Crustaceans launches in print today

  By William Meikle | March 13, 2012 - 10:05 am | William Meikle, Writing
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Crustaceans launches in 2 shiny print editions today. There is a limited (13 only) signed, leather bound deluxe hardcover edition, and a trade paperback edition (first 100 signed).

 

Big beasties fascinate me.

Some of that fascination stems from early film viewing. I remember being taken to the cinema to see The Blob. I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, and it scared the crap out of me. The original incarnation of Kong has been with me since around the same time. Similarly, I remember the BBC showing re-runs of classic creature features late on Friday nights, and THEM! in particular left a mark on my psyche.

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I’ve also got a Biological Sciences degree, and even while watching said movies, I’m usually trying to figure out how the creature would actually work in nature — what would it eat? How would it procreate? What effect would it have on the environment around it?

On top of that, I have an interest in cryptozoology, of creatures that live just out of sight of humankind, and of the myriad possibilities that nature, and man’s dabbling with it, can throw up.Then there’s Guy N Smith, who the book is dedicated to. Guy’s killer crabs are remorseless, relentless and the kind of killing machine you can’t help but love.

All those things were going round in my head when I first sat down to write the short novel Crustaceans.

As I started I only knew one or two things — that there would be whales involved somewhere, and that the Crabs would be in the tunnels and sewers under the city. After some fascinating research into the history of excavations and tunneling I made a start.

I worked out a full ecological profile and lifecycle for my “beasts” but most of that went by the board as the plot took over. It went quickly, and I found myself enjoying it immensely. It runs in my head like a movie, and I’d love to see it on the big screen one day, or as a comic book. That’s how I think of it — big, brash and bloody.

It’s definitely horror, but it’s also Science-fiction, in a very 1950′s B-Movie kind of way, a creature-feature if you like. It runs in my head like one of those lurid early technicolor monster movies, and readers will have fun thinking of it that way themselves.

Back to Guy N Smith again. This book began life as a possible collaboration with Guy which, for several reasons, didn’t pan out. But the Crabs are all his, and without his original books, this one would never exist. (Indeed there are a few allusions in the book to the originals, a wee homage on my part.) I’d just like to thank Guy, for the inspiration and, more than that, for the fun he’s given us in his books over his years of writing.

Editions

Leather-bound Deluxe Thirteen Hardcover w/slipcase + discounted trade paperback: numbered 1-13, 6”x9”, bound in leather, signature page which is signed by both author and artist, front cover stamped and spine stamped with the title and the author’s name, includes end papers, colored book ribbon with a full colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, a slipcase and dust jacket. Includes the trade paperback edition at a very discounted price of just $5.

Leather-bound Deluxe Thirteen Hardcover w/slipcase: numbered 1-13, 6”x9”, bound in leather, signature page which is signed by both author and artist, front cover stamped and spine stamped with the title and the author’s name, includes end papers, colored book ribbon with a full colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, a slipcase and dust jacket.

Trade Paperback: first 100 copies are signed by the author, 6 x 9, 12 point full color cover, 60lb. natural vellum stock.

http://www.darkregions.com/crustaceans-by-william-meikle/

Twenty years? Blimey!

  By William Meikle | March 11, 2012 - 4:18 pm | William Meikle, Writing
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Twenty years ago, right around this time of the year, I had an idea for a story… I hadn’t written much of anything since the mid-70s at school, but this idea wouldn’t leave me alone. I had an image in my mind of an old man watching a young woman’s ghost.

That image grew into a story, that story grew into other stories, and before I knew it I had an obsession in charge of my life.

So it all started with a little ghost story, “Dancers”; one that started by winning me 100 pounds in a ghost story competition, then ended up getting published in All Hallows, getting turned into a short movie, getting read on several radio stations, getting published in Greek, Spanish, Italian and Hebrew, and getting reprinted in The Weekly News in Scotland.

So, the first story came easy. It was only after that the rejections started to come in. But I’m nothing if not stubborn. I’ve been at this for twenty years and can’t see myself stopping now.

