A Return to Wolf Creek

Is this Australia’s most iconic horror villain?

MickYes, without a doubt.

And while we wait for Wolf Creek 2 to be released in February to give us even more reasons to be terrified of the Australian outback, we can load up on all things Mick through the commercial release of two prequel novels that are now available from Penguin or at any good bookstores (paperback and digital formats). How good is this for Australian horror? Damn good!

The first is Origin: Wolf Creek Book 1 by Greg McLean and Aaron Sterns.

WolfCreekNature vs nurture turns out to be a bloodbath

The wide open outback offers plenty of space for someone to hide. Or to hide a body.

When wiry youngster Mick Taylor starts as a jackaroo at a remote Western Australian sheep station, he tries to keep his head down among the rough company of the farmhands. But he can’t keep the devils inside him hidden for long.

It turns out he’s not the only one with the killer impulse – and the other psychopaths don’t appreciate competition. Is Cutter, the station’s surly shooter, on to him? And what are the cops really up to as they follow the trail of the dead?

In the first of a blood-soaked series of Wolf Creek prequel novels, the cult film’s writer/director Greg McLean and horror writer Aaron Sterns take us back to the beginning, when Mick was a scrawny boy, the only witness to the grisly death of his little sister. Origin provides an unforgettably bloody answer to the question of nature vs nurture. What made Mick Taylor Australian horror’s most terrifying psycho killer?

“One of the great horror film heavies of the last 25 years” – Quentin Tarantino

“One of the best serial killer novels out there . . . destined to be considered a classic in future years” – ScaryMinds.com

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The second Wolf Creek prequel novel is Desolation Game: Wolf Creek Book 2 by Greg McLean and Brett McBean.

WolfCreek2Mick’s learning, and his schoolroom is a war.

When sharpshooter and killer Mick Taylor searches for a place to keep a low profile, he finds somewhere where his peculiar talents are appreciated: a war. And in Vietnam, an out-of-control sergeant takes the amateur murderer and turns him into a pro.

Back home, Mick makes use of the sick lessons the army taught him, when hapless tour operators bring a Kombi-load of sightseers out his way into the Western Australian desert. Two suspicious flat tyres deliver an engaged Japanese couple, a father and son, a US army vet and his girlfriend, and a couple of cute girls to Mick’s lair. Middle of nowhere, population one. The group finds themselves in hell, as Mick makes sure their once-in-a-lifetime tour stays that way. And though one of the drivers escapes and goes for help, Mick sees no reason to stop the killing spree.

In the second Wolf Creek prequel novel, the cult film’s writer/director Greg McLean and horror writer Brett McBean get to the heart of Australian horror’s most terrifying psycho killer. Is Mick Taylor possessed by some dark power in the landscape itself? Something ancient? Does the Red Centre demand blood?

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And if that’s not enough to terrify you, you can read what Director Greg McLean has to say about it all here.

Head on a stick, anyone?

ill at ease 2 now available

Following on from the critical success of “ill at ease” comes volume 2, featuring seven original horror short stories, all of them guaranteed to give you the chills. The anthology is published by PenMan Press and available from  Amazon in both print and digital editions.

Joining the original trio of Stephen Bacon, Mark West and Neil Williams this time are Shaun Hamilton, Robert Mammone, Val Walmsley and Sheri White.

You will descend into an underground train station to uncover a dreadful secret and watch in horror as a paradise holiday turns sour. You will see a bullied boy who’s helped by local history and share the anguish of a father, losing his child in a shopping centre. You will take a trip with a cancer sufferer and share the pain of a couple, desperate for a child. You will discover that history needs to be kept somewhere.

Seven stories, seven writers and you.

Prepare to feel “ill at ease” all over again.

The New Look Carnies

The new cover for the re-release of Carnies, by Martin Livings, has just been revealed, and it looks fantastic. Coming in 2014 from Cohesion Press.

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The small town of Tillbrook has a secret. One that has been kept for over a hundred years.

Journalist David Hampden needs a good story to resurrect his flagging career. His damaged brother, Paul, just needs to find some meaning for his life.When David is alerted to a century-old carnival, the idea of a feature story is too good to pass up, so he drags Paul along to Tillbrook to act as his photographer. What they find is darker than they could ever imagine.Paul becomes part of the exotic world of the Dervish Carnival, est. 1899, and David must risk everything to save his brother. Even though Paul might not want to be saved.

Come on in, and enjoy the show. No photos allowed.

More details soon…

Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction

FableCroft Publishing is pleased to announce that Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction is now available from all ebook retailers.

This ebook-only special anthology is the first of a series of yearly collections which will collect the previous year’s acclaimed Australian works. Containing only the most recognised speculative work of the year, Focus 2012 packs a big punch, for just $4.99USD.

