Well, It's Been A While: On Health (Physical and Otherwise), Awards, FCon, StokerCon, Pantsing and Publishers

Hi, everyone.

It's been months since I last posted here, and plenty's happened in the interim. So stand by for a long, rambling and self-indulgent wall of text...

2019 has been (thus far - there's still a few weeks of it left) a funny sort of year. I've had a number of health issues, both physical and mental, which have impacted, among other things, our finances. Which was why we couldn't make Fantasycon this year, much to our disappointment. (And to the relief of many others, I'm sure!)

FCon has long been one of the milestones in our year, where we meet a lot of our closest friends in the writing world. Luckily, we still got to catch up with some of them, most notably at Edge-Lit in July, although we had to miss the Derby Ghost Story Festival (as Sledge-Lit has now morphed into) last month. I did joke that, since this was the one year we couldn't make FCon, it would be the year I finally won an award. (It wasn't, but what the hell; what's the point of winning an award if you can't have your very own Gwyneth Paltrow moment in front of a live audience?) Congratulations to Aliette de Bodard for The Tea Master And The Detective, which won Best Novella, and to Catriona Ward, who won Best Horror Novel for her superb Little Eve. I'm proud to have been listed alongside them.

It's been an interesting year on the writing front, especially in respect of novels. I reached a point last year where I found myself looking at the novel I'd been trying to write and returning again to why I became a writer in the first place. I asked myself the question 'If you could only write one more book, what would it be?' and found the answer transformed the work in progress, and my approach to it. I've been highly focused on writing as a career in recent years, trying to reach a level of commercial success closer to the mainstream. And don't get me wrong, I still want that if I can have it, but there's no point unless I'm able to write the stories I want to write. So my priorities, and my focus, have shifted: I've spent 2019 writing exactly the kind of things I want, without driving myself crazy contemplating the market or what's 'in' now. And I've been a lot happier with the work as a result. And more content.

Another thing that's changed is how I write. For years I've felt unable to write a novel without plotting it out in advance - sometimes in intricate detail (the outline for Devil's Highway was over 30,000 words long.) I always envied those writers who could begin with only the vaguest of ideas and basically wing it all the way through, but thought I'd accepted I couldn't be one of them. I was a planner, not a pantser. And yet, this year, that changed. With only the broadest concept of the story I was telling, I wrote the opening scene of a novel; by the time that was over, I knew roughly what would happen over the next few chapters. As I continued, I began to see a little further ahead, and then a little further, and could rough out a handful of notes. I believe this is known as the 'headlight' or 'flashlight' method.

Well, that novel is two-thirds finished, with over 100,000 words written. I've been fixing a bunch of notes I made on it along the way, and while I've been doing that I've been roughing out the opening chapters of another novel that I dived into with even less idea of what I was doing. It can be frustrating at times, even scary - but it's also exhilarating. It's a real delight when, as a writer, you actually manage to surprise yourself. Pantsing a novel is a lot harder to measure and predict, but it's also a lot more fun.

On a slightly less cheerful note...

My fourth full-length story collection, And Cannot Come Again, saw print this year from Canada's ChiZine Press, complete with stunning artwork by Eric Mohr. Unfortunately, within a couple of months of the release, the stories about ChiZine started coming out. Initially, it was a couple of authors complaining about the publishers' failure to pay them on time. My first reaction was dismay, when review sites announced they'd be boycotting CZP's publications, and a desire to wait until I'd heard both sides of the story. But then more stories started coming out; worse stories. Too many to dismiss or ignore. As a result I had to request reversion of my rights as an author from ChiZine, and to ask readers not to buy the collection (which, as you can imagine, kind of goes against the grain for an author.) The grim ChiZine saga, for anyone who missed it, can be read in more detail here.

On a much happier note...

I'm delighted to announce that And Cannot Come Again has a new publisher! My profound thanks to Graeme Reynolds at Horrific Tales, who's acquired the book to be relaunched at StokerCon in Scarborough next year. More details will follow in due course. The new edition will retain Ramsey Campbell's introduction, and may include some new material too!

So, that's where we are now. The year isn't over, and nor are the upheavals - there are other changes in the works, which I'll be able to talk about at a later stage - but I'm still here, and I'm still writing. I don't know how to do much else, after all. Thank you to all the friends and family - and most of all to Cate - for their support over what's been an often tough twelvemonth.

