Month: December 2011

Christmas Babies

The best thing that writing this blog has brought me is the opportunity to think. And one would think that writing a blog would be a introspective thing. However, I have been prompted to think in different ways by the interesting, talented and kind people who have agreed to do guest posts here. This blog is relatively new compared to some, and yet somehow a new world of interaction and thought has opened up since I began it.

Some of you will know that this Christmas will be my first in new circumstances, that of a separated man. I will see my daughter, but the circumstances will be oh so very different.
So I am gratified to present a heartfelt guest post by another of my esteemed twitter friends Lynne Collins (@lynneinPborough – follow her please and encourage her to write her own blog!).
Her words make me think about Christmas, and what I feel it should be about.

So thank you Lynne and Happy Birthday. I shall light a candle for my Father, give a kiss to my daughter and remember to smile when it all seems difficult. And I shall wish Merry Christmas to all I encounter, including you, dear reader.

Christmas Babies…

I was a day early – why do I always have to say that? When people ask when my mum died my stock response has always been “My mum died two weeks before my 12th birthday”. It took me years to acknowledge what that meant. Mum died 2 weeks before Christmas. I’m not brilliant with dates and ages and I’ve just realised that next year will be 40 years since her death.

I’ve drafted 2 novels, each have a death at the beginning. Lots of people talk to me when they are bereaved because I’ve carried the memories of what it was like for me for a long time. I’m not sure I’ve helped anyone though I can tell you what might happen if you don’t grieve at the time. I grieved for my mum nearly 20 years ago, not the forty as you might imagine. 20 years later it all came out. Spouting from every pore. How I never had a car crash or why any of my friends stayed with me I’ll never know but the hurt; anger; self torture; blame… I could go on but I won’t.

I don’t talk to Mum as much as I do Dad, but I do, occasionally, particularly around Christmas. I remember her with great admiration and love and wonder how she’s doing.

Merry Christmas Mum.

© 2011 Lynne Collins @lynneinPborough

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© 2011 Simon Poore

by simontall

Review: City of Hell Chronicles: Volume 1

City of Hell Chronicles: Volume 1

By
Victoria Griesdoorn, Belinda Frisch, Colin F. Barnes, Ren Warom, Anne Michaud, Amy L. Overley, Kendall Grey.

This is a compelling book, especially if you like your horror to be dark, unrelenting and visceral. In some places reading this is like ‘rubbernecking’, where you stare at the car wreck on the motorway, knowing you shouldn’t look at others’ suffering, but you can’t help yourself. Morbid fascination causes you to stare. Be warned, it is disturbing and gory, but in a fascinatingly voyeuristic way. It is certainly not for the faint hearted…

One of the most admirable elements of this read is the way the collective authors have pieced together a whole work. The eight stories contained here, combine and weave together to form a whole narrative; told from varying perspectives. It constructs a vicious post apocalyptic world full of suffering, with little hope in sight. The very stuff of nightmares, where the only imperative is to survive. And the chances of that are very slim indeed.

This world begins with a steampunk-like tale, set in our world, in the not too distant future. This involves clocks and mechanisms and a summoning of dark insect forces from below. Slowly our world is consumed, or should I say humanity is consumed by giant predatory insects of all kinds, from ants and centipedes, through wasps and flies. These kill and maim and mate with humanity, producing unimaginable hybrids. Humanity, needless to say, is particularly fragile and ill-equipped for such an invasion.

This might make it seem a far fetched premise, but essentially this a book about the very personal. These are human stories; stories of how ordinary people would act and react, feel and not feel, when faced with ultimate suffering.

The collective authors take us on a journey across the world to tell these personal stories. From a pulsating volcano in Yellowstone park, to the dingy catacombs of London; from Japanese kids playing a wild gig in Hong Kong, to the last desperate medics in Moscow. And much more besides.

I make no apology here for not detailing the plot or plots that are contained. I feel the reader should make their own journey. Personally it made me wonder how I myself would confront such horror, and that is the mark of good writing, when the reader feels empathy. I congratulate the authors.

So I would recommend this book, its imagery still has me thinking, and I wonder where they will take this story next. Why not have a read yourself?

Click here to get your copy!

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© 2011 Simon Poore

by simontall