Undead Backbrain

Creeping in Reptile Flesh is a new collection of stories, gathered around a loose (a very loose) theme that is dictated by the title story — a 20,000 word novella that can be described this way (to quote from the back cover):

Savage murders that leave no one dead. Politicians intent on ontological genocide. Feral creatures at home in the wilds of Sydney and the Scrub. In “Creeping in Reptile Flesh” one man embarks on an investigation into a maverick Member of Parliament whose eccentric exterior may hide the seeds of apocalypse.

The central image of the story is ferality — so it could be regarded as a sort of invasion story. At any rate it is a weird investigation of politics and species dominance that is dark, horrific and yet oddly funny — or at least peculiar.

The title refers to this quote from metaphysical poet William Blake’s “prophetic” poem Milton (1840):

Ah weak & wide astray! Ah shut in narrow doleful form
Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground
The Eye of Man a little narrow orb closd up & dark
Scarcely beholding the great light conversing with the Void
The Ear, a little shell in small volutions shutting out
All melodies & comprehending only Discord and Harmony
The Tongue a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys
A little sound it utters & its cries are faintly heard

So, for me, the title suggests something transcendent hidden in corporeal form, a reversal of the idea of the reptile backbrain. The novella’s narrative concerns ferality, specifically in a political setting, and the weirdness that lurks behind apparent normality. Other stories reflect this theme of repressed or hidden realities, and the invasion of the non-human by human nature and vice versa. Ferality and feral invasion is (roughly speaking) the loosely unifying concept.

The above cover (another brilliant creation by Cat Sparks) wonderfully captures the feeling evoked within the different stories.

Where Did The Concept Come From

To quote from the Preface:

“Creeping in Reptile Flesh” has been a long time in the writing. Its original impetus came from the years I spent as research assistant to a well-known historian, fascinated by the divergent realities I found to exist in the old newspapers I was given to scour. I should point out that the connection between the real-world historian and the one depicted in the story is remote, and neither should be confused with the other in any detail. By the same token, the politicians, political parties and feral creatures depicted in the title story (and in the other stories as well) are fictional creations and are not meant to bear any resemblance to persons or creatures living or dead. Even the story ‘Casual Visitors’, which was inspired by real incidents involving a Sydney-based scifi convention, Harlan Ellison and a flying saucer, is otherwise totally fictitious.

Yes, you heard right. A Sydney-based scifi con, Harlan Ellison and a flying saucer… I’m not going to explain that one. You’ll have to get the book and read the story to find out what it means.

Contents

Creeping in Reptile Flesh
The Black Lake’s Fatal Flood
Dreams of Death
Rotting Eggplant on the Bottom Shelf of a Fridge
Unravelling
Lo Que No Asusta
Rotten Times
Groundswell
Heartless
Separating Lenore
Getting Rid of Mother
The Slimelight, and How to Step Into It
Casual Visitors
You’re a Sick Man, Mr Antwhistle

Of these all but three have been published before, yet won’t be familiar to many people. Several were published in US magazines, one — “Dreams of Death” — in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine back in 1990. Some were published in small magazines that had a minor profile. A few first appeared years ago in Aurealis or Eidolon — once Australia’s two premier genre markets. “Creeping in Reptile Flesh”, “Unravelling” and “Getting Rid of Mother” are new stories, published for the first time in this collection.

It’s a strong collection, I reckon, and one that hangs together well. I’m aware that many readers will head straight to the shorter fiction, but my recommendation would be to read the stories in the order they have been placed — which is very deliberate. In many ways, the longest — the title story — sets a tone that percolates through the others. I like the way they form a sort of attenuated unity.

An Extract

As a tease, here is a short extract from “Creeping in Reptile Flesh”, which paints what may be a rather deceptive picture of one of the main characters:

Cowling arrived almost immediately. His long body slammed through the door; though he managed to avoid colliding with anyone, he gave me an uneasy feeling that disaster could strike at any time.

