Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 9 contents reveal

6 hours ago by Lydia Gittins

• jonathanstrahan
• bestsffoftheyear
• bestsffvol9

Best SFF Volume 9: the full line-up revealed

We are DELIGHTED to be able to reveal the full line up for award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 9. 

The iconic series, which came for the first time both to Solaris and the UK (resulting in almost instant sell-out!) last year, returns again for 2015 in May with a bold and diverse line-up.

Find out which stories we’re most excited about and share yours on twitter toady with #BestofSFF9.

Order: UK | US

Introduction, Jonathan Strahan

Slipping, Lauren Beukes

Moriabe's Children, Paolo Bacigalupi

The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family, Usman T. Mailk

The Lady and the Fox, Kelly Link

Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (The Successful Kind), Holly Black

The Long Haul from the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009, Ken Liu

Tough Times All Over, Joe Abercrombie

The Insects of Love, Genevieve Valentine

Cold Wind, Nicola Griffith

Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No.8), Caitlin R Kiernan

Shadow Flock, Greg Egan

I Met a Man Who Wasn't There, K. J. Parker

Grand Jeté (The Great Leap), Rachel Swirsky

Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They are Terrifying, Alice Sola Kim

Shay Corsham Worsted, Garth Nix

Kheldyu, Karl Schroeder

Calligo Lane, Ellen Klages

The Devil in America, Kai Ashante Wilson

Tawny Petticoats, Michael Swanwick

The Fifth Dragon, Ian McDonald

The Truth About Owls, Amal El-Mohtar

Four Days of Christmas, Tim Maughan

Covenant, Elizabeth Bear

Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology, Theodora Goss

Collateral, Peter Watts

The Scrivener, Eleanor Arnason

Someday, James Patrick Kelly

Amicae Aeternum, Ellen Klages

Posted Tue, Feb 3, 2015 1:33 PM

Cannonbridge: by Jonathan Barnes, an exclusive excerpt

1 day ago by Lydia Gittins

• jonathanbarnes
• cannonbridge

Cannonbridge

By Jonathan Barnes

Order: UK | US

“Forgive me, my dear Colonel,” said Miss Jewell with that species of sportive wit and provoking vivacity with which she had won her place in the affections and ambitions of every officer in the barracks, “but is not all life a mystery? Is not our very existence an enigma which we cannot hope to comprehend in full until that inevitable moment when our mortal days are ended?”

Plenitude by Matthew Cannonbridge (1842)

Eliphar, thou art intended as a sacrificial thing,
Created to toil and to serve
And never once to question your enslavement.

The Lamentation of Eliphar, Mununzar’s Son by Matthew Cannonbridge (1860)

The lease of Man is temporary and transient. There were terrible wonders before him. We may be sure that there shall be so again in the years to follow his superseding.

The Seasons of Sorrow by Matthew Cannonbridge (1875)

1816

The Villa Diodati
Geneva

Outside are storm clouds, rain and the gathering dark. Indoors are a company of five who, tired of other pastimes, of opiates and sex and wild transgression, have turned their attention instead to the telling of tales. Tonight, they talk of ghost stories.

            Their leader, a slim, clubfooted man, is to be found, with the rest of them, in one of the villa’s many rooms to have been devoted to pleasure, stretching pantherishly out upon a scarlet divan. Beside him is a pale, dark-haired girl who speaks but rarely and who gazes up at her companion with a dangerous obedience in her eyes.

            Another couple is present, though they seem, perhaps, more evenly matched: a languid, dissipated man with a wave of curling brown hair, and his young lover, a girl of not more than eighteen, whose demeanour—shifting, watchful intelligence—seems to speak of the woman that she shall become. The last of this quintet is a plump, oily-skinned physician whose full, almost feminine lips quiver whenever (and he does this often) he pays cringing homage to their host.

            Rain clatters upon the windowpane. In the distance, moving closer: the sound of a tempest, the mournful timpani of thunder. It is, of course, the man with the clubfoot who begins.

            “Now then…” His manner is unembarrassed in its languorous theatricality. “Which of you has given thought to our challenge?”

            He smiles a smile which, whilst fascinating and a thing that has enraptured many, is not a very pleasant smile nor one that evinces any warmth. It is not a smile that you would care to see were you, say, alone in his presence late at night or if he were to wake you in the early hours of the morning, a candle held in an outstretched hand, illuminating fitfully the cruel lineaments of his face.

            No one answers. The girl beside him moves closer, nestling her soft, compact frame against his body. She breathes in his scent, half-sighing, half-shuddering, her expression, of giddy adoration, one which he seems scarcely even to notice.

            “Percy?” he asks, already impatient.

            The brown-haired fellow looks up. “Oh, yes. I fear I have not a notion. You must understand that I am more accustomed to the particularities of poetry than I am to those of prose.”

            From their host—a snort of weary disapproval. “Then you should play the game more fully. At least if you wish to remain our guest.”

            The poet looks uncertain at the slight, not quite knowing how to respond, wary of angering the clubfooted man. A second’s hesitation, then a feudal lowering of his gaze, a bowing as buck yields to stag.

            The clubfooted man purses his lips and arches an eyebrow. “Who else, pray? Who has some less disappointing reply?”

            “I… I believe I have a story, my lord.” This is the plump young doctor, the blood rushing to his fleshy cheeks, a sheen of sweat upon his forehead.

            The face of the clubfooted man is a mask of haughty scepticism. “Dr Polidori?” His eyes flicker over to the other guests seeking to forge some conspiracy between them. “Indeed? You must tell us more, my dear.” Disdain in every syllable. Contempt in every word.

            “My lord, I have been busying myself with the invention of a tale of the un-dead.”

            The man whom the doctor has called “my lord” seems, despite himself, to be quietly intrigued. “That does sound of some small interest. You may continue.”

            The physician swallows, perspires, wipes his upper lip. “I have in mind, my lord, a most beguiling nobleman…”

            At this, the rest of the company exchange glances of dark amusement.

            “Now, at first, when we, the reader, first encounter him, he seems quite human, does my aristocrat, my Lord Ruthven, but he is… not as other men. He…”

            “Yes?” Taken by the physician’s story, Percy, the young poet leans forwards, while the woman beside him still seems far away, thinking of other things.

            The rain beats more insistently upon the window. Thunder is heard again, louder than before. The storm approaches.

            “My friends, this great man of mine is not, in truth, a man at all. Rather, he is a fiend… a drainer of blood… A vampire!”

            Shrieks and cries of mock terror and delight.

            Plump Polidori, now warming to his theme: “He pulls in men—and women also—with the irresistible force of his character, with his glamour, his romance. They all admire him. They all seek his company. Yet he has in mind for them just one thing—to drain them of their blood! He cannot know mercy. He is quite implacable. He is grown fat upon the nectar of his victims. And he lusts, he lusts for—”

            “Yes, yes. Thank you, doctor. We also have had our fill now, I think.”

            Polidori attempts to continue but his interjection is waved peremptorily aside.

            “Later,” the lord hisses. Then, to the rest: “Has anyone conceived of some less lumpen tale? I asked for something to chill me—not for some absurd farrago fit only for the lowest fleapit of the East End.”

            Dr Polidori, crestfallen, if unsurprised, says nothing though he blinks too hard and too fiercely. There is a bottle beside him and a glass and it is with the decanting of the one into the other that he now occupies himself.

            “My lord?” The watchful young woman is speaking—courteous, firm, wholly unafraid.

            The host turns towards her, his manner coldly indulgent but also an unexpected wariness. “Mary?”

            “My lord?”

            “And what have you dreamed for us?”

            “I think you are correct, my lord, when you ask me what it is that I have dreamed for my story came to me at night, unbidden and in my sleep and as a kind of phantasy…” For a moment after speaking, the woman seems lost in thought.

            “Quite wonderful. But you must go on, my dear.”

            “It concerns a man who, although he longs to be human, can never truly be so.”

            “And how can that be?”

            “Because he has been built by man. He is, you understand, a… thing of artifice. He is created by dark arts in defiance of the laws of God. Stitched and darned by some doomed scholar, imbued with a grotesque mockery of life and set to wander blindly and with murderous intent throughout the world.”

            The clubfooted man draws in a long, slow breath. “Dear lady, you astound us. I think I can go so far as to say that your story may even have some trifling possibilities.”

            “Mary?” Her lover is looking at the lady somewhat strangely as if she has not spoken to him of these peculiar fancies before this moment.

            “What is the name of this poor creature?” asks the lord.

            The storm is ready to break. The rain drums still harder on the windowpanes. There is thunder once again, almost upon them, every peal of it fiercer and more terrible than anything that has come before.

            “He has no name. His creator denies him even that.”

            “The creator, then? What of he? What is this rash Prometheus called?”

            “I know not from whence it came but I do believe him to be named—”

            Before she can complete her sentence three loud knocks are heard—quite distinctly—upon the outer door.

            At the sound of it, they all—even the lord—feel a spasm of intense disquiet. For a moment, nobody speaks. There are only the noises of precipitation, the feral growling of the storm.

            It comes again—three further knocks.

            The young woman who has, until now, stayed quite silent, clings to the lord’s shoulder. As is not uncommon with her, hysteria seethes and bubbles in her voice. “Who is that, my love? Who is it who calls upon us?”

            But the host’s equilibrium is recovered swiftly. He shushes his pet. “Hush, my darling. It is someone from the village. That is all. Some beggarman or wayfarer. I shall see them off.”

            Pushing away the girl as though she were of no more account to him than the lowest animal, he stands briskly upright. “I shall see who calls upon us.”

            The girl again, wide-eyed and tremulous: “My lord, I fear for you. You ought not to go alone.”

            “You think not? Yet surely it is not for me but our uninvited guest for whom you should feel fear? Still, I shall take another. If one of you wishes to accompany me.”

            No volunteer presents themselves.

            Then, once again and for the final time, three knocks echo through the house.

            “Don’t be a goose,” says the other woman, the tale-teller, stepping adroitly to her feet and striding towards the door. “Come, my lord, let us welcome our unexpected visitor.” And she walks so firmly from the room that the man with the clubfoot has to struggle to keep pace with her.

            The doctor, Polidori, calls out behind them: “Be careful, my dears. Be careful!”

            Percy says nothing but only, troubled, watches the woman go.

            Through the villa they stride, Mary and the lord—along corridors draped with ancient tapestries, upon stone floors which ring out accusingly at the sound of their footsteps, through many strange and singular rooms born of dark beauty and misspent wealth and ingenious perversity. Their conversation is sporadic and freighted with anxiety. As they pass from space to space, the sounds of the storm intensify.

            “You seem ill at ease,” remarks the clubfooted man as they pass a large, elaborate mural, filled with pictures of cherubs and nymphs, a line of athletic centaurs, the races intertwined in the most remarkable and inventive ways.

            “I am curious as to the identity of our caller. Do you not share my sentiment?”

            “I do. Yet you seemed to me to be ill at ease long before.”

            “Perhaps, my lord. I am unsettled.”

            “Your step-sister, perhaps? Her behaviour irks you? You are jealous of her privileges?”

            “Her choices are her own. I have no dominion over her.”

            “Yet I assuredly do. And that irks you?”

            “Not at all, my lord. In so many ways, the two of you strike me as a most excellent match.”

            They move through a place which seems to have been given over to the theatre—a small, abandoned stage, a flock of costumes, stacks of manuscripts and ancient books, the text of an unorthodox and even a scandalous kind. Outside, rages the thunder and the rain.

            “Tell me,” he urges. “What troubles you? Was it something about our game?”

            “In that you may be right, my lord.”

            “Indeed?”

            “I simply believe that the telling of tales should not be a game.”

            “You understand that I meant only to provide us with a little amusement?”

            “Yes. But then all the world is a joke to you.”

            The lord gives no sign that he disagrees with her judgement. “Do you not believe it to be so?”

            “I can see how you might form such an opinion.”

            “You choose your words with care, I think. Extrapolate.”

            They walk through the theatre, into a library, an antechamber and out into the main corridor of the house. In the distance: the outer door, heavy and fortified.

            The woman’s words are hurried, as though the swift speaking of them may serve to hide their meaning. “Your position, my lord. Your power. And, above all, your money. These things protect you from the truth of the world.”

            The man does not reply but merely steps rather clumsily onwards, as though concentrating now to the exclusion of all else, upon the feat of forward motion.

            At last, they reach the door. Although they have heard no further knocks—and for all that they know the visitor may have departed—both can sense the presence of something that does not truly belong on the other side, something waiting which ought not to be there at all. As they open the house to the storm, the woman and the lord dare not look at one another.

            Outside, drenched and framed by the glowering sky, his arrival heralded by another clap of thunder, stands a stranger. Black-clad, dark-haired, his face lean and intelligent, his eyes a penetrating shade of blue, he seems almost to have been brought to this place by the storm itself. Although kindly in his manner there is even now, even at this, the earliest of all known phases, something about him—some dormancy, some potential—which makes the couple step, instinctively, half a pace backwards.

            In spite of the tempest, the stranger smiles. “I was expecting servants.”

            “The servants have fled, sir. Appalled, they said, at our depravity.”

            The stranger’s smile does not falter. “You must be Lord Byron.”

            The object of this observation nods crisply.

            “And you—oh, I know your name. You are Mary.”

            “Do I know you, sir?”

            “Not yet, I fear. And I hope that you’ll forgive me for arriving unannounced and without an introduction.”

            “What do you want?” asks the lord.

            “Only shelter. For tonight. Nothing more. Shelter from the storm. And perhaps a little company. I can recompense you handsomely for both.”

            “I have no need of money.”

            “I did not speak of money.”

            “No?”

            “I have heard (I cannot at present recollect where or from whom) that tonight you tell tales. Stories meant to curdle the blood and to quicken the beatings of the heart.”

            Byron inclines his head. If he is surprised, he takes pains not to disclose it. “That is so.”

            “Then I’ve come to help. To contribute if I can.”      

            “Indeed?”

            “As chance would have it, I know just such a story—the most terrible, and I would warrant, the most chilling of them all.”

            He smiles again and this time neither of them can resist the force of it.

            Deafening thunder. Torrential rain.

            The stranger, soaked yet resolute: “My lord, the storm is quite unrelenting.”

            “Then come in,” says Byron and how odd it is, how very odd, to hear that curious note of deference in his voice. “And be right welcome.”

            “Forgive me,” says the girl, “but I did not hear your name.”

            “I did not give it.” The stranger glances behind him, somewhat nervous all of a sudden, as though he suspects himself to have been followed, as though some shadow dogs him. But, almost at once, uncertainty fades and the smile comes again. “My name is Cannonbridge. It is Matthew Cannonbridge.”

            “Then pray come in, Mr Cannonbridge.”

            And the dark-haired man, invited, steps inside.

            For a long time to come, Mary will tell herself that it was all coincidence—how lightning struck close by at the very moment when the stranger crossed the threshold, how in that instant she should herself have felt a tremor in her heart as if she were suddenly unwell and how (and this, she will tell herself over and over, must surely have been her imagination) she seemed to hear, quite distinctly, though she knows it to be impossible, the infant having died some fifteen months beforehand, the desperate, mournful weeping of her child.

Now

Two hundred years later—give or take a couple of months—and the mind of Dr Toby Judd is also filled with thoughts of Matthew Cannonbridge.

            Judd is standing in the furthermost carriage of the 18:12 from Waterloo, coming home from a day of prickly meetings and academic brouhaha at the premises of his employer, the University of Draye. The train is full—more than full—and its passengers are sour and restive. No seat, of course, for Toby. He’s standing up with a dozen others, squashed against the windowpane, wedged uncomfortably between a pot-bellied man in a suit who holds a paper bag of McDonalds (from which he pulls item after item—nuggets, French fries, beef patty, onion rings) and a slab-faced woman in late middle age who has a mobile phone clamped to her right ear and into which she is bellowing orders of baffling specificity.

            Toby is a small man—just over five feet, slim, bespectacled, unassuming—and, in this instance, he resembles a shrimp between two sea beasts. He holds out before him, angled awkwardly against the glass, a tubby paperback, the cover of which proclaims its title to be Cannonbridge: A Celebration of English Genius. It is illustrated by a reproduction of an etching—that famous, saturnine profile—and, affixed to the slick card is a round red sticker which reads ‘Matthew Cannonbridge: WINNER of the Waterstones Poll to find the Nation’s FAVOURITE Writer’.

            Its back cover is taken up by a sepia photograph of the author of the piece: an intense, hawkish-looking man, not more than forty and in possession of enviable cheekbones. His smile reveals suspiciously perfect teeth and his name (printed on back, front and spine) is Dr J J Salazar—also, as it happens, a Draye employee, albeit of a starrier kind than Dr Judd.

            Toby has just reached the end of a rather lurid chapter concerning the earliest known Cannonbridge sighting—by the shores of Lake Geneva and in distinguished company, the first recorded appearance in history of that extraordinary man—when a slip of paper flutters from between the pages and glides towards the ground. He bends over to retrieve it, an action which seems to cause the goliaths on either side of him to recognise his presence for the first time. The woman interpolates a single “tsk” into her stream of recondite commands, whilst the man, slowing his ingestion momentarily, glances down at his smaller fellow traveller and stifles, almost wholly unsuccessfully, a belch.

            The paper, in Toby’s hands again, turns out to be mere publicity material—something to do with the Cannonbridge Gala, due in eight weeks and set to represent the acme of the nation’s bicentennial celebrations. Scrumpling up the flier, Toby slides it into the pocket of his jacket (his favourite, made of blue cord and better suited, after fifteen years of almost daily use, to the undiscerning charity shop, the fabric reclamation centre). As he straightens, he glimpses the almost-empty first-class carriage beyond and sees there, in one of those coincidences which, although not uncommon in life would be dismissed out of hand in fiction, sitting in an aisle seat, his legs stretched out before him with lordly indifference, Dr J J Salazar.

            Salazar holds in one hand not a book but a sleek, black tablet from which he is reading. Whatever these words may be, they cause a flicker of ironical amusement to play about his lips. Alerted by some sixth sense, the author turns and catches sight of Toby. That smile intensifies. He waves. Toby considers pretending not to have seen him but, deciding that it’s probably too late now for that particular gambit, attempts to wave back. His arms are constricted and he ends up succeeding only in jostling the giant flask of cola from which his neighbour is slurping, an action which earns Toby another look of furious disapproval.

            Salazar, witnessing all of this from the security of his first-class booth, nods once and smiles, affecting the kind of expression with which he favours certain of his students—an adult tolerance of the gaucherie of youth. Toby looks down at his book, remembering too late just what it is that he is reading. But Salazar has already seen and at the sight of his own face gazing back at him, his smile (or so it seems to Toby) grows broader still. Those remarkable teeth (almost American!) gleam and shimmer in the early evening light.

            What little appetite he had for the book now having dissipated, Toby passes the rest of the journey by gazing out of his little patch of window. The train passes at speed through the cat’s cradle of Clapham Junction, after which the sprawl of the city—its black, concrete complexity—begins to recede and the suburbs start to impinge. Through Earlsfield, Wimbledon, New Malden, Surbiton and on towards Ashbury, the excesses of London, her grime and savage energy, are overtaken by the apparent placidity of her outlying districts—by quiet and patient streets, by the increasing preponderance of green spaces. Not quite the city nor yet the country either, the train passes into those liminal, well-mannered states which thrive discreetly at the borders of metropolises.

            Eventually, it pulls into its first stop. Toby has never ridden on the service for any longer—it ends up, he believes, in Portsmouth and sometimes he imagines what it would be like to stay on board the train until that terminus, picturing cool, invigorating, salty air, the shriek of seabirds, the distant honking of ferries and liners, chips by the seafront, bracing afternoon walks beside the ocean. But today, like every other day, he does not wait to find out. The doors open with a whoosh which, had the train been human, might have sounded like relief.

            Judd and his companions step out onto the concourse. The big man, having finished his sack of fast food, stares mournfully into its depths as if in the hope of spying some neglected crumb, while the woman strides swiftly away, the stream of orders now overtaken by a catechism of what sound like expressions of endearment and assurances of affection. Whether the interlocutor is the same as before, Toby cannot say.

            There is the usual, urgent rush towards the stairs which lead out of the station and Toby lets himself be caught up in the flood, succumbing to the seductive momentum of the crowd. He is swept along with the herd of his fellow commuters, down the platform, up the stairs and out the station exit, towards the cab rank and the car park and the high street beyond.

            Free of the mob, pausing for breath, Toby notices with surprise, that J J Salazar has also alighted from the train, here, in Ashbury, in Toby’s town, where he can surely have no proper business. Salazar is waiting halfway along the line for taxis, his face set in an expression of good sportsmanship, like a movie star trying out self-deprecation on a talk show or a politician at the kind of photocall which involves some slight risk of appearing foolish but which his people have assured him will make him seem approachable and everyday.

            Toby considers passing by without speaking but, his curiosity getting the better of him, he walks over to the author and taps him on the shoulder, a part of the other man’s anatomy which is, approximately, level to his own head.

            “J J?”

            The tall man turns and smiles, a little vaguely, as if the name of the newcomer might at any moment dart away from his recollection like a salmon in the stream.

            “Toby! This is a coincidence.”

            “Isn’t it?”

            “Good to see you earlier at the University. Sorry we didn’t get a chance to chinwag. There’s always so many people at those meetings and—you understand—one has to prioritise.”

            Toby keeps his expression as neutral as he can. “Of course.” He breathes in slowly. “We’ve not seen you for a while. Been enjoying your sabbatical?”     

            “Sure. Sure, Toby. Yeah. It’s been a lot of hard work. Mostly this gala thing. And all the publicity around the book. God knows why, but it really seems to have caught people’s imagination. Man, but the media have just picked it up and run with it.”

