Welcome, dear listener. Sherlock Holmes again, the shadows of the British Empire, new magazines and general chaos. We’ll have to call this one a midweek medley. And we need to investigate Django’s bald spot anyway, so our Edwardian Arcane series will have to wait a day or two. The daft little donkey has developed one of those patches on his tail which may be a sebaceous gland problem, a flea allergy, or mites, and as he will keep chewing at it, no doubt the vet will have an extra holiday this year.

So while we employ hibiscrub and a medicated shampoo, we’ll update you on that other stuff…

Strange Empire

A map of the world, showing the British Empire coloured in red at the end of the nineteenth century. Date: late 19th century

First new project of the week is Imperial Weird. 18thWall Publications have given greydog himself and author/editor Matt Willis the go-ahead to edit a new anthology, to be published (hopefully) late Summer 2017. Under this working title, we will be looking for tales of horror, loss and the hidden costs of Empire. Not steam-punk or alternative worlds, but a basis of genuine history blended with the supernatural, the unnatural and the fate of those who trod other lands and attempted to rule other peoples. Drawn from our latest broad outline:

“The British Empire was the largest empire in history, and ruled vast territories across the globe. But what of the common soldiers and sailors, the young, ill-prepared officers and the civil servants, engineers, and their wives, sent out to maintain this rule?

“Farmers put in uniform, marching under a parched South African noon to fight the Boer, with whom they had more in common than they had with their own officers. Young London women shipped with their officer husbands to quarters in Calcutta with little company save their Indian servants. Traders and planters in Malaya, fighting the monsoon shadows, and the forlorn garrisons in the Sudan. The sailors of the West Africa squadron, seizing slave ships off the Gold Coast.

“And the other side of the coin? The Bombay (Mumbai) char wallah, beaten one too many times by the English Major for being too slow with his cup of tea. The young Zulu who trades his iklwa for a Martini rifle, and the Egyptian woman who finds that her officer lover will not acknowledge her in the street. There are many ways to seek revenge, and some of those can be called from the darkness.

“A thousand tales from the Ashanti Wars to the Boxer Rebellion, from the 1850s to the dawn of the Edwardian era. Tales from Africa, the Middle-East, Afghanistan and India…”

jhansi_fort2 — jhansi fort, uttar pradesh, 1882

Humanity will be the key. We ‘re not going to demonise the British, as such, nor are we going to belittle other people through jingo-ism. The Empire happened, and it took its toll on all sides. Token ‘characters’ not welcome, therefore – white, black, brown or yellow. Humans, with all their flaws and failings, yes.

We want to remind readers that anyone can get scared, from the British general to the Sudanese child. Scary and disquieting will be the key-words, all bundled up for convenience under ‘weird’. And we’re putting some energy into encouraging contributions from non-white authors to help show both sides of the Imperial experience.

If you want to know more, or would like to raise ideas, concepts (or even submit a story eventually), then there is an Imperial Weird Facebook Group, launched yesterday. Matt and greydog will be announcing formal guidelines in late November and issuing an open call for submissions around then.

imperial5

Holmes Away from Home

As we have a fondness for Victorian and Edwardian detectives, occult or not, it may come as no surprise that greydog has a new Sherlock Holmes story coming out. This one’s a genuine, no ghosts need apply, tale of derring-do and adventure in the Arabian Peninsula, set in the period between Holmes’ supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls and his re-appearance in London years later. That’s the stretch from 1891 to 1894 usually called the Great Hiatus.

As faithful to the canon as it can be, it’s called ‘The Adventure of the Dragoman’s Son’. If you don’t know the term, a dragoman was an interpreter, translator, and official guide between Turkish, Arabic, and Persian-speaking countries and polities of the Middle East and European embassies, consulates, vice-consulates and trading posts. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and European languages. Incidentally, the ‘man’ bit is part of the original word from various sources, so the plural is dragomans.

Anyway, the story will be in the first volume of a rather neat new two volume anthology from Belanger Books, Holmes Away from Home: Adventures from the Great Hiatus. They have a Kickstarter campaign up right now to help pay the authors, so we’re surprisingly keen on it. Can’t imagine why. It’s a fascinating addition to the body of Holmesian fiction, which would be very tempting even if greydog wasn’t in there! And don’t forget, if you don’t like his writing you can just pull those pages out and enjoy the rest…

cf571ef2c226c2d06456697c853452a2_original holmes away from home kickstarter

There are some excellent rewards, and you can pledge for e-books or print, with a strong chance of having your copies before Christmas if you join in now. Which would make it rather a nice present. Do go and have a look at the line-up of authors and stories, whatever you do. Here’s the Volume One line-up:

Editor’s Introduction – Volume I: A Different Kind of Adventure – by David Marcum
Foreword – Volume I – by Mark Alberstat
The Final Problem – by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Over the Mountains in the Darkness – by Sonia Fetherston
An Englishman (or Two) in Florence – by David Ruffle
The Secret Adventure of Sherlock Holmes – by Diane Gilbert Madsen
The Harrowing Intermission – by Craig Janacek
The Adventure of the Indian Protégé – by Jayantika Ganguly
The Incident at Maniyachi Junction – by S. Subramanian
The Adventure on the Road to Mecca – by Deanna Baran
The Adventure of the Dragoman’s Son – by John Linwood Grant
A Murder on Mount Athos – by Katie Magnusson
The President’s Roses – by Stephen Seitz

Occult Detective Quarterly

Speaking of Kickstarters, the Occult Detective Quarterly campaign has achieved its initial goal, hurrah, and stands at just under $2,900 as we write.

One more Stretch Goal has been added, and it’s a nice one. If we can achieve $3,100, we’re going to add a brand new piece of commissioned B/W art from the very talented Mutartis Boswell, AND we’re going to publish the entirety of Ted E Grau’s novelette ‘Monochrome’ in Issue One, rather than doing it in two parts as originally announced. More horrors for your dollars (and pounds, of course), folks. Share, pledge, celebrate!

odqillo5 occult detective quarterly

In other news: Ravenwood Quarterly, ODQ’s darker sister, has put Issue Two together, with the most fantastic cover. It’s now available from Electric Pentacle Press, and promises much goodness.

13442653_1610114509280133_2360659591456152993_o ravenwood quarterly

Another new magazine, Turn to Ash, will be featured on greydogtales later on in the year, but in the meantime you can check it out here:

medusa_flattta turn to ash amazon uk

And Raphael Ordonez’s second novel The King of Nightspore’s Crown (mentioned earlier here nightspore’s crown ) is now available on Kindle. The King of Nightspore’s Crown is the second in a series of sword-and-planet tales set in the counter-earth, a world of prehistoric beasts and ocean-girding cities, ancient ruins and space elevators, primordial daemons and antediluvian races.

51K0OewW83L king of nightspore’s crown, amazon uk