Penny Dreadnought Omnibus! Volume 1 Paperback

The Abominable Gentlemen are the worst people you don't know.

And the first Omnibus of their works is now available as a paperback (UK | US) as well as an ebook (UK | US).

Penny Dreadnought Omnibus! Volume 1 contains all sixteen stories from the first four volumes of Penny Dreadnought, as well as a bonus gallery of alternative cover art. 

It makes the perfect holiday gift for friends and family, especially strange 'Uncle Pete' who you only ever see at occasional family gatherings and who doesn't seem to be allowed near pets, children, or real cutlery.

Enjoy.

Honorary Abominable Gentlemen #3: Mark West

This interview takes place in the Jekyll & Hyde pub which is the Abominable Gentlemen's local (no matter where you live, it's your local, too) so the first question we are asking Mark West is: What are you drinking?

I would be drinking something soft (I’m teetotal) and whilst my choice would be Coke, my new get-fit-regime would dictate that it should be diet, or zero. I haven’t drunk alcohol in years, the only time I was tempted was seeing Kylie as the Absinthe Fairy in “Moulin Rouge”. Actually no, maybe it wasn’t being tempted to drink…

Introduce yourself - as writers, we often get asked for boring factual author bios. If you could write an author bio unconstrained by the boundaries of reality and truth, what would it say?

Mark West is a lazy git, who spends all of his time thinking and talking about writing, then actually spends about five minutes a day doing it. Sometimes, he would rather re-sort his bookshelves, do the hoovering or sort the whites and dark colours into separate washing piles than actually do any writing.

If you had a Mister Hyde style alter-ego what would he/she be called and why?

I already have - he’s called Pete and he writes stuff that I, as a family man, would never dare to!

'Literary horror' - oxymoron or your bread & butter as a writer?

I’m a big fan of literary fiction, in that I love to read it but find it difficult to write - my tastes seem much more simple than the pared back style required. Having said that, horror is a very wide spectrum, even if you don’t class it as literary or otherwise - you have the beautiful, quiet horror of Charles Grant, the in-your-face stuff (such as early Clive Barker, which I would argue is actually literary) and all points in between. 


The Penny Dreadnought art features people-with-telescopes-for-eyes. What low-tech body adornment or extension would you like?

As a kid in the 70s, I was always impressed with Steve Austin’s accoutrements, so I’ll go with either bionic legs or the bionic eye (and I can argue that it’d be low-tech because, hey, he only cost $6m!

If you could make any one person - alive or dead, male or female, real or fictional - an honorary Abominable Gentleman, who would it be and why?

My son Matthew, because he’s the coolest Dude I know.

Let's bitch - we partially came up with the idea of Penny Dreadnought in reaction to a lot of the 'sparkly vampire' school of supernatural writing. What about writing or publishing today makes you want to scream?

Wow, that’s a wide canvas. My main ‘I’m-gonna-scream’ would be people expecting overnight success, without paying any of their dues. When I first started getting published, around 1999, there were plenty of print small press zines out there (in fact, it’s where I first came across a lot of writers I’m now friends with). You sent in your stories, you read the zines, you talked, you worked and - hopefully - you improved. You could self-publish, of course, but it was expensive and the results often looked poor, so instead, everything went through an editing process. Now we have dingbats who write a story (and leave it in first draft), slap on some terrible cover art with unreadable fonts, spam every possible Facebook group and messageboard and Twitter feed and then complain that they’re not being treated as ‘special’. The horror boom in the 70s and 80s, in traditional print, brought the genre to its knees (looks like Fifty Shades is going to do that for erotica) and we’re still dragging ourselves out of the mess. A lot of these writers have no real love or desire for the genre, it’s seen as easy (strip that girl down to her undies and chop this other girls head off!) and that nobody will care if it’s rough and ready. Not true, on any count. I don’t have an issue with self-publishing (it can be done very well and for examples of that I’d point to Colin F Barnes and Greg James, who writes as G R Yeates), I don’t have an issue with people learning the ropes (hey, we were all there once), I have an issue with our “I want it now” culture, where people think that literary success is deserved and just around the corner.

The sparkly vampires thing is something I definitely rail against, though you have to be careful that it’s not just a case of you not liking something that other people do (I, for instance, hate The X Factor but a lot of people apparently not only like it, but buy into its crass lies and spend money on the phone calls and CDs). Having said that, they are responsible for taking a sleazy, horrible, venal character and making them into moping idiots - consider Sonja Blue against one of the twerps from Twilight - she’d kill him as soon as look at him.

