Dark Pages, our anthology of dark fiction, was nominated in the best edited works category, but sadly didn’t win. However, guest judge, Rocky Wood, had this to say about the book:

Dark Pages 1 (and let’s hope there are more) is a treat – a collection of dark fiction ranging outside the horror genre (including science fiction) and including authors from outside Down Under. Marty Young’s neat little “Clip Notes” has the classic Twilight Zone feel to it and is but one example of what makes this anthology a deeply satisfying read.

Get your copy now!

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Categories: Anthology, Awards
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We are very proud to announce another few accolades for Blade Red Press books. Not only is Dark Pages currently nominated for an Australian Shadows Award, but no less than six of the stories in that anthology have scored an Honourable Mention on Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year list. You can find the full lists here and here.

The stories included are:

Lucien E.G. Spelman – “The Stain of the Psychopomp King”
Naomi Bell – “Dust”
Joel L Murr – “The Franchise”
Aaron Polson – “Cargo”
Derek Rutherford – “Yellow Water Pike”
Robert Neilson – “Nightwork”

Our congratulations go out to all those writers. Thanks for making Dark Pages such an awesome book. If you haven’t got your copy yet, get it here!

Also mentioned on the list is:

Bill Congreve – “The Traps of Tumut”, which originally appeared in Aurealis 43. That story is reprinted in Bill’s collection, Souls Along The Meridian, which is another Blade Red Press book. You can get that one here.

So congratulations to Bill too!

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Categories: Anthology, Awards, Bill Congreve, News
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March 6th to 12th is Read An Ebook Week. You may or may not enjoy ebooks already and we’re not here to convert you. But, in celebration of the week, our two anthologies – Souls Along The Meridian by Bill Congreve and Dark Pages 1 edited by Brenton Tomlinson are available for half price. Also, Alan Baxter noir sci-fi novella, Ghost Of The Black, is free for the week.

All you need to do is go to the relevant page and purchase the book and then use the code RAE50 at checkout to apply the discounts. Direct links below. Go get ‘em:

Ghost Of The Black.

Souls Along The Meridian.

Dark Pages 1.

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Categories: Alan Baxter, Anthology, Bill Congreve, Ebook, News
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Blade Red Press is insanely proud to announce that our first anthology of dark fiction, Dark Pages, has been nominated for an Australian Shadows Award. These Awards are the premier dark fiction awards in Australia and well respected around the world.

Huge congratulations to our fantastic editor, Brenton Tomlinson, and to all the great authors in this collection. This is your accolade, all of you.

Full details of the Awards shortlists are here.

If you haven’t got your copy of Dark Pages yet, why the hell not? It’s been nominated for an award, after all. Get it here!

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Categories: Anthology, Awards, News
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Fresh off the back of making the Horrorscope recommended reading list for 2010, Bill Congreve’s excellent collection, Souls Along The Meridian, has received a 9/10 scored review at Scary Minds.

There are probably a few weaker stories with Bill Congreve’s name on them in the bottom draw of his desk, but since they aren’t included you are left with the impression that Congreve started his career strongly, hasn’t missed a beat, and has maintained a high standard down the years…

Souls Along The Meridian is an exemplary collection that strides purposely out of the genre swamp and lays claim to being one of the best releases of any genre in 2010.

Read the full review here.

And if you haven’t got it yet, buy your copy right here!

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Categories: Anthology, Bill Congreve, Review
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We’d like to congratulate Blade Red Press author Bill congreve on his collection, Souls Along The Meridian making the Horrorscope 2010 Recommended Reading List. A very well deserved accolade in our opinion.

If you haven’t got a copy of this great collection yet, all you need to know is here. Print and ebook versions are available, so whatever your preference, get yourself a copy now.

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Categories: Anthology, Bill Congreve, News
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Souls Along The Meridian author Bill Congreve will be appearing at Infinitas Bookshop in Parramatta on Saturday, 27th November to sign copies of his book. He’ll also be signing copies of the fifth annual Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, of which he is the editor.

Come along and join in the fun:

Infinitas Bookshop
Shop 22 Civic Arcade, 48-50 George St
Parramatta, Australia

From 11am. Tell your friends!