            “Well… Congratulations.”

            “Cheers. I see you’ve got yourself a copy.”

            “I have, yes.”

            “That’s cool. Hope you’re not finding it too much of a primer. Of course, it’s meant really for a big, popular audience. Just a nice, lucrative mass-market thing. Though I reckon I’ve unearthed a few tasty new facts. Cannonbridge is one of your own areas of interest, isn’t he?”

            “One of them, yes.”

            “I’ve not had a chance to read you on him yet, I’m afraid. Well, you know what Cannonbridge studies are like—such a competitive field. I was especially fortunate, of course—what with earning the blessing of the estate and being allowed to riffle at will through that fabulous archive in Edinburgh. As you know, they’re normally pretty strict about who they let in there but… well, I’m just very grateful for such terrific opportunities.”

            A taxi arrives, a black cab, its yellow light ablaze. A woman at the head of the queue gets inside and the line shuffles forwards.

            “Forgive me for asking…” Toby begins.

            “Yeah?”

            “What brings you to Ashbury?”

            “Visiting a… dear friend. And you?”

            “I live here.”

            “You do?”

            “I do.”

            “Well, good for you.” Was that a smirk, Toby wonders? “I mean… why not? Why wouldn’t you want to live in a place like this?”

            “I’d better get going. My wife will be waiting.”

            “Of course. Yes. I’m sure she will be.”

            The two men shake hands. The line moves forward again, Salazar now one space away from his ride. Toby nods farewell. Turning from the station, without looking back, he begins the familiar walk towards home.

            There isn’t much to see in Ashbury, little to recommend it to the traveller. A high street, the station, a couple of pubs and as many dusty, echoing churches, a single café, (called, with bourgeois archness ‘The Pantry’), an Italian restaurant run by a couple who’ve never been to Italy and, inevitably, plenty of chain outlets, watching, with crocodile eyes, their dwindling independent rivals. But, mostly, Ashbury is just street after street of neat terraced houses, of still and silent roads, of homes with small, well-tended gardens and clean tarmac drives. All is solemn and uneventful and tame.

            It is towards one of these streets—largely indistinguishable from the rest—that Toby trudges as the station recedes behind him. His destination is another nondescript house in another sober avenue: Number Forty-Three, Akerman Road. As the house comes into view, he sees that the lights are on and that his wife is home and at these realisations Dr Judd feels a little upswing in his heart, an understanding of his own good fortune which suddenly renders all the petty irritations of the day of no significance whatever.

            Approaching home, in sight of happiness, he is reaching into his pocket for keys when he notices something unexpected and not altogether welcome—a black cab idling, its engine growling, opposite the house. The driver he has not seen before but the passenger is immediately familiar.

            Judd stops short and considers crossing over, asking Salazar what it is he thinks he’s doing loitering so close to Toby’s home. But, lacking the requisite energy and figuring, in any case, that to beard a colleague in such a way might come across as overly cranky, he simply walks on by, inclining his head slightly to one side so as to avoid eye contact. Toby’s last thought as he slides the key into the door of Number Forty-Three is that Salazar’s friend must live on Akerman Road, a detail that proves to be oddly disagreeable to him.

            He closes the door and calls out. “Hello! Sweetheart!”

            “In here.” Caroline sounds nervous and on edge.

            Toby strolls through to the house’s tiny sitting room, with its walls lined with books, its ancient sofa and too-big TV, its framed prints, its rugs brought back from inexpensive foreign holidays.

            She’s a small woman, Caroline, curvaceous, with dark hair cut into a 1920s bob. She’s dressed as if for an evening in town with a friend she hasn’t seen for ages—a summer dress of dark green, both practical and stylish, showing a little but not too much of her pale, freckled skin. As Toby enters the room, she’s getting to her feet. Beside her, he sees that there is a single suitcase—the one he bought last year after its predecessor had been lost—the bulging contours of which suggest that it has been filled to the very limits of its capacity.

            “Hi.” There is a look on her face he’s never seen there before—equal parts guilt, pity and deep, slow-burning anger.

            “Are you… going somewhere?”

            She lowers her head, not quite a nod yet no denial either. “You must have known… That this has been coming for a while.”

            “Known what?”

            Pity is uppermost. “Come on, Toby.” Now anger. “Come on. Surely you can figure it out. Why don’t you… Yeah… Why don’t you make one of your famous deductions?”

            Toby takes it all in then, perhaps for the first time. He inspects each element: the dress, the look, the bulging suitcase, the man with the cheekbones in the cab outside. He forges connections and fits his theory to the facts—a process which, in other circumstances, he would certainly have found enjoyable—before, in a rush of cognition, he arrives at the only possible conclusion. “I… had no idea.”

            A flicker of sorrow before the pity returns. “You must have done.”

            “No. No. None. And—”

            “Yes?”

            Outside, a car horn, loud, mocking and insistent.

            “For him? Really? I mean—sweet Jesus!—for Salazar?”

 

The pleasures of Toby’s life might, until this point, be itemised as follows—literary, of course (since boyhood), gastronomic (red meat and chicken wings; Indian; Italian; Thai), erotic (though not with so great a frequency or with the diversity that he might have wished) and even narcotic (on three or four occasions without any urge for revisitation). But alcohol has never been a particular friend of his. He has drunk socially, of course, but in moderation, not feeling the need that he has heard about from others for inebriation and for its concomitant boons of softening and forgetting. He can count on two fingers the number of times that he has ever vomited from over-indulgence and he has not been truly drunk since the Sixth Form when, in the company of friends and hoping to impress Alison Cartwright from the year below, he’d made a fool of himself with a crate of supermarket cider in a garage that had belonged to the family of a classmate. Tonight, however, once the front door has been opened and then closed again, once the taxi has moved grumblingly away and the house is still, Toby sets to drinking in earnest.

            He drinks everything that he can find. A bottle of screw-top red wine. A can of gin and tonic bought on a whim at Waterloo a month ago and its partner, one of cola and rum. These things dealt with swiftly, he moves on to obscurities—a miniature whisky bottle purchased as a Christmas present for an uncle who’d died before the day, a single bottle of continental lager given to him by a friend he didn’t really see any more with a name that was unintentionally rude in English, half a bottle of raki brought back from a holiday on Crete, found not to taste so good after all, not away from the sunshine and the sea, and, finally, a rotund bottle of whisky cream acquired as a necessary constituent of some long-devoured supermarket offer. It is sickly and cloying with an aftertaste that burns, although by the time that Toby gets to it, the last of the alcohol in the house, none of this seems to matter anymore.

            Halfway into this ultimate bottle, he is seized by a sudden desire to be outside, away from home. So, whisky cream in hand, he leaves, slamming the door behind him with an unneighbourly flourish and stepping out into the night. It is dark and Ashbury is silent and sleeping, its streets empty as in some science-fiction film in which the human race has been eliminated at a stroke. Toby glances at his watch—the hands of the device swimming a little before him—and sees that it is just gone midnight. He turns left and starts to walk into the heart of suburbia, soon becoming lost. Both streets and time seem, in his condition, to be in flux, ebbing and flowing around him, dream-like and unnatural.

            The experience is not altogether unpleasant. He feels numbness and an agreeable floating sensation. Grey roads unspool before him. In the warm, thoughtful light of the streetlamps his shadow stretches out. He passes few cars and fewer pedestrians and, happily, nobody at all whom he knows. Occasionally, a cat or a fox crosses his path. Such creatures pause for an instant, seeming (to him, at least) to give him a sympathetic look before scampering away into the shadows. Once or twice, Toby feels an almost overwhelming desire to sing as he walks but, mercifully for the people of the town, this urge he succeeds in quelling.

            There are moments of darkness—blanks in the evening’s chronology. Several times he finds himself in a new and unfamiliar road or standing on somebody’s driveway or peering up at a lighted window with no memory at all of how he has got there. In such situations, he merely swigs piratically from his bottle and moves on, each slug making him feel both a little better and far, far worse.

            He must have been walking for more than an hour when, after another short period of near-unconsciousness, he finds that he is sitting down. The chair or bench feels curiously unstable as though he has somehow gone to sea and, at first, he is inclined to blame the alcohol until, the significance of his surroundings impinging gradually upon his sodden senses, he understands that he is sitting on a swing.

            It is a swing meant for children. A deserted playground. Toby looks around and takes all of it in—those swings and that slide, the climbing frame and the roundabout, everything painted in primary colours yet dulled and made melancholy by the night. He starts to move to and fro a little but, rapidly feeling unwell, soon stops and rights himself.

            He reaches for the bottle but cannot find it. Mislaid, perhaps? Or else abandoned on his journey. Feeling at a loss he gazes ahead at the wall opposite to which a basketball hoop is attached. As he takes in the lines of regular red brick he feels, unexpectedly, a sob—the first of the evening—swell within his chest and break, leaving him with a single, moist moan. Alarmed, even slightly sobered by the sound, he bites his lower lip and strives to think of other things. He feels a weight in the pocket of his jacket.

            The bottle? No—reaching down, he realises that it is only a book.

            Salazar’s book.

            He takes it out, flips over to the back cover and looks, for as long as he can bear it, at the smart, groomed face of the author. Incredulous once again, he shakes his head.

            He starts to turn the pages, his disbelief increasing. Written for a popular audience in the manner of a don slumming it on a teatime magazine show, the writing is awash with cliché and has no discernible ambition beyond offering feeble synopses of Cannonbridge’s most famous works and dramatising, with hagiographical solemnity, the flashpoints of his long, his improbably long and many-textured, life.

            It starts to rain. Warm summer rain. Droplets fall to the paper like tears.

            Toby Judd looks up again and stares once more at that brick wall. There is something there he sees now, something that has been troubling him—something not quite in the right place.

            Is it just his imagination or does one brick seem darker than the rest?

            He goes back to his book, turning page after page, tutting at the predictability of it, not caring about the damage that the rain is doing to the pages, but urging it on. Salazar’s lazy phrases multiply before him: ‘the greatest,’ ‘the most gifted’, ‘belongs to the ages’, ‘literary rock star’, ‘national treasure’.

            The rain intensifies. The wall troubles him still further.

            That one brick, he sees now, that one brick in particular, does not seem to belong.

            Toby reads on and the titles of Cannonbridge’s novels and plays and poems, flutter before him—The English Golem, Ezekiel Frye, The Seasons of Sorrow, Plenitude—then the list of all those who knew him, Dickens and Collins, Byron and Wilde, Polidori and Arthur Conan Doyle.

            All at once, something seems to bother him about those stories which has never—at least not consciously—bothered him before.

            It’s too neat, he thinks.

            It’s too… schematic.

            Even, yes—too contrived.

            In fact, the names of Matthew Cannonbridge’s fictions sound more like the fruits of a single afternoon’s work than the output of a long (a fantastically long) literary career.

            He looks again before him—at the darker brick.