Be honest - despite being a seasoned horror pro, are you actually confident you can pronounce 'Cthulhu' correctly in public?

Not at all. I’ve always thought I was a bit of a social pariah, in that I have no real idea, so it’s nice to realise I’m not - thanks for the question. I always pronounce it as it’s written - Cuh-thoo-loo”, which is probably wrong. In fact, I’ve probably been involved in countless conversations at Cons where people have been discussing him and I just didn’t understand what they were talking about!

What's the most abominable thing you've done that you want to reveal to the internet at large?

Well, I’ve never discussed this with anyone else at all but once I…..  (nah, can’t tell you!)

The third issue of Penny Dreadnought is about the world ending. What's your favourite literary apocalypse?

I have to be honest, I’m not a big fan of apocalyptic fiction as it plays on fears I’ve had since my teens (I watched Threads as a teenager, which wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did), but “The Stand” worked well for me. I enjoyed a lot of the Abaddon zombie series (such as Gary McMahon’s “Hungry Hearts”) and I’ve just critiqued an apocalyptic novel for Simon Bestwick, which is very, very good.

Aliens are threatening to destroy the human race unless we can prove we are civilised enough to live. However they are short of time, and out of the entire cultural repository of the world to date, they want a single short story of your to prove we are worth not vaporising. Which story do you pick and why?

I would probably go for “The Mill” because, although it’s a ghost story, it’s really about grief and guilt and dealing with bereavement. I think it does have its scary moments - and it’s supposed to have - but it’s really about human emotions and how people deal with one another at those points in your life where you’re one step from the darkest abyss you’ve ever experienced. By showing the aliens that there is hope, even if it’s in the supernatural, hopefully they wouldn’t phase us!

Honorary Abominable Gentlemen #2: Tony Rabig

Another Friday night, another top quality horror author stumbles into the Jekyll and Hyde saloon... When asked "What are you drinking?" by the Man With A Skull For A Head, Tony Rabig enters pub legend by being the first person to reply:

Twinings Earl Grey tea. Soon, very soon, I'll grab a bottle of Heineken from the fridge.
Introduce yourself - as writers, we often get asked for boring factual author bios. If you could write an author bio unconstrained by the boundaries of reality and truth, what would it say?

Hmmm. I tend a bit toward self-deprecation, so... How's this:

Tony Rabig knew from an early age that he wanted to write, and resolved to learn from the best. He traveled back and forth across the United States, England, Europe, and South America in a decades-long quest to learn his craft from some of the world's finest writers. As a result of his efforts, numerous writers' organizations were formed and the organizations pooled their resources to hire the sharpest legal minds so that restraining orders might be filed against Rabig on behalf of their clients. Undaunted by the threat of lawsuits and prison, Rabig changed his tactics; no longer did he lie in wait for the writers, or sneak into their studios to go over their drafts -- now he followed the trash trucks to the landfills in hope of finding cast-off drafts or discarded file copies of manuscripts. When his few remaining friends complained about the stench, he gave up this practice, and simply began to write. The writers' organizations he had been instrumental in creating found other things to do. Rabig has recently been allowed to go off his medications, and begin using pens rather than crayons. He claims to no longer have any impulse to hold seances so that he might speak with Ernest Hemingway; his long-suffering wife, however, reports that he must occasionally be escorted out of libraries and bookstores because he tries to substitute his own name for Hemingway's on the contents pages of anthologies that include "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Recently, he finished the very first draft of his very first declarative sentence, and he hopes to write another sentence soon.

If you had a Mister Hyde style alter-ego what would he/she be called and why?

Godzilla. There are a number of places and people that really need the kind of attention Godzilla devotes to downtown Tokyo; the ability to morph into the big green guy would come in awfully handy there. If something more unobtrusive and not copyrighted or trademarked by Toho is needed for the alter-ego, though, let's go with Vinnie the Hammer. Same functions, basically, but on a much smaller and more personal scale.

'Literary horror' - oxymoron or your bread & butter as a writer?

Certainly not an oxymoron. As for my bread & butter -- I can't say how "literary" my stuff is; I try to make sure it reads fairly smoothly and that it's not dull.

The Penny Dreadnought art features people-with-telescopes-for-eyes. What low-tech body adornment or extension would you like?

Not really into that sort of thing myself, but a good pen for the right index finger might be of some use.

If you could make any one person - alive or dead, male or female, real or fictional - an honorary Abominable Gentleman, who would it be and why?

I think I'd go with John Collier; for the reason, look no farther than his short story collection Fancies and Goodnights. Wonderful, wonderful stuff, and the book's worth the price of admission just for the closing paragraph of "Over Insurance." Trust me.

