The Music of the Lonely Dark

Author of The Lonely Dark, Ren Warom, takes time out to tell us about the music behind the writing. Enjoy. – Aunty Fox.

The Music of The Lonely Dark

I don’t work to music. I’m one of those terribly dull types who functions best in silence. However, I am frequently inspired by music; sound landscapes opening story landscapes in my head that I can revisit by listening to particular tracks. I think it’s rather common for this to happen, whether it be an artist, writer, or another musician – music seems to reach in and open doors inside of you, showing you places or connections you didn’t know were there.

I live in future worlds in my head, they’re the ones I cleave to. Strange worlds on the whole. When I sit down to write, however serious my intent (NB: I’m no nowhere near intellectual enough to be serious in my writing, but I suffer from unfortunate delusions of literature. Yeah. *Eyeroll*), I get sidetracked by odd details, weird little moments crop up and spread like bacteria until all attempts at the serious (or rather, I suppose, the intellectual) have been eaten alive.

Think of it like a vampire virus in blood; the weird gradually gobbling every sane moment until only the skin and meat jacket look similar. Remaining so until that moment the inner weirdness is revealed in sharp fangs and predatory intent, provoking the expectation/reality shockwave created by the illusion of normality. Gosh… that makes my writing sound waaay sexier than it is, so I’m going to run with it. Possibly to Paris. Or Gretna Green, because I’m cheap. Or rather because I’m poor. So romantic!

I appear to be digressing. Habit.

On rare occasions the strangeness infecting my writing comes in the form of musical inspiration. Lyrics that reach under the skin and mutate the words even before I can begin to build them into a story. So it was with The Lonely Dark. I first discovered Purity Ring when one of the YouTubers I watch included them in a roundup of her favourite music. The track she mentioned was called Fineshrine and, accompanied by a wonderfully surreal video, it made me want to know who this Purity Ring were.

262_c_w_450_h_450

They are, to my delight, a Canadian electro-pop duo, and everything they do is just as wonderful strange as Fineshrine. The combination of eerie, beautiful music mixed with the peculiarity of the lead singer’s lyrics, all sung in her slightly child-like voice creates atmospheres of dreaming incongruity to become lost in. It was this atmosphere, as well as a combination of certain lyrics, that infested the DNA of The Lonely Dark. Changed it at a fundamental level from a story of exploration and horrifying discovery to one with an underlying tone of loss, loneliness and the too-real unreality of dreams.

Throughout the writing of The Lonely Dark, in moments when driving or doing household chores, or when my inspiration lagged and words refused to come, I would listen to Purity Ring and the world would open to me all over again, bringing me home when I was lost. I didn’t quite capture exactly what I wanted to (and oh how familiar is that? The frustration of writers everywhere!) but I am very proud of the story I created and I hope you might find in it some of what I sought to express.

Listen to Purity Ring. Read The Lonely Dark (Please!). If you can, do both together. They do, after all, share DNA.

NB: Just how many times did I write strange and/or weird in this thing? Where’s Roget when you need him!

Foxy Friday : G Clark Hellery

This week Geraldine has gone for something quite specific and provides a few quick picks for anyone looking for female protagonists.

Top five books with female protagonists

The Red Knight by K T Davies

Anyone who’s read my Twitter feed knows I’m a great fan of Davies and her Red Knight. The action is very well-written and the fantasy elements fit in naturally. Our heroine, Stenna, is a fierce warrior with occasional flashes of feminine emotion but she ultimately does her duty. I found her a very engaging character – someone I’d definitely like to go down the pub with & share a few pints (no girlie cocktails for our girl Stenna!). I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel (hint hint!).

red knight

Immortal by Christopher Golden

No Top Five of kick-ass females would be complete without my girl Buffy. I’ve read a number of the BtVS books an I feel Golden is one who’s best captured the characters and spirit of the show. This was one of the more adult-themed books and one which in my opinion added to the BtVS universe.

