for aspiring authors?

neil: The main pro is the ability to get your work out there, the con is that it might never be seen by anyone other than your aunty. True, there are several astonishing success stories connected to self-publishing, but for every one of those there are about five million who still languish, unread, in the bowels of Amazon’s top list for books>YA>vampires>glitter.

Hooking up with a small (or big) publisher means that your story has a better chance of being seen. That publisher will push your book, promote it every way they can, as they also have a stake in the book’s success. It also means that a pair of eyes that reads many, many stories, day after day, will be reading your work. You need those fresh and experienced eyes. Then there is access to artists, a built-in reader base and other networking opportunities.

greydog: All good points. It’s hard for emerging writers, but at times you need someone with publishing experience who says no, that really doesn’t work. Right, we like to signpost a wide range of authors and books on greydogtales. Apart from people on your own list, which writers are currently vibrating your antennae, either as a reader or a publisher?

neil: I tend to go through phases when reading outside the current selection for one of my books. To that end, I sometimes find it hard to squeeze in authors that I’m not working with. However, there are definitely some books that I have enjoyed recently by authors I hope to work with one day: Red Equinox by Douglas Wynne was one, as was God Bomb! by Kit Power. Rich Hawkins’ ‘Last’ books are awesome, but I suspect I’m not allowed to mention him as I published his first novella. Also, someone else I shouldn’t mention as he appears in my first anthology, ‘AMOK!’, is Rob. E. Boley, but his ‘Scary Tales’ books about a zombified Snow White are by far my favourite reads of last year.

aa24ba_370971f108054f6e9b8b36265bec9b4f — flesh like smoke

greydog: Finally, what’s coming from April Moon over the next year? Give our readers the low-down on your plans – with a bit of luck they’ll rush off to check their wallets.

neil: Mad plans are afoot. First up will be volume 4 in my Short Sharp Shocks collection – ‘Spawn of the Ripper’, a loving homage to the Hammer and Amicus films that made me the man I am today.

That will be followed by a couple of Kickstarter campaigns (remember how much it cost to produce a book?), one for a new collection of original James Bond stories spliced with Lovecraft’s Mythos (the first one has stories by Ed Erdelac and Willie Meikle) and the other for a secret project that involves some top authors and monsters.

Then I am working on publishing the debut novel from Patrick Loveland called ‘A Tear in the Veil’, which will knock everybody’s socks off, plus a follow up to my children’s book, probably based on Jules Verne, and then a sci-fi anthology called The Stars at my Door which will be optimistic pulp of the highest order. That one will be co-edited by George Anderson, who knows a thing or two about awesome stories. So, a quiet year then…

greydog: Thank you ever so much, Neil Baker.

neil: Thank you for taking an interest in my little company!

Full details of April Moon Books’ publications can be found at:

april moon books

aa24ba_db33a98fee3142509ca45ae3764316c2 — flesh like smoke

Next time on greydogtales, an exclusive interview with Scott Handcock, producer of the new Carnacki audio-tales for Big Finish Productions. We’re so excited we could build a pentacle…

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Lurchers in the Wind (and an Empress)

February 3, 2016 greydogtales Leave a comment

In which we whimsify about wild weather, walkies and worthless whistles. Plus writer Brian Barr joins us to talk about his Empress comic, hurrah! So much for alliteration. Lurcher lovers should board the first carriage only; comics enthusiasts should proceed to the far end of the train.

Lurchers first, then.

There is no ‘I’ in team. That’s because I is here, on my own, staring at mounds of mud-splattered washing and paw-marks over every surface. I’m fairly sure that’s one on the ceiling over there. Goodness knows, I love my longdogs, but the weather this winter has seriously challenged my desire to leave the computer chair.

In previous years, we’ve had some great walks in the snow. Django is especially fond of snow, and digs his muzzle into it so that he can throw it in the air, like a little kid. Ice is quite fun as well. Two long dogs in tandem do a great job of hauling you along like a world-class skater, and make you the envy of passing Jack Russell owners.

This year – storms and rain since November. Mud so deep in the woods that I’ve almost lost my wellies a number of times. And the wind…

dog-702733_960_720 — not a longdog, sadly

I have three problems with constantly walking in high winds:

Chilli, our alpha huntress, is only fully manageable on the whistle-treat system. For starters my fingers have been too numb to find the whistle under layers of clothing. I look like a terrible accident at a jumble sale on most walks, as if three old ladies were involved in a head-on collision and all their second-hand cardigans became one huge bundle with a beard sticking out. Worse, Chilli doesn’t always hear the whistle (or me calling her) because of the wind. A loose Chilli is a sort of wiry black missile, which even Django can’t catch.
That suspicious movement in the distance. You develop an additional sense if you have longdogs, a sort of long-range peripheral vision. Anything shifting in those bushes over there, a shadow moving on the far side of the field and so forth. Is that an alsatian off the lead, or a piece of cardboard? Trying to work out what is a potential risk, and what is just an airborne cornflakes packet, has become a nightmare. Recently the wind has been so bad that everything is whipping around madly, including people’s wheelie bins, car hubcaps, plastic bags and probably smaller, less well-anchored dogs. I dread the day when a Yorkie or a miniature poodle flies past. Snack-sized dogs are always a worry…
Poo bags. I am a dutiful sort of fellow, but pursuing escaped poo bags across a field which is mostly underwater is not my idea of fun. If you get them out of your pocket, they catch the wind, turn inside out and whip around trying to get free, seeking only to join that colony of liberated poo bags living in the nearby woods. Old, half-shredded bags gather round the young ones at night and shake their heads as they tell the little bags about how they escaped from The Beardy Man. I am their Urban Legend. This might be a minor problem, except for the fact that Django has days when he decides he needs multiple bottom-emptying stops, usually when a family with lots of curious children goes by. He does like an audience, and poo bag hell in high winds starts again…