The paperback edition of THE CREEPING KELP launches today

  By William Meikle | March 1, 2012 - 5:33 pm | William Meikle, Writing
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The paperback edition of THE CREEPING KELP launches today at DARK REGIONS PRESS following on from the successful hardcover edition ( still some of them left too.)

Early birds will get a signed and numbered copy… available to the 1st 100 customers.

It’s kelp. It creeps. :-)

A cautionary tale of what man is doing to the environment. A WW2 experiment resurfaces; a Shoggoth fragment meets some bits of jellyfish and some seaweed and together they decide they like plastic. They like it so much that they start to seek it out, and grow, and spread… and build.
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If you are like me and grew up on those glorious nature run amok movies you will absolutely love The Creeping Kelp and I highly recommend it. – Famous Monsters of Filmland

It’s a homage to several things. There’s more than a touch of Lovecraft obviously, given that I’ve appropriated the Shoggoths, but there’s also a lot of John Whyndham in there. I wanted to do a big-scale, Britain-in-peril novel for a while. The title came to me one day and I knew immediately that there was a story to be told there. There’s also a bit of QUATERMASS in there too — the old “British scientists screw up” genre has been with me for a long time and it’s also something else I’ve always wanted to do. Here it is.

I started my fandom of the disaster genre young and at first it was from a Science Fiction perspective. The British ones from the ’50s and 60′s got my attention, in particular John Wyndham’s DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and THE CHRYSALIDS. Them, and A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ were my earliest introductions to the form. After that came tales of cosmic disaster, mainly Lieber’s THE WANDERER and Niven and Pournelle’s LUCIFER’S HAMMER. My interest was further piqued by Terry Nation’s TV show THE SURVIVORS, and Stephen King’s THE STAND, the first to being real horror to the genre IMHO. But my favorite in the genre is by Robert Macammon. His SWAN SONG is a roller coaster blockbuster which eschew’s King’s religious trappings for non-stop action and gritty realism mixed with a slug of the supernatural. My kind of tale.

I grew up on a West of Scotland council estate in a town where you were either unemployed or working in the steelworks, and sometimes both. Many of the townspeople led hard, miserable lifes of quiet, and sometimes not so quiet desperation. My Granddad was housebound, and a voracious reader. I got the habit from him, and through him I discovered the Pan Books of Horror and Lovecraft, but I also discovered westerns, science fiction, war novels and the likes of Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Alistair MacLean, Dennis Wheatley, Nigel Tranter, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. When you mix all that together with DC Comics, Tarzan, Gerry Anderson and Dr Who then, later on, Hammer and Universal movies on the BBC, you can see how the pulp became embedded in my psyche.

If I had to describe my writing style in five words, it would be these: Entertaining, pulpy, fast-paced, old-school fun.

The kick-ass cover Wayne Miller did echoes all those sentiments.

Order it in paperback (or even in hardcover) now, or I’ll send the Shoggoths round.

The Creeping Kelp would make for a great beach read, and will give you shivers the next time you step on a piece of seaweed in the water. Highly recommended. – The Monster Librarian

A guest post from Ty Johnston

  By William Meikle | February 28, 2012 - 10:29 am | Uncategorized
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Fantasy author Ty Johnston is touring the blogsphere this month to promote his new e-book novel, Demon Chains, and because he enjoys blogging. His novels include City of Rogues, Bayne’s Climb and Ghosts of the Asylum, all of which are available for the Kindle, the Nook and online at Smashwords. To learn more about Ty and his writing, follow him at his blog tyjohnston.blogspot.com.

About Demon Chains

Demon Chains is a mixture of epic and dark fantasy, as well as horror. As a novel it can stand on its own, and it can also be read as part of the my series of fantasy novels which include my Kron Darkbow character.

Kron is a dark warrior, one familiar with living in shadows and taking lives, but he is also a man who strives for justice in the world. In Demon Chains, he finds himself facing his most vile and twisted opponents yet.

A pair of killers stalk the streets of the city of Bond, slaying and torturing those who cross their path. Worse fates await some victims, including children. Especially children.

