Look Out For … You’ll Know When You Get There by Lynda E. Rucker
“Rucker’s fiction shows a mature and highly original understanding of what scares the bejesus out of us.”
A woman returns home to revisit an encounter with the numinous; couples take up residence in houses full of sinister secrets; a man fleeing a failed marriage discovers something ancient and unknowable in rural Ireland . . .
In her introduction, Lisa Tuttle observes that “certain places are doomed, dangerous in some inexplicable, metaphysical way”, and the characters in these stories all seem drawn in their own ways to just such places, whether trying to return home or endeavouring to get as far from life as possible. These nine stories by Shirley Jackson Award winner Lynda E. Rucker tell tales of those lost and searching, often for something they cannot name, and encountering along the way the uncanny embedded in the everyday world.
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
There’s few authors in the field today writing fiction with the quality and range of Lynda E. Rucker’s work. And it’s not just us at This Is Horror who think so; Rucker recently won the Shirley Jackson award for her story ‘The Dying Season’ in Aickman’s Heirs (Undertow Press).
So the release of her second collection, You’ll Know When You Get There, from Swan River Press is a cause for celebration. Rucker’s fiction combines a lyrical use of language, originality of theme and plot, and a mature and highly original understanding of what scares the bejesus out of us.
The stories here include the hugely unnerving ‘The House on Cobb Street’, the elegiac and Aickmanesque, ‘Where the Summer Dwells’, and the dark brooding on the power of storytelling in ‘The Receiver Of Tales’. Each is powerfully imagined and masterfully done. And there’s plenty more stories in You’ll Know When You Get There to enjoy.
Rush out and pre-order what’s likely to be one of the short story collections of the year.
You’ll Know When You Get There is available to pre-order now from Swan River Press.
Look Out For … Darker Battlefields
“Supernatural fiction can amplify the horrors of war and the contributors to Darker Battlefields have the writing chops to do just that”
War, the breaker of hearts and minds, the bringer of death and destruction, the doorway to a darkness, deeper even than the night of human conflict. The supernatural underbelly of war exposed in this stunning collection of novellas by Richard Farren Barber, Paul Edwards, Anthony Watson, Adrian Chamberlin, Mark West and Dean M Drinkel.
Why We’re Excited About This Book:
The Exaggerated Press present this new collection of novellas, each of which explores the theme of the supernatural in the midst of war. It’s a fictional approach that’s fraught with risk, as editor Adrian Chamberlin admits in his introduction. How scary can the standard horror tropes be amidst the reality of modern war? Who wouldn’t rather face a vampire than go over the top in the WW1? Who wouldn’t rather see a ghost than a whole city levelled?
But if used correctly, supernatural fiction can amplify the horrors of war rather than muffle them; as Chamberlin says it “raises the stakes”. And the contributors to Darker Battlefields have the writing chops to do just that. Mark West presents a WW2 training mission gone wrong in ‘The Exercise’, (inspired by the war time experiences of his own family). Richard Farren Barber also sets his story in WW2, whilst Anthony Watson tackles WW1. Adrian Chamberlin’s story is set during the carnage of the Battle of Trafalgar and there’s also tales here from Paul Edwards and Dean M Drinkel.
The book’s theme and the novella length of these stories allow each author to shine; Darker Battlefields is highly recommended.
Darker Battlefields is available now from The Exaggerated Press.
JAMES EVERINGTON