Study Trilogy by Maria V Snyder

Convicted murderer Yelena Zaltana is sentenced to death but is offered a reprieve by becoming the Commander of Ixia’s food taster. There’s action, mystery, double-dealing and fantasy and while the story may not be particularly original, Zaltana is the underdog you keep cheering for over three books. Not a challenging read but perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

Our teenage heroine Valkyrie Cain (not her real name) works with the irrepressible Skullduggery Pleasant so save the world time and again from Armageddon. There’s so many things I love about these books: the banter between the characters is humorous and flippant, bringing levity during tense scene, the action is well written with much of it mixing magic with martial arts, the relationships between characters (both romantic & platonic) feel natural and are tested in relatable ways, it’s not all magic and fantasy with a fair amount of mystery involved & you’re never 100% sure if you can trust certain characters. The other great thing about these books is that there’s a plethora of strongly written female characters from Cain and her Shadow to Tanith Low (who has been given her own book!) these girls will be your best friends and worst enemies without falling into stereotype. Although officially a YA book, there’s enough in here to keep most adults entertained.

Miss Marple by Agatha Christie

Who doesn’t want this lovely old lady as their granny? Ok, murder and mayhem follows her (even to the Caribbean!) but imagine all those hand-knitted jumpers and scarves? I’ve long been a Christie fan and while Poirot is my favourite, I’ve got a soft spot for the nosy old lady from St Mary Mead and it could be argued that she’s the first feminist (independent means, not reliant on a man for anything except the occasional holiday paid for by her nephew, working equally with men in a mans world). I don’t have a favourite story and there’s not really any continuity with the stories so it doesn’t matter what book you start with. I like trying to work out who the murderer is but can guarantee that Christie will throw in more twists than a roller-coaster so settle back with a cup of tea and enjoy.

miss marple

Monday Methods: K.A.Laity

We are looking for posts for Monday Methods and Foxy Fridays all year so skulk members please let me know if you have something. – Aunty Fox

The Magic Elixir

What would you do if I told you there was a guaranteed magic potion that could improve your writing, sharpen your mind and boost your general health for only pennies a cup? Furthermore, I will not ask exorbitant prices for this secret, require you to join a cult (though if you’re of a mind to may I suggest this one) or endanger your health and well being for the coming months! What is this magic substance?
You may be surprised to find it is easily obtainable — often in your corner shop! You need not look high and low, not need you set off on long journeys in uncomfortable circumstances to secure it from a holy man on a mountain top after many months of fasting and meditation. You need not learn a secret handshake, attend a seminar or even complete a course.
What is this magic elixir I speak of?
Why nothing less than humble cup o’ tea. With only a plain cuppa by my side I have written umpteen novels, short stories, essays and scripts. I have written under several names in several genres and I’m by no means done yet. I have projects galore for the coming year that will astound you with their complexity, audacity and sheer perspicacity. Or at least make you chuckle now and then. And how will I have done it all and have done it in the past? With TEA!
tea
What’s that you say? Bait and switch?! You already drink tea and it has had no magical transformation upon you? Then you’re drinking it wrong! Are you pouring boiling water over a fine bag of dried tea leaves? Maybe you have chosen the wrong tea. Hie yourself to the nearest tea shop and begin a thorough examination. Everything from assam to darjeeling to keemun — or if you prefer a green tea, or jasmine or gunpowder. There’s even herbal teas that are not in fact really tea but various herbs, twigs, socks and some kind of tiny animals (so I hear) but if that’s what you want to drink, it still counts as tea.
What? You’re already drinking tea? And not magically writing loads of stuff? Huh. Maybe it was the writing every day and making it a habit that has led to me producing so many books and stories.
But I’d bet on the tea.

Foxy Friday : James Fadeley

Foxy Friday: Pick five things to recommend, I was challenged. I thought about it, pouring over all my old interests, the shows I’ve watched and books I daydream of reading over again. For some reason, the most popular things always seem to miss me. I mean, I’ve seen Star Trek and Star Wars…but it’s the entertainment that’s slightly more outside-the-box that I keep coming back to.