Into this maelstrom of blood enters Kron Darkbow, on the hunt for the monsters who are willing to violate the most innocent. A healer, a pair of wizards and a handful of city guards join in the search for the killers, and not all will survive.

A number of secondary characters return from my earlier epic fantasy novels, as does the setting in the city of Bond. Introduced in my story are new villains as well as a new setting, the village of Hommel just miles from Bond. Kron, of course, is a character familiar to my readers.

Though I have written more fantasy than any other genre, I also pen a horror short story from time to time, and in this novel I wanted my horror roots to show through a bit. Generally when writing fantasy, I provide scenes from the antagonist’s point of view, but with Demon Chains I consciously decided not to do this. The villains here are more horrific, more disgusting, than most, and I wanted to keep any emotional distance between them and the reader. Also, the first half of the novel is mostly a mystery, keeping the villains and their ultimate goals unknown.

This is my fifth novel involving my Kron Darkbow character, and the eighth in my particular fantasy world, what I think of as my Ursian Chronicles. When all is said and done, the series should include between 40 and 50 novels and should cover thousands of years, involving hundreds of characters, though Kron is in many ways the center point, the pin that ties it all together. Events far in the past have repercussions for Kron’s future, and the future of the world I have created.

Demon Chains is my attempt to mix horror with epic fantasy, but it is also part of a much longer road, part of a longer character arch for my Darkbow character. Kron has a dark side, one born in a tragedy that struck when he was young, and he has warred back and forth with that dark side all his adult life. Now confronting the worst of evils, will he fall prey to his own inner demons?

R.I.P Mrs. Lang

  By William Meikle | February 26, 2012 - 8:10 pm | William Meikle, Writing
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Mrs Mary Lang, of Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, died today.

That won’t mean much to anybody who didn’t know her, but she played a huge part in making me who I am today.

She was, back in 1969/70, my teacher in my last year at Ladyland Primary School.

I was 1st in the class that year, and she asked me what book I wanted as a prize. I remember her being surprised when I asked for something ghostly, as the year before I had received something by Sir Walter Scott. She never argued with me though, and, at the prize-giving, I was delighted to receive an anthology, SUPERNATURAL STORIES FOR BOYS

Over the years since I left home, my mum would often remark that she’d met Mrs. Lang, and that she usually mentioned my love for the supernatural.

I was glad when, several years back, I discovered she had been reading some of my stories and books. And the book I got that day at the prize-giving still sits on my shelves here in Newfoundland.

More than that though, she left a lifelong memory with me of a teacher who always had time for the whims of her class, who never looked down on or patronized a child, and who nurtured what she saw were the best parts of each of us.

She will be sorely missed.

 

CRUSTACEANS – Coming in print in March

  By William Meikle | February 24, 2012 - 2:25 pm | William Meikle, Writing
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The print versions of my popular e-book Crustaceans are coming in March from Dark Regions Press.

There will be 2 editions:- a signed trade paperback, and a -very- limited, 13 copies only, special edition signed deluxe hardcover.

Big beasties fascinate me.

Some of that fascination stems from early film viewing. I remember being taken to the cinema to see The Blob. I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, and it scared the crap out of me. The original incarnation of Kong has been with me since around the same time. Similarly, I remember the BBC showing re-runs of classic creature features late on Friday nights, and THEM! in particular left a mark on my psyche. I’ve also got a Biological Sciences degree, and even while watching said movies, I’m usually trying to figure out how the creature would actually work in nature — what would it eat? How would it procreate? What effect would it have on the environment around it?

On top of that, I have an interest in cryptozoology, of creatures that live just out of sight of humankind, and of the myriad possibilities that nature, and man’s dabbling with it, can throw up.

All those things were going round in my head when I first sat down to write the novella Crustaceans.

As I started I only knew one or two things — that there would be whales involved somewhere, and that the Crabs would be in the tunnels and sewers under the city. After some fascinating research into the history of excavations and tunneling I made a start.