Let's bitch - we partially came up with the idea of Penny Dreadnought in reaction to a lot of the 'sparkly vampire' school of supernatural writing. What about writing or publishing today makes you want to scream?

What's happened to mass market paperbacks over the last forty or fifty years. I groused about some of this in my blog a little while ago. When I started buying paperbacks, I could walk into a pharmacy in my neighborhood and find, in mass market editions, writers like Anthony Burgess, Vladimir Nabokov, John D. MacDonald, Anthony Powell, Theodore Sturgeon, Shirley Jackson, B. Traven, Cornell Woolrich, Henry James, Richard Matheson, John O'Hara, Isaac Bashevis Singer, W. Somerset Maugham, Nevil Shute, William Goldman, Evan Hunter, Roald Dahl, and more. A lot of the writers whose work once appeared in editions aimed at mass audiences simply aren't available that way any more, and the casual reader browsing the supermarket or WalMart racks won't see anything like that range of material. There's apparently an assumption that only the newest sparkly vampire stuff will sell enough copies to warrant that kind of distribution. Sad.

Be honest - despite being a seasoned horror pro, are you actually confident you can pronounce 'Cthulhu' correctly in public?

Seasoned horror pro? Moi??? Anyway... Can I pronounce Cthulhu correctly in public? You bet. Ka-THOO-loo. Right? RIGHT?????

What's the most abominable thing you've done that you want to reveal to the internet at large?

Well, in every national election from 1984 to date (and 2012 won't be any exception) I've voted a straight Republican ticket. Does that count?

The third issue of Penny Dreadnought is about the world ending. What's your favourite literary apocalypse?

Novel-length would be a three-way tie between Stephen King's The Stand, Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, and John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids. Shorter -- a tie between Alfred Bester's "Adam and No Eve" and Arthur C. Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God," and I might toss "Vintage Season" by Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore in there too.

Aliens are threatening to destroy the human race unless we can prove we are civilised enough to live. However they are short of time, and out of the entire cultural repository of the world to date, they want a single short story of yours to prove we are worth not vaporising. Which story do you pick and why? 

One of my stories? Kiss the planet goodbye... While I don't necessarily think it's my best story, I'd probably go with "Acts of Faith" (included in "The Other Iron River, and Other Stories." End of commercial.) The protagonist tries to preserve something of value for the future even though there's little hope he can do that, and even less hope for his own survival; but he tries anyway, putting his personal safety aside for larger concerns. Of course, aliens of a devious nature might regard people with that capacity as a potential threat and wipe us out just the same.

Honorary Abominable Gentlemen #1: Cate Gardner

The Abominable Gentlemen are always looking for exceptionally talented weird fiction authors, and luckily earlier this week the amazing Cate Gardner wandered into the Jekyll & Hyde pub - either drawn there by mysterious, demonic forces or because she wanted to get out of the rain. 

Cate is the author of the short story collection Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits and if the title alone doesn't make you want to run out and buy it now, then you're dead to us.

Naturally she was beckoned over for a chin-wag, and this was the result:

What are you drinking?

Maybe something non-alcoholic (and low calorie) or maybe a pint of rum and coke, heavy on the rum - it all depends on whether I'm Jekyll or Hyde. I hope I'm Hyde.

Introduce yourself - as writers, we often get asked for boring factual author bios. If you could write an author bio unconstrained by the boundaries of reality and truth, what would it say?

My name is Cate, which is short for Catherine the Terrible and I live in a hut at the bottom of the garden with a short hairy man called The Wolf Dude and a skeletal bloke known to regular folk as the Grim Reaper.

My novellas have graced the hands of the famous (I dug up Charles Dickens and I've also dropped my books into the lap of Tim Burton - quite a feat when you consider I was flying over his garden in a hot air balloon). My short story collection is currently available on Pluto thanks to a gust of wind and an adventurous postman wearing a space suit he picked up in a fancy dress shop. Forthcoming stories will appear on all laptops and computers, possibly even some television screens, once the Gremlins in my employ have figured out how to hack the satellites. Watch this space.

If you had a Mister Hyde style alter-ego what would he/she be called and why?

Oh my, I guess by this question you are assuming that I am Jekyll whereas I may actually be a Miss Hyde pretending to be a Miss Jekyll. In saying that I suppose I should temporarily shake off my disguise and reveal who I truly am…

I am Eugenie Primrose, a time-travelling double agent in the court of Victoria and my weapons of choice are an umbrella and poisoned lipstick.

