"A moment later, they plugged her into the network." Why the inverted commas around "Rewind"? Because this 80s horror thriller, unlike pretty much all the others I've looked at, is spookily relevant today. The Californian town of Moonlight Cove is the scene of a spate of grisly murders and, as a result, an unlikely number … Continue reading Horror “Rewind” #14 – ‘Midnight’ by Dean R. Koontz (1989)
There's a never-ending stream of subreddits asking "I've just finished [insert name of Clive Barker book]: what should I read next?" To help those new to Barker I thought it might be useful to suggest a number of ways through his work. There are two obvious starting points for your journey. The Books of Blood, … Continue reading A Clive Barker Itinerary
I've written a lot since my last #AmWriting. In fact, though there's little to show for it, 2025 was a very productive year. Obviously I've been writing here in the Gyre: 8 posts last year. I don't write as much here as I used to, but that tends to mean I'm spending more of my … Continue reading #AmWriting, still
Earlier this year I happened across the 1980 Asterix annual in a charity shop; a book whose existence I was entirely unaware of. It was evidently a one-off, and provides an introduction to many of the long-running French comic series’ characters, along with heavily abridged versions of some of the stories, and the usual puzzles … Continue reading Asterix!
FEAR appeared at exactly the right time to fill a gap in the market. Although there were similarly-glossy genre magazines (Starburst, Fangoria, Samhain) their focus was on film whereas FEAR recognised there was demand for a magazine that covered horror fiction1. As an avid reader of ZZAP!64 in the mid-80s, for their publishers Newsfield to … Continue reading Horror Rewind #12 – ‘FEAR’ magazine # 2, Sep/Oct 1988
The book's subtitle puts it better: Ghost Movies. But even that's deceptive. In this 260-page anthology, editor Peter Haining (whose many other spooky collections were familiar to me as a teenager) traces the history of the ghost story onscreen through the works of fiction that inspired such classic films as Night of the Demon, Don't … Continue reading Horror Rewind #11 – “Classics of the Supernatural” (ed. Peter Haining) (1995)
Hello! In the six months or so since I last wrote about my writing, what have I actually written? Generally, if I'm writing fiction then I'm not writing here in the Gyre. The converse is also true: I've posted more in the last six weeks than in the previous six months and consequently have barely … Continue reading #AmWriting, April 2024
Hello! An unexpected burst of creativity. I'd finished the sixth, and longest, Engineer story (see previous #AmWriting post) and was taking a breather to build up the energy and ideas for the next one. Suddenly, I had an idea for a novella: almost the entire story came to me in a few minutes. I wrote … Continue reading #AmWriting…differently
Hello; it's been a while (again). The book reviewing has taken a back seat, largely because Horrified closed down at the end of last year, partly because I seem to have lost enthusiasm for reviewing (for now, at least), and partly because all my creative energies have been spent writing my own fiction, which is … Continue reading I still #AmWriting
Still here. Almost all of my writing this year has been my own fiction; I've written just one review (for Horrified). Some of you may have come across my cosmic technician The Engineer; well, I'm just finishing the fifth story to feature him. They're darkly comic urban fantasy, and there will be a few more … Continue reading #AmWriting. But what?
Into the Gyre 