Audrey Niffenegger, author of the international best-seller The Time Traveller’s Wife, leads an all-star line-up for an anthology of tales which is guaranteed to leave you spellbound!

Magic brings together some of the UK and America’s most exciting authors to produce a collection of esoteric and arcane stories that will enthral and chill – the perfect read for Hallowe’en and the long autumn evenings ahead!

From the otherworldly visions of Conan Doyle’s father in Niffenegger’s ‘The Wrong Fairy’ to the diabolical political machinations of Dan Abnett’s ‘Party Tricks’, this fresh new anthology of magical short stories has been edited by Jonathan Oliver, critically acclaimed editor of The End of The Line and House of Fear.

Fourteen extraordinary writers have formed their own particular coven for this collection of supernatural tales: Audrey Niffenegger, Sarah Lotz, Will Hill, Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem, Liz Williams, Dan Abnett, Thana Niveau, Alison Littlewood, Christopher Fowler, Storm Constantine, Lou Morgan, Sophia McDougall, Gail Z. Martin, Gemma Files and Robert Shearman.

With the forthcoming publication of Grimm Tales for Young and Old (Penguin Classics), Philip Pullman‘s retelling of the classic Grimm Brothers’ fairy stories, the BBC has an insightful article and interview with Pullman on its website. The book is due for release on 27 September 2012.

Philip Pullman will be talking about the book in conversation with Neil Gaiman on Monday 29 October 2012 at the Cambridge Theatre, London. Details and ticket booking HERE

Remember Remember The 30th of September…

David Lloyd (V for Vendetta, Kickback) empowered the world with his iconoclastic Guy Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta. Today, comic conspirator Lloyd is changing the world with his publishing launch of an ambitious new online magazine called Aces Weekly.

Acesweekly.co.uk is a sequential art magazine, available exclusively through on-line subscription which will be released as seven weekly issues which form a volume. Each issue will have 3 landscape pages from 6 teams of contributors, plus many pages of extras such as artists sketches etc. Readers subscribe to volumes which cost £6.99/$9.99 per seven issue volume. Aces Weekly will be available exclusively on-line and feature all-new material. Stored online, readers have access to their magazine wherever they have web access. The website goes live September 30, 2012. What makes Aces Weekly special? The creators have more control then ever before.

Lloyd explained the origin of the magazine, “The aim was to create something very much like a traditional weekly comic but without limiting the subject matter. We asked a range of creators who we knew to be excellent – the reason for the ‘ aces ‘ of our name – to do whatever they liked within certain bounds of taste, and they just came up with a great mix of stories. Creators in this business rarely get asked to do whatever they like, so that’s part of the pull of the project for them. And they’re enthused by the newness of the project and its potential for growth.”

Bambos Georgiou is the managing editor; “Most comic companies use creators to make money for the company, this company has been set up to make money for the creators. This time readers will know their money is going direct to the creators.” All strips are creator owned.

Lloyd, who along with writer Dave Jackson has created Valley Of Shadows for Acesweekly.co.uk, has gathered together some of the top names in the comic industry such as Kyle Baker, Steve Bissette, Colleen Doran, Bill Sienkiewicz, Billy Tucci and Herb Trimpe to appear alongside him in the first volume. Phil Hester & John McCrea (Progenitor), JC Vaughn & Mark Wheatley (Return Of The Human) Alain Mauricet & Alexandre Tefenkgi (Shoot For The Moon) and David Hitchcock (Paradise Mechanism) all contribute twenty-one page stories serialized over the first seven issue run. Also included in the first volume are stand alone three page strips by Lew Stringer (Combat Colin), Carl Critchlow (Thrud The Barbarian), David Leach (Psycho Gran), Esteban Hernández(Harmony), Phil Elliott (Gimbley)Rory Walker (Chloroform) and Mychailo Kazybrid & Bambos (Dr Queer).

Check out www.acesweekly.co.uk or email info@acesweekly.co.uk for more details.

Dark Hall Press is proud to present its third release, Dark Corners, a collection by Michael Bray.

About the book:
What lurks within the darkness? What crawls outside of our perception? What happens when the world as we know it stops making sense? When reality isn’t what it seems, and the rules no longer apply…

Dark Corners is a collection of twelve interlinked short stories plotting the darkest reaches of the human psyche.

Dark Corners is now available for purchase via Amazon and other sites, in both ebook and paper editions.

About the author:
Michael Bray has been writing horror fiction for over fifteen years, honing a unique and accessible style. He is also a musician and a father residing in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Nothing as it Seems is a new collection by Tim Lebbon (with an Introduction by F. Paul Wilson) forthcoming from PS Publishing and now available for pre-order.

About the book:
An old woman mourning her dead husband builds something in the woods, and rain gives it life . . . A Nazi seeks gold with which to flee the fall of Berlin, and finds it in the most unlikely place . . . On the mysterious continent of Noreela, a Violet Dog returns from myth to seek its own brand of vengeance . . . In a land devastated by famine, survivors are meat . . . A dying criminal seeks the one good thing he has ever known . . . A boy mourns his dead mother, and seeks a way to bring his living father back to him . . .

Tim Lebbon’s short stories and novellas have won several major awards and been included in many Year’s Best anthologies, as well as The Best of Best New Horror and Century’s Best Horror. In this, his most accomplished collection to date, nothing is quite as it seems.