            It’s a downpour now. Seized by a desire to know for certain, Toby gets up and strides—or, more accurately, he weaves his way—across to the wall. His hands reach out in the darkness for that one, troubling brick. His fingers move closer and closer… and touch something soft and slimy and wrong. He jerks away his hands with instinctive disgust.

            Then, warily, peers closer.

            Paper. Old, damp paper stuffed into a hole in the wall. He understands then that it was only ever the darkness which had made it seem like a brick at all.

            Back he goes now, enlightened, Toby Judd, back to his swing and to the book that is growing fat and swollen in the deluge.

            The brick and the book.

            The brick. The book.

            The brick.

            The book.

            He feels a kind of swelling in his head. More than a mere ache, more than some preliminary hangover. No… this, he thinks, this must be something else. It must be understanding. Realisation. Epiphany?

            Newton beneath the apple tree. Darwin in the Galapagos. Archimedes in his bloody bath.

            And now… can it be? Toby Judd in a children’s playground with a brick made of sodden paper?

            What might some neurologist see at this moment were the brain of Dr Judd to be subjected to a scan? What strange leap of particles? What dizzying surge of mental electricity? What fantastic, unprecedented mutation of thought?

            Half-energised, half-nauseous, Toby looks again at the picture of Matthew Cannonbridge, that dark, handsome, saturnine old devil. He looks at the list of his works, at the man’s extreme longevity. He considers everything he knows, everything he’s ever been taught—and accepted, largely without question—about that individual and all of his works—and, in a single, shining moment—he dares to reject it all. Making his second, more complicated and still more terrible, deduction of the day, he comes to the following conclusion, spoken, defiantly, aloud: “This is bullshit.”

            And again, with more volume, not caring about how it might look, a drunk by the swings at night, quarrelling with the rain: “This is bullshit.”

            He realises then that he is being watched. A handsome, thick-pelted fox is observing him from over by the roundabout. Toby directs his subsequent thoughts to the animal who, oddly, neither turns nor flees at the attention.

            Judd sees it all. “Cannonbridge is a delusion.”

            The fox’s ears twitch as if in understanding or encouragement.

            “Cannonbridge is a lie.”

            The eyes of the creature seem to gleam in pleasure and in pride.

            “Cannonbridge has been made up.”

            Finally, understanding hits Toby like a blow and he finds himself staggering back, having to work hard to keep his balance. “But…” Gasping. Short of breath. “How? A fantasy on such a scale. Why?”

            A second, keening sob escapes him. The last of the night.

            When he recovers, the course of his life now changed forever, Toby lifts his gaze once more and sees that the fox has vanished.

Posted Mon, Feb 2, 2015 2:29 PM

Sale highlight: Deadly Curiosities

1 week ago by Lydia Gittins

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With 25% off all eBooks direct from the DRM-free Rebellion Store we’re here to help you find a title you’ll really love with our title highlights:

Deadly Curiosities

Gail Z Martin

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From the best-selling author of The Chronicles of Necromancer Gail Z Martin, we bring you an original new urban fantasy series:

Welcome to Trifles & Folly, an antique and curio shop with a dark secret.

Proprietor Cassidy Kincaide continues a family tradition begun in 1670 - acquiring and neutralizing dangerous supernatural items. It's the perfect job for Cassidy, whose psychic gift lets her touch an object and know its history. Together with her business partner Sorren, a 500-year-old vampire and former jewel thief, Cassidy makes it her business to get infernal objects off the market. When mundane antiques suddenly become magically malicious, it's time for Cassidy and Sorren to get rid of these Deadly Curiosities before the bodies start piling up…

Why the critics loved it:

“Martin weaves together fact, fiction, and the supernatural to create a realistic underworld for modern Charleston, S.C” – Publishers Weekly

“Familiar, accessible, and enjoyable, Deadly Curiosities is the kind of book to have serious crossover appeal for urban fantasy and horror readers alike.” – Beauty in Ruins

“I found myself emotionally invested in the outcome of each one, even the dog, and when they were facing the badest, strongest, entity, I was so nervous, I had butterflies in my stomach worried over what would happen to them. Deadly Curiosities is a great combination of paranormal and mystery…” – Much Loved Books

Why we love it:

A spooky new urban fantasy for fans of Warehouse 13 and Buff the Vampire Slayer: Deadly Curiosities effortlessly demonstrates Martin’s incredible world building skills in a can’t-put-down tale of paranormal fantasy, set against the highly original setting of modern-day Charleston. With Deadly Curiosities 2 on the way for early 2016 now’s a great time join Cassidy and her team.

Read it? Loved it! Try this:

Desdaemona by Ben Macallan

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Jordan helps kids on the run find their way back home. He’s good at that. He should be – he’s a runaway himself.

Sometimes he helps the kids in other, stranger, ways. He looks like a regular teenager, but he’s not. He acts like he’s not exactly human, but he is. He treads the line between mundane reality and the world of the supernatural.

Desdaemona also knows the non-human world far too well. She tracks Jordan down and enlists his aid in searching for her lost sister Fay, who did a Very Bad Thing involving an immortal. This may be a mistake – for both of them. Too many people are interested now, and some of them are not people at all.

Posted Tue, Jan 27, 2015 10:00 AM

Exclusive extract: For a Few Souls More by Guy Adams

1 week ago by Lydia Gittins

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CHAPTER ONE

MAN WHO CAME TO KILL

1.

Two bullets changed the world. The first had already been fired, the second was still to come, resting in its box in the left hand pocket of Atherton's coat as he rode towards the town of Wormwood.

It was the end of a rushed and uncomfortable journey and Atherton was in no mood for the atrocities that surrounded him. He'd heard the stories and read the report but words on a page don't prepare you for the sight of a demon.

"Spare a few cents?" one asked him, brushing a plume of gelatinous, weeping fronds away from its mouth.

Atherton had once watched a table of Chinamen eat noodles with chopsticks. The passage of edible string from bowl to lip had seemed endless, as if they had been trying to consume an infinite clutch of twine. He had thought it like an ancient illustration of hellish torment and was reminded of it now. The demon coughed and the fronds whipped forward, some of them sticking to the creature's forehead, hanging and quivering in front of its small, blue eyes like a mucous-splattered cobweb.

"Damned sickness," the demon said, brushing the fronds free with its scaly hand. "The things you humans spread around."

"If I give you money will you buy medicine?" Atherton asked. He had no intention of doing so but the question intrigued him.

"Heavens, no," it replied, "waste of dollar. I'll spend it on whisky. It won't make me better but it'll make me not care."

"I'll save my money then," Atherton replied, moving on.

"Fuck you very much," the demon said, falling into a coughing fit.

Atherton continued on towards Wormwood.

According to the reports, it had appeared out of nowhere. Atherton's natural inclination would have been to dismiss such talk. He had once watched the illusionist, John Nevil Maskelyne seem to conjure a woman out of thin air but he doubted even that august performer could achieve the same with an entire town. Yet Atherton accepted his concept of reality was now in need of refreshment. While his superiors talked politics, terrified of the global ramifications of this new land in their midst, it seemed to Atherton that the real victim was science. He glanced up at a shape in the sky, it had the wings of a vulture but a human body. It swooped and curled in the air, either for the joy of it or on the hunt for a meal, Atherton couldn't tell. Science, he thought, science may never recover from the presence of Wormwood.

The flying creature issued a cry that brought a hungry seagull to mind. Atherton kept one eye on it, wary in case it should swoop down onto him.

He couldn't resist guiding his horse in a circuit of the town. He had been told that, while it may appear to be nothing more than a small collection of buildings and streets, once entered it was a gateway to almost infinite space. Impossibility after impossibility.

From a distance the place looked empty. That too was a lie, he was assured. His employers had sent a team of local men to investigate—Atherton had been on the other side of the country and a train could only run so fast—they had all commented on the difference between the town's external appearance and the sights that unfolded once you crossed its threshold. The real town lay hidden, only visible once you were inside it.

As he watched, this was proven as a small group emerged from one of the side streets and out onto the open plain. They appeared like the resolution of a mirage, a shimmering of silver light, indistinct and liquid, that solidified as they left the influence of the town. There were two men, between them a young girl riding on a horse. They appeared perfectly human but Atherton knew better than to jump to conclusions.

"Good day," said one of the men, nodding at him and smiling so widely that his thick beard rippled, like a dog shuffling into a comfy position to sleep on his face.

Atherton nodded and smiled back. "Been exploring?" he asked.

"More than that," the other man said, "setting up house."

This fellow was clean-shaven and less friendly. When he looked at Atherton it was with analytical eyes. Sensible man, Atherton thought. It was the English accent, that always brought people up short.

"Really?" Atherton asked, looking at the kid, "seems a funny place to call home to me."

"You new here?" asked the man with the beard. Atherton nodded. "Then maybe you need to get a feel for the place before passing judgment."

Atherton shrugged. "You hear stories."

"Yeah," the man continued, "that's as maybe but Wormwood's something you've got to experience for yourself."

The girl smiled at Atherton and he noticed her teeth were moving, rolling up and down like the keys on a clockwork piano.

"Kid needs a dentist," he said, encouraging his horse past them, continuing towards the town.

He entered Wormwood, passing through the invisible barrier that stood between it and the rest of the world.

The town was bloated with people. Great crowds, both human and demon, making their way along the wide, dirt streets. Everywhere he looked, Atherton saw the species intermingling. America, he thought, the melting pot of the world. He had been stationed over here only two months but he had grown to hate the country. Its chaos. Its contradiction. Its sickening enthusiasm.

A pair of children scuffled together in the dust, one looked perfectly human whereas the other had all the right body parts, just in the wrong places. The human kid laughed and threw a small ball, the demon child leapt to give chase, the legs that sprouted from his rosy cheeks paddling in the dirt as they dragged the rest of his torso behind him, arms clenching and clapping at the rear like a dual tail.

It made Atherton sick.

He tied up his horse outside a tavern, the riotous sound of cheering and laughter washing over him as he pushed open its doors and stepped inside.

It smelled like a place whisky went to die.

An obese creature navigated her way towards him on three legs. Her blouse was torn open to reveal multiple teats, all damp and pink from suckling. "Want milk?" she asked, the nipples turning towards him like the heads of flowers searching for sunlight. Atherton shoved her aside, repelled by the sensation of her bloated torso rippling against his arm.

He made his way towards the bar, teeth gritted. His skin crawled. He fantasised about drawing his gun and shooting indiscriminately into the crowd. Did demons bleed? What colour would the blood be as it splashed its wet heat onto the dirty floorboards?

A man with a separate chunk of flesh for each of his features turned away from the bar, clearing a space. His head reminded Atherton of a book, opened to reveal a handful of thick, fleshy pages. On either side, the 'covers' held an ear, then a wedge each for the eyes, the nose and a perpendicular mouth that waved back and forth in the centre with the shifting of the creature's neck. Atherton didn't manage to conceal his disgust and the creature's lopsided mouth sneered to see the man's revulsion.

