EVENT: Reading and Signing from Chris Beckett

A long time ago, before this blog kept a (irregular) chronicle of the book club's opinions and activities we read Turing Test by Chris Beckett. A collection of short stories with a great cover which went on to win the Edge Hill Prize for short fiction. We all loved the book and ate up the stories.

This is what one of the judges of the prize said:

‘I suspect Chris Beckett winning the Edge Hill Prize will be seen as a surprise in the world of books. In fact, though, it was also a bit of surprise to the judges, none of whom knew they were science fiction fans beforehand. Yet, once the judging process started, it soon became clear that The Turing Test was the book that we'd all been impressed by, and enjoyed, the most - and one by one we admitted it.

'This was a very strong shortlist, including one Booker Prize winner in Anne Enright, and two authors who've been Booker shortlisted in Ali Smith and Shena Mackay. Even so, it was Beckett who seemed to us to have written the most imaginative and endlessly inventive stories, fizzing with ideas and complete with strong characters and big contemporary themes. We also appreciated the sheer zest of his story-telling and the obvious pleasure he had taken in creating his fiction.'

Now, I'm happy to announce that Chris Beckett will be coming to Liverpool to promote his newest novel, the dystopian Dark Eden. He will be reading from his work and signing copies of the book which has already received rave reviews in The Guardian and Sunday Telegraph amongst others.

Don't miss this opportunity to meet the author being described as a "latter-day Orwell", and of course get your copy of Turing Test signed. We will also be discussing Chris's The Holy Machine in the bookclub, although not until May, so you might want to buy your copy early and get that signed too - as well as a copy of Dark Eden of course...

(Facebook link for event)
FRIDAY 2nd MARCH, 6pm

Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman

Synopsis

The first love song in the world, as composed by a pig in the Garden of Eden…
The Devil, alarmed when his hobby of writing romantic fiction begins to upstage his day job…
A man finding love with someone who has an allergy to his happiness, another losing love altogether when his wife gives him back his heart in a Tupperware box…

By turns macabre and moving, horrific and laugh-out-loud funny, Robert Shearman's short stories come from a place just to the left of the corner of your eye. Following his World Fantasy Award-winning 'Tiny Deaths', this new collection puts a bizarre twist on the love story. What is love, why does it hurt so much, and how is it we keep coming back for more?

 - Winner of the Readers' Award in the Edge Hill Short Story Competition.

 - Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story Collection.

What Did We Think?

Much praise was meted out for this, the second collection of Short Stories we've read in our times as a book club.

We liked how Shearman uses the fantastic to express more "mundane" issues. In doing so he accurately and poignantly conveys emotions, concepts and ideas that few other fantastical authors are capable of expressing in their work (or mainstream authors for that matter). It was felt with almost unanimous consent that the stories in this collection make a connection with genuine human emotions, particularly (of course) that of Love.

Despite praising the use of the fantastic, it was also appreciated that Shearman seems to know the power of understatement - both in the amount of fantastic elements a story requires, but also in the prose used to tell it. Many, if not all, of the stories were paced superbly and felt natural at the lengths they were published in. At the same time it was noted, and appreciated, that several of the stories use rather clever narrative techniques and devices, however they are also used in the perfect manner so that they complement the story rather than draw unnecessary attention away from the plot or mood being evoked.

At some point in the session someone must have picked out pretty much every story individually as an example of one they really liked. Even "George Clooney's Moustache" which was, on the whole, found to be a deeply disturbing tale. On the whole the collection was praised for being consistently good rather than putting its best stories at the beginning and deteriorating over the course of the book, as can sometimes happen in such collections.

If anything a criticism of the book was (rather ridiculously) that the stories were so good that you couldn't read them too quickly in succession or they would erase the preceding stories from your mind - so captivating and intense is each narrative. For this reason it reassured at least one member of our group that the stories have been published separately as it was felt that with room to grow in isolation from the other brilliant tales in the collection, they would truly shine.

Votes were as follows: 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 6

Next month's book is the rather more traditionally fantastic The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemsin.

Reminder

I don't like to double post about the same thing but if reading Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes for the session on Monday has got you into the mood for chilling tales of darkness and the macabre then you may be glad I reminded you that this Friday we've got the Twisted Tales Event in store.

From 6-8pm there will be readings from Fantasy / Horror authors Tom Fletcher, Nicholas Royle, Conrad Williams, and Ramsey Campbell. The event has already attracted quite a buzz and tickets have sold well (though there are still some available), it's even been mentioned on the British Fantasy Society page, University of Sterling's Gothic Imagination (the biggest website for studies of the Gothic in the world) and Horror magazine Black Static's "Things To Do At Halloween".

If we get as strong a turnout as I'm hoping we will, I plan to commission a series of such readings across the coming year. Not just horror, but science fiction and fantasy as well. I've already got a few authors lined up for the first sequel, and I'll be announcing the details for the first time at the event.

So come along and meet some of the biggest names in British Horror fiction working today. Hear them read their own stories, ask them questions, and get them to sign books.

Twisted Tales
Friday 29th October
6-8pm
Tickets cost £2
For more information, or to reserve tickets, call 0151 709 9820.

EVENT: Twisted Tales - Horror Readings

I could let the flyer talk for itself, but that's not my style.

On Friday 29th October 2010, at 6pm you can come and hear Horror short stories being read by real published Horror authors. Tom Fletcher's first novel The Leaping came out earlier this year and pits young graduates from Manchester against an evil in the Cumbrian Fells. Nicholas Royle's book Antwerp follows a brutal and mysteriously fascinating killer, Nick also runs Nightjar Press, a horror specialist small press. Conrad Williams, you may remember, was in store recently. On Saturday it was announced that he'd won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2010 for his novel One, which will be going up as one of my suggestions for this group's future reading by the way. Ramsey Campbell is a Liverpool native and is listed in the Oxford Companion to English Literature as "Britain's most respected living horror writer", amongst his many awards he has 4 World Fantasy Awards and no less than 13 British Fantasy Awards!

The authors will each be reading a work of short fiction, signing and (time permitting) answering any questions. If I can wade through the paperwork we'll also be selling exclusive copies of books that are now out of print or previously unavailable.

Even if you're not a horror fan this is an event worth attending, and the perfect way to mark Halloween 2010!

Twisted Tales

Friday 29^th October at 6pm – 8pm

Ticket’s £2

Waterstone’s Liverpool One

12 College Lane

Liverpool L1 3DL

Tel: 0151 709 9820

E-mail: manager@liverpoolone.waterstones.com

Event News: Wednesday, 17 March 2010, 12:30PM

I felt I should say that again, it's so rare a pairing of words with regards to the little corner of fiction which I call home: Event News!

Yes folks, that rare thing - a genre book signing is about to happen at Waterstone's Liverpool One.

The author who is gracing our store is Mr. Joe Hill. If that doesn't ring any bells then I'm not massively surprised, he's a young American author just beginning what I'm sure will be an epic journey. At the moment you can pluck such works as short story anthology 20th Century Ghosts and debut novel Heart-shaped Box off the horror shelves, or the superbly gothic Locke and Key, winner of the 2009 Eisner award from the graphic novel section. Other than the Eisner award, other accolades he's collected include Bram Stoker awards for Horror and British Fantasy Awards. He's a New York Times bestselling author, which although it's a phrase we see a lot on dust jackets, is quite a big deal for a genre writer outside of crime fiction.

Obviously he's not just popping in for a chat but to promote his newest release which is a novel called Horns, due out 18th March this year in Hardback.

If none of this has piqued your interest then I advise you to go flick through Locke and Key, have a read of some of the short stories in 20th Century Ghosts ("Voluntary Committal" and the titular "20th Century Ghost" are particularly good). Failing that, if none of the above intrigues you then perhaps the knowledge that this man's full name is Joseph Hillstrom King, yes son of Stephen King.

You can see his wikipedia page here it offers a slightly more detailed rundown of his work than I've managed to provide here. Just over here you can find his official website and blog which I'm sure will be mentioning this same event in the very near future.

So whaddya say? Will I see you there? Tell your friends.

WATERSTONE'S LIVERPOOL ONE
Wednesday, 17 March 2010, 12:30PM

P.S. Whilst I'm on a horror event theme, let me just say that I went to see a play at the Liverpool PLayhouse (under the Radio City Tower) called Ghost Stories and it was superb. If you happen to be able to get a ticket (£10 each) then I urge you to go - it's scary yet satisfying stuff and will be in Liverpool until 20th February.