Here's to the hope of better days ahead, for us all. Including, please God, a change of government. (Nearly got through this post without mentioning politics or the upcoming General Election. #VoteLabour)

Wolf's Hill and Breakwater nominated for British Fantasy Awards

The shortlists for the British Fantasy Awards were announced on Tuesday, and I'm stunned to have made the running for not one, but two awards.

Wolf's Hill has been shortlisted for the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel, alongside Little Eve by Catriona Ward, The Cabin At The End of The World by Paul Tremblay and The Way of The Worm by Ramsey Campbell.

To be sharing a shortlist with those three authors, those three novels, to be included in the same category, feels like an award in itself. I'd be happy to lose to any of them.

It's also particularly poignant because the Black Road novels mean a lot to me, and there've been times when I wonder if anyone's even reading them. In guess some people are, and enjoying them too.

Breakwater, meanwhile, has been shortlisted for Best Novella, alongside 'Binti: The Night Masquerade' by Nnedi Okorafor, 'The Land Of Somewhere Safe' by Hal Duncan, 'The Last Temptation Of Dr Valentine' by John Llewellyn Probert, 'The Only Harmless Great Thing' by Brooke Bolander and 'The Tea Master And The Detective' by Aliette de Bodard. Again, a storming list of names.

The winners will be announced at FantasyCon in Glasgow on 20th October.

Here are the BFA nominations in full:

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)
The Bitter Twins, by Jen Williams (Headline)
Empire of Sand, by Tasha Suri (Orbit)
Foundryside, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Jo Fletcher Books)
The Green Man’s Heir, by Juliet E McKenna (Wizard’s Tower Press)
The Loosening Skin, by Aliya Whiteley (Unsung Stories)
Priest of Bones, by Peter McLean (Jo Fletcher Books)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)
The Cabin at the End of the World, by Paul Tremblay (Titan Books)
Little Eve, by Catriona Ward (W&N)
The Way of the Worm, by Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing)
Wolf’s Hill, by Simon Bestwick (Snowbooks)

Best Newcomer (the Sydney J Bounds Award)
Tomi Adeyemi, for The Children of Blood and Bone (Macmillan Children’s Books)
Cameron Johnston, for The Traitor God (Angry Robot)
RF Kuang, for The Poppy War (HarperVoyager)
Tasha Suri, for Empire of Sand (Orbit)
Marian Womack, for Lost Objects (Luna Press Publishing)
Micah Yongo, for Lost Gods (Angry Robot)

Best Novella
Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)
Breakwater, by Simon Bestwick (Tor Books)
The Land of Somewhere Safe, by Hal Duncan (NewCon Press)
The Last Temptation of Dr Valentine, by John Llewellyn Probert (Black Shuck Books)
The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander (Tor.com)
The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press)

Best Short Fiction 
Down Where Sound Comes Blunt, by GV Anderson (F&SF March/April 2018)
Her Blood the Apples, Her Bones the Trees, by Georgina Bruce (The Silent Garden: A Journal of Esoteric Fabulism)
In the Gallery of Silent Screams, by Carole Johnstone & Chris Kelso (Black Static #65)
A Son of the Sea, by Priya Sharma (All the Fabulous Beasts)
Telling Stories, by Ruth EJ Booth (The Dark #43)
Thumbsucker, by Robert Shearman (New Fears 2)

Best Anthology
The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, ed. Ellen Datlow (Night Shade Books)
Humanagerie, ed. Sarah Doyle & Allen Ashley (Eibonvale Press)
New Fears 2, ed. Mark Morris (Titan Books)
This Dreaming Isle, ed. Dan Coxon (Unsung Stories)
Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 5, ed. Robert Shearman & Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)

Best Collection
All the Fabulous Beasts, by Priya Sharma (Undertow Publications)
The Future is Blue, by Catherynne M Valente (Subterranean Press)
How Long ‘til Black Future Month?, by NK Jemisin (Orbit)
Lost Objects, by Marian Womack (Luna Press Publishing)
Octoberland, by Thana Niveau (PS Publishing)
Resonance & Revolt, by Rosanne Rabinowitz (Eibonvale Press)

Best Non-Fiction
The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Francesca T Barbini (Luna Press Publishing)
The Full Lid, by Alasdair Stuart (alasdairstuart.com/the-full-lid)
Ginger Nuts of Horror (www.gingernutsofhorror.com)
Les Vampires, by Tim Major (PS Publishing)
Noise and Sparks, by Ruth EJ Booth (Shoreline of Infinity)