"Problem?" the creature asked. It reached up towards its mouth with a three fingered hand and parted the lips. They creaked like rubber and Atherton turned away from the sight of the distended, pink innards revealing themselves like a bloodless wound. The demon threw the contents of his whisky glass into the aperture and then let it slap shut.

"No problem," said Atherton, though he would love to see if the creature's mouth could accommodate something larger than a shot of bourbon, a fist perhaps, or a broken bottle.

"What can I get you?" asked the barman, who at least appeared human.

Atherton had given up finding anything that suited his palette in this godforsaken land. "Whisky," he said, because it couldn't make his stomach more uncomfortable than the sights that surrounded him.

He gazed into the warped mirror behind the bar as his drink was poured, watching what appeared to be a chimp in a suit as it clambered up the stairs in pursuit of a young woman. She giggled, an enticement, though her suitor needed none, he screeched and raised his hairy fists in the air, a daunting bulge in his trousers proving his appetite was already perfectly sharpened.

"Join me?" asked a woman sat at a table to his right. How her voice had carried over the raucous cheering and cackling was beyond him but, as trickery went, it was small beer considering what else he had experienced.

She was dressed in a frock of satin and lace, the garment blooming in all the places that a proper lady's would not. A whore, he decided. He had no interest in paying for what fought to expose itself from beneath her skirts but she might be useful in providing information. He sat down.

"New in town?" she asked and he noticed her mouth wasn't moving.

"Yes," he replied, "how do you do that?"

"What?" she asked and then touched her lips with her fingers, "oh, the voice," she continued and this time her lips moved and her tone was different, as if another person was speaking entirely. "I'm a woman of multitudes. Pay me and you can count them."

"Maybe," he said, not wanting to put her off, "but first, tell me a bit about the town, would you?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Well, you hear stories on the trail, I guess I just want to know how true they are."

"It's hard to exaggerate about this place, honey, take a look around you. I imagine that, whatever you've heard, the truth is richer and harder to believe." She leaned forward and the next time she spoke it was the other voice, the first voice he had first heard. "Why don't you explore?"

"The town or you?" he asked.

She shifted her chair and hoisted her skirts to reveal the source of her second voice. "There's nothing out there to compare with what you can find in here," her sex said, it's lips parting slightly as it spoke.

The look of disgust on his face didn't anger her as it had the man at the bar, instead she laughed. "Oh, you are new around here aren't you? Or are you one of those boys from the mountains? Here to fire up your righteous anger?"

"He just doesn't know what he's missing," whispered the voice between her thighs, "one kiss from me and he'll be smiling again."

Atherton drew his gun beneath the table, leaned forward and stoppered her secondary voice with its barrel.

"I think I'd rather only hear from one of you," he said, looking into the woman's eyes. "Now tell me about the people in the mountains."

"They're like you," she sneered, "typical men, cold and afraid of what they don't understand. They look down on us and pray for deliverance, sweet little words to a God who would have ignored them anyway, even if He weren't dead."

"You can't kill God," Atherton replied. Her sex mumbled its disagreement around an inch of metal but he cocked the trigger and it ceased its complaints. "Can you say the same about yourself?"

"Oh, it would take more than you've got to ruin me," she said, her words heavy with double meaning, "and the minute you pull that trigger you'll have half of this bar wanting to make games of your offal. So, by all means, shoot your load, boy, I'll make children of your bullets and invite them to dance on your grave."

He met her gaze for a few moments more then withdrew his pistol, stood up and marched out of the bar, ignoring the dual peals of laughter that followed him.

 

2.

Atherton was angry to be leaving the town so shortly after he'd entered it. He had let his anger get in the way of his common sense and could only hope he'd find something of worth in the whore's words.

He urged his horse towards the mountains that surrounded the town, scanning the horizon for signs of life.

After half an hour's ride he was forced to accept that he would have to continue on foot, the landscape was too steep for his horse, the route through the rocks too narrow.

Angry and aware that he might never see the animal again, he did his best to find it some shade and cinched the reins between a pair of rocks.

He had been climbing for twenty minutes or so, the sun beating down on him, when he realised he was no longer alone.

He turned to look down at Wormwood, feigning casual interest, a man out for a hike, all the while keeping his hand close to his holster. As he turned he glimpsed a pair of shadows dart out of sight and he tracked their owners to an outcrop just above him and to the left.

"Why don't you come out?" he asked, keeping his hand close to his gun and looking around for the best natural cover should they decided to reply with gunfire. "I'm no enemy of yours. Quite the opposite."

"You came from Wormwood?" the voice asked. Atherton was surprised to note the speaker's accent, it was as British as his own.

"I've just been there," he admitted. "I was sent to investigate it."

"Sent by whom?"

"Come out and I'll tell you."

"Tell me one other thing first: what's the purpose of your investigation? What do your superiors want to do with the town?"

Atherton smiled. "They have yet to make their intentions wholly clear but I imagine they'll want me to destroy it. As both a political and spiritual abomination."

There was a scuffle from behind the rocks and a man stood up, he was wearing a monk's habit. "Then I can see we are, indeed, allies. I'm Father Martin and I welcome you to our little commune."

 

3.

Atherton followed the monk and his companion, a frail-looking man who remained silent, throwing the occasional concerned look in Atherton's direction.

"You're from England?" Father Martin asked as they climbed up through the rocks.

"Yes, though I've been here a few months."

"A spy?"

"An observer."

"Semantics, something I am well conversed in as a religious man."

"What brought you here?" Atherton asked.

"The town. I travelled over with a larger party. We had all heard the myths about Wormwood and wanted to be here for when it appeared." Father Martin glanced over his shoulder where the town was still visible. "At the time I had thought I was on a holy mission, perhaps I was, though it's hard to cling to that."

"And the rest of your party?"

Father Martin sighed. "Some are still with me, the majority of my brothers. The rest are lost to me. I'm afraid we suffered from a divergence in philosophy."

"Not unusual for someone in your line of work I'd have thought."

"My 'line of work' has irrevocably changed. We've moved from the dust of the library to the open plain. No more discussion of beliefs and theoretical ethics, now the work of Hell is as physical as these rocks, an inarguable thing for all to gaze on."

"Perhaps that's a good thing for faith?"

"The very point of faith is that it's a matter of belief, fighting against that," Father Martin gestured towards the town, "is not about faith, it's about fear."

"Did you see it appear?"

Father Martin nodded. "And I saw it collide."

"Collide?"

The monk nodded. "That's our word for it. The moment when it became a fixed part of our world. We can discuss that later. We're here."

The track through the mountain dropped down, leading into a hollow space where Father Martin's people had made their camp. Being a man of practical considerations, the first thing Atherton analysed was the camp's security. It was well hidden, surrounded on all sides by rocks and would remain unseen until you were right upon it. That said, once discovered, the advantage would rest with the attacker, able to maintain the high ground and shoot into the crater. The camp's residents would be captive targets. Fish in a barrel. All of this rushed through Atherton's head before he took in the human details.

It reminded him, unsurprisingly, of a travelling church congregation. The kind of evangelical folk who toured the country en masse, pitching their tent and preaching to the locals before folding the words of Jesus away into their packs and trunks and carting them off to the next town. The people looked drawn and severe, a flock of hungry birds wrapped up in plain feathers. Here and there, fires burned, heating thin stews and watery soups. It was a place of abstinence. A camp of grey people. A place of puritanism and disapproval. Atherton liked it.

"Are you hungry?" Father Martin asked.

Atherton had travelled too far and too hard to refuse a meal when it was offered so Father Martin led him through the camp to a small tent on the far side.

Their companion, sparing just enough time to offer Atherton one last cautious glance, peeled away to rejoin his family.

The monk's tent was just large enough for two, and they sat in its mouth and ate a meagre portion of bread and cured meat.

Once done, Atherton filled his small pipe and listened to the monk's tale.

 

4.

Father Martin told Atherton of his trip from England. He detailed the rest of his party: of his fellow members in the Order of Ruth; Lord Forset and his daughter Elisabeth; the engineer Billy Herbert and, finally, Roderick Quartershaft, the man of fiction who, as well as Wormwood, found his real self, Patrick Irish, at the end of his journey.

He told him of the things they had seen on the road to find their impossible town. Of swarms of bats and tribesmen of iron and coke.

He told him how Wormwood had finally appeared before them, the solidifying of a mirage, a dream writ large in timber and slate.

He told him about Alonzo, the self-appointed voice of God who had pronounced to those gathered on the plain.

He detailed the long hours of waiting, of the near tragedy as Lord Forset's Land Carriage was stolen and aimed at Wormwood like a steam-powered bullet.

Finally, and by now the sun was beginning to set behind the mountains that surrounded them, he told him of the collision.

 "Light flooded the entire valley. There was the sound of a gunshot, such a simple, earthly noise and then the air itself felt as if it was being sucked out of the world. A wind roared and we stumbled, blind and deaf as the reality we had always known shifted around us."

This was not news to Atherton. It had been felt the world over. A blank moment of thunder and awe, experienced by all.

At the time, Atherton had been in New York, regretting his transfer from Africa, assisting with the Empire's expansion. Africa had been a land of monsters too, Atherton felt. Heat and rebellion. Bullets and blood. He had done good work there. When the light had come, washing over him, he had half hoped it was the hand of God, coming to claim him from his new station, a city of boredom, and relocate him to somewhere worthwhile. Perhaps, in a way, that is exactly what it had been.

"Then, all was normal again," the monk continued. "The light vanished, the wind faded and the town lay before us. Only now its streets were open, the way no longer obstructed by the unseen barrier."

"What caused it?"

"They say..." and here Father Martin's nerves truly began to show. "It was the death of God. Felled by a bullet."

"You can't kill God," Atherton said for the second time that day. This time he found some agreement.

"I would hope not. Though they say He wanted to die. They say he was wearing the body of a mortal. A child. They say He wanted to know what it felt like to be human. To be finite."

"Who are 'they' that do all this talking?"

Father Martin shrugged. "Stories pass around here as freely as the air. I don't know how much credence I can give any of them. All I can say is that this has become the accepted version of the events that took place on the other side of Wormwood."

"In Heaven?" Atherton didn't bother to keep the cynicism from his voice.

"I know, it's a hard concept to grasp isn't it? Again the ethereal, the spiritual, given flesh. Heaven is not a place we would ever have granted geography. Even those of us who believed unequivocally in its presence would think of it as abstract, a place of the mind not somewhere solid. Hell too. These were domains of the soul, that insubstantial, intangible essence. What use did the soul have of walkways? Bricks and mortar?"

He was looking towards Wormwood, Atherton knew, even though it was not visible here in the crater.

"I would always have suspected," the monk continued, "that, however we visualised the afterlife, God or the Devil, we would be doing so in a reductive fashion. The reality would be even more abstract than our human minds could picture. Actually, the opposite is the case. It's as solid as we are. Perhaps, given that, it's not so absurd to believe God may be dead after all. Maybe he was as ruined, as tethered by the flesh as we all are."

"I remain to be convinced."

