New Books Alert!

I have so many books to review that I will not get through them all by the end of the year, I fear. So I thought I would announce them here so that people on the lookout for new reading matter can check them out before I start chuntering on about them.

First up, Tartarus Press have a new collection of stories by Mark Valentine and John Howard. This is a two-author collection and seems rather timely. I like the art deco lettering and the stamp. But let us find out a little more!

'In an East Prussian manor house, a Bohemian library, a Bulgarian railway station; in a Venetian citadel, a Breton harbour, a city in the Caucasus, characters encounter not only the vicissitudes of history but also the subtle influences of the uncanny.

'As they face war, revolution and upheaval, or the quieter encroachments of decay, these haunted figures must find their way both in a changed world and in mysterious overlapping otherworlds.'

Sounds good to me! Judging by previous volumes, this one will be superbly written, erudite, and subtle.

Meanwhile, over at Sarob Press, a very special anthology has been launched and is already nearly sold out. This is the Ghosts & Scholars Book of Folk Horror, edited by Ro Pardoe. Need I say more?



Oh all right then. The contributors are:

Michael Chislett, Chico Kidd, Ramsey Campbell, Jacqueline Simpson, C.E. Ward, Philip Thompson, Terry Lamsley, Kay Fletcher, Geoffrey Warburton, Carole Tyrrell and (the new stories) Gail-Nina Anderson, Helen Grant, Tom Johnstone, Christopher Harman, John Llewellyn Probert, David A. Sutton, and S.A. Rennie.

A veritable galaxy of spookalicious talent.

But what of Swan River Press, Dublin's finest purveyor of weird fiction? They've only been and gone and published an anthology edited by the excellent Lynda E. Rucker.



Here are the contributors: Matthew M. Bartlett, S. P. Miskowski, Adam L. G. Nevill, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Shearman, R. S. Knightley, Lisa Tuttle, Ralph Robert Moore, Tracy Fahey, Julia Rust & David Surface, Scott West, and Rosanne Rabinowitz.

That's three. I suspect other review copies are lurking, but I thought I'd mention three outstanding books that pretty much cover all bases. For lovers of short fiction in the supernatural/horror vein, these are pretty good times.