Black Static

Listed below are the books received for review since the last update, which was back on 12 November.

And with twenty two titles in, this month registers as the heaviest crop we have ever had. In the last issue of Black Static we ran fifteen reviews and that's pretty much the average. Obviously a lot of the stuff we receive is not going to get reviewed, and so publishers and authors are urged to pay heed to the Standard Offer and Disclaimer at the end of this blog.

Just about everything here gets my literary taste buds tingling, but a particular treat is The Price by American author Alexandra Sokoloff, which I gulped down in two sessions. Alexandra will be our featured author in #15, with an interview and reviews of The Price and The Harrowing, plus whatever else we can come up with by way of filler content.

A couple of other books I'm particularly pleased to see are Decay Inevitable by Black Static irregular Conrad Williams (his previous novel One was among the very best of what I read this year), which has a stunning cover, and Peter Straub's latest, A Dark Matter. Straub is one of my favourite writers and I'm eager to get stuck into that one. If you don't see reviews of both those titles in a future Black Static then it means I died.

Another BS contributor with books to be reviewed is Cody Goodfellow - a collaboration with John Skipp, The Day Before, and solo collection Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.

We've also received our very first titles from Tartarus Press, The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires, a novel by Eric Stener Carlson, and Simon Strantzas' short story collection Cold To The Touch. It's nice to be on the Tartarus mailing list for review copies, and these are beautifully produced books.

There's a care package from America's Dark Regions Press, with short story collections by Daniel McGachey, Richard Gavin, Angeline Hawkes and David B. Silva. Their Tony Richards' retrospective, Shadows and Other Tales, was my favourite collection of last year, and I understand plans are in the pipeline for them to publish another collection by Richards and also one by British Fantasy Award winner Allyson Bird, so a publisher to watch.

One final mention, for Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes, edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec. I read and thoroughly enjoyed the previous volume in this series, Gaslight Grimoire, but didn't find space for a review, though I did write it up in a previous blog entry. This time around I'll make more of an effort, especially as the book contains fiction by some writers with a Black Static connection.

We seem to be awash in short story collections and anthologies at the moment, so it could be time to do another short form feature issue, but I'm keeping my options open.

The Standard Offer and Disclaimer - If anyone wants to query with me the suitability of their book(s) for a review in Case Notes, then I can be contacted by writing to whitenoise@ttapress.com and, as ever, an expression of interest in seeing the book does not guarantee that a review will be done.

March 2010

• Jennifer McMahon - The Girl in the Woods - Sphere paperback (ARC)
• Rhys Hughes - Twisthorn Bellow - Atomic Fez paperback (ARC)
• John Travis - The Terror & The Tortoiseshell - Atomic Fez hardback (ARC)
• Martin Millar - Lonely Werewolf Girl - Piatkus paperback (ARC)

February 2010

• Peter Straub - A Dark Matter - Doubleday hardback (ARC)
• Tim Weaver - Chasing the Dead Penguin paperback (ARC)
• Alexandra Sokoloff - The Price - Piatkus paperback (ARC)

December 2009

• Conrad Williams - Decay Inevitable - Solaris paperback
• Paul Woods & Gavin Baddeley - Saucy Jack:The Elusive Ripper - Ian Allan Publishing paperback
• Edited by Ian Conrich - Horror Zone: The Cultural Experience of Contemporary Horror Cinema - I. B. Taurus paperback

November 2009

• Edited by J. R. Campbell & Charles Prepolec - Gaslight Grotesque - Edge paperback
• David B. Silva - The Shadows of Kingston Mills - Dark Regions Press paperback
• Angeline Hawkes - Shades of Blood and Shadow - Dark Regions Press paperback
• Richard Gavin - The Darkly Splendid Realm - Dark Regions Press paperback
• Daniel McGachey - They That Dwell in Dark Places - Dark Regions Press paperback
• Michael Shea - Copping Squid - Perilous Press hardback
• Thomas Emson - Prey - Snow Book hardback

October 2009

• Eric Stener Carlson - The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires - Tartarus hardback
• Cody Goodfellow - Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars - Swallowdown Press paperback
• John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow - The Day Before - Bad Moon Books paperback
• Paul Haines - Slice of Life - The Mayne Press paperback

July 2009

• Simon Strantzas - Cold To the Touch - Tartarus Press hardback