Father Martin smiled. "And to think, earlier I complained that the intangibility of theology was lost to us. Perhaps we have just as many mysteries as we always did. Except now the answers may be found by explorers not philosophers, archeologists not clerics."

"If our government has its way, that soil will never be dug. They will want the doorway closed. Heaven and Hell, if they exist as physical continents, must be vaster than any other on the map. That they should exist, here... That cannot be allowed."

"I wonder if that would have been the case had Wormwood appeared in England?" Father Martin asked.

Atherton was not going to be drawn into a political argument, however much he knew that the monk had put his finger on the truth. "You said yourself, that place should not exist."

"Indeed not. Whatever my beliefs I am no idiot. To have Heaven and Hell on our doorsteps, to be able to walk directly into either..."

"Or to have whatever inhabits them walk into our world."

"Exactly. It would have been better were that not to have happened. I cannot believe it is what God wants, or, perhaps wanted. What chance does any human soul have if it can simply stroll into paradise? The chaos you saw down there, the monstrosities and the aberrations, they will only be the beginning, of that I'm quite sure. Soon, mankind will match it for its excesses. Can you imagine what our world will be like once people realise there are no limitations? That there is no need to await heavenly reward? That Hell can simply be walked away from? Do you think the human race is strong enough to retain its morality, it's sense of propriety, in the face of that?"

Atherton held the morality of the world in low esteem and always had. "No."

"And so, if the doorway can be closed it must, for all our sakes."

"God's work?" Atherton smiled.

Father Martin, for all he knew he was being mocked, nodded. "I believe so. And, even if that is the only belief I am left with I will hold onto it."

5.

After Atherton announced his intention to remain in the camp, at least for now, Father Martin instructed a couple of men to gather the man some supplies. A bed roll, a canopy, a little food and water. These people didn't have much but they did their best to share.

That night, as the camp slept under the stars, the air filled with the faint sound of smouldering fires and snoring, Atherton lay awake and imagined what might lie ahead.

Father Martin had been right of course, his government's concern was not a spiritual one. The idea that America now possessed both Heaven and Hell on its soil, vast, powerful landscapes with undreamed of populations; such a thing was terrifying to every other country in the world. Certainly he would not be the only agent of a foreign power currently charged to investigate. He imagined swarms of them were descending from all over the globe. Would those who called the afterlife home ally themselves with the country they were tethered to? Would they attack it? Would they occupy it?

What of the dead? Did they still walk on the other side of Wormwood? How many English citizens were now transported to American soil? How many French? Spanish?

It was an impossible situation and one that his mechanical, rational mind couldn't readily process. He was not a politician, he was a weapon, a scalpel whose blade was turned onto the body politic so that it could have its diseased flesh removed.

After an hour or so, he thought of his horse and, as he was still unable to sleep, decided he would make the short walk down the mountainside to attend to the animal. He had no feelings for it but it was his transport and a man like Atherton always kept an escape route easily to hand.

He walked quietly between the sleeping people. He was used to moving stealthily at night. The moon was the assassin's ally and he had worked beneath its light many times over the years.

He scaled the outcrop that hid the camp from view and began to descend, moving carefully over the uneven terrain. As he got lower, Wormwood was revealed. It burned at night. He had proven earlier that the real town could not be seen from outside so the lights that flickered in its windows, the fires that burned in its grates, must be illusory. Real or not, they cast an orange glow on the plain around it that brought infernal imagery to Atherton's mind. Perhaps Heaven was, indeed, on the other side of that gateway but so far all he had seen was Hell.

His mood was not improved when he discovered the remains of his horse. It was half-eaten, it's belly open to the stars, their lights reflected in the black pool that seeped from it.

"There are wild animals in the mountains," said a voice behind him and his gun was in his hand before he had even turned around to face the speaker.

Atherton's first assumption was that one of the residents of Wormwood had climbed up here to take a look at the opposition. Even by moonlight he could tell that the man's skin was raw, a mess of shining flesh and scabs.

"I mean no harm," the man said, raising his hands, "and I'm as human as you, whatever my face may make you think." He smiled and his teeth glinted unnaturally.

"You look like a demon to me," said Atherton. "You do this to my horse?"

The man shrugged. "What sort of man would eat a living animal?" He smiled again and Atherton thought the man's teeth may be false, metal embedded in the gums. "Like I say, there are dangerous creatures out here."

"Clever ones too, the beast's mouth is strapped shut with a belt, to stop it from screaming as it was attacked I assume?"

"They call me The Geek," the man said, ignoring the question.

"What sort of name is that?"

"The only one God left me with, just ask Father Martin, he used to dream of me. Maybe he still does when the moon's full."

The Geek sat down on a rock, refusing to show concern towards the gun Atherton pointed at him.

"I was listening to you earlier," he continued, "when you were talking to the Father."

"I didn't see you."

"Not many do. I'm not so pretty as I used to be and I prefer to keep to the shadows. But I keep my ears open. I like to know what's going on. You're here to kill the devils."

"I'm here to try."

"I imagine they take some killing. I ain't tried myself, as tempting as it is." The Geek looked towards Wormwood. "I'm always interested in unusual creatures, things I ain't got my hands on before."

To Atherton this sounded dangerously close to perversion and he was quick to move the subject along.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Since the beginning. I saw it born. Maybe I'll see it die too. You ain't alone in wanting that. Can't imagine you'll struggle to find an army." He laughed. "I don't mean the little mice up there, neither," he said. "They mean well I guess but they ain't got a strong arm between them. It'll take more'n prayers to kill Hell."

"You're right," Atherton admitted. He holstered his gun. It's not as if it scared the man anyway. "But I imagine Hell has an army too."

"For sure," The Geek agreed. He smiled and, again, those metallic teeth glinted by the light of the moon, "I wonder if any of us will be alive by the end of it? Not that it matters."

"Why?"

"If we die, it ain't like we have so far to go these days is it? It ain't nothing but a short walk."

So saying, The Geek stood up, turned around and vanished into the night.

Atherton, his audience over, took one last look at his gutted horse and returned to the camp and to his plans.

Once he was gone, The Geek re-emerged from the shadows to retrieve his belt from the dead horse's mouth.

"He seems a mite intense," he said, aware that he once more had company.

"Doesn't he?" the man replied. The Geek looked up and smiled to see the look on the man's face as he gazed down on the dead horse.

"Sight of blood troubles you?" The Geek asked. "I'm surprised, with what you're planning I reckon you'll be ankle deep in it before long."

"Maybe," the man agreed. "I hope not. So," he paused for a moment, "you'll do as I ask?"

The Geek shrugged. "I can't exactly refuse God now can I?"

 

WHAT AM I DOING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE REVOLUTION?

(An excerpt from the book by Patrick Irish)

History is built on uncertainty. Nothing grows in barren soil, it needs rain storms, it needs the food brought by rot, it needs heat. The status quo can be a pleasant place to live, but nothing great will ever flourish from it.

When Wormwood appeared it changed the world. At the time of writing, I cannot accurately predict what will come from it. I am still too close, it will be for historians to judge, looking back from the vantage point of years gone by, as to what those changes were and what damage they caused. Still, I am a writer, it is the one and only worthwhile skill I possess and it would be impossible for me not to put pen to paper and attempt to document my place within it all. Perhaps it will be of use to those future historians as they sift through the reports and the articles and draw their conclusions.

I have no doubt that many books will be written about our current times. Though it may seem arrogant, I chance to suggest that mine will be the most valuable. After all, I do not write simply as a spectator. I write as a man who played a part in these proceedings. When the bullet was fired that changed everything, it rang out across the world. That was something we all experienced, every single person on the planet.

But I saw it land. I watched it open a hole in the forehead of its victim. I watched God die.

I was there.

I later discovered how that moment impacted elsewhere, the light, the sound, the shared knowledge that something of universal importance had just happened. From my front row seat, there at the storm's heart, I fear my experience may seem anti-climactical. It appeared to us, those few in the room, as nothing more or less important as the death of a child. We knew our eyes deceived us, Henry Jones, the blind gunslinger, was a man capable of great horrors but I dare to suggest that even he would think twice before emptying his gun into the head of an innocent infant. The child, the young girl, her toy train pulled along behind her by a length of string, was not all she appeared. She was a skin worn by a greater other, the Greatest in fact. Hankering after a mortal existence, God had poured itself into the flesh and bone of a human child. Jones, having a knife to grind with the Almighty, saw a chance and took it. God had wanted to experience mortality. God did so. At least, that is what we have to assume. Certainly the aftershocks lend credence to the act. As tragic and horrendous as the death of a child might be it doesn't alter reality. Our history, built on the countless corpses of children, has proven as much.

Many have argued since that God cannot die, whatever complex game He might wish to play. I don't know. I suspect that is the (understandable) response of a devout mind in fear of losing its anchor in the world. All I can say is: if God is all powerful, God can do anything. That includes putting Himself in a position where his own extinction was not only possible but somehow desired.

Jones certainly considered his work successful, holstering his gun and walking out of that immaculate room with a renewed sense of purpose. I suppose you think one of us should have stopped him? The execution of God is certainly a crime that most would consider worthy of punishment. I can only admit that I—and I presume my companions also—were so shocked at his sudden slaughter that we hadn't the power to move. I know we were still stood there for long moments after he left, staring at the body of the dead girl—and however much we knew she had been more than that, it was the image we were faced with, a child shot in the head.

It was Soldier Joe that made the first move. He removed his jacket and laid it over her. It wasn't long enough for the task, her feet poking out from beneath the hem and the slowly expanding pool of her blood would not be concealed by it for long. It was better though, not to have to look at that face fallen slack, the small, red hole just above her left eye.

"I don't know what else to do," he admitted, running his hands through his own hair, touching, or so I imagined, the old scar of his own bullet-wound. He had survived his, after a fashion.

I know his history now, of course. All of those years as the brain-damaged messiah for the unscrupulous preacher Obeisance Hicks. Here, in the Dominion of Clouds, he had his faculties, could think and speak and express himself. In the world of the mortals all of these things had been beyond him. He had been at the mercy of his owner, his only friend the woman who stood with him now, his nurse Hope Lane. She doted on him, her feelings for him clearly more than those of nurse and patient. I wonder whether that was another blessing that might only be fully enjoyed now that they had been removed from the narrow-minded beliefs of the mortal world. I am sure the colour of her skin would have been a source of victimisation and disapproval were they to have tried to become a couple. We are not a species known for our acceptance of those we view as different to ourselves, though, of course, the median by which we judged such things was soon to change.

Soldier Joe. I wish I knew his real name, it seems foolish referring to him by such a childlike nickname. On reflection though, perhaps not. Whoever he had been before his accident, it had been a rebirthing. A long and painful one that had only just concluded. Perhaps it is only right in such circumstances that a man be allowed to shed his old name along with his old life.

"What will it mean?" Hope Lane asked, the first of us, I think, to really grasp that the murder we had just witnessed was a beginning not an end. "Will all of this," she gestured around us, "just crumble? How can the world go on without its God?"

