Epiphanies, vampires and airships

I'm not very well at the moment. Last week I took a trip to Lincolnshire with A Ghostly Company. It was all very nice - we saw the grave of E.G. Swain, the home of L.P. Hartley (from outside the walls) and probed various bookshops and a couple of cathedrals. And pubs. But while I was investigating the East of England, some germs were investigating me. I now have a throat infection of some kind, which I am feeding with medicated lozenges (as an English gentleman should). Loss of sleep means my brain is going a bit AWOL, too.

Anyway, I'm enjoying Strange Epiphanies by Peter Bell. I'm halfway through what may well be the most interesting and compelling short story collection of the year. However, Peter does have another book coming out from Sarob. I'm looking forward to it, to say the least.

Something else I do when I'm ill is watch any old stuff. I recently stumbled across a film that, while not explicitly supernatural, certainly pushes a lot of the right buttons. Perfect Creature is a New Zealand-UK production set in an alternate 'dieselpunk' world (with airships, as per usual) where mutated flu viruses threaten to wipe out the human race. Fortunately the world has an elite order of superbeings to defend it - the Brotherhood. Brothers (these beings are all male) live indefinitely, have the usual super-speed/strength and enhanced senses. And they live on blood. Put another way, this is a world where vampires are the high priests.

Oh, and one Brother goes bonkers and tries to usher in the viral apocalypse, and only Saffron Burrows can stop him. Sort of. Anyway, I enjoyed it. It's all remorselessly bleak and that kind of visual style has been overdone, but there's enough going on here to make it worth a watch. Oh, and there's a sly, blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to Richard Matheson, which gives a hint as to where the story will lead.