So here they are.

unnamed

Television / Science Fiction:

FarScape is the show that I refuse to let time forget. It’s about the travels of John Crichton, an Earth astronaut who accidentally stumbles upon wormhole technology and gets slung-shot to the other end of the universe. There, Crichton accidentally collides with another, alien fighter craft, before being brought aboard a living starship full of prisoners.

Unfortunately, that fighter craft happened to be piloted by the brother of a Peace Keeper fleet commander, who obsesses about getting revenge on Crichton. The rest of the show catalogs Crichton and his alien allies’ adventures, the cultural collisions, the exploration, discovery and the constant escapes. The show is full of humor and heart and never fails to entertain.

Vampire Hunter D

Book / Post Apocalyptic Horror:
If you’re a writer, somethings should be read for no other reason than to stir creativity.

That’s why I recommend reading Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi. Set in 12,090 A.D., the world has suffered a devastating nuclear war. The aftermath saw the rise of vampire nobility who ruled humanity. However, recent years have seen decline in their power, thanks to powerful Vampire Hunters. D, the dhampir son of Dracula, is the best there is.

The book series is absolutely packed to the gills with fantasy lore and futuristic twists. Fairy cloning factories, natural and artificial werewolves, cyborg horses. Kikuchi takes everything awesome, mixes it in a pot… and then sets it on fire. The only warning I’ll give is that the translations have not been stellar, so read it with a grain of salt.

Following

Movie / Crime Thriller:
Perhaps you aspire to be a director someday, or simply like a well told crime story. In that case, you need to watch Following, Christopher Nolan’s very first film (you know, before he was cool). A 70-minute black and white neo-noir flick, Nolan managed to make this great movie… for a mere $6,000.

The story involves a young man who takes to following people in order to gain writing inspiration. One day, he picks the wrong person to stalk, as the man notices and approaches him. Surprisingly, this man introduces himself as Cobb… and admits to being a burglar. Cobb begins training the young man as an apprentice thief.

The film is full of twist after twist, and is told somewhat anachronistically. But if you ever had doubts about being able to make a fantastic film on a low budget, check out Following. You’ll happily be proved wrong.

Patlabor

Animated Movies / Police Thriller:
I’ve had more than my fair share of eastern influences in my life. And one of the best wasPatlabor 1, an animated movie about a Japanese police department who handles Labor (large, construction robot) crimes. Their duties vary between simple Labor trafficking, Labor thefts and violent crimes involving Labors. Isaac Asimov was very, very wrong.

But that mundane stuff was left to the television series. The Patlabor movie was big. Huge. A mystery of technological, beyond-the-grave vengeance with incredibly scary Biblical suggestions. It all ties together in a fantastic climax that manages to be both eerie, action-filled… and will leave you a little less inclined to trust technology.

Brunner

Book / Fantasy:

It’s not very often that a character simply commands our attention based on his or her sheer… aura. But that’s exactly what Brunner the Bounty Hunter, by CL Werner, accomplished.

Brunner’s history and identity are hinted at, but never really expounded upon. Instead, most of his tales and stories focus more around the bounties he hunts over anything personal about Brunner himself. Nor does Brunner’s tales put him in the “epic fantasy” vein. This is simply a guy making his daily bread in the Warhammer fantasy setting, and a great way to remind us that not every tale has to be a personal quest, vendetta or ye olde save-the-world-from-the-darkness string.

Not The Fox News: The Second State of the Union

We all wash up alone. In different places, on different shores, we find ourselves free of the constant turmoil and chaos of our pasts. We become so used to clinging on for dear life that it seems normal, tossed around on the tides of loneliness, stress, trauma, adolescence. We share a common past of turmoil and disruption, an early life defined by what we don’t understand, what we don’t know. A life mapped out not by what we have done but by what happens, or sometimes is done, to us.