The peculiar, bright white world we had been brought to showed no sign of failing. There was no tremor beneath our feet or distant sound of devastation. While it would be understandable for one brought up on the notion of God as the Almighty glue that both birthed the world and, indeed, controlled it, to expect the Apocalypse in his absence, there was no sign of the End of Days just yet. I am now speaking with the advantage of hindsight of course, I know that life continued, much as a son or daughter might outlive their mother or father. Even then, with Hope's question fresh from her lips I don't think I truly feared Armageddon. I think it was partly the fact that we had already been led to believe that God was an absent ruler. We had been brought to the Dominion of Clouds by Alonzo with a view to us helping him fill the vacuum he already claimed to be there. Wormwood, the very myth of it, was purely a method of securing the living souls he had set his sights on. I was to be the author of his new bible, Soldier Joe was the noble martyr, Jones the Devil. In that role, he had certainly made a most promising start.

"We need to speak to Alonzo," said Joe. "He's the only one who can explain any of this."

He moved to the window as if expecting to be able to see the man—if that word fits, and it doesn't, but forgive me, our lexicon was not built for the stories I must tell.

"He meant this to happen," said Hope. "You heard what Mr Jones said. They'd talked about him killing God. Alonzo planned it."

I found myself staring at the remains of our food, splattered against one of the white walls by a sweep of Alonzo's arm. "He planned a lot of things. What was he saying before he left? A sacrifice?"

"He certainly got one of those," said Joe, looking at the body beneath his jacket.

Again, my hindsight comes into play. The sacrifice Alonzo intended was not the death of God—or, not just that—it was the planned collision of the vehicle on which I had so recently travelled, the Forset Land Carriage, with the impenetrable barrier that surrounded Wormwood. A rather dull sacrifice you might think, but the Land Carriage contained a number of highly-delicate and dangerous pieces of equipment, some of which, if ignited would have reduced the entire plain, and the many that camped in it, to ash. It would have been a disaster of suitably biblical proportions. It is thanks to the sterling work of my old colleagues, most particularly Forset's daughter, Elisabeth, that the accident was averted. At the time, however, none of us could have known that.

"The room," said Hope. "His..." she struggled to remember the name Alonzo had given it, "Observation Lounge."

The name was unfamiliar to me, but they soon explained it was a room in which Alonzo had maintained a watch on all of creation.

"If he's not there, we'll certainly be able to find him," Joe said.

We filed out of the dining room, making our way along one of the many featureless corridors. I remember thinking, as I had several times, how it could be that Heaven was so empty. Surely, even in a place so vast one would expect to occasionally chance upon another holy soul. Could Heaven really be as vacant as it seemed?

For a Few Souls More is out now - hit the navigation tags at the top of this post for more associated content and further information on the Heaven Gate's trilogy.

Posted Mon, Jan 26, 2015 11:08 AM

Guest Post: Jake Murray on creating the cover for Macaque Attack

1 week ago by Lydia Gittins

• garethlpowell
• coverart
• macaqueattack
• ackackmacaque

GUEST POST: JAKE MURRAY BEHIND THE ARTWORK

Hello readers! My name is Jake Murray, and I illustrated the covers for Gareth L. Powell's Ack-Ack Macaque, Hive Monkey, and Macaque Attack. With the release of Macaque Attack Solaris Books asked me to pen a guest article exploring the creation process behind the book's cover. Not being one to dismiss the opportunity to ramble on about my work, I happily agreed. Working on the Ack-Ack Macaque series has been one of the great joys of my career so far, and I hope that sharing some of the “behind-the-scenes” process will pass a bit of inspiration on. So, without further ado, let's go!

            After wrapping up the art for Hive Monkey last year, I was told that there would be a third Ack-Ack Macaque adventure on the horizon, and was excited to find out what our crass, ninja-slaying monkey would be up to next. I soon received the commission for Macaque Attack, and after reading the brief, immediately knew it would be the most epic vision of the character we'd seen yet!

            In the world of book cover illustration, there can be a lot of variance between commission requirements. Sometimes the publishing team and author have fairly specific ideas of what they'd like to see on the cover. At other times, it's up to the illustrator to pinpoint what he/she thinks would be a compelling part of the narrative to showcase. With Macaque Attack, Gareth already had some ideas in mind of what the cover should be, so my job was primarily to take those ideas and try to make them as visually explosive as possible.

            The general focus of this book's cover would be our herioc monkey leading his ragtag army of apes into battle on Mars – which is the kind of awesome thing that every sci-fi illustrator dreams of at night. Gareth had suggested a few different ways of how we might show that, from more literal depictions of an army in battle, to more conceptual ideas reminiscent of old Soviet space propaganda posters. In any case, the image would need to be unique and exciting, but still carry the same feeling of adventure and intrigue as the previous two books.

            Whenever I get the opportunity to create a series of book covers, I try to imagine what each book would look like sitting next to each other on a shelf. How will a reader be able to to tell that the books all go together and yet be able to quickly distinguish each one from the others? With Ack-Ack Macaque and Hive Monkey, I had established a precedent for showing the main character's full figure, which could be used in this new cover to create visual continuity. The way I would distinguish it from the others, however, is with color. Each of the two previous covers had made use of a particular primary color (the first one being yellow, and the second one pale blue). Since the focus of the Macaque Attack cover would be Mars and battle, it seemed a perfect solution to limit the color palette to browns and reds.

            After submitting sketches to the publishing team, it was decided that the “Soviet poster” concept (concept “C” in the image above) would be the way to go. The team felt it had enough action mixed with just the right amount of quirkiness to help it feel at home with the previous two books. From there I set out to gather and photograph all of the reference imagery I would need to execute the painting.

            When painting anything that needs to look real or semi-real, good visual reference is an absolute necessity. I mean, a good still-life artist doesn't just paint an orange sitting on a table out of his head, right? He actually looks at an orange sitting on a table! So too is it with even the most fantastical images. Of course, I don't actually have a macaque that I can dress up – and if I did, I certainly wouldn't give him a gun. But there is an abundance of animal photography on the internet that helps me figure out what the character should look like, and I can also create and photograph various people and objects to approximate everything that should be in the painting.

            One tool I make use of for painting fantastical creatures is called a “maquette,” which is basically just a fancy word for a small-scale sculpture. For the Ack-Ack Macaque cover, I sculpted a miniature head for the character which I've been able to use for each cover in the series. Because the maquette exists in the physical world, I can pose it and light it any way I want and it will still look like the same character in the end, as long as I've drawn and painted what I'm seeing correctly. This is especially important when painting multiple cover images of the same character. Ack-Ack Macaque has to look like Ack-Ack Macaque! So having a real-world physical representation of the character to look at is extremely helpful.

            In addition to the maquette, I also photograph a costumed live model (in this case, myself) for pose and lighting reference. Since monkeys and humans are built pretty similarly, it would only take some adjusting of proportions (and hairiness) to transform myself into a whole army of animals. Even if I don't have the exact items I plan to paint (my studio is sadly lacking in miniguns), I can use other household items to stand in for them and see how they affect the light and shadow of the scene. It's basically like playing pretend in front of a camera.

            Once I have all of my reference material assembled, it's time to begin work on the final painting. I use a program called Painter 12 from Corel and a Wacom digitizing tablet to create most of my art. Though completely digital, these tools really allow me to take a traditional painter's approach, with the added bonus of the “undo” command. The final art is created at about 250% the size of the final printed image. This ensures that it will look detailed and crisp when it is reduced to print size.

            Typically I start with a detailed priliminary drawing in black and white. It allows me to really figure everything out up front so that when it's time to put color down, I won't be grappling with any added difficulties of form and perspective. Having a solid drawing in black and white creates a road map for your painting – as long as you follow it, you can be pretty well assured that the painting will come out solid as well.

            When the preliminary drawing has been approved, I go to town painting. I start with a transparent block-in of color over my drawing to establish the overall relationships, not worrying about details. From there, I set out painting opaquely each area to completion, usually starting in the background and working my way forward. However, a lot can happen throughout the painting process, and every decision you make about a color or paint stroke will determine every following decision. Sometimes you can end up painting something early on that you won't realize is “wrong” until you've finished painting everything else around it. So there can be a lot of back-and-forth in the process as well.

            After roughly 30 hours of painting and repainting, I'm happy to call the piece done and email it out to the publisher for final review. If everything looks good to them, then my work is done!

            And that's how a book cover evolves from a typed email to a full-color image! Though the overall process is basically the same with every commission, each piece presents its own unique artistic challenges. Solving these visual problems and telling compelling stories is what I live for as an illustrator, and I can only hope that the solutions I come up with will inspire others to do the same!

Thanks for reading!

You can find more of Jake's art at his website (including prints to purchase): www.murr-art.com

Macaque Attack by Gareth L Powell is out now! Click the navigation tags at the top of the page for more information and related posts.

Posted Thu, Jan 22, 2015 1:37 PM

Monkey VS Multiverse

1 week ago by Lydia Gittins

• garethlpowell
• macaqueattack
• ackackmacaque

As news of Ack-Ack’s presence this at Solaris Towers spread we found ourselves briefly in the spot light of the world’s scientific press, we did what any self-respecting publisher would do: subtly put out the word we were totally open for bribes to grant one twenty-minute interview slot with the monkey to pick his brain about his real-world experience with quantum physics.

Sadly the monkey’s reputation preceded him and we received two offers: a fruit basket (what were you thinking Hawkins?) and a bottle of Sainsbury’s second cheapest own-brand rum from Professor Stewart Hotston.

It’s with great pleasure we therefore introduce Professor Hotson in conversation with Ack-Ack-Macaque:

SH: Tell me how your species solved the non-locality problems involved in moving between worlds - especially with reference to Bell's

AAM: To be honest with you, we stole the engines. We don’t know how they work. But then, I don’t know how a Spitfire’s engine works either, and I’m still happy to fly one.

SH: Can we then assume that all worlds exist within the same quantum field?

AAM: Sure, why not? I certainly seem to spend a lot of time in fields, mostly running away from tanks.

SH: Do your engines displace excess matter (or should I say energy) so that different universes don't breech the 1st law of thermodynamics?

AAM: Damned if I know. They certainly use a lot of energy and make a lot of noise. Lots of static electricity too. You should see what it does to me, with all my hair standing on end. I look like a loveable plush toy.

SH: Aren’t you scared you're going to destroy the universe?

AAM: Heh, heh, heh.

SH: Who's your most famous physicist? 

AAM: That fellow with all the white hair who was in Back To the Future. Albert Frankenstein. He invented atomic bombs and gull-wing doors.

SH: What would you say to kids who want to become scientists so that they can follow in your footsteps?

AAM: If you know what you want to do with your life, go ahead and do it. Don’t wait for anyone to give you permission. Don’t take crap from people who don’t believe in you. Find out what you need to do to achieve your goal, and then go out there and do it. Take life by the throat and shake it until all the good stuff falls out of its pockets.

SH: If all worlds are part of a universal aggregation of continuous but non-co-extensive wave functions how do you know that our destiny isn't to be part of a hivemind?

