Look Out For… Blackout by Tim Curran

“This time it really is the beginning of something hellish…”

In the midst of a beautiful summer, in a perfectly American suburban middle-class neighbourhood, a faraway evil is lurking, waiting to strike the unsuspecting residents.

First come the flashing lights, then the heavy rains, high winds, and finally a total blackout. But that’s only the beginning…

When the whipping black tentacles fall from the sky and begin snatching people at random, the denizens of Piccamore Way must discover the terrifying truth of what these beings have planned for the human race.

Why we’re excited about this book: There’s something about even the briefest blackout that’s unnerving, a foretaste of what it will be like when civilisation goes down the pan, until you realise you’ve just blown a fuse. Tim Curran’s latest offering takes such fears and runs with them: it begins mundanely enough, with the lights flickering and mobile reception disappearing; but this time it really is the beginning of something hellish. Soon the stars themselves are disappearing from the sky, and worse, there’s something in the sky that’s snatching people away. Something with tentacles…

An apocalyptic, wide-scale horror novella that still has a strong focus on character and setting, Blackout combines elements of The War of The Worlds and The Mist. Just don’t blow a fuse charging your Kindle to read it…

This book will appeal to: people who secretly freak out every time a light-bulb flickers…

Blackout is out on the 15 August from DarkFuse.

Look Out For… Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 1

“Looks set to carve out its own distinct niche in the yearly Best Ofs.”

Welcome to the weird! Acclaimed author and editor Laird Barron, one of weird fiction’s brightest exponents, brings his expert eye and editorial sense to the inaugural volume of the Year’s Best Weird Fiction. No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity and a healthy helping of the outré. At its best, weird fiction is an intersection of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres. Hence, in this initial showcase of weird fiction you will discover tales of horror, fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, and the macabre. Contributing authors include Jeffrey Ford, Sofia Samatar, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, John Langan, Richard Gavin, and W. H. Pugmire.

Why we’re excited about this book: It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what weird fiction (as distinct from plain old horror) actually is. But whilst it might be hard to define it certainly has a distinct flavour all of its own, and one Laird Baron is surely well qualified to judge. Year’s Best Weird Fiction is a new publication which will feature stories picked by a guest editor each year. The line-up for the inaugural volume  looks fabulous, including stories by John Langan, Simon Strantzas, Anna Taborska and Damien Angelica Walters.

Whilst there’s already a number of excellent annual Best Ofs (especially those edited by Ellen Datlow and Stephen Jones), Year’s Best Weird Fiction looks set to carve out its own distinct niche. Here’s to many more years of the weird.

This book will appeal to: those of us who can’t get enough of quality short fiction, no matter how much of it we read.

Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 1  is out on the 15 August 2014 from Undertow.

JAMES EVERINGTON