Add to that my frozen ears, and I submit, m’lud, that it’s about time these bloody winds stopped. I rest my case.

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Now, as I am the only serious comics lover on the greydogtales team (unless you count Twiglet, who enjoys chewing the edges off a good graphic novel) I shall continue in First Person. The Magic Loft here is renowned for its many wonders, one of which is a large collection of old comics. You can’t get at half of them, because of the books, the vinyl LPs, the clothes which will never be worn again, forty seven draft novels with bits missing and the large, rusty television aerial. This last item is crucial, because the cable from it runs down the outside of the house and is the only thing which anchors the thirty foot of jasmine growing into the bedroom window.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, comics. In the last year I’ve renewed my expeditions up there and managed to extract a good quarter of the old comics. Wondrous treasures. So I thought I’d explore some newer stuff, hence things like our article on the Hellboy spin-off, Edward Grey, Witchfinder, a while ago (see the 3 sir edward greys). And in the process I bumped into writer Brian Barr. Having apologised for the light bruising, I could only make it up to him by letting him say something about his own comic, Empress.

A collaboration between Cruel Productions and Isle Squared Comics, Empress is both easy and hard to describe. The visuals, layout, all that technical stuff I leave to others, but the writing certainly caught my eye. Empress shifts between time zones, characters and viewpoints, always anchored one way or another by the titular character. I’ll let Brian tell you the rest, along with a bit about himself:

Lines of Inspiration

My name is Brian Barr. I’ve been writing and telling stories since I was a kid. I always liked ghost stories, and would often share them with family members. I grew up with a mom who loved horror, so horror and dark stories rubbed off on me. I also loved comic books growing up, and eventually got into fantasy and science-fiction. I also like literary fiction from time to time.

My favorite authors are Anthony Burgess, Tad Williams, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alan Moore, Clive Barker, Jon Walter Williams, and Jim Starlin. I love Japanese manga and my favorites are Akira (also love the movie), Lone Wolf and Cub, and Devilman. Anything that is creative and thought-provoking really fascinates me, and I like to explore different social themes in my writing. Along with gaining inspiration from books and authors that I like, music is very inspiring, and I like many types of music ranging from rock and punk to ambient electronic music. Different cultures and societies from around the world also feed my inspiration, as noticeable in Empress.

Empress is a comic co-created by Chuck Amadori and myself. Chuck is an amazing writer and encourages me to get better in our collaborations. The artist of Empress is Marcelo Salaza, whose great talent turns my scripts into living works of art along with Geraldo Filho, our current colorist. Matheus Broncas colored issues 1-4 before Filho and his work is just as stunning.

Empress starts as a supernatural noir horror-thriller, and there is a mix of other genre in the work as well, from dark fantasy to historical fiction. The comic revolves around a character I created in 2011 named Zia, a Hollywood starlet from the 1930s who suddenly ends up missing. A private eye is sent to find her by the movie studio Zia works for, and he finds that Zia’s fate is beyond anything that he could have imagined.

We planned Empress as an ongoing comic series, and we’re almost halfway through the scripts we’ve written so far. We’re working hard to get it out there and share a new, unique story with lovers of fantasy, horror, sci-fi, and good fiction period. We’re creating our own mythology with inspiration from many archaic cultures, and forging a fun, dark story that people can enjoy.

Along with the Empress comic book, my first novel, Carolina Daemonic, Book 1: Confederate Shadows, is available on Amazon in Kindle and Print. I have many short stories in a range of magazines and anthologies from Dark Chapter Press’s Kill for a Copy (with more to come from Dark Chapter Press), Nebula Rift, New Realm Magazine, and different publications from J. Ellington Ashton Press. Just type in Brian Barr in the Amazon search, my stuff will come up.

Thanks for this opportunity to join in the fun, greydogtales.

It’s been our pleasure. You can find out more about Brian’s writing at his site here:

brian barr books

Empress #5 is the start of a new story arc, but in addition to back issues you can also get #1 – 4 as a single edition.

61CcJ+xwYYL._SX325_BO1,204,203,200_ empress at amazon

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We’re a little over-stuffed here in the ramshackle shepherd’s hut. So what comes over the next couple of weeks is a mystery. An interview with Neil Baker of small press April Moon, Steve Vernon on supernatural sea stories, more Lurchers for Beginners, a feature on the new Carnacki audio production, David Senior‘s fabulous photography and Scary Women 2 are all waiting somewhere.

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