“Dark creatures are more fun” Interview with Joseph Delaney / Review of Slither’s Tale Slither’s Tale Publisher: Bodley Head (27 Sep 2012) ISBN-10: 0370332172 ISBN-13: 978-0370332178 Joseph Delaney is the author of the spectacularly successful dark fantasy series, The Wardstone Chronicles, written for children and young adults. The novels tell the story of Tom Ward, a farmer’s son apprenticed to the County ‘Spook’ on his twelfth birthday.  Tom and the ‘Spook’ live and work at the edge of their community, protecting the folk of ‘the County’ from supernatural

The walking dead have permeated popular culture to such an extent that no visit to a bookshop or cinema goes without encountering some variation of the contemporary zombie. Zombie literature is inescapable, and the sheer volume available is as daunting as a relentless crowd of flesh-hungry foes. With this in mind, I would like to suggest three zombie themed anthologies that not only act as an introduction to the genre, but also flesh-out various interpretations of the zombie as a multifaceted monster. If you are to read only one zombie book, let it be ZOMBIES: A Compendium of the Livin

Just in my own stuff I’ve moved from imitating Lovecraft to a more contemporary style of psychological horror (a trajectory Robert Bloch’s career also described) and tried to bring the supernatural tale up to my own date (as Fritz Leiber, another author influenced early in his career by HPL, magnificently did). Every so often I make a bid to scale the heights of awe that Blackwood and Machen’s greatest tales occupy. And maybe I’ve even discovered my own little niche in the genre, which I’d call comedy of paranoia. To sum up, I haven’t discovered the limits of the field, and I doubt I will.

Here is the conference programme for the much-anticipated conference on Monsters in Manchester in April. Monsters: Subject, Object, Abject Kanaris Lecture Theatre and Conference Room Manchester Museum, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom Thursday 12th April – Friday 13th April 2012 Conference Programme Thursday 12th April 9.00-9.30am: Registration 9.30-11.00am: Opening Remarks (Dr. Hannah Priest, University of Manchester) and Session 1: Monsters in Popular Culture (Kanaris Lecture Theatre) Chair: TBC (i) Matthew Freeman (University of Nottingha

This two-day interdisciplinary, cross-period conference will explore humanity’s perennial fascination with the monstrous.

With thanks to our MLitt student Sam Manthorpe for this piece of news. The University of Manchester will hold a monsters conference in April 2012 entitled 'Monsters: Subject, Object, Abject'. Deadline for submissions 1st January 2012. For further information, see: http://www.hic-dragones.co.uk/#/call-for-papers/4554510962

The Doorway’s capacity to open and close on ‘a Foreign Place’ (397) indicates the alien distance and total separation of whatever seeks to come through. X’s language indicates not only a ‘place’ but also an occupant; he concludes that ‘my quiet passing did disturb an Evil Power, so that it did even come to listen or to make search’ (400). The unidentified entity, lurking on the threshold, listens at the Doorway, and attempts to reach through. In this sequence, Hodgson transforms the benign communication of the séance, under the control of a professional medium, or the occultist’s magical manipulation of unseen forces, into the near-discovery of unspeakable destructive horrors.

I’ve been thinking recently about squid, and their place in the canon of Gothic literature and film. This has been inspired by reading China Miéville’s novel Kraken (2010); a dark urban fantasy centred around the theft of ‘Archie’, an Architeuthis Dux (Giant Squid) specimen from London’s Natural History Museum. Miéville uses this premise to explore a mythos of doomsday cults and magic. Archie is in fact real, although the existence of a shadowy ‘Teuthist’ cult in London remains unverified. In this post I will explore some representations of these creatures and analys

At the core of the Gothic, through all its manifestations, lies the monster: the ghost, the demon, the freak, the creature, the outcast, the Other.

For centuries the world's oceans have inspired mankind with an unparallelled sense of fascination and terror. I believe that it is true to say that more is known about outer space than is known about the world's own oceans. Ever since the first mariners began to explore the seas there have been tales of great monsters that have emerged from its depths to prey on the unwary. These tales have developed and evolved over time and have provided fuel for some of our great writers and film makers imaginations.