Steven Mace

Where you can buy Beyond Twilight: Lulu (hard print copy):  http://www.lulu.com/shop/steven-mace/beyond-twilight-fourteen-short-stories/paperback/product-22049309.html Amazon Kindle (eBook for Kindle version):  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Twilight-Fourteen-short-stories-ebook/dp/B0057FKS32 Smashwords (eBook version):  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/295025 Cover artwork for Beyond Twilight My first short story collection Beyond Twilight contains most of my earlier writing. I wrote my first group of short stories between 1997 and 2002, and these were mainly horror, fantasy and SF stories, but there were even a couple of children's stories.  This first group which were written in this period consisted of the following stories: 'Death Head'; 'Martin'; 'The Baron's Cheesecake'; 'The Question'; 'The Lost Boy'; 'The Prodigal'; 'Electra'; 'Garden of Illusion'; 'Moonlight Bay'; 'R...

"The Descent"- illustration by Alena Mana Where you can buy The Pirate Princess : Lulu (hard print copy):  http://www.lulu.com/shop/steven-mace/the-pirate-princess/paperback/product-22049377.html Amazon Kindle (ebook for Kindle version):  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pirate-Princess-Steven-Mace-ebook/dp/B0057FKOJA Smashwords (ebook version):  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/295024 The Pirate Princess is a much shorter novel than Copper Moon Rising, almost a novella, and was written during intervals between 2006 and 2010. It's a straight-forward fantasy adventure tale, and I suppose it can be categorised as young adult fiction. Pirates were a popular theme during this period, perhaps due to the success of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films. The Pirate Princess is set in a fictional unknown fantasy world, in a region that has geographical and cultural aspects similar to Arabia, the Mediterranean and Caribbean locations in centuries past. My mai...

I hope to publish two new books this year, but before I do I wanted to talk about my previous books. The first of these is my first novel, the science fiction-fantasy epic Copper Moon Rising. You can buy a copy of this novel at: Lulu (hard print copy):  http://www.lulu.com/shop/steven-mace/copper-moon-rising/paperback/product-22048995.html Amazon Kindle- ebook for Kindle version  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Copper-Moon-Rising-Steven-Mace-ebook/dp/B0057FKQO8 Smashwords- ebook version  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/295022 The cover for Copper Moon Rising: "Damnation Alley" by Peter Krause Copper Moon Rising was my first attempt at a novel, and my labours on it proved to be very difficult. The creation of this novel was a stop-start and elongated process. To give you some idea, I started writing it in 1997, and did not finish the published version which is available, until 2010. I started it when I was 18 years old, and eventually finished it when I wa...

My short story "The Prodigal" has been published in the dark fiction webzine Inner Sins. I had the original idea for this story many years ago. In fact, two things I have written sprang from this singular idea.  This idea concerned a boy who was running from something unknown, and who then met an older man who sought to help him. In the first case- a boy running through a remote alien forest, away from mysterious pursuers- this became the opening chapter of my Fantasy/SF novel Copper Moon Rising . In the second version of the idea, the boy who was pursued became somebody who was much darker, a little nastier. In this particular tale, the boy on the run was not a victim, or heroic in any way, like the banished orphaned prince in Copper Moon Rising . This boy was evil, he had done something very bad, and his pursuers were seeking vengeance. This boy had returned from the dead, although he was not a ghost- for his flesh and blood had been preserved for his torturous p...

The dark fiction webzine Inner Sins selected me as their featured writer in the Issue 18, Fall 2014 edition which went live on 1st October. They asked me to do an interview, which you can read here:  Steven Mace- Featured Writer- Inner Sins interview Inner Sins is an American webzine, and my answers were edited for their readers. Additionally, I thought I'd share the transcript of my original replies to their questions here on my blog: What prompted you to become a writer? Before wanting to become a writer myself, firstly I was an avid reader. Imagination comes in handy, and sometimes a fantasy world is more vivid and attractive than the mundane aspects of real life. I would like to think I still possess a child's sense of wonderment and pleasure in 'making stuff up' even though I am in my 30s now. I never idolised any particular writers, but in my teens I hit a moment of self-realisation that I wanted to create worlds of characters, conflicts and plot,...

My horror-fantasy short story "The Spy Glass" has been published in Sanitarium Magazine Issue #023: The central idea of this story is a device that allows the viewer to peer not only through distances but through time and space itself. There is the added implication that such a gift comes with a curse. What else would you expect of such an artefact, found " in the ruins of the ancient city they discovered in the hills south of here, way beyond the deepest jungles and the great river "? Check out this and more stories at Sanitarium Magazine's website, which can be found  here  and for news and more information go to their Facebook page, which can be found  here .

More publication news- my sinister supernatural short story "Moonlight Bay" has been published in Volume 3 of Hellfire Crossroads , edited by Trevor Denyer. A little bit of chronology: I first wrote an earlier version of this story in 2001/2002, and then I re-wrote it in 2008 (after a holiday in Cornwall, altering it to a Cornish setting). I still wasn't completely happy with the story, until I finally completed a definitive version in 2012. It is this version which now appears in Hellfire Crossroads , and will be appearing in my forthcoming new short story collection, Echoes and Exiles . It's about a small coastal town in Cornwall with a dark secret. It took those two rewrites to capture the mood and atmosphere that I intended to create- I wasn't interested in Godzilla-style monsters or creature-horror, or anything particularly gory with this tale. I wanted  to depict a dark sense of unease. Imagine a situation something akin to a holidaymaker bathin...