He looked straight at me and waved. “Townsend,” he yelled across the Café. “How are you? Not too civilised, I hope!”

“No, Mr Cowling,” I said, smiling in spite of myself, “not too civilised.” It was, I’d been told, his catch-phrase.

“But civilised enough to get on in this bugger of a business, eh?” He was towering over me by this time, slamming his big hand on my back. “Call me Yipper,” he added. “I prefer to be called Yipper.”

“I’ve always wondered,” I said, “is that your real name? I mean, is it the one your parents gave you?”

“Derived from ‘Bunyip’,” he said. “Traditional thing.” He didn’t explain further. Instead he lowered himself into the chair Kyla had been sitting in. “Ah,” he exclaimed, “Ms Fauxair has just left.”

“She kept your seat warm for you.”

“Hardly that.” Grinning, as though with secret knowledge, he indicated the cup in front of him. “But she ordered me a coffee.”

“It’s not fresh. I’ll get you another.”

He fixed me with a stern glance, as though I’d said something wicked. “I like my coffee cold.” To prove it, he lifted the cup and, still holding my gaze, took a big sip. He grunted. “Still warm. Pity.”

“Why don’t you order an iced coffee?” I asked.

“It’s not the same.”

A strange one, that’s for sure. He gulped a mouthful of lukewarm coffee and smacked his lips theatrically. “Now, Mr Townsend. What is it you’re supposed to be doing? Remind me. A book, is it?”

Creeping in Reptile Flesh is published by Altair Australia Books, and you can order it directly from their site.

It is being launched by US author and convention Guest-of-Honour, Jack Dann, at Conflux 5, which is on from Friday 3 October to Monday 6 October 2008. The actual launch takes place on Sunday 5 October at 4 pm. Copies will be on sale at the convention all weekend.

One way or the other make sure you pick up a copy. I’m sure you won’t regret it.

Brimstone Press today announced the launching of a new, glossy, horror-related magazine, Black: Australian Dark Culture. This will be a major national magazine with wide distribution and, hopefully, wide appeal. It will focus on all things dark: from movies, music, and books, to politics, witchcraft, fashion, comics, gaming, true crime, bizarre medical cases, and much more.

I’ve known about this for some time as I’m in it, being featured through an Author interview, some film and book reviews and a five-part story sequence under the general title “Moments of Dying”. See the end of this post for an extract from the first part of the sequence, “First Moment of Dying”.

Apart from that, editor-in-chief Angela Challis and Managing Editor Shane Jiraiya Cummings have shown considerable class in their book productions and the advance information they sent me looked fantastic — classy, professional and thoroughly ambitious.

So what is it about?

Angela Challis describes the magazine as a revelation and one of the few genuinely new offerings at news stands.

“Crime dramas are the most popular shows on TV, horror movies are flooding video stores, and paranormal books are incredibly popular. Everyone is drawn to the dark side … and there is clearly a demand for dark-themed entertainment, but until now, there has not been a publication that caters to the enjoyment of all things dark. Black will fill this expanding and increasingly popular niche,” she said.

Shane Jiraiya Cummings views the magazine as a vehicle to explore the darker side of the human spirit, as well as pop culture and entertainment.

“Almost everyone loves the villain, and Black caters for that, but dark culture is more than just scary movies and brooding anti-heroes. Black addresses serious social issues that many consider taboo like alternative lifestyles, euthanasia, and political censorship – such as China’s ban on supernatural movies and literature in the lead-up to the Olympics, which we’re covering in our launch issue,” he said.

As well as the giddy thrill I can feel emanating from all you out there at the prospect of all that Robert Hood material, Black magazine has somehow managed to secure a brand-new Stephen King story — an Australian exclusive — from his upcoming book Just After Sunset. I know, that news is much less exciting than all the Hood stuff, but let’s face it, it’s good to do the old guys a favour every now and then, just to bolster their egos.