Best Independent Press
Fox Spirit Books
Luna Press Publishing
NewCon Press
Unsung Stories

Best Magazine / Periodical
Black Static
Gingernuts of Horror
Interzone
Shoreline of Infinity
Uncanny Magazine

Best Audio
Bedtime Stories for the End of the World (endoftheworldpodcast.com)
Blood on Satan’s Claw, by Mark Morris (Bafflegab)
Breaking the Glass Slipper (www.breakingtheglassslipper.com)
PodCastle (podcastle.org)
PsuedoPod (pseudopod.org)

Best Comic / Graphic Novel
100 Demon Dialogues, by Lucy Bellwood (Toonhound Studios)
B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth, Vol. 1, by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Guy Davis, Tyler Crook & Dave Stewart (Dark Horse)
Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories, Vol. 1, by Mike Mignola and others (Dark Horse)
The Prisoner, by Robert S Malan & John Cockshaw (Luna Press Publishing)
Saga #49-54, by Brian K Vaughan & Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Widdershins, Vol. 7, by Kate Ashwin

Best Artist
Vince Haig
David Rix
Daniele Serra
Sophie E Tallis

Best Film / Television Production
Annihilation, Alex Garland
Avengers: Infinity War, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Black Panther, Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole
The Haunting of Hill House, Mike Flanagan
Inside No. 9, series 4, Steve Pemberton & Reece Shearsmith
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Phil Lord & Rodney Rothman

Congratulations to my fellow nominees!

We Belong

Laura Mauro. Photograph by Michael Kelly.

So there goes another Fantasycon. Another brilliant event, another brilliant year.

Belonging is important. Finding a tribe, a group of people who share your values, the things you care about and love.

This is a time of year when absent friends come to mind. Today, the day after the con ended, Facebook reminded us all it's Graham Joyce's birthday. October was the birth month, too, of Joel Lane; November will be the fifth anniversary of his death.

Talking to the fantasy author James Bennett this weekend, he told me about his first Fantasycon. He was nervous, if not terrified - a young gay man, taking his first steps into a community he wasn't sure would welcome him or not. Joel saw that, took his hands and said, simply: "You belong here."

Yeah. That sounds like Joel.

That word came up again this morning, while I was reading different people's con reports on Facebook. The author Eliza Chan spoke about how the convention put to bed any fears that she didn't belong.

The British SFFH community gets a bad press in certain quarters, and it isn't deserved. I've always found it to be a friendly, welcoming and open community. No-one who loves the fiction we create and celebrate at Fantasycon should ever feel as though they have no place here. They do. I hope no-one has ever been made to feel otherwise.

The awards ceremony was, for me, a high point of the convention, when I got to see my dear friend, the lovely, talented and ridiculously modest Laura Mauro win the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story for the brilliant 'Looking For Laika'. I don't think I've ever seen someone more genuinely gobsmacked to win. (And I've seen a few.)

A couple of people who are normally mainstays of the convention (for me, anyway) couldn't make it this year - Lynda E. Rucker and Sarah Pinborough. The August Derleth Award went to Victor LaValle's The Changeling, but I was standing by as Sarah's stunt double in case it went to Behind Her Eyes. She sent me a short acceptance speech, and here's part of it:

"Fantasycon as ever evolves and changes and we may bicker on the internet and get riled about stupid things that mainly don't matter, but when push comes to shove, we are a family. Fantasycon has been there since the very start of my writing career, and it was through coming to Fantasycon every year that I made so many good friends, and gained so much inspiration to try harder and do better."

Yep. Exactly that.

So: if you love horror, SF or fantasy, Fantasycon is a place where you will be welcome. Doesn't matter what the colour of your skin is, your gender, your sexual orientation, whether you're cis or trans. Never doubt that you belong here. And never hesitate to let others know that they do too.

The Obligatory Blowing Of Horns

Voting for the British Fantasy Awards closes on 1^st March this year, and various other awards are gearing up to put together long- and short-lists. I hope to put out a few recommendations shortly, but in the meantime here’s a quick round-up of my own eligible work from 2016 (or as I like to call it, the Annual Obligatory Horn-Blowing)

Novels

I had two! The Feast Of All Souls and Devil’s Highway (although I’m painfully aware Devil’s Highway was only released in hardback in December and the paperback’s only just seeing daylight now.) Nonetheless, both are eligible works.