The past is what we all run from. The future begins the moment we wash up on that shore.

Bedraggled, hurt, bleeding and angry we all stumble out of the waves and up the beach. Some of us want to know what happened, some of us want vengeance for the wounds that drove us here but most of us are just delighted that the storm has passed and that, at last, we’ve found dry land.

And what land it is. A place that doesn’t just welcome us but seems to understand us, seems to sing our songs and laugh at our jokes. For the first few weeks we’re amazed that we could have been this lucky, escaped to somewhere this perfect. Then we stop thinking about the escape and start thinking about the future. That moment, difficult to notice as it always is, is the moment we stop running. It’s the moment we realize we’re home.

As time goes by and we settle down, we find that other people were washed ashore on this spit of land too. We share stories, find common ground in old wounds and new perspectives and before too long we form friendships and partnerships that will define the rest of our lives. There is no point in a person’s history more thrilling than the moment they look out across their new home and map it not into obscurity but into identity. This is the place youi are, this is the place you will be. This is how you will live in it.

Of course, we don’t settle. That’s not what humans do. The same drive that pushed the American settlers so far west they had to go up drives us all. We explore our new home, find new people, places resources and, even after years of exploration, that still manage to surprise us. It’s an untidy business and we all find things that we dislike or that shock us. Sometimes we mark that area on the map as somewhere to avoid. Sometimes we go back a few years later and wonder what the problem ever was.

As we explore, we make two discoveries, both of which will change our lives. The first is that this place, beautiful as it is, constantly evolving as it does, is finite. There are coasts, just like the one we washed up on. There are storms, sometimes out on the horizon and sometimes close in, and there are always new people washing ashore. Sometimes we recognize ourselves in their jagged shock and panicked relief. Sometimes we can help them, and sometimes they have to find their way alone. Knowing the difference between the two, being able to spot it, will be one of the greatest challenges of the rest of our lives.

The second discovery is more profound. We all have a day where we climb as high as we can, look out across our island and realize something; it’s one of millions. A vast, flat sound stretches out across the world as far as the eye can see and for every point on the compass there are a hundred islands. When we look closely we see that there are people on those islands too. Exploring, climbing, realising that the other islands exist.

We all come in alone.

But that’s the last time.

 

As we gaze out across the archipelago, we realize just how fluid it is and just how long it has been in existence. We see ghosts of bridges between islands, boats out in the straits and, from time to time, new land appearing as the mist clears. This is an ecosystem, one as rich and vibrant as any you’ve encountered before and one just as loaded with opportunity and fraught with danger.

The opportunity comes from finding likeminded people to help you explore. The danger comes from not seeking out anyone else. Island life, for all its peace, can breed insularity. Some of those bridges, you notice, were burnt. Some of the islands, close together as they are, do not talk to one another. Other snipe, or steal. Others still watch the newcomers struggle ashore and, instead of asking if they can help, critique their swimming or complain about how crowded the island is becoming. These people, you note, never actually do anything besides complain. For a while, you find their lifestyle an attractive prospect; sitting in comfort, fighting imaginary wars for a high ground all of them can see but none can reach. It looks simple. Relaxing.

Solitary.

But there is always work to be done. Always new places to go, new things to find and best of all, new people to tell about what you’ve found. That’s the glue that holds this society made of survivors together; the expansion of joy, the sharing of enthusiasm. And as you sit, at night, swapping stories about your travels with your friends, you’ll find yourself gazing out across the sea to the next island over. You can hear music and laughter coming from there and a dozen other places, see brightly coloured lights on the boats in the straits. Distantly, you see fireworks, wonder how they made them and realize that, tomorrow, you can go and ask them if you want to. Better still, you can take your friends with you.

 

We are citizens of the Archipelago of Enthusiasm, united in a common love for exploration and the need to discover something new and tell people about it. We all wash up alone but the moment we do is also the moment we come home.

 

Happy new year, everyone. I’ll see you in 2015.

(Images taken from the excellent Tomb Raider game released in 2013 and the remarkable Dear Esther. Both absolutely worth your time.)

Thank you! Yes you…

You know who you are. You have retweeted, liked, shared, reviewed, talked about, bought, loaned or just visited us over the year.

We, the editors, artists, writers, formatters etc, all of us here making books happen appreciate your interest, purchases and signal boosts over the year. If you’ve stopped to chat at an event, thank you.. sitting alone behind those tables is terrifying if no one stops to say hi.

Everyone who has passed through here, our facebook page or our twitter is valuable to us. I hope we will see you again next year. In the mean time here is a sampler of ‘And the Fox Crows’ a book of poetry drawing from fox mythology and folk lore all around the world, for you to download and enjoy.
[wpdm_file id=17]

WEBFox crows FINAL

Missing Monarchs

The long awaited continuation of the Fox Pockets series is with us in Volume 4 : Missing Monarchs.

We were developing the idea for this series of flash and short fiction just as Richard Third’s bones were being discovered under a car park in my home City of Leicester. My imagination was captured, because while dead kings are not my specialty, the story of how someone as historically important as Rich 3 (as he is locally known) ends up anonymous and under a car park in a City centre rather than properly interred with other kings, that is kind of interesting. We added the theme and threw it out to see what others would do with it.

From runaway king’s to Oliver Cromwell’s head, from a local pub to outer space, from a drag club with a Red Queen…we bring you Missing Monarchs.

FS4 Missing Monarchs ebook 72ppi

 

CONTENTS:

Graham Wynd – Headless in Bury,
Emma Teichmann – In Absentia,
Lou Morgan – Oliver Cromwell’s Other Head,
Jonathan Ward – The Collector,
Victoria Hooper – The Lost Queen,
Ro Smith – The Runaway King,
Geraldine Clark Hellery – The Blooding,
Rahne Sinclair – Monarch of the Glen,
Michael Pack – Paths in the Forest,
Jo Thomas – the Lost Kingdom,
Christian D’Amico- Matriarch,
Paul Starkey – Checkmate,
Chloe Yates – Tits up in Wonderland

Available in Paperback from Lulu

European Monsters : Mermaids and the Deep

Mermaids and The Deep
Peter Damien

It’s an interesting thing what happens, when you tell people that you really like mermaids and mer-folk and writing stories about them. They have a pretty specific idea what your mer-folk look like and therefore what kind of story you’re probably writing about them. Specifically, Disney. If you say “mermaids,” people understand that you probably have some sort of singing Jamaican Lobster around the edges somewhere.

So with that in mind, it’s really interesting what happens when you tell people that 1) you’re writing a ghost story, approaching being a horror story and 2) your mermaids aren’t necessarily friendly beautiful half-women who are wondering what fire is, and why it burns, but might have more in common with the strange and alien things that live in the depths of our oceans. It doesn’t process, and mostly I get an odd look and they wander off.

I don’t care. I love mermaids, and I know exactly when it started: there was a brief sequence in a live-action Peter Pan movie from 2003, starring Jason Isaacs (who is somehow not always Lucius Malfoy??) in which for a brief second, we meet mermaids. They are pale and not friendly-looking at all, strange creatures that do look like, if you fall into the water, they might eat you.

jason2

That was all it took. Since 2003, I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time in my head and on paper building my own world of mermaids which had more to do with my abiding love of marine biology than it did with Disney mermaids. I’ve almost never discussed it, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I was excited to get to use some of it, in the story Old Bones. Tracing the origins of stories and the things that appear in them is always tricky, isn’t it? It’s such a blurring mash in your head. Here, though, it came from a song by a band called Nightwish, of whom I am a massive fan. The song was called Turn Loose the Mermaids. From the lyrics of the song, I garnered a general notion of mermaids, ghosts, and being exhausted and longing for rest. Impressions like these drift around in the back of my head, where they collect ideas, pulling from my mermaid lore, my general love of ghost stories (both haunting and tragic) and like so, my story began to come together. A story of an old man, made both physical and mental wreckage by his time at sea and the brutality of that life. From there, I had a very clear image of him coming out one night and on the rocky beach by his home, he sees a mermaid dragging herself across the ground and toward a graveyard. A strange, pale creature with long hair – more like seaweed than human hair – and sharp teeth, with too-big eyes. Not a Disney mermaid at all, but definitely a creature of the deep.

