A cop vibe first, then, no: junkie. Both? Whatever: the guy gave off weird. Then he proved it by waving a naked stump at Tati, the melted remnant of his handless arm clubbing the air near her face. Ahh, prescription pain killers, and now she was all ready for a confab, to compare notes, when […]
Armstrong in bedArmstrong looked at her lying beside him, asleep. She was grainy in the moonlight, a black and white photograph magnified a thousand times for forensic examination, revealing a pyramid on Mars, a face on the moon. … He rubbed her flank, distant. She did not stir. The night smoothed the edges. His dull […]
I am a creature of habit and habits, and given that day has come round yet again, here is my alleged poem yet again, with the same introduction as before … … Today is Australia Day. You can tell by all of the people walking around dressed in Australian flags. Otherwise, you might not know […]
He had an excellent innings, but still sad. The elderly Glaswegian pedestrian Alasdair Gray has passed away.
This from the SMH last weekend (the Saturday SMH is the only newspaper I buy anymore, for the occasional nugget like this, but their review section is becoming so dire I may give up on newspapers altogether): “My memory bank is not my brain: its my book collection. I can’t do without it. When I […]
The latest edition of The Literary Hatchet, is available now, just click here for details. Which reminds me, you can read my own contribution to The Literary Hatchet, Serial Killer Blues, for free – just click here, fill out the form, and a PDF of volume 14 will be sent to you. You can also […]
John le Carre’s 5th novel is 50 years old, but the world it describes is only yesterday, a modern world with the only discrepancies the make of cars, or whether everyone has a boilerman enter their home to start the morning. In their concerns and the way they live their lives, the folk described don’t […]
After a 19 month hiatus, Three-Lobed Burning Eye Magazine is back. I am particularly pleased as the latest volume contains a new horror story by me, The Gods of the Gaps. Click here to read it for free. Additionally you may wish to spend 17 minutes of your life listening to me narrate my own […]
Julian Barnes’ review in The Guardian of William Trevor’s final collection really inspires me to get it now and read it, despite the toppling pile of books my puritan-self (who the hell is that? I’ll fight him!) says I have to read before I can buy any more. Here I steal, not from the stories […]
In his introduction to CHTHONIC, editor Scott R Jones very kindly remarks Finally, David Stevens’ Some Corner of a Dorset Field That Is Forever Arabia gives us the secret history and fantastic death of a famous English colonel. I count this last as a jewel in CHTHONIC, and I think you will, too. When I […]
Nobody is looking 