Stories

I only had three original tales published in 2016:

‘Wrath of the Deep’ in The Hyde Hotel

‘Between Angels and Insects’ in Tomorrow’s Cthulhu

‘And Ashes In Her Hair’ in Something Remains

That's all, unless anyone counts was my blog about Spectral Press as non-fiction – it seems to have ended up being read more than anything else I’ve done to date!

Right, that’s the horn-blowing out of the way… as you were. Happy Valentine's Day, and read good stuff.

Fantasycon By The Sea...

Conducting myself appropriately at the Alchemy Press launch. 

...was an absolute blast.

I always love Fantasycon, but this was a cracker by any stretch of the imagination. There was a huge amount going on, and huge numbers of lovely people - and I only got to talk to a fraction of the ones I would have loved to catch up with! - but here are a few highlights.

Getting to talk to Frances Hardinge, whose work I've become a huge fan of, and catching her interview with Kim Lakin-Smith. Amazing writer, lovely person and very, very funny.

 Meeting Catriona Ward, author of Rawblood (which won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror

Novel at the British Fantasy Awards.)

The panel 'Girls Just Want To Have Fun', about women in genre fiction, with Catriona, Maura McHugh, Ann Nicholls, Heide Goody and Priya Sharma. Which got left off the printed programme - a source of some sardonic amusement! - but was the best panel I saw that weekend.

The launch of Snowbooks' novella line, resurrecting novellas from John Llewellyn Probert, Ray Cluley, Mark Morris and, of course, Cate Gardner, that were originally published by Spectral Press, together with new work from Gary Fry and Andrew Hook.


Getting to meet Keris McDonald/Janine Ashbless properly IRL - and to sign her copy of Hell's Ditch! Keris has new stories out in The Private Life Of Elder Things, along with Adrian Tchaikovsky and Adam Gauntlett. That one's out from Alchemy Press, along with the Joel Lane tribute anthology Something Remains. Massive kudos to Pete Coleborn, Jan Edwards and Pauline Dungate for making that anthology happen.

Getting to meet the force of nature that is Georgina Bruce. Also getting to meet Emma Cosh, Sarah Dodd, Miranda Jewess and many, many other new people.

Catching up with other friends like Lynda Rucker and Sean Hogan, Alison Littlewood and Fergus Beadle (who we stalked and were stalked by en route to the Con...) Helen Marshall and Vince Haig, Gary Fry, Gary and Emily McMahon, Stephen Volk, Steve Savile, John Llewellyn Probert and Thana Niveau, Anna Taborska, Andrew Hook and Sophie Essex, Laura Mauro, Victoria Leslie, Ray Cluley and Jess Jordan, Adrian and Annie Czajkowski, Phil Sloman, Des Lewis, Jon Oliver, Dave Moore, Lydia Gittins, Nina Allan, Jim Mcleod.... the list goes on and on and I'm sure I've missed important people off....

Seeing the Karl Edward Wagner Award go to the Redshirts, past and present, who make the whole thing happen.

And best of all, seeing the lovely Priya Sharma win the Best Short Story Award for the superb 'Fabulous Beasts'.

I was on the jury for Best Collection with Carole Johnstone and Emma Cosh - the shortlisted collections were all superb, and picking a winner was a very, very tough call to make. Nonetheless, we were all unanimous in our vote: the fantastic Ghost Summer: Stories by Tananarive Due. It's a beautiful, powerful collection, and hugely recommended.

A fantastic weekend. I'm missing it already.

Next year, FCon's in Daventry. Can't wait!

FCon Awaits...

Tomorrow, the dread trio that is Bestwick, Gardner and Priya Sharma will be setting off again, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (Except that there'll be three of us, and two of us are women, and we're in a car.) Off to Scarborough, for FANTASYCON!

Very much looking forward to seeing some old friends and meeting a few new ones.

The highlights, for me, will be the Snowbooks launch (featuring the relaunch of Cate's novella The Bureau Of Them), the awards (where Cate's on the shortlist for Best Novella alongside Nnedi Okorafor, Usman Tanveer Malik, Mark Morris and Paul Cornell, and where both Cate and Priya are shortlisted for Best Short Story with V.H. Leslie, Ralph Robert Moore, Adam Nevill and Frances Kay) - and the launch of Alchemy Press' tribute anthology to Joel Lane, Something Remains.

