Black Static

Listed below are the books received for review since the last update, which was back on 4 August 2011.

Five of the titles are by women, bringing our total for the year so far to 21 books by women out of a total of 111 received for review, which is almost as close as it gets to being one in five without actually being one in five. As observed last time, the percentage of work from women writers and editors has been rising throughout the year and we're now back to the one in five figure we had when I first did a count up back in 2010. So, as far as the UK goes, is 20% an accurate reflection of female involvement in horror fiction?

One woman writer I am especially pleased to see in the mix is Nina Allan, with a collection of five stories linked by the theme of 'time disrupted'. Title story The Silver Wind appeared in a recent issue of Interzone while another was first published in Black Static.

Another old favourite is Anne Perry, whose novels of Victorian crime and detection used to be a staple of my literary diet. Strictly speaking, Acceptable Loss is outside my remit as the book reviewer for a horror magazine, but for the Case Notes section of #25 I plan a 'horror through history' feature and Perry is such an obvious choice to represent the Victorian age it would be a shame to exclude her in the name of genre cleansing. So I won't.

The Vampire Shrink is the first release from Quercus' new imprint, Jo Fletcher Books, and a very nice product it looks too. Next February the imprint will release A Cold Season, the debut novel from Black Static contributor Alison Littlewood, and that's one I'm especially looking forward to.

A couple of new releases from Solaris, including House of Fear edited by Jonathan Oliver, the successor to one of the strongest anthologies of last year, End of the Line, and with a line-up that includes some of the best talents in UK horror.

One last shout out, to The Last Days of Kali Yuga, a collection by Paul Haines. Some of the best horror nowadays is coming out of Australia, and Haines is very much a part of that. I thoroughly enjoyed his last collection Slice of Life and am very much looking forward to getting stuck into this one.

Looking ahead, for the December issue I plan to repeat last year's format, with no featured author and an all review Case Notes in an effort to clear some of the backlog that has accumulated. I'll pay particular attention to writers with a Black Static connection. Further ahead still, in February 2012 Women in Horror Recognition Month will come round again. I don't plan to repeat this year's all-female Case Notes, but I do want to have a woman as our featured author for that month, and with whatever features we run I'll let books by women take the lead.

I'm also considering if next year we should run the occasional review of horror magazines, perhaps one per issue. I've started a thread in the Black Static section of Interaction to discuss that possibility, so if anyone has an opinion on the matter, or simply wants to participate by voting in the poll, please click on the last link below.

As ever, people are welcome to query me regarding the possibility of a review by writing to whitenoise@ttapress.com with the usual caveat that an expression of interest does not guarantee if or when a review will be done.

November 2011

• Carol Weekes - Terribilis - Atomic Fez paperback (ARC)

October 2011

• Paul Magrs - 666 Charing Cross Road - Headline paperback (ARC)
• Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan & Stephen Romaro - Black Light - Mulholland Books (ARC)
• Peter Crowther - Darkness Falling - Angry Robot Books paperback (ARC)
• James Lovegrove - Redlaw - Solaris paperback (ARC)
• Edited by Jonathan Oliver - House of Fear: An Anthology of Haunted House Stories - Solaris paperback (ARC)

September 2011

• Lynda Hilburn - The Vampire Shrink - Jo Fletcher Books hardback
• Jonathan L. Howard - Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute - Headline hardback
• Anne Perry - Acceptable Loss - Headline paperback
• David Rix - Feather: Tales of Isolation and Descent - Eibonvale paperback (ARC)
• Nina Allan - The Silver Wind - Eibonvale paperback (ARC)

August 2011

• Paul Haines - The Last Days of Kali Yuga - Brimstone press paperback
• Jasper Kent - The Third Section - Bantam Press paperback
• Sherrilyn Kenyon - Retribution - Piatkus paperback

July 2011

• Roman Dirge - Taxidermied: The Art of Roman Dirge - Titan Books