Mermaids are brilliant monsters when you start looking at marine biology and working out why things work the way they do underwater, and how a mermaid would exist down there. And personality-wise, they would be drastically alien to us. At least in the beginning. As the story goes, I try to humanize them, because there is nothing more engaging (and scary, sometimes) than humanizing a monster and making them relatable, or suggesting that perhaps the true horror isn’t the strange creature at all, but very human and acceptable elements of our lives: brutal violence, bad memories, old ghosts haunting our sleep and our lives without any spirits around at all.

(Well. Some spirits. Come on. Who can resist putting mermaids and ghosts into the same story? Not this guy.)

European Monsters : Unsympathetic Werewolves

Unsympathetic Werewolves
by Hannah Kate

When the editors of European Monsters asked me to contribute a werewolf story to the collection, I was over the moon. The idea of a book dedicated to dark, unsettling monsters appealed to my dark side – just as I’m sure it will appeal to the dark side of many readers. The initial brief was simple – to write a werewolf story that went back to the monster’s ‘roots’. A story about something frightening, monstrous and disturbing. Something unsympathetic, unromantic and unredeemed.

I have been a fan of werewolf fiction for a long time, and, in my other life (www.shewolf-manchester.blogspot.com), I’ve done a lot of academic research on werewolves in medieval and contemporary popular culture. I guess that might be one of the reasons why Jo and Margret asked me to tackle lycanthropes for European Monsters! So I put my thinking cap on and went to work on my story…

… but there was a problem. That word – ‘unsympathetic’ – kept nagging at me. Werewolves are definitely frightening, either in terms of encountering one or in terms of transforming into one. They are certainly disturbing and monstrous as well – at least most of them are. But are they unsympathetic? Have they ever been unsympathetic? Can we strip back the last few years of sparkly vampires and brooding shirtless teenwolves to find something more primal? Something that recalls a huddled mass of ancient ancestors, staying close to the campfire and trying to make sense of the howls of their lupine adversaries in the darkness?

The short answer is: no. Aside from didactic Christian texts (for instance, Inquisition handbooks and treatises on the devil), most literary and folkloric stories present the European werewolf as a sympathetic monster. That’s not to say all werewolves are ‘good’ or ‘noble’, but rather that the myth of prehistoric fireside stories of fearsome wolves stalking the forests is exactly that – a myth.* But like all short answers, this fact reveals a much longer answer that provided the inspiration for my story, ‘Nimby’.

wolfpark2

Given that we have no evidence of what ancient humans actually talked about around their fires, we have to look to literature for the earliest versions of the European werewolf. I’m going to skip over the first couple of millennia, if that’s okay, and jump to the first real ‘golden age’ of werewolf fiction: the late Middle Ages. Two of my favourite werewolf stories originate from this period: Marie de France’s Bisclavret and the Middle English William of Palerne (a translation of the Old French Guillaume de Palerne, but I think the translation totally outshines the original).

The werewolves in these stories aren’t hideous beasts that prowl the forests waiting for innocent travellers to eat (though Marie hints that some werewolves do this, just not her hero). They are civilized, aristocratic men who, due to circumstance and feminine malevolence, are forced to adopt the form of a wolf and abandon their former homes until they can find a cure. These men are tortured and miserable souls, cursed by the wicked women in their lives and perpetually grieving for their lost humanity. The possibility that they might lose the last shred of this humanity and become a snarling monster is never very far away.

