Steven Mace

In relation to my previous post on Lord of Darkness , I found some fantastic illustrations for different editions of  The Three Mulla-Mulgars (The Three Royal Monkeys) by Walter de la Mare, which I thought I would share with you:

Introduction      The first 'adult' novel that I ever read (or more accurately, perhaps, attempted to read) was Lord of Darkness by Robert Silverberg. I recall that it was a borrowed library book that was lying around the house. Perhaps the cover, which I can remember very clearly, was what attracted me: The cover of the original edition, which I remember well from the library copy at our house when I was a kid. The cover shows Andrew Battell and Dona Teresa, the Portuguese femme fatale who nurses him back to health in the colony   The edition that I currently own, published in 2013 by Nonstop Press        I'm not sure how old I was when I tried to read it. Eight or nine years old, perhaps? When re-reading it years later, I was very surprised by some of the explicit content. I didn't remember it at all from the first time I had read the book. Maybe I had not understood it, or had not found those particular sections of...

Publication News:  My short story "The Visitor" has been published and featured in SNM Horror Magazine's August Asylum issue (#57).   This paranoid horror story is about a creepy mental patient who speaks of being watched by mysterious beings who have compelled him to commit crimes. Although his claims are bizarre and he is considered insane, eventually his psychiatrist uncovers the truth... You can read it here: SNM Horror Magazine- August Asylum  

Publication news: My short story "The Legacy of Steeple Hill" is featured in Litro Magazine's Victoriana issue (July #127). It's a curious story. It definitely has a feel of Edgar Allan Poe/Wilkie Collins about it, and a sinister atmosphere throughout. A Crimean war veteran, Thomas Barrington, visits the ancestral home of the Walsinghams, the mansion on Steeple Hill. It's a suitably gloomy and labyrinthine building overlooking a rugged, ominous coastline. Barrington is calling on his old friend, and the present incumbent and aristocrat owner of the mansion, Lord John Walsingham. Barrington unwittingly stumbles upon a sequence of planned occult rituals orchestrated by Walsingham, which have already resulted in mysterious supernatural events taking place at the forbidding gothic mansion... Please read and enjoy, and I hope you will take the time to read the entire issue as well (Victoriana being a theme close to my heart!) The link is here: Litro Magazine #127 ...

Publication news- my short story 'Winter's Promise' has been published in Blysster Press' Crypticon anthology of horror shorts. It's a supernatural tale about a couple trapped in a mountainside cabin during a heavy snowstorm, and their strange experiences. You can check this story out and more amazing tales by fantastic authors in the anthology, which is available as a paperback from Amazon here : Blysster Press Crypticon Anthology

It's been a long time since I posted a fresh article on this blog, too long in fact. I apologise for this period of silence. The truth is that I have not been silent on here for lack of anything to write, but simply because I've been too busy with other stuff- I've completed the final draft of a new unpublished novel, Staccato House; I've written about 60% of another new novel and I've completed the final draft of a new novella. I've also completed a new collection of short stories, entitled Echoes and Exiles . A few of the stories intended for this have already been published online and in magazines; others are in the progression-stage of making it to publication- that purgatory waiting-room of literary judgement. Once all works have been submitted and found a suitable home, I'll make the rest of the material publicly available as I think its deserving to be read- so I'm guessing that Echoes and Exiles  will (hopefully) be ready to bu...

I don't have all of the books that I own with me at my home in London. I managed to retrieve most of my ancient book and comics collection from the vaults in Lincolnshire. For now my books are shelved without rhyme or reason, but I re-discovered my favourite tomes and reading material from my younger days. Here is the 'library':   There are some rather odd juxtapositions of particular volumes there if you look closely (Stephen King not far from Shakespeare and Dickens), but for now a sensible bibliography will have to wait. Still, I think I can just about get away with placing Tolkien and Lovecraft close together, with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein lurking nearby- I'm just not sure about Virginia Woolf and Charles Darwin!: In the late 1980s and early 1990s I was a voracious reader of comics and graphic novels- particularly 2000AD. It was interesting to rediscover some old favourites, with Judge Dredd featuring prominently: