The Quarantined City 3: Spot the Difference

Cover: Detail from Europe after the Rain, 1940–42 by Max Ernst (German, 1891–1976)
Oil on canvas, 21-9/16 x 58-3/16 in.
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1942.281
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

The third in James Everington’s Spectral, The Quarantined City: Spot the Difference serial is now available to purchase at the measly price of £1.99. AND, as a bonus, if you’ve missed the first two episodes, they’ve been reduced in price to £0.99 to enable to you catch up with the plight of Fellows and his obsession with finding the elusive and mysterious author Boursier. Links below:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON US

The Quarantined City – Into the Rain available now!

Cover: Detail from Europe after the Rain, 1940–42 by Max Ernst (German, 1891–1976)
Oil on canvas, 21-9/16 x 58-3/16 in.
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1942.281
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

Just a very short note to let you all know that the second episode of James Everington’s eBook serial for Spectral is available for purchase now from Amazon on the links below:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON US

The Quarantined City by James Everington

Cover: Detail from Europe after the Rain, 1940–42 by Max Ernst (German, 1891–1976)
Oil on canvas, 21-9/16 x 58-3/16 in.
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1942.281
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

Just a small reminder that the first episode of James Everington’s Spectral Press serial The Quarantined City, The Smell of Paprika, is available to download from Amazon. The cover features a detail from Max Ernst’s 1942 amazing painting Europe After the Rain II, with magnificent graphics skills by Neil Williams. You get your copy of the episode from here:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON US

Episode 2, Into the Rain, will be available by the end of the month.

The Quarantined City 2: Into the Rain

Cover: Detail from Europe after the Rain, 1940–42 by Max Ernst (German, 1891–1976)
Oil on canvas, 21-9/16 x 58-3/16 in.
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1942.281
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

The above image will be the cover to the second episode of James Everington’s Spectral eBook serial, The Quarantined City, entitled Into the Rain. Follow the protagonist Fellows as he gets deeper into the writings of the mysterious Boursier and the effects they have on him and his surroundings. The plot thickens, as someone famous once averred.

Once again, Neil Williams has provided layout duties for the cover, which is a detail from Max Ernst’s stunning painting Europe After the Rain, 1941 -1942. The episode will be available from Amazon at the end of this month. Look out for it!

The Quarantined City by James Everington

Cover: Detail from Europe after the Rain, 1940–42 by Max Ernst (German, 1891–1976)
Oil on canvas, 21-9/16 x 58-3/16 in.
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1942.281
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

Available from today from both Amazon UK & US is the first episode (of six) in the latest eBook serial from Spectral Press, The Quarantined City by James Everington, and featuring a detail from Max Ernst’s 1942 painting Europe After the Rain II, with magnificent graphics skills by Neil Williams. You get your copy of the episode from here:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON US

NEWS

Also, congratulations are due to Angela Slatter on her Spectral chapbook from last year, Home and Hearth, making it on to Locus magazine’s Recommended Reading list as well as Brian Hodge’s story from The Spectral Book of Horror Stories. Congratulations all round!

News – 26:01:2015

Cover: Detail from Europe after the Rain, 1940–42 by Max Ernst (German, 1891–1976)
Oil on canvas, 21-9/16 x 58-3/16 in.
The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1942.281
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT

The first episode of the new Spectral Press eBook serial The Quarantined City by James Everington, The Smell of Paprika, will be available very shortly on Amazon. Above is the rather gorgeous cover – a detail from Max Ernst’s 1942 painting Europe After the Rain II, reproduced by kind permission of the The Wadsworth Museum, Hartford, Connecticut. Layout duties have been ably performed by Neil Williams.

Here’s the blurb:

The Quarantined City: sealed off from the outside world, with only the sight of the ocean to remind its inhabitants of life beyond. No one knows why the city has been quarantined and conspiracy theories abound.

But for Fellows life continues largely as before. He walks the streets, hunts out rare books; the sun continues to shine and the gulls circle above.

There’s the small matter of the ghost haunting his house, but Fellows doesn’t let himself think of that.

But when he tracks down a story by the reclusive writer known as Boursier, his old certainties fade as he becomes aware that the secrets of the city, the ghostly child, and the quarantine itself, might be more connected than he thinks…

Look out for it!

“The Hammer of Dr. Valentine” ©2014 John Llewellyn Probert/Spectral Press. Artwork ©2014 Nick Gucker. Layout ©2014 Neil Williams.