I worked out a full ecological profile and lifecycle for my “beasts” but most of that went by the board as the plot took over. It went quickly, and I found myself enjoying it immensely. It runs in my head like a movie, and I’d love to see it on the big screen one day, or as a comic book. That’s how I think of it — big, brash and bloody.

Why I wrote BERSERKER

  By William Meikle | February 20, 2012 - 9:14 pm | Uncategorized
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Vikings vs Yeti. What more do you need to know? Actually they’re ALMA. Same beasts, different name.

For Tor and Skald this is their first viking raid, their minds are full of thoughts of honor and glory. What awaits them are beasts – huge, hairy and fanged, the Alma will not suffer intruders in their domain. When the Vikings slaughter a female Alma they soon find themselves in the middle of a bloody revenge. Now they must stand and be counted, for their destinies await in the mountains, where the hairy ones dance.

Big beasties fascinate me.

Some of that fascination stems from early film viewing. I remember being taken to the cinema to see The Blob. I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, and it scared the crap out of me. The original incarnation of Kong has been with me since around the same time. Similarly, I remember the BBC showing re-runs of classic creature features late on Friday nights, and THEM! in particular left a mark on my psyche. I’ve also got a Biological Sciences degree, and even while watching said movies, I’m usually trying to figure out how the creature would actually work in nature – what would it eat? How would it procreate? What effect would it have on the environment around it?

BERSERKER

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On top of that, I have an interest in cryptozoology, of creatures that live just out of sight of humankind, and of the myriad possibilities that nature, and man’s dabbling with it, can throw up.

Back at the movies again, another early influence was the Kirk Douglas / Tony Curtis movie THE VIKINGS. There’s that, and when I was very young I would be taken ten miles over the hill to the shore at Largs on the Ayrshire coast. There’s a memorial there to The Battle of Largs where Scots fought off Vikings. The story was told to me so often it sunk into my soul, and as kids we spent many a day in pretend swordfights as Vikings (when it wasn’t Zorro – but that’s another story

All those things were going round in my head when I first sat down to write BERSERKER. And there might be some of THE THIRTEENTH WARRIOR in there too.

Why I write – Part 2

  By William Meikle | February 17, 2012 - 5:13 pm | William Meikle, Writing
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I didn’t chose writing, it chose me. The urge to write is more of a need, a similar addiction to the one I used to have for cigarettes and still have for beer.

I -nearly- became a scientist. I have a degree in Botany, specialising in the archaeological history that can be gleaned from studying peat bogs. But I couldn’t get a grant for a PhD, then I followed a woman to London and ended up by accident more than design in a career in IT. I actually took it seriously for a while, but the need to write slowly welled up and subsumed it a few years back.

When I was at school my books and my guitar were all that kept me sane in a town that was going downhill fast. The steelworks shut and employment got worse. I -could- have started writing about that, but why bother? All I had to do was walk outside and I’d get it slapped in my face. That horror was all too real.

So I took up my pen and wrote. At first it was song lyrics, designed (mostly unsuccessfully) to get me closer to girls.

I tried my hand at a few short stories but had no confidence in them and hid them away. And that was that for many years.

I didn’t get the urge again until I was past thirty and trapped in a very boring job. My home town had continued to stagnate and, unless I wanted to spend my whole life drinking (something I was actively considering at the time), returning there wasn’t an option.

Back in the very early ’90s I had an idea for a story… I hadn’t written much of anything since the mid-70s at school, but this idea wouldn’t leave me alone. I had an image in my mind of an old man watching a young woman’s ghost.

That image grew into a story, that story grew into other stories, and before I knew it I had an obsession in charge of my life.

People write for different reasons: some want to make a lot of money, some want to exorcise some personal demon, others because they are driven and can’t imagine doing anything else. So “accomplishment” is relative. The most important thing is to be able to clearly convey what you want to say to your readers (and if that means using a split infinitive, then so be it.). How you do that, your style, is what you have to work at.

For me, I want to entertain, and if people like my work, I’ve succeeded.

Why do I do it?

