Short Story Saturday: The Serpent's Egg - the audiobook!

I have been wanting to share this particular piece of news with you since April! And thereby hangs a tale...

When the world went into lockdown I had an idea; I would use ACX to produce audiobooks of some of my stories, which people would then download by the score and listen to while they were off work and trapped at home, providing myself with another income stream. The trouble is, every other writer on the planet had the same idea and, unbeknownst to me, ACX reduced their workforce quite dramatically.

Meanwhile, I put The Serpent's Egg out to tender, listened to audition samples, and finally chose Mark Rice-Oxley to be the voice actor who would record the Lovecraftian novella for me. This he promptly did, and a fantastic job he did of it too. However, the approval process, which I was expecting to take a month at most, ended up taking much longer than expected...

After three months, ACX rejected the audiobook, claiming that there were all sorts of things wrong with it - which there weren't - and so Mark re-submitted it to me and I re-submitted it to ACX for approval.

Fast forward another three months and ACX finally approved The Serpent's Egg audiobook for sale this morning. It only took six months(!), and in that time Lesley Dessalles' recording of The Doll's House was approved straightaway (after only another three months), but I am delighted that you can now download it and listen to it yourself.

To find out more, click on the audiobook cover below.

Short Story Saturday: The Serpent's Egg - A Dark Tale of the Cthulhu Mythos

First published seven years ago, as part of the Dreaming in Darkness collection, The Serpent's Egg was the first novella I self-published under the Green Man Books banner back in 2017.

But now I have given it a face-lift, with a new cover image of the Lambton Worm licensed from 2000AD and Magic: The Gathering artist Dave Kendall.

You can pick it up for just £1.99 on Amazon, or if you are signed up to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited plan, it won't cost you a penny.

So why not check it out today?

Short Story Saturday: World War Cthulhu and Dreaming in Darkness

Yesterday (8 November) was Bram Stoker's birthday. Stoker's most infamous creation is surely the vampire count Dracula, but amongst his other works is The Lair of the White Worm which takes its inspiration from the Legend of the Lambton Worm.

Vampires have cropped up one or two times in my own work (Shadows Over Sylvania and Blood Royal to name but two), but the Legend of the Lambton Worm has directly influenced my work in print four times so far.

First there was the Wodewitch's Devilworm in my first published book Spellbreaker. Then there was the Pax Britannia novella Conqueror Worm. More recently the legend inspired my new novella The Serpent's Egg that appears in Dreaming in Darkness. And now there's The Scottish Patient, published recently in World War Cthulhu by Cubicle 7 Entertainment.

Interestingly, for readers of Dreaming in Darkness, The Scottish Patient is a sort-of-prequel to The Serpent's Egg. Although it's come out second, it was actually written more than a year before The Serpent's Egg.

Edited by British Fantasy Society Award winner Jonathan Oliver, World War Cthulhu contains short stories by such luminaries as James Lovegrove, Weston Ochse, Rebecca Levene, Robin D. Laws, Simon Bestwick, Gaie Sebold, T.P. Pike, Sarah Newton, Greg Stolze, Paul Finch, John Llewellyn Probert, Yours Truly, Archie Black and World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar.

As the shadows of war gather over Europe something is stirring within the darkness; something far older than humankind. Those with evil intent will seek to harness these terrible powers, while those fighting to turn the tide of war will find themselves up against far more than bullets and bombs. In forgotten R’lyeh, Cthulhu stirs as the mighty armies of the Third Reich march.

You can download World War Cthulhu as an ebook here.

And while we're on the subject of Dreaming in Darkness here's another awesome review.

Short Story Saturday: Dreaming in Darkness - The Serpent's Egg

Dreaming in Darkness is a collection of four Cthulhu mythos-inspired novellas by four established or up and coming horror writers, namely John Prescott, Adrian Chamberlin, Aaron French and Yours Truly.

Those of you who know a bit about the contributors already, will realise that there are two US writers in the collection and two UK writers which gives the book its own, unique feel. And my story is a quintessentially English tale, called The Serpent's Egg.

Dreaming in Darkness is being launched at World Horror Con in New Orleans, 13-16 June, and you can find out more about the collection here.



* As you would no doubt expect.

 

Happy Birthday, Bram!

In case you didn't know, today (8 November) is Bram Stoker's birthday. If was still alive today he would be 165, which would probably make him one of the undead.

Best known for his vampiric creation Dracula, he also wrote a book called The Lair of the White Worm (amongst others).

I have paid homage to Bram Stoker in various books of mine*, but most obviously in Ulysses Quicksilver's third Pax Britannia adventure Human Nature.

Currently on the work roster is a new novella which was inspired in no small part by The Lair of the White Worm. So tonight I'll be raising a class of claret** to Mr Stoker, and toasting his good health, wherever he might be.

* Pretty much anything featuring a vampire!

** This is not a euphemism; I do mean claret.