The inimitable Des Lewis has carried out one of his real-time reviews of Something Remains, available in three parts here, here and here.

Of my own contribution, 'And Ashes In Her Hair', Des says:


Ashes are fragments from many things all made the same thing by fire. This story, from whatever fragment it is made, is overtly the story of a call centre worker under strict employment rules, wringing out, from the results of a soul’s combustion, his own casual relationships with this book’s earlier waifs and strays – and wreaking sustenance from near-poisoned food, as well as eventually becoming complicit with acts of arson-into-ashes taking place in the vacant lot near the office where he works … with a swaddled outcome wrought into being as if for his embracing of a bereavement as well as of a potential birth. Heartbreaking.

I haven't seen Des since my first Fantasycon back in 1999. I believe he's going to be at this one though; it'll be good to meet him again.

For those others going this weekend - see you there!

My Fantasycon Schedule, 2016

Fantasycon By The Sea is nearly upon us! From the 23rd to the 25th of September, the (hopefully) sunny seaside town of Scarborough plays host to a motley mob of writers, editors, illustrators and fans.

It's going to be mostly a quiet con for me this year: when not in the bar, I have one panel, two launches and maybe a reading.

Saturday 24th September

12.00pm -1.00pm
Book launch: Alchemy Press
Main Ballroom,  Grand Hotel, St Nicholas Cliff
Something Remains, by Alchemy Press, including my story 'And Ashes In Her Hair'.
Also: The Private Life of Elder Things, by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Keris McDonald and Adam Gauntlett.


2.00pm - 3.00pm
Book launch: Snowbooks
Main Ballroom, Grand Hotel, St Nicholas Cliff

Actually, this is for Cate rather than me - Snowbooks are publishing her novella The Bureau Of Them, alongside novellas by Mark Morris, Ray Cluley, Gary Fry, Andrew Hook and John Llewellyn Probert. They'll be bringing out Devil's Highway too, but sadly not until next month!


8.00pm - 9.00pm
Panel: Paint It Black: Why Is Horror So Often Incorporated Into Other Genres?
Palm Court Ballroom, Grand Hotel, St Nicholas Cliff
Simon Bestwick, S J Townsend, Jo Thomas, Timothy Jarvis, Phil Sloman (Chair)

I've put in for a reading slot as well, but don't know if I have one as yet. Will let you know if I do.

See you there!

Things Of The Week: 10th June 2016

Bits and pieces of stuff this week. Work on Devil's Highway grinds steadily on, gathering momentum. Fingers crossed, I might just pull this one off.

In other news, the shortlist for the British Fantasy Awards was announced on Monday. Some of you may remember that I posted a few recommendations for the shortlist back in February - and a very gratifying number of them have made the shortlists! Either I'm a major trendsetter, have developed powers of mind control without realising. Or, more likely, I just felt the same way as a majority of voters. The most boring explanations are usually the likeliest.

I'm on one of the juries - for Best Collection, alongside Carole Johnstone and Emma Cosh. The nominations in that category are:

Ghost Summer: Stories, Tananarive Due (Prime Books)
Monsters, Paul Kane (The Alchemy Press)
Probably Monsters, Ray Cluley (ChiZine Publications)
Scar City, Joel Lane (Eibonvale Press)
Skein and Bone, V.H. Leslie (Undertow Publications)
The Stars Seem So Far Away, Margrét Helgadóttir (Fox Spirit Books)

We're going to have our work cut out, to say the least. I've read some of the collections, but not others - but there's no doubt it's going to be a close-run thing.

I didn't make the shortlist this year - I hadn't expected to, given the quality of work out there - unless you count The Second Spectral Book Of Horror Stories, which has nominated for Best Anthology and which includes my story 'Horn Of The Hunter.' Despite my (and others') well-documented issues with Spectral Press and issues raised in respect of its TOC, I think it's an excellent anthology and a fine achievement by Mark Morris.


However, someone else did make the shortlist, and this for me was the best news of the whole thing.

Among my recommendations back in February were a short story and a novella, 'When The Moon Man Knocks' and The Bureau Of Them, which in my admittedly biased view were two of the best things published last year. Both of them have been shortlisted, alongside (among others) Nnedi Okorafor, Mark Morris, Priya Sharma, V.H. Leslie, Adam Nevill and Usman Tanveer Malik.