  By William Meikle | February 16, 2012 - 8:48 pm | William Meikle, Writing
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I have a deep love of old places, in particular menhirs and stone circles, and I’ve spent quite a lot of time travelling the UK and Europe just to visit archaeological remains. I also love what is widely known as “weird shit”. I’ve spent far too much time surfing and reading fortean, paranormal and cryptozoological websites. The cryptozoological stuff especially fascinates me, and provides a direct stimulus for a lot of my fiction.

So, there’s that, and the fact that I was grew up with the sixties explosion of popular culture embracing the supernatural and the weird. The Hammer horror movies got me young, and led me back to the Universal originals. My early reading somehow all tended to gravitate in similar directions, with DC comics leading me into pulp and to finding Tarzan.

Tarzan is the second novel I remember reading. (The first was Treasure Island, so I was already well on the way to the land of adventure even then.) I quickly read everything of Burroughs I could find. Then I devoured Wells, Verne and Haggard. I moved on to Conan Doyle before I was twelve, and Professor Challenger’s adventures in spiritualism led me, almost directly, to Dennis Wheatley, Algernon Blackwood, and then on to Lovecraft. Then Stephen King came along.

There’s a separate but related thread of a deep love of detective novels running parallel to this, as Conan Doyle also gave me Holmes, then I moved on to Christie, Chandler, Hammett, Ross MacDonald and Ed McBain, reading everything by them I could find.

Mix all that lot together, add a dash of ZULU, a hefty slug of heroic fantasy from Howard, Leiber and Moorcock, a sprinkle of fast moving Scottish thrillers from John Buchan and Alistair MacLean, and a final pinch of piratical swashbuckling. Leave to marinate for fifty years and what do you get?

A psyche with a deep love of the weird in its most basic forms, and the urge to beat the shit out of monsters.

What attracts me to stories about the end of the world?

  By William Meikle | February 12, 2012 - 3:23 pm | William Meikle, Writing
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There’s something cathartic about seeing everything being torn down. It also makes for amusing daydreams when the boss is being a tool or when the commute seems to take forever. And who doesn’t think they couldn’t do better at building a society if given a chance?

So there’s that, and there’s also the sheer spectacle of the thing… the same reason people like to slow down to look at car crashes. There’s a “there but the for grace of God” vibe you get when watching or reading the world being torn down. Emmerlich and Devlin hooked into that early and have made a pot of money out of those very same vibes.

I started my fandom of the genre young and at first it was from a Science Fiction perspective. The British ones from the ’50s and 60′s got my attention, in particular John Wyndham’s DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and THE CHRYSALIDS. Them, and A CANTICLE FOR LIEBOWITZ were my earliest introductions to the form. After that came tales of cosmic disaster, mainly Lieber’s THE WANDERER and Niven and Pournelle’s LUCIFER’S HAMMER. My interest was further piqued by Terry Nation’s TV show THE SURVIVORS, and Stephen King’s THE STAND, the first to being real horror to the genre IMHO. But my favorite in the genre is by Robert Macammon. His SWAN SONG is a roller coaster blockbuster which eschew’s King’s religious trappings for non-stop action and gritty realism mixed with a slug of the supernatural. My kind of tale.

There is much that is good about civilisation that I’d certainly miss if it went, such as books and entertainment, central heating and modern medicine. But on the whole, civilisation as mankind defines it is hell-bent on destroying the ecosystem and we’re too stupid to stop shitting where we eat. I don’t think it’s a matter of why or why not. We’re now at a stage where it’s only a matter of when. I just hope it’s a few more years yet.

But I have a small island off the coast of Newfoundland in mind. It has an artesian well, plenty of fish and seabirds to harvest, and some run down buildings from an abandoned settlement that could be made habitable quickly. I’d have to dig up the small graveyard to make sure nothing’s coming up out of the ground, but it’s been disused for many years, so any revenants will be a bit brittle by now :-)

In the meantime, I’ve got more stories to write. I destroyed Southern England most recently in THE CREEPING KELP, Manhattan in CRUSTACEANS and NIGHT OF THE WENDIGO, and most of North America in THE INVASION so I think it must be Scotland’s turn next.