Let me start this extremely digressive review with a long digression. My 18th birthday was in May 1992. Eighteen is a rite-of-passage birthday, though of course different teenagers arrive at it with differing levels of maturity. I've previously written about the way we have different "selves" - co-existing within us are personas that can differ … Continue reading Review – “Amorphous Albion” by Ben Graham (2018)
Is The Droving Folk Horror? I was asking myself this more and more the longer this (admittedly short¹) film went on. It certainly uses some familiar tropes: an outsider comes to a "remote" location; there are people wearing animal masks, and there are rumours of magic & ritual. Some moderate spoilers follow. Martin (a superb, … Continue reading …but is it Folk Horror? “The Droving” (2020)
I recently reviewed Dan Coxon's great little horror micro-anthology from Black Shuck books, Green Fingers. Impressed, I took a punt on another from their "Shadows" series. There are 21 at time of writing, but there's little information on their website to allow you to choose one over another, other than cover art (their jacket design … Continue reading Review – “Winter Freits” by Andrew David Barker (2019)
A quick post this, and one which the title pretty much explains. I've been reading UnLunDun to my son, because he really enjoyed Miéville's other YA novel Railsea when I read that to him. Railsea is aimed at slightly older readers, is more linguistically and thematically complex and probably the better book, but UnLunDun is … Continue reading China Miéville’s “UnLunDun”: dismantling the cliché of Prophecy
Regular readers will know that I like both professional and recreational cycling. Many professional races (such as the Tour de France) hold events called sportives which allow recreational cyclists the chance to ride the same route as the pros. One of the longest-established of these is the sportive attached to my favourite bike race, the … Continue reading Landscape, politics and sport: the Ronde van Vlaanderen
Hello! Anyone else finding it difficult to write during lockdown? I've sketched out a few scenes for ongoing projects, but haven't sat down and churned out a page for weeks and weeks. One silver lining is that I'm storing up lots of different ideas for stories. Jotting them down eases the (metaphorical) pressure in my … Continue reading #AmWriting – Opening Up while Locked Down
This short, sharp "micro-collection" is a wee gem. Author Dan Coxon is a name familiar to regular visitors to the Gyre, as the editor of the ever-reliable Tales From the Shadow Booth collections (volumes 3 and 4 reviewed), and the excellent This Dreaming Isle anthology of weird landscape fiction. The horticulturally-themed Green Fingers is number … Continue reading Review: “Green Fingers” by Dan Coxon
The rapid spread of sampling in pop music in the late 80s made the idea of a cover version passé. A cover, after all, was generally a form of tribute to pop's rich history. Sampling as an artform ripped snatches of that history from its original context, juxtaposed it next to other slices, and created … Continue reading Slip Inside This House – cover versions in the age of sampling
Not one for your Granny. Or your mother-in-law. Richard Cabut's short novel is a gleefully explicit story of a young man addicted to hardcore internet porn. Ray is in a spiral of vicarious debauchery. Impotent with his girlfriend (who, significantly, is never named and who lives in blissful ignorance of his habit) he can only … Continue reading Review: “Dark Entries” by Richard Cabut
I wrote this a month or so ago, before we all entered the current COVID-19 nightmare. I can't help but worry about the lingering effect this will have on today's kids, long after the immediate emergency is over. Anyway, I wrote this in response to a Twitter CfP from @horrifyingbook who are looking to compile … Continue reading Children’s TV – The Stuff of Nightmares
Into the Gyre 