Both pieces are, of course, by Cate Gardner, now also known as Mrs Bestwick. (It's still great to write that!) 'When The Moon Man Knocks,' in particular, is one of the best things Cate's ever written, a heartbreaking and unsettling meditation on grief and loss. It's also packed with oddness and invention, in a world that's half the one we know and half a surreal fairyland - somewhere between Lewis Carroll and early Tim Burton. Cate wrote it shortly after her mum passed away; today would have been Pauline's 71st birthday.

Anyway, I'm hugely proud of and happy for Cate today. Fingers crossed for the awards in September!

(Belated) Things Of The Week: 29th February 2016

Things of the Week, as I said a little while back, has started to become almost a regular feature here. Of course, that only works when you actually have stuff to talk about. I've had an incredible start to 2016, in that for the past few weeks there's been a succession of things to report. Naturally, though, that can't happen all the time.


This past week's been fairly quiet, with one exception: the days have been steadily counting down to the paperback release of Hell's Ditch.

My author copies should be here soon (tries not to slaver) and the paperback is officially released tomorrow. Can't wait!

There'll be an online launch party tomorrow (public event, for any who wish to show up) and, of course, the physical launch at Waterstones on March 11th with Ramsey Campbell and Conrad Williams.


In other news, I've finally completed the outline (all nearly 30,000 words of it) for The Devil's Highway and set to work on the novel proper. It's been a little scary, I have to admit. I thought writing the second part of the series would be easier, now that the characters and world of the book are well-established, but now the fears kick in: this won't work as well as the first book, that I won't be able to do as good a job, that it'll be slipshod, sloppy, lazy...

The same as usual, basically.

So the important part is to get the words down. Record it, type it up: once it's there on the page, it's just a matter of fixing it.

I hope so, anyway. There might be a few loose ends and rough edges in the outline, funnily enough, because I was still tinkering and fiddling right up to the last moment until I realised it had become a way of avoiding the real, scary task of writing the book. Or of preparing everything so thoroughly, so well, that there's no chance at all of anything going wrong - which is a guarantee, in writing, that no-one ever gets.

So now the work begins. I'm hoping to have the first draft finished by the end of March. We'll see how I do.

Finally, remember today's the last day for voting in the British Fantasy Awards. Good luck to all concerned, and once again - if you're eligible, please cast a vote. Let's make this is fair and open a contest as it can be.

Have a good week, all of you.

Some Recs for the British Fantasy Awards

Voting for the British Fantasy Awards closes at the end of the month.

There's a suggestions list available here of titles that have been put forward. It's not a shortlist or longlist: that only happens once it's voted on.

You're eligible to vote if you're
a) a BFS member
b) attended Fantasycon 2015
c) are attending Fantasycon 2016.

After that, it's over to the juries; if they decide there's been an egregious omission they'll add it to the list, then deliberate.

If you're eligible, please vote if you can. NOT for me. Well, not unless you genuinely think something of mine counts as 'best of the year'. Just vote. Take part. The more people do, the fairer the selection process will be, and the more meaningful the award.

I've already listed the stuff of mine that's eligible, so I won't repeat myself here. I want instead to list a few pieces that I think are worthy of your consideration. (Although with less than a week to go, there'll be precious little time to read them, I know. But anyway.)

I often hesitate to vote, purely because I always realise how much great stuff I haven't read every year. But very few of us will have read everything on the suggestions list; any recommendations therefore are a good idea, as they might actually lead to some of us widening our reading! So along with stuff I've read and rated, I've also listed titles I haven't read but think will be worth a look should you have the opportunity.

Novels (Horror)
The Silence, by Tim Lebbon. A brilliantly-imagined, ingeniously-told and superbly-characterised novel in which the 'vesps' - voracious, sightless flying killers - swarm across Europe. They hunt by sound, homing in on the smallest noise. The apocalypse trends on Twitter and is shared via Facebook and YouTube. I loved it.

The Death House, by Sarah Pinborough. In a dystopian future, a group of children with an incurable

genetic condition are housed in a boarding-school-like facility to await the inevitable end. Toby, the protagonist, falls in love with a new arrival called Clara. Best summed up by the epigraph: 'everybody dies. It's how you choose to live that counts.' First class.