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Categories: Anthology, Bill Congreve, News
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There’s nothing like a reader review, especially a good one. This is a 4 star review from a Goodreads user:

An exceptional collection of dark fiction. Its only real weakness is the amount of territory the selected stories cover–but that was the point of the collection in the first place, and it answers very well. So… well, that doesn’t sound like much of a weakness, does it?

Personal favorites for me were “Nepenthe” by Felicity Dowker and “Cargo” by Aaron Polson–both of which felt very short and packed a punch, but in completely different ways. Modern fairy tale and honest post-apoc respectively. There were one or two that I wasn’t sure about when I started reading them, but really hooked me hard by the end, too: “Surveying the Land” by BD Wilson and “Blood on Green” come to mind in that category.

There’s not a sleeper in the book, though–I could think of something great to say about each of them, from pretty prose to brilliant execution to cool concepts. It’s just more of a something for everyone kind of antho. Sci-fi to fantasy to just plain weird.

Haven’t got your copy yet? Rectify that here!

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Categories: Anthology, Review
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Bill Congreve’s awesome short story collection, Souls Along The Meridian, is now available as an ebook. You can get the Kindle edition here and a variety of ebook formats from Smashwords here.

All the details and other purchase options for the book can be found here.

Please share this news, tell your friends and family and let’s get Bill’s fantastic work noticed by a wider audience.

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Categories: Anthology, Bill Congreve, Ebook, New Releases, News
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Here’s the fourth in our series of previews from the Dark Pages anthology.

Dust
by Naomi Bell

They came from the dust, the man and the horse. From the west, where the wind screamed across the prairie, lifted the good earth to hack at the air in a host of swords. The wind that pounded the walls of the house, clattered at the windows, stole black fingers along the sill.

*

So simple a thing, so easily done. A clench of my hand and the old blade will part the skin into a black-red sea. There, at the hollow ‘twixt collar and throat, there will I find the path to deliverance.
The man sits on the bench, his face in his hands. Dust stains him in the colors of earth. Even here, it slithers under the door to lie at his feet.

I sit beside him, my hands on his flesh. He looks to Matthew while I cut away the rust-red cloth. The scissors slide flat against his skin, tug at the torn strips of shirt he has used to bind the wound. As I peel back the bandage, blood rises.

He shudders. I still my hands, the point of the scissors against the soft paleness of his body. He looks at me now with forgiveness.

—I can bear it.

Dust layers his skin, blackens the wound. Blood and dust, staining my fingers.

*

We’d been inside, in our silence. Matthew paced from room to room, the pages of the Bible in his hand rustling as autumn leaves. I set to my chores, head down to my well-trodden path. Vegetables in the pot. Plates on the table. Two plates now, not three.

I saw Jamie in the turn of my head, heard him in the slammed door, the scrape on the verandah that might be a footstep. The vegetables tumbled from my fingers.

Outside, the wind railed, pelted dust to shroud the sun in daytime darkness. Grit clawed through the chinks between the boards, pinpricked my every breath.

We heard, then, a thud on thud, wood on wood. Matthew cursed, glad of it, and looked to the window. There, in the black-gray churning, we saw the paddock gate banging loose. Matthew swore, said he’d shut the gate, but my eye led me further, to the barn and beside it a horse and a man. The horse stood head low, its rump to the wind, its nose at the barn door.

We didn’t speak, didn’t decide. Wrapped our faces in cloths, pushed open the door. We crept across the yard, holding onto each other, bent half-over. The dust launched at us, drove us sideways ‘til we nearly missed the gate, had to feel along the fence to find it.

The man half-lay along the horse’s neck, the reins trailing to the ground. Matthew caught the horse by the bridle, raised its head. When the man lifted his face, his eyes gleamed as pearls in a crusted black mask.

—For pity’s sake, help.

I did not know, not then. I unlatched the barn door, strained to drag it open against the pummeling air. Matthew clicked his tongue and led the horse inside. In the sudden hush, the man slid down the horse’s shoulder to the dirt floor.

—Thieves. On the road.

