new chapbooks from Nightjar Press

GA Pickin
Remains

Christopher Kenworthy
Sullom Hill

Nightjar Press, 2011

The next couple of chapbooks from Nicholas Royle’s Nightjar Press. These two stories are quite different: one tells of what happens inside of a person, other of that from the outside.

In «Remains» unnamed narrator with a torch in his hand goes through the woods, hurrying to the house to meet friends with whom he meets every year. Close to the final point, torch goes off. The hero can not move in complete darkness. He expects that friends will help him to find the right way, knowing that he is late. The hero here is faceless and nameless. The author is interested not in this particular traveler, but in the relationship between man and nature in general. People change what surrounds them, but the environment changes people, too. There is no question in what direction who changes who. The question is, what forms of communication can be between man and nature?

How does a person change inside? - Christopher Kenworthy asks in his «Sullom Hill». The narrator recalls the story of childhood, and the main character in this story is a neighbor boy Neil Kingsley:

«Usually they called him a bit slow, rather than stupid. Other kids called him backwards or mental or a spastic, even though there wasn't much physically wrong with him. To look at, you might think he was normal, apart from his lips. They were enormous, as though the rest of his face had shrunk and filled them out. There was always wet spit and dried spit and bits of wafery skin on his lips. He looked like his mouth was frosting over.»

Strange relationship between the three youths and a shocking secret make this story unforgettable.

These two stories only have in common that they both end with a kind of fliping on the nose. What's behind the door, asks a reader. It is better not to know, answer both writers.

new Nightjar Press chapbooks

Christopher Burns
Lexicon

Tom Fletcher
Field

Nightjar Press, 2011

«Lexicon» and «Field» are two new books from Nightjar Press, which last year published very strong stories - on the edge of horror and dark fiction. The stories of this year are no worse than what we read.

If Christopher Burns debuts in Nightjar, then Tom Fletcher in the past year have already written the chilling «The Safe Children». His new story «Field» is written in a very different way. «The Safe Children» was science fiction with elements of horror, «Field» is pure horror. Fletcher in his story creates a world where there is no rational and irrational. It's the same thing. When a person is left alone with a black hole (figuratively speaking), you does not need to guess who will win in the end. Fletcher does not explain what and why, he throws a hero (as well as a reader) into the mouth of the vast nothingness. If you want to live - run. It does not matter that the field has no end.

Christopher Burns in his «Lexicon» deals with the more delicate matters. The hero of his story is a refined killer enticing victims to his home. Burns is playing with archetypes, and there is some connection between the sins of the past and present. Evil is continuous, it is transmitted, but not by inheritance, but through the elements of culture.

Recent stories by Nightjar Press again did not disappoint. And Tom Fletcher must now enter the premier league of British horror.

chapbooks from Nightjar Press, part 3

RB Russell
The Beautiful Room

Mark Valentine
A Revelation of Cormorants

Nightjar Press, 2010

This is the third pair of chapbooks, of which I write this year. Before that publisher Nightjar Press didn’t fall flat, as it turned out, and on the third time it didn’t as well.

RB Russell's story is beautiful and tight as the room where there were heroes of the story. Young couple chooses a suitable apartment, so that he is comfortable with the work, and she feels comfortable to have a rest. Room is immediately liked both of them: bright, spacious, with excellent views. In addition, other options did suit neither husband nor wife. Having admired the room, the husband decides that he will not buy it: this is a place to relax in the summer, but if you become cold, life here is no longer available. Wife really likes the room, and she persuades her husband to buy it. Matrimonial dispute is broken with weird noise from behind the wall.

The beauty of the story is not in a surprise ending, but how Russell, confining the narrow space and a minimum of characters, creates a memorable story about freedom, love, and that even the walls can not stop one who have wings.

Valentine’s, (he brought an element of the supernatural to a minimum), story turned out less charming, but a memorable one. The narrator is a writer who arrives in the province, deciding to start and finish a book on birds in Britain, mentioned in folklore, in the quiet place. The author seems to be follow a guide "What should be in a good story": a remote hamlet, the fragments of the book of protagonist, admonishing local resident, the relationship between reality and the book, mortal danger. It's all written in good style, but following the conditional pattern lubricates impression. Anyone who has read at least some of the British horror, will already have an idea about the next step of the author.

I highly recommend both stories.

Lane`s and Moore`s books from Nightjar Press

‘When the Door Closed, It Was Dark’ by Alison Moore

‘Black Country’ by Joel Lane

Nightjar Press, 2010

The next two books from Nightjar Press continue to please fans of small form of fiction (there are not enough books for all fans, though: limited edition is only 200 and 300 copies). In this double both stories turned out to be good evidence that the small prose is alive and well, and one of the stories contains a little surprise.

Lane's prose is more elegant, but it also is required by the story itself. In the "Black Country" a policeman returns to the town where he grew up. The city itself, however, no longer exists: it is gradually deserted, destroyed, until it finally became a suburb. A policeman does not recognize home places: people are not familiar, old houses are gone, everything is absolutely strange. The case itself is quite a trifle, but with strangeness: it all started with a series of unexplained injuries to children - broken fingers, dislocated arms, but no children were not touched, they slept, and woke up already with injuries. Someone entered the newsagent, but except comics, nothing taken. Someone stole toys in a toy shop. Local police in confusion: all rowdy is children obviously, but children are always visible, everyone always knows who was capable of, no even clues. The protagonist seems to know what it was immediately on arrival in the Black Country. But he does not hurry with the investigation: drinking in bars, resting in a hotel, playing the harmonica among other musicians.