Have you noticed how I've been three different people in the first three questions? I suspect I'm very confused.

'Literary horror' - oxymoron or your bread & butter as a writer?

Neither. Of course horror can be literary, although I doubt I am (I'll leave that up to the reader to decide).

The Penny Dreadnought art features people-with-telescopes-for-eyes. What low-tech body adornment or extension would you like?

Something to make me taller would be good. Then I could finish painting the little strip of wall above my bath. At the moment, I'm contemplating really high platform shoes or balancing on someone's shoulders.

If you could make any one person - alive or dead, male or female, real or fictional - an honorary Abominable Gentleman, who would it be and why? 

Oscar Wilde for his wit, his dress sense and his fabulous hair.

Let's bitch - we partially came up with the idea of Penny Dreadnought in reaction to a lot of the 'sparkly vampire' school of supernatural writing. What about writing or publishing today makes you want to scream?

I don't think anything makes me want to scream but that's a rather boring reply. Ooh, I do have something. I want to scream every time someone at work asks have I read Fifty Shades of Grey and then goes on to tell me how bloody brilliant it is and I should read it. And I doubly hate that they'll then re-read that book a dozen times rather than giving another author a go.

I'm a little mad now.

Be honest - despite being a seasoned horror pro, are you actually confident you can pronounce 'Cthulhu' correctly in public?

Until I heard the word spoken in an episode of Supernatural (season 6, I think), I was saying it completely wrong. And no, I'm not confident I could pronounce it correctly, but I'll admit I also don't really care about Cthulhu. I'm not a Lovecraft fan. (Should I get my coat now?)

What's the most abominable thing you've done that you want to reveal to the internet at large?

Now if I don't answer this question you're going to think I have something to hide. Thus, I shan't answer the question.

The third issue of Penny Dreadnought is about the world ending. What's your favourite literary apocalypse?

I want to say 'I am Legend' by Richard Matheson, but that would be cheating because I've only watched the movies. I know! I loved 'The Forest of Hands and Teeth' by Carrie Ryan, but was less keen on the sequels so feel I shouldn't pick that. So I'll plump for 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy.

Aliens are threatening to destroy the human race unless we can prove we are civilised enough to live. However they are short of time, and out of the entire cultural repository of the world to date, they want a single short story of your to prove we are worth not vaporising. Which story do you pick and why?

We're fucked.

I guess I should pick Empty Box Motel because it’s a sad little tale and the aliens will be too busy wiping their eyes and blowing their noses to kill us all. They may still vaporise me though.

---

Buy Cate Gardner's books! And don't forget the first Penny Dreadnought Omnibus is out now (Amazon| Amazon UK|Barnes & Noble)

The Penny Dreadnought Files...

Want to hear how the Abominable Gentlemen and Penny Dreadnought are viewed by the powers that be? You betcha. Then head on over to Keith Brooke's site and read this.

"I don’t mind admitting to feeling some nausea."

Keith runs the excellent Infinity Plus small press; plus with this act of kindness he's ensured himself a place in at least the middle-echelons of the Abominable Government, when our plans come to fruition... In the meantime, check out his books!

And don't forget the first Penny Dreadnought Omnibus is out now (Amazon| Amazon UK |Barnes & Noble)

Penny Dreadnought Omnibus - Volume 1

The Abominable Gentlemen's diabolical plan is coming to fruition, with the release of the first Penny Dreadnought Omnibus!

It contains all sixteen stories from the first four volumes of Penny Dreadnought as well as a bonus gallery of cover art. Side effects may vary from reader to reader, but are likely to include: trembling hands; creeping dread; visions of the end times; speaking in tongues; existential doubt, and an intolerance to sparkly vampires.

Experience it at Amazon UK | Amazon US

 

The stories are:

 

‘Lilies’ - Iain Rowan

‘Cargo’ - Aaron Polson

‘First Time Buyers’ - James Everington

‘Invasion of the Shark-Men’ - Alan Ryker

‘Falling Over’ by James Everington

‘All the Pretty Yellow Flowers’ by Aaron Polson

‘Ice Age’ by Iain Rowan

‘A Face to Meet the Faces that You Meet’ by Alan Ryker

‘Precious Metal’ by Aaron Polson

‘Only the Lonely’ by Iain Rowan

‘The New Words’ by Alan Ryker

‘He’ by James Everington

‘Occupational Hazard’ by Iain Rowan

‘The Aerialist’ by Alan Ryker

‘Packob's Reward’ by James Everington

‘Poe's Blender’ by Aaron Polson

Coming Soon: Four Times the Abomination

Gentlemen Aloud

A short story by one of the Abominable Gentlemen, Iain Rowan, is available to listen to as an audio file over at Supernatural Tales.