But these men are victims. They are lost to a curse that is beyond their control. A Freudian might suggest that they are symbolic of the ‘beast within’ – the uncivilized and animalistic id that continuously threatens to overwhelm the more socially acceptable ego. I prefer to think of these medieval werewolves in terms of the cultural changes that were occurring when these stories were written: programmes of deforestation and urbanization (which had begun centuries earlier but became more sustained in the late Middle Ages) were ‘civilizing’ the wilderness, new genres of literature (particularly the romance) focused on nostalgic longing for a more innocent past, and organized wolf-hunts had set in motion a project that would eventually see native wolves hunted to extinction in many parts of Europe. Under these circumstances, werewolves are created as a romanticized reminder of a more rural, wilder past. These wolves belong to the forest, even at a time (especially at a time) when both wolves and forests were beginning to be systematically destroyed.

Skip forward a few centuries, and we can see the descendants of these romantic, sympathetic werewolves in contemporary fiction and film. Many werewolves are still victims – the innocent hiker whose only crime was to forget to stick to the road, the young man feeling the weight of his bloodline forcing him to change into something he is not, the embattled underdog who fights the oppressive vampire. (I’m leaving female werewolves out of this for now, because… well… that’s a whole other story…) Even in the most gory, bloody horror films, we still have sympathy for the werewolf. It’s not his fault he’s a monster! He’s trying his best to control it!

Of course, when presented with such a long history of sympathetic, romantic – even noble – werewolves, the temptation obviously is to try and subvert it. ‘Nimby’ is the second story I’ve written about an unsympathetic werewolf. In my earlier story, ‘Home’ (coming out in another anthology soon), I set myself the challenge of making a truly unlikable, powerful and unpleasant werewolf, in contrast to a helpless, innocent, sympathetic vampire – but that’s the opposite way round to the usual power dynamic between these supernatural creatures. You can read a bit more about my choices for ‘Home’ here (http://hannahkate.net/out-now-undead-memory-vampires-and-human-memory-in-popular-culture-peter-lang/).

For ‘Nimby’, I decided to take a different approach. I made a list of all the common characteristics of sympathetic and romanticized werewolves and thought about the potentially negative consequences of each one. Given my fondness for medieval werewolf romances, I ended up settling on the werewolf’s strong relationship to land (and forest). Lots of fiction and folklore has focused on the territorial nature of the werewolf. Others continue to link the wolf with a nostalgic image of the pastoral, pre-cultural, uncivilized wilderness. This sort of werewolf is the very opposite of progress, development and change.

And the more I thought about it, the more unsympathetic (and unlikeable) I thought that would be – I actually quite like progress and development, and territorialism is seldom a pleasant trait. That was when I first saw the werewolf who would become the main focus of ‘Nimby’, and the story began to take shape. I’ll warn you now – this werewolf doesn’t stalk the huddled masses around the campfire; he doesn’t pick off hikers on the moor; he doesn’t belong to a pack; and he doesn’t even howl at the moon. But I humbly submit him to the (admittedly small) ranks of thoroughly unpleasant and unsympathetic lycanthropes. And I hope you dislike him as much as I do.

* In his 2009 book, Wolves and the Wolf Myth in American Literature, S.K. Robisch calls this the ‘campfire myth’. This is a great book and I thoroughly recommend it.

The Lonely Dark – Product Recall

If you have already purchased ‘The Lonely Dark’ in paperback you may only receive the first two parts. If that is the case please contact  adele@ foxspirit.co.uk with your address to get a replacement with all four parts of the book. We will get replacements out as a matter of urgency. In the mean time to minimize the interruption to your reading we will be delighted to provide you with the ebook in mobi and epub formats to your email address.

Anyone putting their order through from this weekend (20th December) should be absolutely fine.

Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused. We thank you for your understanding and patience while we resolve things.

cover_ld02