Lane in the story is a singer of the town, but the notes of his song are alarming. You can live without the past, rarely remember the past, but the past itself is capable of returning to the man. And often such a return will not be anything good.
The story «When the Door Closed, It Was Dark» by Alison Moore is not about memory but about fear, loneliness and misunderstanding. The beginning of the story is as the seed of Euro-horror: Tina, a maid, not understanding the language, comes to a certain country to work in one of the families. She has first taken care of the child: the boy has no mother, but the family has Father, Uncle and Grandmother. Getting to the house where she will live and work begins with a scene that you are waiting when the story becomes a slasher: the father of the child wrestles a pig out in the bathroom, then ordering the girl to remove bloodstains. The story, however, does not become slasher (and for the better, perhaps), but the goose bumps still will run for a short time while reading the story. Moore’s prose is angular, and this is explainable: such language would be used to tell a story of a person who does not understand the language of others, but trying to catch some words, but mostly read by others.

There is a surprise in this particular story: from Nightjar Press you could wait genre stories, but in «When the Door Closed, It Was Dark» there is nothing supernatural. If the author would give a country, where Tina arrives, the fictional name, the story would have passed into the category of horror, but without specifying any concrete names, the story, in fact, remains realistic. It should still say that it reads nevertheless not even like horror, but rather like a fantasy.
Two more books from Nightjar Press: We look forward to the next portion.

2 chapbooks from Nightjar Press

Michael Marshall Smith
What Happens When You Wake Up In the Night

Tom Fletcher
The Safe Children

Nightjar Press, 2009

A small British publisher Nightjar Press publishes small chapbooks. They are published in a limited edition of 200-300 copies, so you have to grab it as soon as possible. The two first authors, who opened the series and the work of publishing in general, became Michael Marshall Smith (needs no introduction) and Tom Fletcher, whose first novel will be published this year.

Since the book contains only one short story, to say something intelligible about the stories can only be, one way or another, told to readers some important moments of the narrative. So I can`t do it without spoilers. For those who believe spoilers are necessary evil and will not read any further, we can only say that these are two very strong story, but the stories are not something that would goose-on-skin-horrible (although the book publishers still are drawn towards horror). Which one is better? Both are good, you can easily buy both books.

For those who are not afraid of spoilers, we continue. The main theme of both stories is children. In Smith's story the protagonist is a little girl, the protagonist of Fletcher`s one lost his son. Smith has written fantasy, Fletcher - science fiction.

Maddy, still quite a child, in Smith`s story wakes up in the middle of the night. She is afraid of the dark, so she sleeps with a light. They agreed with her mother: Maddy sleeps with the light on, but if she wakes in the night, the girl can go to the parents' bedroom only if it is absolutely necessary. At this time, waking up, the girl discovers that the night light is off and thinks that her mother had violated the deal and turned off the light. Maddy wants to go to the parents' room to say that the mother had violated the deal. But the girl is not succeeding in that: in the darkness she can not find the door. Solid wall and there is no trace of a doorknob. After some time girl`s mother wakes up, hearing her daughter rustling. Mom said that Maddy has violated the deal by going to the parents' bedroom. Maddy also blames her mother that on the contrary, she has violated the deal, turned off the light in the Maddy`s room.

The contract did not violate anyone: the father, the mother and the girl woke up all in one room on the floor, where there are no windows, doors, cold and dark. Maddy's parents tries to understand what is going on, going past the walls in search of doors or windows, but no exit.

Smith, a superb stylist, shows excellent speech and thought of a girl, when she just wakes up in the middle of the night. She is capricious, rely more on imagination than on rationality; just such a silly. At the end of the story not a children's sadness, the bitter realization that nothing will change either today or tomorrow shows up in her thoughts, in the tone of her voice. So Smith alludes to the fact that the girl has managed to grow up, so long the three of them are in this room (they do not feel hunger, but the room is still cold and dark).

«What Happens When You Wake Up In the Night» is not only a sad story of hope and despair, but the lesson with a fair amount of author sneers: better to sleep, closing with a blanket and putting his head under the pillow.

Fletcher is more serious and concerned about the social implications. James gets on the train to go to work. Along the way he remembers his perished son. Looking during a trip to a futuristic landscape, he also recalls a line from a once read fantastic story: "Where are my safe children? Where is my flying car?" Indeed, James feels that the future has already arrived, but he still gets a train, and children continue to die. At the new place he is met by the administrator, who explains James' duties. They are a bit unusual: all that is required is just to sit in the lobby of the factory and once a week to check arrivals, checking their names with the database. The rest of the factory is fully automated. James is surprised, but agrees to work. Administrator is to leave for home, leaving the hero alone with the empty hall and a computer.

Fidgeted for some time of boredom, James suddenly hear sounds similar to the steps, and then cry "Daddy!" from the wall. James totally terrified and immediately calls the administrator who has left. Administrator arrives and opens a mystery of the factory to James: in its walls children, certain robots are produced, so similar to humans, that James with a long time does not believe that they aren't alive though the administrator says so. Why did the factory produce these little boys? The truth almost knocks James off his feet: children are sex toys. They were specially produced for rapists and pedophiles to secure real, living children. The administrator assures that children are robots and feel nothing. They look like real, but still not real. But they are crying, James` trying to say something. “Go home, administrator replies. And come back tomorrow.” And James leaves.

He received his safe children, thanks to robots. Children of flesh and blood must now be safe. But is this that security he dreamed of? Why the boy robot is called him Daddy?

«The Safe Children» is a story that does not leave even a robot indifferent.