The Gentlemen advise you to listen to it here posthaste, to avoid any needless unpleasantness.

Uncommitted Crimes...

The Abominable Gentlemen have been busy in the lab again, and after much boiling of test-tubes and loss of eyebrows, I am pleased to say that fourth volumes of Penny Dreadnought is available now.

This issue's honorary Gentlemen is Theodor W. Adorno, whose quote “Behind every work of art lies an uncommitted crime” was the inspiration for the title. That was my idea; I'm the Abominable Gentlemen who brings unnecessary pretentiousness to the group.

The issue contains four tales of murder, malfeasance and malarky:

Occupational Hazard by Iain Rowan
The Aerialist by Alan Ryker
Packob's Reward by James Everington
Poe's Blender by Aaron Polson

Commit your own crime by downloading it from Amazon (UK | US), Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords.

Waifs And Strays

As Alan mentioned in his introduction to Penny Dreadnought: The Lone And Level Sands, we get all kinds of waifs and strays wandering into the Jekyll and Hyde pub. The Abominable Gentlemen normally end up subbing them a pint or two (they don't always have the right currency in their pockets, depending on where/when they've come from), dusting them down, and sending them on their way. 


Some of them, like Percy Shelley, are cocks (see last post for why). But others we consider honorary Abominable Gentlemen (of either gender). There are a few of them who stick out in my memory:

• Bill Heine - the man behind the Headington Shark 

• Robert Leroy Johnson - he didn't sell his soul to the Devil, he just stopped by for a Hooch

• Sylvia Plath - great poet and karaoke singer 

• Al-Khwairzmi - this man invented the decimal point. But he's shit at bar-billiards.

• Billy Casper - the boy from Kes. Not technically old enough to drink, but we tend to turn a blind eye.

• June Hautot - great usage of the word "codswallop" here

• Edwin Abbott Abbott - an excellent name, and author of a book about life in two-dimensions. He'd had a few that night, to be fair.

• Alice - obviously.

• Hans Holbein The Younger - painted The Ambassadors, realistic portrait apart from the massive distorted skull in the foreground (The Abominable Gentlemen like pictures with massive distorted skulls in)

• The Pilot, Cabin Crew And Passengers of Douglas DC-3 airliner NC16002 - they still haven't left the pub yet, actually.

Lone and Level Sands Foreword

Percy Shelley was kind of a dick.

As you’re aware by now, the Jekyll and Hyde Pub is frequented by a number of tortured geniuses. About a month back, Percy Shelley is stumbling around the place, trying to bum pints. Turns out Daddy, Sir Thomas, had cut off his allowance. Though that’s certainly not the most moving sob story, we throw him a bone. We tell him about the (post-)apocalyptic issue of Penny Dreadnought we’re about to publish, and that he can contribute a poem.

After reading our stories, he whips up “Ozymandias” right there. We‘re like, “Okay, that’s pretty good,” and he drinks on us for the rest of the evening.

He stumbles out of the pub and back into his own time, and publishes the poem 200 years ago, selling first rights twice and leaving us no recourse but to take our revenge on his cremated remains (the details of which can’t be described in polite company).

Anyway, we paid for it, and we’re going to use it.

OZYMANDIAS of EGYPT

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains: round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The Lone and Level Sands

The Abominable Gentlemen build four worlds only to destroy them in this apocalypse-themed issue of Penny Dreadnought. Witness four unique visions of the end in:
“Precious Metal” by Aaron Polson
“Only the Lonely” by Iain Rowan
“The New Words” by Alan Ryker
“He” by James Everington


Penny Dreadnought: The Lone and Level Sands is 20,000 words, or approximately 80 pages. Buy it at:
Amazon / UK
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

The Man With A Skull For A Head Interviews #4: James Everington

The last interview of the night was conduced by The Man With A Skull For A Head in an almost deserted back-room of the Jekyll and Hyde (a pub which has stuck to the fine tradition of the 'lock in' despite the change to licensing laws making it obsolete everywhere else).


The final victim was James Everington. Some regulars in the Jekyll and Hyde say the The Man With A Skull For A Head can't actually talk at all (lacking vocal chords as he does) and that Everington was in fact just asking questions of himself in a silly, put on voice. The Abominable Gentleman of course vigorously denies such a charge.

TMWASFAH: "If you could make any one person - alive or dead, male or female, real or fictional - an honorary Abominable Gentleman, who would it be and why?"