AAM: I don’t know about you, sunshine, but my destiny is whatever the hell I say it is. No universal aggressor’s going to tell me what to think. And besides, I’d never be part of a hivemind that wanted someone like me as a member.

SH: Why aren't you susceptible to germs in other worlds to which you have no defences? Is there an inter-dimensional version of small pox?

AAM: I try not to get too touchy-feely with people I meet, although I did pick up a nasty case of fleas on one of the worlds we visited. Tough little buggers. They appear to be resistant to all brands of flea spray. Fortunately, there’s so much alcohol sloshing around in my blood, every time they take a bite they get woozy and fall off.

SH: Are you, you everywhere?

AAM: I’ve met other versions of myself on other parallel worlds. In fact, I’ve recruited most of them into my monkey army. Sure, there are differences between us, but we share all the most important stuff: an inability to play nice with others, a healthy disrespect for authority, and a penchant for making big things go boom. That said, most of them are assholes. I’ve yet to find one half as awesome as me.

SH: If there are an infinite number of universes then there are an infinite number of universes identical to this one - so how come you keep finding ones with significant differences?

AAM:  Wow, you’re seriously bending my brain banana. Infinite worlds? That’s more than like… ten, right? That’s like a whole endless playground. So much scope for havoc. 

I can’t hang around here all day answering damn crazy questions. I’ve got trouble to cause, and in infinite number of places to cause it!

About

Stewart Hotston is not a dimension hopping monkey. He is a physicist who made that leap to becoming a master of the universe. When he’s not inventing money out of thin air he’s currently a grand vizier in a fest live action role play, a swordsman who’s actually read his Agrippa and a writer. He’s written more than a dozen short stories including Haecceity in Ian Whates’ La Femme anthology, Love is Stronger in Matthew Sylvestesr’s Stille Untoten and All You Can Eat in Theresa Derwin’s The Last Diner.  He is currently working on a longer work called The Fox’s Hope, a story about a world where all myths are true.

Ack Ack Macaque is the star of the award-winning  trilogy and the kind of monkey your mother warned you about.

Posted Wed, Jan 21, 2015 12:30 PM

Radio Free Monkey

2 weeks ago by Lydia Gittins

• ackackmacaque

As part of this monkey blog takeover, we present the following fantasy soundtrack for the Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy.

If Ack-Ack had an MP3 player, these are the songs he’d be listening to while flying planes and kicking asses.... Click the links to join in the jam.

 

1.      Macaque Attack by Urban Barnyard

 

2.      Go Monkey Go by Devo

 

3.      This Monkey’s Gone To Heaven by The Pixies

 

4.      Spitfire by Public Service Broadcasting

 

5.      Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey by The Beatles

 

6.      Dance Like A Monkey by New York Dolls

 

7.      Bomber by Motorhead

 

8.      The Right Stuff by Robert Calvert

 

9.      Apeman by The Kinks

 

10.  Happiness Is A Warm Gun by The Breeders

 

Did we miss any? What’s your favourite primate-related tune?

Posted Tue, Jan 20, 2015 4:46 PM

How to recruit a monkey army

2 weeks ago by Lydia Gittins

• macaqueattack
• ackackmacaque

How to recruit a monkey army.

 By Ack-Ack Macaque

 

Hello humans.

The top brass at Solaris asked me to make a list of famous primates I’d like to recruit into my monkey army.

I told them to fuck off, but they insisted.

So, under pain of having my bananas confiscated, here it is: my list of the baddest, hairiest knuckle-draggers ever to shamble across the face of this sorry planet.

1) King Kong – The granddaddy of us all. He punched out a hungry T-rex, for heaven’s sake. Then he trashed New York, and even went on to fight Godzilla. Plus, he can take a dump the size of a school bus, which is both disgusting and awesome. If he could only keep his mind on the task at hand, instead of on the ladies, he’d make a formidable ally. [Note to self: keep him away from skyscrapers].


2) Six-Gun Gorilla – Recently revived by Judge Dredd writer Simon Spurrier and artist Jeff Stokely, Six-Gun Gorilla stalks the Wild West badlands of a planet named Blister. He’s a bio-modified badass with a pair of enormous revolvers – in that respect, he’s a lot like me. I think we’d make a great team – if we don’t try to kill each other first.

 

3) Caesar – The chimpanzee responsible for kick-starting The Planet Of The Apes. Like me, he began his life in a laboratory; but he soon busted out and began to recruit other primates. The next thing you know, he’s started an insurgency that threatens the survival of the human race. I figure any chimp capable of that has to be worth having on my side – although, I’d have to keep a close eye on him. I don’t want him thinking he can take over, just because he’s got all the brains.

 

4) Titano – In the Superman comics, Titano was a normal ape until he became exposed to space radiation. He returned to Earth as an intelligent monster with the ability to shoot Kryptonite rays from his eyes – making him more than a match for Kal-El. Being able to zap superheroes with your eyes is a neat trick, and bound to come in handy. Welcome aboard, big fella.

 

5) Sun Wukong – In the classical Chinese novel, Journey To The West, Sun Wukong acquires supernatural powers and leads a rebellion against Heaven itself. He can leap great distances, command the wind, and hold his own against gods and demons. He is the monkey king, and no assemblage of fictional monkeys would be complete without him.

 

To read more about Ack-Ack Macaque’s monkey army, order a copy of MACAQUE ATTACK, the third part of the award-winning ‘Macaque’ trilogy, out now!

Order: UK | US | DRM-free eBook

For more from Ack Ack Macaque, order to find out more about the series click the navigation tag at the top of this post!

Posted Mon, Jan 19, 2015 1:56 PM

An interview with Ack-Ack Macaque

2 weeks ago by Lydia Gittins

• garethlpowell
• macaqueattack
• ackackmacaque

An Interview with Ack-Ack Macaque

To celebrate the launch of Macaque Attack on January 15th, we wanted to get an interview with the star of the ‘Macaque’ trilogy, Ack-Ack himself. Unfortunately, the first three correspondents we sent to meet with him disappeared, never to be heard from again. Finally, out of desperation, we asked the trilogy’s author, Gareth L. Powell, to interview his rowdy creation, and soon received the following transcription. Apparently Gareth arranged to meet the monkey in a bar on the harbourside in Bristol. Unfortunately, we can’t verify the accuracy of the recording, as the bar has since burned down and all the witnesses to the conversation have gone into hiding.

 

[Tape starts]

GLP: I am here this evening with Ack-Ack Macaque. Say hello, Ack-Ack.

AAM: [mumbles]

GLP: Please speak into the microphone.

AAM: IS THAT BETTER?

GLP: It’ll do.

AAM: You got some questions for me?

GLP: Well, yes.

[Sound of glasses clinking, spirit being poured.]

GLP: First off, I want to ask you how you feel about the new book?

AAM: How I feel? What is this, a therapy session? As far as I remember, the deal was that I tell you my life story and you write it all down and cash the cheques. There’s no ‘feel’ about it.

GLP: But this is the last one. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?

AAM: It’s a hell of a read, although there’s probably too much ‘characterisation’ in it for my taste. You spend too much time bringing to life all the people in the story. You should have put in more bits about me being heroic and blowing shit up.

GLP: We’ve been together for three years now. This might be the last time we work together.

AAM: Hah!

GLP: What about the cover illustration by Jake Murray? I thought it was very striking.

AAM: Yeah, I’m a handsome bastard. But what is it with that title? ‘Macaque Attack’. Who came up with that?

GLP: At least it rhymes.

AAM: Fuck rhyming.

[Further sounds of pouring]

GLP: You’re just being objectionable for the sake of it, aren’t you? 

AAM: Oh, shut up, Powell. Why don’t you fuck off back to your garret and write another of those space operas you’re so fond of? 

GLP: Maybe I will. 

AAM: Yeah, don’t worry about me. You go and have fun with your space battles and alien monsters. I’ll be fine.

GLP: Are you jealous?

AAM: [Snorts] Piss off. 

GLP: [After a long silence] So, as this might be your last chance, do you have anything you’d like to say to the ladies and gentlemen? 

AAM: Yeah. [Clears throat] Okay. LISTEN UP HUMANS! There are always bastards out there trying to take away your freedom, your stuff and your lives. And it’s up to me to fight them. I save the world so you don’t have to. The least you can do is pick up a copy of the book. Hell, pick up copies of ALL my books, and get a load of my adventures. Find out why I’m the baddest, snarlingest, ass-kickingest monkey on this sorry excuse for a planet. 

GLP: Is that it?

AAM: You want more, you’re going to have to buy another bottle. This one seems to be empty. 

[Sound of glass smashing against the wall]

GLP: Hey, don’t do that. You’ll get us thrown out.

AAM: You think I give a crap? I’ve been thrown out of way better places than this.

GLP: The bouncers are coming over. 

AAM: Oooh, scary.

GLP: They look angry.

AAM: Yeah? Well, watch this…

[Sound of chair legs scraping. Table flips. Recording ends.]

Macaque Attack is our 15th January in the UK, you can catch Gareth and Ack-Ack on tour (should you dare) at the following places:

15/01 - Forbidden Planet Bristol, 6-7pm 
16/01 - Forbidden Planet Cambridge, 6-7pm
17/01 - Forbidden Planet London - 1-2pm
21/01 - Forbidden Planet Southampton - 6-7pm
22/01 - Forbidden Planet Birmingham - 6-7pm
29/01 - Waterstones Liverpool 1 - an evening with Gareth L Powell from 6:30pm 

Posted Wed, Jan 14, 2015 9:37 AM

Welcome to the new home of Solaris Books!

2 weeks ago by Lydia Gittins

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
Fremde, etranger, stranger.
Gluklich zu sehen, je suis enchante,
Happy to see you, bleibe, reste, stay.

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome
Im Solaris, au Solaris, to Solaris!

So, yes, welcome to our new home! For 2015 we're getting a fresh new look, and this is just stage one! If you've come here from our old home at When Gravity Fails then please do update any bookmarks you have (we'd suggest going for our home huub of www.rebellionpublishing.com where you'll get ALL the news from Solaris, Abaddon Books and Ravenstone in one home!)

What can you expect from the new us?

Well, we won't change the things you love, so there'll still be great publishing, great authors, excerpts, announcements and cover reveals. But, MORE. We'll be updating our Rebellion home hub each day Monday to Friday with updates, new reviews, author interviews, guest blogs and a new regular Throwback Thursday slot, where we'll be hosting some fantastic authors talking about their earlier works.

We're sorry we've been quiet recently, but that's only because our shiny new home is just the beginning; we've been cooking up some fantastic things in our genre cauldron - and we can't wait to share them with you... 2015 is going to be a BLAST, and we hope you'll come with us on this new adventure.

Jon, Dave, Lydia & Ben

PS. Have you signed up to the Rebellion eZine yet? January's issue is out shortly and features an exclusive cover reveal of Gail Z Martin's new book...

Posted Wed, Jan 14, 2015 9:26 AM