Another Stonking Review for PLDT

This might be just about the best review I've ever had - it's certainly the most entertaining. And I love the detail about the reviewer's cats...

Pretty Little Dead Things Review

Srpski Film

I've done a guest-blog for my good mate the cuddly DF writer Andy Remic. My subject? The highly controversial A Serbian Film.

Check out the essay here: Srpski Review

Free Stuff

Thanks to those yummy, scrummy people at Angry Robot, you can now read the first 50 pages of Pretty Little Dead Things here:

Free Read

Remember, the book comes out in the UK on November 4th, and follows on December 28th in the US and Canada.

Pretty Little Dead Things...again

The good reviews for Pretty Little Dead Things just keep on coming. Here's a corker from sfbook.com:

PLDT Review

More About Thomas Usher

The indefatiguable genre reviewer Simon Marshall-Jones has been kind enough to write a lengthy review/essay on the subject of Pretty Little Dead Things. You can find it here:

Ramblings of a Tattooed Head

The First Copy...

So here it is, clutched tightly in my grubby little paws...the first ever copy of Pretty Little Dead Things, hot-off-the-press and sent directly to me by Angry Robot (God love 'em; I certainly do).

The book will be in the shops on November 4th. Until then, the only place it'll be is in my rather cluttered living room.

Pretty Little Dead Things - Another Great Review

Another cracking review of Pretty Little Dead Things has gone up here:

Dark Fiction Review

The novel is out (in the UK) on November 4th...exciting times.

And here's the Angry Robot site, which groups the first three reviews in a blog post:

PLDT - Angry Robot

Ghost Story

Those nice peeps at the Beyond Fiction website have put up my story Why Ghosts Wail: a Brief Memoir (from the collection How to Make Monsters) as part of their "Ghost Month" celebrations.

Check out the story here: Why Ghosts Wail

What They Hear in the Dark

New imprint Spectral Press have released the cover of their first chapbook, a longish story of mine called What They Hear in the Dark. Feast your eyes...

Words and Music

I've reached a crucial point in The Concrete Grove. Not in terms of plot, or word count, or anything like that - no, what's happened is that I've reached the stage where I can finally hear the rhythm of the prose. To me, good writing has its own music, its own beat, and when I'm working on a novel the whole story comes alive once I start to hear that music.

It happened last night, when I wrote this:

Tom waited there until the sun turned the sky in the east a light shade of red, like blood smeared along the blade-edge of the horizon. Then, his face still wet with tears, he started the car and set off towards home, where he now realised his heart had never truly belonged.

It isn't much, just a short paragraph, but behind those lines I can hear music. The heartbeat of the novel. For me, it's a heartbreakng moment, an incredible moment. It's the moment when I realise I might, just might, be creating something good. Or at least something that isn't bad.

22,800words

Pretty Little Dead Things - another favourable review

And here we have the second very good review of Pretty Little Dead Things:

PLDT Review

Telling Stories

Recently I've found myself in a fortunate yet terrifying position. I submitted a pitch to my editor at Solaris books: three interconnected novels set on a possessed northern sink estate called The Concrete Grove. All I had were three synopses and a headfull of ideas I'd been carrying around with me since I was sixteen.

The editor liked what he saw, and commissioned me to write the books. I was thrilled...but scared. I'd written nothing so far and the concept is very important to me on a personal level. These two things combined to create the Fear. But I got over it and started the first book. The first couple of chapters were a struggle, but now the whole thing is coming alive. The covers for the first two books (by the brilliant award-winning artist Vincent Chong) are complete and he's working on the third as I write this.

Sometimes life can be great: things happen, your dreams are realised, and you get to tell the stories that were always inside you, waiting to get out.

14,644 words