JE: As a Nottingham lad I'll have to say Robin Hood - I love the fact that the local government flies flags all over the place to someone who was basically a socialist terrorist. I think the Occupy movement has really missed a trick adopting V For Vendetta as their unofficial mask of choice (great though V is). I mean here was a guy whose motto was "rob the rich to help the poor.... and fill the tax-dodging bastards with arrows if they refuse." 


I guess there are unpleasant associations with Kevin Costner and leggings, though.




TMWASFAH: "What's the most abominable thing you've done that you want to reveal to the internet at large?"


JE: I once tripped up Timmy Mallet at a train-station. He almost fell onto the tracks right in front of a oncoming train arriving at the platform. It was probably the closest to death he's ever been. This was in his post-Wacaday career lull. (Non-UK readers may have no idea who Timmy Mallet is - for the sake of your sanity don't search for clips of him on You Tube.)


Serendipitously I've just noticed from his Wikipedia page that Mr. Mallet went to school in Hyde. How "utterly brilliant!"




TMWASFAH: "As you know, the Gentlemen drink in the Jekyll and Hyde pub. If you had a Mister Hyde style alter-ego what would he (she?!) be called and why?"


JE: Alan Ryker.




TMWASFAH: "If you had a free pick from all of literature of one story by a guest author for a future issue of Penny Dreadnought, what would it be?"


JE: The Scarlatti Tilt by Richard Brautigan. A title and two sentences, and a better story than most of us will ever achieve in this life time.




TMWASFAH: "As writers, we often get asked for boring factual author bios. If you could write an author bio unconstrained by the boundaries of reality and truth, what would it say?"




JE: James Everington, author of The Scarlatti Tilt and other stories, robbed those tax-dodging bastards at arrow-point, gave the money to the poor, got the girl, tripped Timmy Mallet over at a railway station near Hyde, and still managed to get to the pub in time for Iain Rowan's round.




TMWASFAH: "What one thing would you like to know about the other Abominable Gentlemen that you currently don't?"


JE: What are you drinking?

TMWASFAH: "What one book of yours would you like to plug to the Penny Dreadnought readership?"


JE: The Other Room is a collection of my 'weird fiction', although it does not contain The Scarlatti Tilt. If you buy it and are rich I promise to give the proceeds to the poor without perpetrating any arrow-related crime on you.


Timmy Mallet, if you are reading this, I probably owe you a free copy. Get in touch.


Buy The Other Room at Amazon: US | UK

Beware the flowers that walk

It all sounds innocent enough.

Four authors, with a broad but shared vision of good weird and chilling fiction, banding together to release a series of books.

Innocent enough. Except when those authors happen to be the Abominable Gentlemen. Oh, each volume is on its own ordinary enough. Four fine stories, one from each of the Gentlemen, maybe a guest author, all usually based around a theme. Nothing exceptional. Nothing untowards. 

Just words.

But of course, being Abominable, the Gentlemen have a wider plan. Hatched late one night, over brandies in the club. In the corner, the Man With A Skull For A Head nodded his quiet encouragement.

Although each volume on its own is harmless, a pleasing diversion or a brief hair-raising chill, piece by piece they form part of a greater whole. A greater whole that, when complete, will change everything. Once the work is complete the words in the individual volumes will seek each other out, as if drawn by some strange attractor, and the words will fuse and the words will twist, and they will feed and they will change and they will breed. An alchemical transformation of language will take place that will spell out the secret words of the universe itself, the words of power that hold the bonds of reality together and which will open the gate to universes beyond all human imagining. A million beautiful but terrible mutant flowers will bloom, reaching their twisted petals in supplication to skies of molten cloud, before they wrench their roots shuddering from the earth, and start to walk.

At least, that's the plan. The original arcane rituals demanded volumes of illuminated lettering on parchments made from the shirts of martyrs, and we are not yet sure whether it will survive the conversion to Amazon's proprietary electronic format. 

But are you sure that it won't?

The Man With A Skull For A Head Interviews #3: Aaron Polson

Later that same evening, The Man The Man With A Skull For A Head interviewed Aaron Polson - it was getting close to chucking out time at the Jeykll and Hyde, but obviously the Abominable Gentlemen are in cahoots with the barman, and an old-fashioned 'lock in' is theirs upon request...so there's never any need for them to stop drinking Blue Monkey if they don't wish to.

This may explain a lot.


TMWASFAH: "If you could make any one person - alive or dead, male or female, real or fictional - an honorary Abominable Gentleman, who would it be and why?"