Apart from Stephen King’s story, the first issue includes:

• Heath Ledger as The Joker in the upcoming Batman movie The Dark Knight: the fateful role that may have led to his death.
• M. Night Shyamalan on his new movie The Happening.
• China’s Olympic ghost ban.
• Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.
• A glimpse into life as a dominatrix.
• A tour through Brisbane’s necropolis.
• Interviews with Australian authors Robert Hood, Marty Young, and Nathan Burrage.
• Plus competitions, news, fiction, opinion pieces, and an extensive HorrorScope review section!

Contributors to issue one include Gary Kemble (staff writer), Rocky Wood, Chuck McKenzie, Josephine Pennicott, David Carroll, Leigh Blackmore and Margi Curtis, Mark Smith-Briggs, Bella Dee, Dr Carissa Borlase, James Doig, and more!

Black magazine will be on sale nationwide from July 14.

This is an exciting project and one we’re all hoping will be a great success for the Brimstone Press crew.

So subscribe now!

• Black magazine website

Extract from “First Moment of Dying” by Robert Hood

Outside, the world was waiting.

Inside, the silence was as cold as guilt.

A woman’s corpse lay on one of several occupied gurneys, in preparation for the pathologist’s scalpel. An off-white sheet partially covered her; she was in her mid-twenties and plain in death, despite the nakedness of her upper torso. Whatever desire she’d inspired in life had become irrelevant now. Dull abrasions, dried blood, and unhealed wounds decorated parts of her forehead, left cheek, and shoulder. Her throat had been cut. Her right breast bore dark blotches—the imprint of cruel fingers.

In that moment, a word was insinuated into the silence: it was the susurration of a foot on dirt, the creak of a branch touched by wind, the sigh of a dying breath.

Now.

The woman’s dead hand twitched as the airborne vibrations of the word entered through her fingertips. Quickening spread up her arm and into her chest, slowly and painfully; it ground through atrophied muscle with a will more inexorable than decay. Finally, her chest heaved, straining with the effort of life.

The woman’s eyes opened.

I just stumbled upon this review of my zombie story “In the Service of the Flesh” by the insightful Chuck McKenzie on the Horrorscope website. It’s always good to get a rave review. The last sentence is particularly pleasing.

‘In the Service of the Flesh’ is Rob Hood’s latest contribution to the zombie genre, and it’s a beaut. I can’t say too much about it without giving away the plot, so I’ll limit myself to mentioning only that it’s laugh-out-loud funny, and boasts levels of gore that would make George Romero blanch. This may well be the very best zombie tale I’ve ever read.

from a review of Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror 2007 Edition on the Horrorscope website, 4 March 2008.

Chuck has been writing his own online “real-time” tale of a zombie apocalypse on his “One Day At A Time” blog. Here’s where it began and here’s the latest installment. It’s definitely worth your while to check it out: a full-on zombie novel… and it’s free.

And here is the Brimstone Press website, so you can order of copy of the book that includes “…the best zombie tale…ever…”

A new story has been added to my website. It’s a comedic piece set in H.P. Lovecraft’s Old Ones mythos — or at least a version of it — and inspired by his classic tale “Call of Cthulhu”. For this I apologise to H.P. and all his followers. I wrote it for the most recent Conflux progress report.

Call of Cthulhu’s Mum

Psychiatrists reckon our behaviour as adults originates in the deep past. I spent many a dismal evening with that old fart Abdul Alhazred while he babbled on about his miserable childhood, citing exposure to the alchemical substances his father smoked as the cause of his persistent hallucinations regarding the nature of reality. Alchemical substances! Low-grade horse shit more like! No wonder he has such a dodgy grasp on reality. Have you read that crap he wrote in the Necronomicon? Half of it is subtextual drivel regurgitated straight from my granny’s recipe scrapbook! (The scrapbook disappeared after a visit he made once, but granny only noticed a few days later when she went to the kitchen to cook up her family-favourite Tuna and Cheese Manicotti. Sure enough, the recipe turned up on page 254 of the Necronomicon as a spell to incarnate Dagon! That’s why the Deep One’s always so pissed off when anyone drags him into the world; he can’t abide tuna. “Too much like eatin’ my second cousin,” he told me once. “Have you seen my second cousin?”)