Also, classic long-running Hammer magazine Little Shoppe of Horrors gives The Hammer of Dr Valentine a thumbs up in a review by Alan Wright. The review will appear in a future issue of the magazine – we’ll let you know which one in due course. In the meantime, why not get yourself a copy of the book:

The Hammer of Dr. Valentine: limited signed hardback (100 only). 

UK £21

EU £24

USA & Everywhere Else $45

Copies to preorder customers are starting to go out today!

News 09:07:2014 – The Quarantined City cover reveal

Europe After the Rain II – Max Ernst 1940-42. © 2014 Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA

As reported on Monday, Spectral will be publishing another monthly serial in the form of James Everington’s The Quarantined City, and we are delighted to announce that we have received permission to use Max Ernst’s glorious evocation of war-torn Europe, Europe After the Rain, as the cover image. However, rather than use the whole image for each episode, we will be using different sections of it for the individual parts. The serial will run from January 2015 to June 2015.

More details of the story will be presented soon!

News 04:07:2014

A miscellany of bits and pieces here today, but the most important one is receiving an email from Reece Shearsmith (League of Gentlemen, Inside No. 9) about the Deluxe Edition of The Christmas Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark. He didn’t need to say much, but what he did say was enough:

“It really is beautiful – no wonder you are proud of it.”

EDIT 17:30pm: We only have THREE copies left of the Deluxe, so grab one while you still can!

DELUXE EDITION – CONTENTS (50 ONLY – 3 LEFT!)

Foreword by MARK GATISS

Introduction by TONY EARNSHAW

Seven short stories by M. R. JAMES: The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, A Warning to the Curious, The Ash Tree, Lost Hearts, Casting the Runes, Count Magnus, The Signalman.

Exclusive new introductions to each story by LAWRENCE GORDON CLARK

Count Magnus teleplay by BASIL COPPER

Lost Hearts short stage play by LAWRENCE GORDON CLARK

Q&A with LAWRENCE GORDON CLARK by TONY EARNSHAW

Filmography, awards, of LAWRENCE GORDON CLARK by TONY EARNSHAW

Illustrated with unseen behind the scenes photographs, chapter heading vignettes by Nick Gucker,  as well as examples of storyboards by Lawrence Gordon Clark.

SIGNED, SLIPCASED DELUXE EDITION:

£85 UK

£87 EU

$145 US

UNSIGNED HARDBACK (100 only):

Foreword by MARK GATISS

Introduction by TONY EARNSHAW

Seven short stories by M. R. JAMES: The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, A Warning to the Curious, The Ash Tree, Lost Hearts, Casting the Runes, Count Magnus

Exclusive new introductions to each story by LAWRENCE GORDON CLARK

Q&A with LAWRENCE GORDON CLARK by TONY EARNSHAW

Illustrated with photographs as well as chapter heading vignettes (by Nick Gucker)

UNSIGNED HARDBACK EDITION

£45 UK

£47 EU

$80 US

MONTHLY SERIALS

Due to the success of Simon Bestwick’s monthly Black Mountain serial we have decided that, beginning in January 2015, we will be publishing a couple of serials a year. And to start things off we will be publishing James Everington’s The Quarantined City, in six parts.More details will be forthcoming soon, so keep watching this space.

FUTURE PROJECTS

Spectral will be heading into London on Monday to meet up with director/screenwriter Michael Armstrong (Mark of the Devil, The Haunted House of Horror, The House of Long Shadows) to start discussions on an exciting project. We’ll tell you more when we’ve worked out the details.

New reviews 27:01:2014

Did you know that we talk about new reviews here on Mondays more than any other day of the week? And today, being a Monday, is no exception. We have two reviews for you this morning:

Soul Masque by Terry Grimwood. © 2013 Terry Grimwood. Cover concept © 2013 Neil Williams/Spectral Press. All rights reserved.

First, writer James Everington reviews Soul Masque by Terry Grimwood (alongside Chalk by Pat Cadigan) on his blog Scattershot Writing – the review is HERE.

“Ghosts” © Paul Kane/Spectral Press 2013. Artwork © Edward Miller 2007 – 2013.

Secondly, here’s a review of Paul Kane’s Ghosts collection at Terror-Tree.

More reviews soon!

Monday Morning Reviews

Beginning of another week, and so we bring you notice of some more reviews, three to be precise, of two favourites from the Spectral roster:

First up, Whiststable by Stephen Volk – far and away our biggest selling title ever. James Everington was kind enough to make it a recommendation of his here, and following that, here’s David T. Wilbanks’ take on the novella.

And now, here’s a review from Warpcore SF of the award-winning novella The Nine Deaths of Dr. Valentine by John Llewellyn Probert – read that one here.

More soon!