Pre-orders are now being taken for John Llewellyn Probert‘s first full-length novel, The House that Death Built, due in October 2012 from Atomic Fez. The book is available in three formats: a limited edition signed hardcover, trade paperback and ebook. The limited edition is signed by the author and the cover artist, Steve Upham.

In addition, all customers pre-ordering or purchasing the book through Atomic Fez before 31 October 2012 (copies in any format; only Kobo and Amazon purchases are excluded) are entered in a draw to win the following:

• the original manuscript, written on by the editor and author as they crafted the final form of the book
• plus “Copy #1″ of the Limited Hardcover Edition
• plus a copy of Wicked Delights, John Llewellyn Probert’s previous title from Atomic Fez
• plus something else from inside the vaults of Atomic Fez

About the book:
The Dark Manor isn’t just any old haunted house. Built on the site of a stone circle, from bricks saturated with pain and agony, windows that have seen terror beyond insanity, and doors that would scream if the wood from which they were fashioned could voice the appalling acts to which they have been witness, the house was designed with evil in mind and deliberately constructed to bring William Marx, the wealthy industrialist who built it, into contact with the spirit world.

But Marx hasn’t been seen since he entered the repository of death and madness that is The Dark Manor, and neither have any of the people who have gone looking for him. Now Sir Anthony Calverton has purchased it and needs the place investigating properly, which of course calls for some proper supernatural investigators.

You are cordially invited to join Mr Massene Henderson and Miss Samantha Jephcott, specialists in paranormal adventure, as they embark on their most perilous case to date.

Who will survive The House That Death Built?

Only time and the pages within will tell…

News has come through that Pendragon Press will have copies of Gary McMahon’s To Usher, The Dead available for sale at FantasyCon 2012 in just over a weeks time!

Christopher Teague, Managing Editor and Founder of Pendragon Press, writes: “Well, and in all honesty it arrived in the nick o’ time, but the cover proof of To Usher, The Dead has been approved by oneself and the book is scheduled for delivery on FantasyCon Friday – even though this is a limited numbered edition of two hundred copies, only the first one hundred will be flat-signed by the author in situ that weekend. If you consider that the pre-ordering of these McMahon-signed goodies have been very brisk, the chances are I’ll only have a handful to sell… so, the question you have to ask yourself: do you want to chance it, or do you want to pre-order your copy today – and in exchange for your faith in my publishing capabilities you will receive a 25% discount off your next future order.”

Unfortunately, there was also some bad news: “…there aGary McMahon bookre two casualities: firstly, Gavin Salisbury’s short novel, Fade-Out won’t make the launch event and again The Nasty Snips Project has been delayed. Fingers crossed, once the FCon fall-out has dropped off then this make a Hallowe’en virtual launch…”

Tartarus Press are very pleased to announce that they are now open for submissions to Strange Tales IV, the latest in their series of contemporary short fiction anthologies, edited by Rosalie Parker.

All submissions must be original and not previously published, length beween 2,000 and 10,000 words, and the closing date is 31st July 2013. Please send submissions as an rtf attachment (preferably) to rosalieparker@btinternet.com.

The first Strange Tales volume won the World Fantasy Award in 2004, and the follow-up volumes have all been well-received. All three can be purchased together here at a special offer price.

More news on this later in the week but, as a teaser, here’s the cover of the Autumn 2012 issue. Illustration by the awesome Emma Vieceli!

(click on the image for a better look!)

The Alchemy Press will launch their two latest anthologies at FantasyCon on Saturday 29 September 2012 at 10.00am. The convention, a highpoint in the fantasy and horror fan’s calendar, once more returns to the south coast city of Brighton.

The editors, and some of the contributors, will be on hand to sign the two new anthologies: The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders and The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes.

About The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders, edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber:

“Discover standing stones, burial mounds, ruined castles or sunken cities: the ancient sites that litter our landscapes; the ancient wonders that possess a mysterious appeal that cannot be denied.”

With stories by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Aliette de Bodard, Peter Crowther, Anne Nicholls, Adrian Cole, Pauline E. Dungate, Bryn Fortey, William Meikle, John Howard, James Brogden, Shannon Connor Winward, Misha Herwin, Lynn M Cochrane and Selina Lock.

About The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes, edited by Mike Chinn:

“Hard-boiled detectives, sinister vigilantes, bizarre villains – the staple of the Pulp tradition; two-fisted heroes – and heroines – fighting for right and justice in the midnight city, foetid jungles or exotic, far-flung lands; and deranged villains for whom the world is never enough.

Here, seventeen writers dive headlong into the world of the pulp fiction, to tell us tall tales of daring do, of heroes, heroines and their villains.”

With stories by Mike Resnick, Peter Atkins, Peter Crowther, Adrian Cole, William Meikle, Joel Lane, Amber L. Husbands, Milo James Fowler, Anne Nicholls, Robert William Iveniuk, Bracken N. MacLeod, Chris Iovenko, Joshua Wolf, James Hartley, Ian Gregory, Michael Haynes and Allen Ashley.

Special FantasyCon price: £8.00 each (cover price £10.00 each) or buy both for £15.00.