Clearly there’s some truth in the claim that childhood trauma forms the basis of latter-day attitudes, though. I was only a youngster of maybe 14 winters when I first heard the Call of Cthulhu’s Mum. The gut-quivering roar of it echoed across the jagged landscape of our neighbourhood like Yog-Sothoth on a bender: “Cthulhu! Dinner’s on!” Trees shook, mountains trembled, and profound pits of darkness began to reconsider their lifelong aversion to silence.

Read the full “Call of Cthulhu’s Mum” here.

The Workers’ Paradise, edited by Russell B. Farr and Nick Evans and published by Ticonderoga Publications, is one of the most exciting anthologies I’ve been in for a while. Though the editors’ description of it may suggest that it is somewhat parochial in nature:

In this anthology, Australia’s finest speculative writers imagine what the future holds for the Australian worker

I would argue in fact that, like all good fiction, the stories transcend any regional or localised focus, and make comment on issues of universal concern, addressing the nature of work and political/employment relations in a speculative context. My own story, “Pseudomelia of the Masses”, is one that means a lot to me, being inspired by a close, long-term friend, David Young, who died unexpectedly as I began to write it. He is in some of the details, but he is also in much of the emotional drive that lies behind the characters and their relationship. In a way, the story is about his death.

The Workers’ Paradise is also a remarkably good-looking book when seen in the flesh:

Contents:

“Ajudication” — Simon Brown
“The Working Dead of Heehaw’s Australia” — Jenny Schwartz
“Right to Work” — Cat Sparks
“Winning Ways” — D.W. Walker
“Night with the Stars Askew” — Rjurik Davidson
“Farmers John Pass Go” — Bill Congreve
“Magda’s Career Choice” — Rowena Cory Daniells
“MTP” — George Ivanoff
“His Lipstick Minx” — Kaaron Warren
“Seahoney” — Anna Tambour
“Black and Bitter” — Nathan Burrage
“Flystrike” — David J. Kane
“Rapturama” — Matthew Chrulew & Roland Boer
“After The Choice” — Robin Hillard
“Milk Across the Nation” — Ashley Arnold
“Pseudomelia of the Masses” — Robert Hood
“Arianne’s Event” — Susan Wardle
“Networking for Dummies” — Dirk Flinthart

It’s a terrific line-up and what I’ve read of the book so far is excellent. While overtly political, the stories resonate with humanity, emotion and good old-fashioned drama, running the gauntlet from light-hearted humour to dark seriousness.

Check it out now — and order yourself a copy — here.

On my website I’ve set up a section where you can read some of my stories online. First up is a very short one that was was written for, and published in, the convention program booklet for Conflux 4, 2007. I was asked to write something about Mary Shelley and her most famous novel,  Frankenstein. I think the editor expected a piece of non-fiction, but she seemed quite happy to receive the piece of meta-fiction that turned up in her inbox. In it, I was trying to incorporate in a metaphorical manner a variety of issues arising from Mary’s iconic creation.

Dear Mary

My dear Mrs Shelley,

I confess to harbouring some doubt as to whether I should call you by that name, now that Percy has drowned — dying, as all Romantic poets should, before reaching his thirtieth year. You were never his, you know. He was monogamously wed to his own extravagant fancies and by keeping his name you stand perpetually as one of them. In truth, he gave you so little. You should revert to Godwin – “God’s friend” in the Old English. That is more suitable.

For you are God’s friend, Mary. He has been watching you these many years. Watching as you created him, watching as the world’s vision aggregated upon your words like crude barnacles upon the pristine hull of a great liner. They coarsened the image, of course, those cultural parasites, but such mythologising was inevitable. Truth will out, even in fiction. I have seen how your story evolved. I have lived it.

Read the rest of “Dear Mary” here.