Focus2012-Cover2

Focus 2012: highlights of Australian short fiction features work by:

Joanne Anderton – “Sanaa’s Army”
Thoraiya Dyer – “The Wisdom of Ants”
Robert Hood – “Escena de un Asesinato”
Kathleen Jennings – illustrations and cover art
Margo Lanagan – “Significant Dust”
Martin Livings – “Birthday Suit”
Jason Nahrung – “The Mornington Ride”
Kaaron Warren – “Sky”

Fresh Fear out now

Fresh Fear: Contemporary Horror is a collection of horror from some of the genre’s best writers of dark fiction. Edited by New Zealand’s William Cook, the anthology is now available from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Fear-Contemporary-Ramsey-Campbell-ebook/dp/B00GMRDRU0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384681526&sr=1-1&keywords=fresh+fear

This collection has no central theme other than the stories’ ability to scare the hell out of the reader! Tales steeped in psychological horror sit alongside visions of strange worlds and inner landscapes drenched in blood. ‘Quiet horror’ sits comfortably next to more visceral portrayals of the monsters that lurk deep within the human heart. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously once said, “where there is no imagination there is no horror” – the horror expressed by the authors in Fresh Fear show that imagination is indeed tantamount to excellent story-telling. Prepare yourself for 28 tales of terror-inducing fiction that will have you checking the locks on every door and window of your abode!

Table of Contents

Scathe meic Beorh – God of the Wind
Robert Dunbar – High Rise
Ramsey Campbell – Welcomeland
Lily Childs – Strange Tastes
Lincoln Crisler – Nouri and the Beetles
Jack Dann – Camps
Thomas Erb – Spencer Weaver Gets Rebooted
Brandon Ford – Scare Me
Carole Gill – Raised
Lindsey Beth Goddard – The Tooth Collector
JF Gonzalez – Love Hurts
Dane Hatchell – ‘takers
Charlee Jacob – Inside the Buzzword Box
K Trap Jones – Demon Eyed Blind
Tim Jones – Protein
Vada Katherine – Block
Roy C Booth & Axel Kohagen – Just Another Ex
Shane McKenzie – So Much Death
Shaun Meeks – Perfection Through Silence
Adam Millard – The Incongruous Mr Marwick
Christine Morgan – Nails of The Dead
Billie Sue Mosiman – Verboten
Chantal Noordeloos – The Door
Don Noble – Psych
WH Pugmire – Darkness Dancing in Your Eyes
William Todd Rose – The Grave Dancer
EA Irwin – Justice through Twelve Step
Anna Taborska – Out of the Light

Andrew McKiernan Signs Two-Book Deal

Australian writer and illustrator Andrew McKiernan has just signed a two book deal with Satalyte Publishing.

The first is for a collection of his short stories, “A Prayer for Lazarus & Other Strange Offerings” (14 published stories + 2 new stories), which will appear in print and e-book in the second half of 2014.

The second deal is for his crime novel “A Quiet Place”, which he sold on the strength of
the first 8,000 words and will be appearing in print and e-book in early 2015.

Stay tuned for further updates as the publication dates approached.

Andrew J McKiernan is an author and illustrator living and working on the Central Coast of New South Wales. His stories have appeared in magazines such as Aurealis, Midnight Echo and the Eclecticism e-zine, as well as the anthologies In Bad Dreams 2, Masques, Scenes from the Second Storey, Macabre: A Journey Through Australia’s Darkest Fears, and Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror 2010. He has twice (2009 & 2010) been shortlisted for both Aurealis and Australian Shadows Awards, as well as a Ditmar Award shortlisting in 2010. His story “The Desert Song” from the Scenes from the Second Storey anthology received an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year Vol.3. Andrew’s illustrations have appeared on many book and magazine covers, as well as featuring in the collections Shards: Short Sharp Tales by Shane Jiraiya Cummings from Brimstone Press and Savage Menace & Other Poems of Horror by Richard Tierney from P’rea Press.

Satalyte Publishing is an Australian publishing house of Australian authors for a global market. Their mission is to put Australian authors back on the world map of reading, and they will be offering the best of Australian authors in a variety of genres.

Satalyte Publishing

Carnies is back!

Martin Livings’ 2006 debut novel, Carnies, gets a new lease on life thanks to Australian publisher Cohesion Press.

CarniesCover

The small south-west Australian town of Tillbrook has a secret, one that has been kept for over a hundred years; the Dervish Carnival, which has been there for a century, is run by people who are neither human nor animal, but live in the woods and howl at night. But when David Hampden, a journalist on the downward slope of his career, visits the town with his younger brother, unemployed photographer Paul, that secret is threatened. When Paul is seduced unknowing into their world, David will get him back, whatever the cost. And the cost may be both their lives… and possibly even more.

Carnies is a contemporary Australian supernatural thriller by debut novelist Martin Livings, and is described by the author as “an old fashioned horror novel, harkening back to the days when scary books were fun.” Containing equal helpings of horror, action and humour, Carnies is a sideshow haunted house of a novel, with dark twists and turns, sudden drops, surprises, shocks and delights.

So roll up, come to the carnival. You’ll never be the same again… if you survive!

Coming soon as an ebook from Cohesion Press.

About the Author: Perth-based writer Martin Livings has had over eighty short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies both locally and internationally.
His short story collection, Living With the Dead, was published by Dark Prints Press in 2012, and an original story from it, ‘Birthday Suit’, won the Australian Shadows Award for Best Short Fiction for that year.

Carnies was his first novel, published by Hachette Livre in 2006 and nominated for both the Aurealis and Ditmar awards.