snowpocalypse

Winter is coming . . . and we just had out first blast of snow in Yorkshire. With that in mind, it seems sort of appropriate to mention that I have a tale in a new anthology. And the anthology is all about snow. 

See? It all fits . . . sometimes.

Snowpocalypse is a collection put together by Clint Collins and Scott Woodward, and it's the lead title from their new publishing house Black Mirror Press. Fingers crossed, it's the first publication of many.

Here's what the rear cover blurb has to say:

The calendar says the first day of Summer, but a jealous Snow wraps the world in a White Straightjacket . . .

Winter will not relinquish its throne and the polar vortext is plunging south. Icebergs gleam in the Bermuda triangle and snow is falling in the Amazon. Blizzards swirl across the Sahara and the world has become a snowglobe from pole to pole.

SNOWPOCALYPSE.

Is this the coming of the next Ice Age?

Can anything be done to thaw the Big Freeze?

Join seventeen talented authors from around the world on their expeditions into the Snowpocalypse and read the chilliest tales ever written.
The striking wraparound cover art of the paperback is by Ron Wade.

There's stories in it by Richard barber, Llanwyre Laish, Jennifer Loring, Zoe McAuley, Susan McCauley, Clinte Mesle, Eddie Newton, John Palisano, Cheryl pearson, Barry Rosenberg, David Sakmyster, Nicole Shelton, Matthew Shoen, Walt Socha, DJ Tyrer, Sarena Ulibarri . . . and me. Or a truncated me, anyway. For some reason the usual Mark Patrick Lynch (or on occasion Mark P Lynch or MP Lynch) byline has been reduced to Mark Lynch. Not to be confused with countless other Mark Lynches . . . But hey, such things happen. Any bad reviews, please address them to mark Lynch; any good ones . . . well, I'll take them.

My story is called "Snoe" and was written in longhand with a new fountain pen. It wasn't snowing outside, but it was chilly. I remember as well that the first draft came to an end just as I ran out of ink in the cartridge. Maybe that meant it was just the right length. I like to think so.

You can buy the book and ebook here in the UK

And here in the USA.

Put your scarf and hat on. It's chilly out there. And you wouldn't want to catch your death . . .

up and out of here

So I have a short story in the collection KITCHEN SINK GOTHIC, edited by David A Riley and Linden Riley, published by Parallel Universe Publications. It's a piece called “Up and Out of Here”and is, I suspect, one of the lighter tales in the anthology. I was pleased that when he accepted the piece David commented on the humour in the tale. You'd be surprised how often I start a story thinking Oh yeah, this will be funny... and by the time the piece is in print people are telling me That's really disturbing, Mark, or Don't you think that's a bit dark?  Still, I think in this one the humour comes through without anyone having to get their crucifixes out and fend me off with garlic. I'm not promising belly-laughs, but I hope you might smile. Or at least twitch your lips upwards.

If that's not enough to make you think about reading the book, you might reconsider when I tell you the anthology also includes stories by Stephen Bacon, Gary Fry (who is still trying to kid us he looks like that author photo from ten years back and more), Kate Farrell, Andrew Darlington, David A Sutton, and plenty of others. T'aint just me you're getting when you hand over your cash.

My tale starts like this,

Dylan Mulch learned about flying the hard way. In one sense it was a lot like sex, in that it was something you didn’t do in public. Or if you did, then you better be damn sure everyone else was doing it too. Because if you were performing out there in the open all by yourself, you could be sure as sixes people were going to get freaked by it.

and if you would like to carry on reading, you can purchase a paperback copy or an ebook in the UK from Amazon by clicking here and in the USA by clicking here. 

Go on, I dare you.

the mourning worm

New from Firbolg Publishing, available in handsome hard- and soft-cover editions as well as in Kindle ebook format, is an interesting anthology with the natural world and the dangers of eco collapse at its heart.

Enter at your own Risk: The End is the Beginning is edited by Dr Alex Scully and contains reprint tales by some of the great luminaries of fantastic fiction, such as Edgar Allan Poe, HP Lovecraft, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mary Shelley. As well as pieces from the greats, there is newer work as well, from the likes of Norman Partridge, Gary A Braunbeck, Gene O’Neill, Lawrence Santori and even newer work from others – all or any of whom may, at some future date, be regarded as masters of the genre too. Holly Newstein provides an introduction. 

 

But because there’s always something to spoil what could amount to perfection, I have a tale in there as well. Hey, you can’t have everything. My piece is called “The Mourning Worm”.

It starts like this:

Suzanne and I drove from the city on a Friday afternoon to arrive at my old friend Benjamin’s house, which he shared with his young wife Robyn, deep in the Wiltshire countryside.

Willowhart was an old cottage. Hundreds of years scored its piebald walls and its roof sagged in repose like an elderly cat enjoying the sun. It was recently renovated, though from external appearances you wouldn’t have credited the place with the modern luxuries we’ve grown used to in our Corbusier Habitats. It looked rundown, unloved even, which could not have been farther from the truth.

Our get-together was much anticipated, easily worth the rigmarole of the official barriers we had to cross to make it happen. Spending time amidst lush forests that might have favoured one of my fantasy novels was an enchanting bonus.

It was only when we were safely in bed that night, as dull chimes from the distant church bells rolled across the woodland, that Suzanne raised her concerns.

If you’re so minded, you can read the rest by buying a paperback copy in the UK here, or a Kindle ebook edition here. In the States, the paperback’s available here, while you can get the Kindle version here.

Gregory L Norris, who provides a tale called “Every Seven Years, Give or Take”, has his own blog, and he’s got a few of us (mostly the still living contributors) to offer up a few titbits of information about the stories we’ve written, background info, that kind of thing. If you so fancy, you can read that here.

If you want to read up on the thoughts of some of the writers behind some of the tales, click here.

And there's a review of a previous Enter At Your Own Risk anthology. Here it is.