AP: Without going the obvious "H.P. Lovecraft" / "Edgar Allan Poe" route, I'm going to say Charles Darwin. While not a fiction writer, that dude was really thinking out of the box.


TMWASFAH: "What's the most abominable thing you've done that you want to reveal to the internet at large?"

I'm ashamed of this one--and it amounts to theft as well as "murder"--I pulled fish from a tank at a discount store when I was five or six. I liked the way they felt in my hand: squish and wet. When I heard footsteps, I dropped the poor little guy (a goldfish, I think), and it suffocated on the white tile floor.


TMWASFAH: "As you know, the Gentlemen drink in the Jekyll and Hyde pub. If you had a Mister Hyde style alter-ego what would he (she?!) be called and why?"

If I had an alter-ego? I thought I was the alter ego... My alter-ego would probably have a nice, safe name like "Bob Jones" or something. Either that or Pleather Tuxedo (after the fictional girl band "Leather Tuscadero and the Suedes" from TV's Happy Days.


TMWASFAH:  "If you had a free pick from all of literature of one story by a guest author for a future issue of Penny Dreadnought, what would it be?"

"Greasy Lake" by T. Coraghessan Boyle would be my first pick. Man I love that story--great voice, great imagery, and a mossy, waterlogged corpse. It speaks to my growing up in middle America, too. H.P. Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls" comes in a close second. The "big reveal" in "Rats" still gives me chills, and I've read it ten+ times.


TMWASFAH: "As writers, we often get asked for boring factual author bios. If you could write an author bio unconstrained by the boundaries of reality and truth, what would it say?"

I'd say that I'm made of marshmallow fluff and branches from a willow tree with an I.Q. of 134. I could go higher on the I.Q., but why get cocky?

TMWASFAH: "What one thing would you like to know about one of the other Abominable Gentlemen that you currently don't?"

Peanut butter: do you believe it's more peanut or more butter?

TMWASFAH: "What one book of yours would you like to plug to the Penny Dreadnought   readership?"

I'd love for more folks to read Loathsome, Dark and Deep (Amazon US | UK). I loved writing that book and it's garnered some decent reviews. I think it would make a nice film, too. (wink, wink)

The Man With A Skull For A Head Interviews #2: Alan Ryker

Alan Ryker, Yesterday

The Man With A Skull For A Head interviews continue, with the second victim being the Abominable Gentlemen's criminal mastermind, Alan Ryker.


Again, the interview as conducted over a few pints in the Jeykll and Hyde pub, which is located in Nottingham, Sunderland or Kansas, depending on your (and its) point of view. Regardless of location, its measures are always in Imperial.

TMWASFAH: "If you could make any one person - alive or dead, male or female, real or fictional - an honorary Abominable Gentleman, who would it be and why?"

AR: Abolitionist John Brown. He’s my personal hero, but an actual hero only because he ended up on the right side of history. He makes liberals very nervous because he was essentially a terrorist for the correct side, murdering and pillaging against slavery. I hold few memberships, as I am picky about my associates. One is as an Abominable Gentlemen. The other, a soldier in John Brown’s army.

TMWASFAH: "What's the most abominable thing you've done that you want to reveal to the internet at large?"

I developed a breed of dog which is so cute that it destroys the minds of all those who look upon it: the pughuameranian. Once you see a pughuameranian, your existence is hollow until you have one to call your very own. But of course, there’s only one! Madness, thy name is Chewie!

So many ruined lives…

TMWASFAH: "As you know, the Gentlemen drink in the Jekyll and Hyde pub. If you had a Mister Hyde style alter-ego what would he (she?!) be called and why?"

I revealed my alter-ego with a palindrome in my author’s notes in Penny Dreadnought: Descartes’ Demon.

Alan Ryker is evil. Live, Sire Kyrnala!

Although I’m not certain if it’s a Jekyll and Hyde situation, as Sire Kyrnala is also quite evil. The main difference between us is that he hates cilantro, while I love it.

TMWASFAH: "If you had a free pick from all of literature of one story by a guest author for a future issue of Penny Dreadnought, what would it be?"

I’ve never read better portrayals of the beautiful connection between genius and self-destruction as in the works of Jim Shephard. My favorite example of this is probably “Climb Aboard the Mighty Flea.”

TMWASFAH: "As writers, we often get asked for boring factual author bios. If you could write an author bio unconstrained by the boundaries of reality and truth, what would it say?"

Alan Ryker is Evil. Live, Sire Kyrnala!

Though that is both factual and truthful, it’s what I’d say if unconstrained.

TMWASFAH: "What one thing would you like to know about one of the other Abominable Gentlemen that you currently don't?"

