Recommended Reading: Dead Souls from Mark S. Deniz

Mark S. Deniz's latest anthology from Morrigan Books, Deal Souls, has just been released, the book with the creepy cover of a spider crawling over an eyeball. It features stories from Ramsey Campbell, Paul Finch, Gary McMahon and many others. The theme focuses on people without souls, who have taken the darker path in life. The possibilities...

I always like to see anthologies with strong themes yet broad enough to capture both the writers and readers imagination, and I'm certain this is what Dead Souls does. I'm sure it will do well.

Recommended Books: New Ceres Nights

Just released from Twelfth Planet Press and edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Tehani Wessely is New Ceres Nights, an anthology of shared-world space opera tales set on planet that insists on embracing the Age of Enlightenment of nearly two hundred years ago. Meanwhile the Earth has been destroyed and interstellar conflict looms, and the success of this planet-wide experiment balances on the brink of collapse. The collection includes stories from Dirk Flinthart and Stephen Dedman, amongst others.

Twelfth Planet Press is an up and coming small press outfit from Western Australia who have previously released two prior books, 2012 of near future science fiction tales (well mostly, some were horror and some were fantasy) including my own rumble-in-the-jungle tale "Soft Viscosity", and Angel Rising by Dirk Flinthart which incidentally is also set in the New Ceres world.

Recommended Books: Shards by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

Shane Jiraiya Cummings has just released his first book, Shards, out this week from Brimstone Press. The collection contains much of his short fiction, all of it dark, and some previously unpublished tales. The book is also enhanced by the wonderful illustrations of Andrew J. McKiernan.

Shane has been active in the dark fiction scene in Australia for many years editing several anthologies including Shadow Box and Black Box, and is the managing editor of OzHorrorScope. He and his wife Angela Challis also produced the very slick online flash fiction site Shadowed Realms, and Black Magazine. So he’s really contributed a lot to making dark fiction and horror as big as it is in Australia.

That said, I recommend Shards because Shane is a great writer. Last year he contributed a tale to the anthology I edited Cthulhu’s Dark Cults, and it was a great action packed tale of horror, “Requiem for the Burning God”. This story won’t appear in Shards, but plenty of other great tales will. I'm looking forward to it.