OTHER TALES

Most of my time is centred on the Raine's Landing novels these days. But they're not the only thing I do, nor the only books that I see published. Take a look at my bibliography, and you'll realise that I've written a sizeable number of short stories down the years. And the number one publisher of collections of those in the U.S. these days is the very excellent Dark Regions Press, who turn out great looking and reasonably-priced books and have a catalogue of fine authors that is continually expanding.

They've already released one bumper-sized collection of my work, Shadows and Other Tales, which was extremely well received. Peter Tennant at the great British horror mag Black Static said of it "For the sheer pleasure of reading a story by a master of the art, Shadows and Other Tales is hard to beat." While Trevor Denyer of the highly-regarded indy journal Midnight Street added "Shadows is more than worth the entrance fee and the journey. Highly recommended."

And now I'm in discussion with editor Joe Morey about publishing two more collections of my work. I'll let you have the details just as soon as they're ironed out.

BITES OF THE APPLE

Louise and I are recently back from a flying three-night visit to NYC. The occasion? The wedding of Louise's 'baby' cousin, Samantha, now in her early forties and a trainee cardiologist. A whole load of other members of the clan flew in from Toronto with their friends, and it was great to see them. Sam and her charming partner Jeremy live in the West Village, just about my favourite section of Manhattan, and the whole shindig took place there. The ceremony was on Charles, and then we went on to the Perry Street restaurant on the corner of Perry and West, right next to the river and with beautiful views of the Hudson. The terrific lunch we had there didn't stop a bunch of us from heading across to Mulberry Street that evening for some pasta.

Which meant that when Diana Gill, my editor at Eos, took me out to Papillon on 54th for another lunch the next day, I wasn't exactly hungry. It's always a pleasure to see her, though, and I finally got taken around the HarperCollins offices and met her assistant Will Hinton and the publicist assigned to me, Greg Shutack. Worth the trip.

BACK IN HARDBACK

This is something of a late night posting, time differences between London and New York being what they are. But Diana Gill, my editor at Eos, has just got in touch with me -- all pleased, thrilled and whatnot-- to tell me that both the Science Fiction Book Club and the Doubleday Book Club are going to be bringing out editions of 'Night of Demons.' And it seems they like it even better than 'Dark Rain' ... they've offered me almost twice as good a deal as I got last year. This would be a cigar moment, if I smoked them (which I don't).

And for some even later breaking news ... as well as this blog and my regular website, I also now have a 'microsite' at HarperCollins.com. It's full of quirky features, is informative and fun. You can visit it by clicking here.

LOCAL WEIRDO

Louise and I have recently got back from a ten-day holiday in Sopot, a beautiful little town near Gdansk on the Baltic coast of Poland. Not only did we have a terrific time; we also made an interesting discovery. Namely that, though most people think of him as German, Sopot is the original birthplace of the great Klaus Kinski, sometime muse of Werner Herzog and best known for his leading role in the remake of Nosferatu. The accompanying photograph is of his home on Koscluszki Street, now a bar dedicated to his memory and called the Galeria Kinsky. On two storeys, with balconies up top, it's as dark as a cave inside, littered with Kinski photographs and memorabilia, and just to add a final macabre touch there are funereal crimson drapes throughout the entire place. The perfect Goth hangout, in other words ... except that Sopot doesn't seem to have any Goths. What a waste. Maybe some of my black-clad, mascara-wearin' buddies could stage a convention there.

You'd think that there'd be more around town regarding the famous man than just a bar. A statue, maybe? But poor old Klaus doesn't seem to be held in very high regard by the otherwise kind and friendly locals. The tourist guidebook -- Sopot in Your Pocket -- refers to him as a 'nutter.' And that's not just an idle snipe; Kinski actually did spend time in an asylum at one stage. He fostered most bad habits in the book. He ... ahem .. 'dated' several hundred women, and was apparently quite proud of that, because the first draft of his autobiography had to be scrapped for being overly graphic. He even once attempted throat surgery on himself. Yes, I'm afraid you read that correctly. How wasted or deranged does someone have to be before that begins looking like a good idea? But Klaus was either very hardy, very lucky, or had natural talents with a scalpel, because he managed to survived it.

Here's the tale about him that I really like the best, though. When he finally did pass away, in 1991, someone asked a friend of his, "What exactly did Mr. Kinski die of?" The friend thought about it a few moments, shrugged, and then replied, "A little bit of everything." Now that's a life well lived. Next time I'm in Sopot, I'll head for the bar again and raise a glass to him in tribute. Cheers, Klaus!

AND HERE'S THE COMPLETE PICTURE

Just left double-click on this image to enlarge it.

COVER STORY

The cover for last year's Dark Rain was not half bad ... but, in retrospect, it made the book look too much like a traditional horror novel, which it certainly was not. This year sees a big improvement on that situation. Because this year, Eos/HarperCollins have commissioned the amazing Don Sipley to do the cover. The same terrific artist who's been painting the covers for Jocelynn Drake's bestselling Dark Days adventures. I'm delighted with the end result. My editor and her wonderful, hard-working staff are all ecstatic. And now you can see it for yourself.

Night of Demons is now due to be launched on October 28th, just before World Fantasy and, appropriately, Halloween. And I'll be sending out some review copies soon. If you seriously want to write a review, get in touch and let me know.

TORCHWOOD

I've never watched this show before, which is pretty odd when you consider that not only am I into all things fantasy and science fiction, but I know several of the people who write the Torchwood novelizations. But the prospect of a five day running mini-series -- Children of Earth -- finally tempted me. And to my own surprise, I was not in the least bit disappointed. There were a couple of lame jokes, and some -- er -- 'borrowing' from other films and shows. But overall the cast was good, the plot was strong and menacingly creepy, and there was even some unsubtle but rather timely social comment around the question of who's important to society and who is not, what used to be called Social Exclusion and was supposed to be reduced instead of getting worse.

Should Captain Jack re-appear on our screens, I'll definitely give him another look. But if I have one major gripe, it's that the good guys resorted in the end to defeating the villain by announcing something along the lines of "if we defribrillate the varg blaster and reverse the polarity of the neutron blerks, we can create a sonic resonance that will disrupt ..." etcetera and so forth. Um, yuh, why didn't I think of that? But if Torchwood does that regularly, then it's not the only show that's guilty. Doctor Who does it a lot, and so for that matter did TNG. Personally, my own heroes mostly beat the bad guys by punching them repeatedly or shooting them, preferably both. The simpler solutions are so much better ... and more fun.