Tag: dave jeffery

A Silent Dystopia and Hex-periments

~ Kev Harrison ~ 2 Comments

This past week has seen not one, but two anthologies I’ve been incredibly excited about for a while. First up is A Silent Dystopia, from Demain Publishing. Set in Dave Jeffery’s A Quiet Apocalypse universe, this anthology features stories by the likes of Stephanie Ellis, Steve Stred, J A Sullivan, Morgan K Tanner, and myself, alongside some other amazing voices.
Some of the stories focussed on how apocalypse ‘preppers’ might handle the eventual coming of such a cataclysm, others on how a chosen few might reject the prejudices against the Deaf in this silent world, while still others – like mine – considered how some might try to help smuggle the persecuted to safety and the hazards they would face.
All in all, from what I’ve read so far, it’s a terrific anthology. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can grab your copy in eBook here. The paperback version will be arriving sometime in early 2022. If you’re not familiar with the source text, you can get to grips with Dave’s brutal and emotionally difficult world here.
Massive thanks to David T. Griffith who went to pains to get these stories just right and to pay the best possible homage to the universe Dave Jeffery created. Also to Dean Drinkel at Demain for supporting the project, and to Roberto Segate, whose stunning art adorns the cover, as well as Adrian Baldwin who, as ever, created a dynamite overall cover design.

The second anthology – released today, no less, is Hex-Periments: A Dark Biotech Anthology. Surgically spliced together by the mad scientist duo of Ross Jeffery and Keith Anthony Baird, this one features stories by the editors themselves, Demi-Louise Blackburn, Tracy Fahey, David Sodergren, Dave Jeffery, Paul Kane and others, alongside my story ‘Cerebral Salvage.’ All the tales within the book feature dark biotechnological themes, often with black magic elements. With the calibre of authors on show, the quality of the stories is obviously very high, but what I love most about this anthology is that the proceeds are going to support homeless charities in the UK, something I hope we can all get behind. So, pick up a copy here and do some good, if you have the means to do so.

I did readings with snippets from both of my stories which feature in these anthologies on my YouTube channel recently. Check out the one for ‘Cerebral Salvage,’ below.

Treading the Paths

~ Kev Harrison ~ 1 Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here (especially as I’m now putting out a monthly newsletter which you can sign up to here). But, with my debut collection, Paths Best Left Untrodden clawing its way from its subterranean lair this Saturday, it would be remiss of me not to mention it.

I started thinking about a short story collection about eighteen months ago. I’d had a number of shorts published in some quite prestigious and exciting anthologies. Hopefully I gained a fair few readers from my fiction sitting shoulder to shoulder with some titans of the genre, such as Gemma Files, Richard Chizmar, Mary SanGiovanni, and Brian Evenson but, after the relative success of my debut novella, The Balance, I felt there were perhaps others who might want to absorb the breadth of my work to date without having to invest huge sums on the anthologies I’ve been part of. Of course, I also wanted to get some new, unpublished tales into the world.

The title, Paths Best Left Untrodden is very much a representation of what horror is for me. The misstep. The erring from what, deep down, we know is the correct trajectory and into a state where control leaves us and where we are at the mercy of monsters, human or otherwise. I hope that people will find this thread throughout the thirteen stories in Paths.

Responses so far have been overwhelmingly positive, with incredibly kind blurbs from four sensational writers in TC Parker, Ross Jeffery, Dave Jeffery and Dan Howarth. Dan also saw fit to publish Paths as the second title under his new Northern Republic imprint. Initial reviews from Simon Paul Wilson at Kendall Reviews and J Maddux entertainment have also been effusive.

This has alleviated some of the pre-release nerves.

One thing I was never nervous about was the cover art. Placed into the safe hands of Greg Chapman, who also crafted the cover for The Balance, I find myself with a thing of beauty to hold in my hands. And something which, in its sinister-yet-not-overt nature, hopefully represents the contents of the book well.

Paths Best Left Untrodden is released Saturday 5th June in eBook format, with a paperback due imminently thereafter, through Northern Republic. You can pre-order your copy here.