The dust had coated man and horse, skin and hide as ash. Loose, the horse stepped away, plodded into the empty stall. It stood shaking its head, blowing out its nostrils.

Matthew found a pail, carried water to the horse. He hauled off the saddle, threw it over a rail. The saddle left a square patch on the horse’s coat, deep copper streaked dark with sweat. On its withers was a penny-sized patch of white hair, where an ill-fitting saddle had once rubbed. When it had drunk and lifted its head, its gray face ended in a chestnut muzzle with a wide white splash.

The horse turned its head to Matthew and nickered.

A chestnut horse with a white blaze. Jamie’s horse.

*

Matthew had wanted his son to go to school. Wanted him to turn aside from our life of drought and blizzard. I told him, then, that the money should go to the bank, but he shook his head, said that I couldn’t understand. He took Jamie and together they walked the road off our farm, dogged by a plume of dust that reached to the knee. I watched them from the kitchen window, marked the spot where they shifted into the distance.

I turned to the farm, the labor to wring the day’s food from the land. Under the high clear sky I fed the livestock, worked the vegetable garden, hauled water bucket by bucket from the well. In the surrounding fields, the crop grew, rolling seams of gold, a promise spread across the land.

As the sun slid low, Matthew returned, leading Jamie on a horse. The dust danced about their feet. At the paddock gate, Matthew lifted Jamie down, tousled his hair, both of them grinning. Jamie threw his arms around the horse’s neck. He led the horse into a stall, loosening the saddle-cinch while Matthew gave instructions.

The horse looked like a hide stretched over a fence rail. Hollow flanks, sharp hipbones, dull red coat. Jamie took feed meant for the milk-cow and gave it to the horse.

Matthew explained that he’d taken money that we’d scratched from the earth, money that could buy a doctor or a winter meal, and offered it to the horse-dealer. And the horse-dealer shook his head. But in a corner pen, Jaime spotted a worn-out cowpony, bound for slaughter. The horse dealer smiled and clinked the coins in his pocket.

Proud of his haggling, Matthew said that the horse would teach Jamie, would keep him safe. And Jamie loved that horse. Somewhere in this cracked-dry land he found pasture for it, and when he thought I wasn’t looking he stole corn from my garden. With a harshness that shames me now, I told him that come the long cold of February he might wish that corn in his own belly, but he ran to Matthew instead. I’d hear them, sometimes, from the barn, their voices light in the dusk air. Matthew, with his fool’s tales. I’d sit on the stoop, husking corn, and listen.

Every day across the hard-baked earth, that horse bore my son the seven miles to the school. That school, those books, they poured stories into Jamie’s head, washing out the simple ways of the land.

Matthew was proud of his son. On Sundays after the service he would gather with the other men, brag of his son’s learning. As the farmers talked of the milk drying up in the cows, of the wheat shoots turning brown under the sun, Matthew would rest his hands on Jaime’s shoulders.

—My son will be more than a farmer.

Would that I could take back his pride, humble ourselves and be forgiven.

Two weeks ago, the surveyors came, with their books and strange machines to map a route for the great railroad that will connect us to the East. Every day on his ride home, Jamie would stop awhile at the surveyor’s camp, share their food, listen to their talk. He’d ride home in the slanting sun, babbling their gibberish about devices that could measure the angle of the land as if slicing it into pieces.

I wish I’d forbade such talk. Told him our ways were dug from the earth, our lives rubbed dark with dust. But my words clattered like the blades of the windmill.

Two days ago, men came. Hungry men, empty men from the sun-scorched plain, slashing at the surveyors with knives of broken glass. They wanted the food and they took it. They tried to take the surveyor’s horse, but it kicked and tore free. So one of the men seized Jamie’s horse.

Afterward they said that the surveyors had tried to stop Jamie. But Jamie loved that horse. He grabbed the man’s arm—he was just a boy, not yet ten—he grabbed the man’s arm and the man, oh God, the man killed my son for his horse.

*

Read the rest of this fantastic story and thirteen other superb dark speculative yarns in the Dark Pages anthology. Print and ebook available now. Get your copy here!

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Categories: Anthology
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