Why would you ever choose to associate with Alan Ryker?

Oh, how self-absorbed of me! Isn’t that abominable? No? Just kind of dickish? Well, that’s a step in the right direction, wouldn’t you say?

Okay, then I would ask Mr. Everington how he manages to commit so many abominable deeds. I have a feeling he has some sort of time-manipulation device, and I’d like to borrow it.

Maybe then I could manage to fit a little rest for the wicked into my busy schedule.

TMWASFAH: "What one book of yours would you like to plug to the Penny Dreadnought readership?"

I want someone to buy Psychomancer, just for the novelty of it. It’s full of humor, pseudo-philosophic ramblings and great heaping helpings of my trademark, over-the-top violence! But no one ever buys it. I have no idea why not. Does it have halitosis?

Answer the halitosis question for yourself by buying Psychomancer from Amazon (US | UK)

The Man With A Skull For A Head Interviews #1: Iain Rowan

Iain Rowan, Yesterday

The Man With A Skull For A Head recently interviewed each of the Abominable Gentlemen in their usual haunt of the Jeykll and Hyde pub. History does not record how many pints of Blue Monkey either participant had drunk by this point, but you can judge for yourself from the transcript below.

First victim, Iain Rowan:

TMWASFAH: "If you could make any one person - alive or dead, male or female, real or fictional - an honorary Abominable Gentleman, who would it be and why?"

IR: I'm not sure if he was real, or fictional, or a combination of the two, but I think I would like our company to be joined by Merlin. He'd be great fun to have around for lots of reasons:


"Merlin, the Gentlemen are out of tea/stout/crumpets, would you mind just waving your staff and..."
"Merlin, our Amazon Sales Rank is slipping. Would you mind just waving your staff and..."
"Merlin, can I have a go of your pointy hat?"
"Merlin, you have amazing powers, the like of which have not been seen on earth before or since. So, you know. The whole Mordred and Arthur thing. The greatest king the country has ever known. Slain in battle.  Busy that day were you, Merlin, washing your beard? Merlin? Come on, I'm only kidding, you know that. Don't frown so. I am abominable after all. We'll go out after lunch and play swords in stones if it will make you smile again."


TMWASFAH: "What's the most abominable thing you've done that you want to reveal to the internet at large?"


IR: When I was a child, I once pulled the wings off a fairy. Horrible, but I knew no better.


It gets worse though. I felt very guilty about this, so I put the fairy into a shoebox with every intention of asking my mum to sew the wings back on, but then a friend came round asking if I'd go out and play football, and I got muddy and had to have a bath when I came back in, and then there were cartoons on the TV, and then it was time for bed and then...it was two months before I looked in the shoebox.


I generally avoid mounds, tumuli and rings now.


TMWASFAH: "As you know, the Gentlemen drink in the Jekyll and Hyde pub. If you had a Mister Hyde style alter-ego what would he (she?!) be called and why?"


IR: I am the Mister Hyde style alter-ego.


My Mr Jekyll style alter-ego is called Norman Jekyll and he works compiling railway timetable information. In his spare time, he enjoys his hobby of compiling historical railway timetable information, with occasional refreshments of weak lemon drink.


TMWASFAH: "If you had a free pick from all of literature of one story by a guest author for a future issue of Penny Dreadnought, what would it be?"


IR: Beowulf. Because it is wonderful it has beasts, and mead and Geats and revenge and dragons and tragedy.  And because the author is unknown so the whole issue of royalty payments would be um, moot.


But most of all, because more stories should start: Hwæt! 


TMWASFAH: "As writers, we often get asked for boring factual author bios. If you could write an author bio unconstrained by the boundaries of reality and truth, what would it say?"


IR: Iain Rowan is a diligent and disciplined writer.


TMWASFAH: "What one thing would you like to know about the other Abominable Gentlemen that you currently don't?"


IR: A gentleman never wants to know another gentleman's secrets. 


But I do often wonder if the rumours about Mr Everington, the two Tibetans and the manatee have any foundation in truth, whether Mr Ryker really can fly or whether it was some kind of optical illusion that the witnesses saw, and the whole truth about whether Mr Polson has created an additional day between Tuesday and Wednesday which only he can access.



TMWASFAH: "What one book of yours would you like to plug to the Penny Dreadnought readership?"


IR: If you have enjoyed my stories in Penny Dreadnought, you'll probably enjoy Ice Age, my collection of strange and chilling stories. Two of the stories in the collection have appeared in PD, but the others haven't, and I think you'll like them.


Buy Ice Age at Amazon: US | UK