Lost Girl, by Adam Nevill. Climate change, global pandemics, refugee crises... as human civilisation approaches its final collapse, the nameless Red Father pursues a single-minded quest to find his daughter, kidnapped two years before. Maybe not quite as relentlessly terrifying as No One Gets Out Alive, but it's close. And there's a lot less fantasy in here than any of us would like.

Not read, but recommended:

A Head Full Of Ghosts, Paul Tremblay. Heard great things about this.

The Night Clock, Paul Meloy. Meloy's particular brand of SF, Fantasy, horror and great prose has marked him out as one of the best British writers of the just plain weird for years now. The Night Clock is his long-overdue first novel.

Day Four, Sarah Lotz. The follow-up to The Three, which won Lotz last year's BFA for Best Newcomer. Should be well worth the read.

Point Hollow, Rio Youers. Youers' Westlake Soul was an amazing achievement. A superb writer.

Rawblood, Catriona Ward. Heard great things about this one, too.

Novels (Fantasy)

I haven't read the novels below, but I'd recommend them on the strength of the authors' previous work.

Ecko Endgame, Danie Ware. Ware's debut, Ecko Rising, fused dystopian SF/Thriller with high fantasy to great effect. I still haven't read Ecko Burning, the second book in the series, but I will. And then it'll be on to the Endgame.

Planetfall, Emma Newman. Newman's 'Split Worlds' novels are brilliant urban fantasy; Planetfall takes her into harder SF territory. I've only heard the first chapter or so of this when Emma read it out at last year's Fantasycon, but that was enough to make me want to read it.

Vermilion, Molly Tanzer. Tanzer's first book, A Pretty Mouth, was a series of linked stories centring around the aristocratic Calipash family. Shenanigans both sexual and Lovecraftian, comical and creepy, abounded. She's an inventive, talented and original voice; I've no doubt that this very weird Western will be worth tracking down.

Anthologies

The Second Spectral Book of Horror Stories. Notwithstanding the issues with Spectral Press, or the conversation about the representation of women in horror that it and some other anthos spawned, it's still a very strong book - and I'm not just saying that because I've got a story in it. Mark Morris has put together a host of fine stories from excellent writers, and I'm glad to report that he'll be reviving the anthology for Titan Books.

I also can't resist giving the nod to another anthology I was in, Jonathan Green's Game Over.

Not read, but recommended:

Best British Horror 2015, ed. Johnny Mains. Johnny's last Best British Horror anthology, sadly. He's done some good ones.

African Monsters, Margret Helgadottir and Jo Thomas (eds.) (Fox Spirit Books) Some amazing speculative fiction has been coming from African authors lately. This is an antho I need to lay hands on.

The Monstrous, ed. Ellen Datlow. It's an Ellen Datlow anthology. 'Nuff said.

The Doll Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow. As above.

Collections
Probably Monsters, Ray Cluley.
Skein and Bone, V.H. Leslie.

Novellas

I read some damn good ones last year. Unfortunately, they were all published by Spectral Press, and

fell victim to the clusterfuck that arose. They'll be seeing the light again, but for the time being, if you don't already have a copy, you may not be able to find one.

Albion Fay by Mark Morris. After a family tragedy, middle-aged Frank is drawn back - first emotionally, the literally, to Albion Fay - the holiday cottage his family visited when he was in his teens. Something happened there, and things were never the same again. Intricate, sad and haunting.

Leytonstone by Stephen Volk. A companion piece to Whitstable, Volk's novella about Peter Cushing; this one centres on Alfred Hitchcock's childhood. Beautifully evoked and unsettling.

The Bureau of Them by Cate Gardner. (Yes, the one I'm marrying. It's still a brilliant novella in my view.) One of Cate's darkest and most relentless stories, balanced by her gift for finding the strange, surreal and comic in the everyday.

Not read, but recommended:

Binti, Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor's debut novel, Who Fears Death, was a masterpiece. She's a major new voice.

The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Djinn, Usman Tanveer Malik. I've loved Malik's work since reading his beautiful and poignant short story 'Ishq' in Black Static. This one has been very highly praised.

Stories

Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma. Priya's a wonderful writer, and this tale is an utter beauty.

When The Moon Man Knocks, Cate Gardner. Yes, it's the missus again. But once again, it's because I absolutely love this story of hers, published in Black Static #48. It's one of the best things she's written: beautiful, strange, and utterly heartrending in its portrayal of bereavement and loss.

And that's all! Happy voting, folks.