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Much excitement at Allumination Towers as Interzone 235 has just come out. It includes my novella ‘Of Dawn’ – more details / buy a copy here. The story’s been rather beautifully illustrated by Richard Wagner, he’s caught its mood perfectly. Alas, this is the biggest version of it I could find; to get the full effect, snap up your copy of Interzone!

Of Dawn in Interzone 235

And of course, there’s a lot of music in the story. Some of the sounds that helped inspire it are name-checked in the story, but there’s some other very important stuff that (in the end) its protagonist Sarah didn’t run into. I thought I’d share some of it here…

That’s ‘Rattler’s Hey’ by Belbury Poly, from their album ‘The Owl’s Map’. They’re one of the Ghost Box roster of artists – strange and wonderful music from a strange and wonderful label, and a big inspiration for the story.

Brian’s hypnotic, evocative music is all too easy to lose yourself in – I’ve tried and failed to write about it directly, the best thing to do is just open up your mind and listen. Check out more of his work here at his website.

 

And finally, that’s ‘The Pheasant’ from Matt Berry’s mighty ‘Witchazel’ (imagine Ronnie Hazlehurst’s great lost pyschedelic soul album, and you’re part way there). For more, here’s his MySpace page – plus my ramblings about ‘The Badger’s Wake’, one of the album’s key songs, in a previous blog post.

I’ve made a pilgrimage way beyond Canary Wharf, to Lesnes Abbey, in East London. Before finding the ruins, I lost myself in the neighbouring Abbey Woods. They’re very ancient; there’s a strong sense of the numinous there, of the close presence of a specifically English, and very primal divinity.

Less so at the Abbey. There’s a group of people playing football, a man teaching his small son and daughter cricket. Gothic buildings lie in ruins, their intensity replaced by everyday joys. A walking party comes by, discussing history. Religion is a memory here; a soft counterpoint to the vivid life of the surrounding woods.

Two excitements at once. First of all, I’ve sold my story ‘Fishermen’ to Interzone! Which is fantastic news – watch out for it (I think) sometime this autumn, I suspect just before ‘Sohoitis’ comes out in Postscripts 17 (current issue available here). And secondly, I’ll be celebrating this weekend at Jean Herve Peron’s Avant Garde Festival at Shiphorst – which should be wildly entertaining, and more than a little crazed. And if you want to experience it for yourself, details on how to stream it are on the home page…

‘History is the trade secret of science fiction’ – Ken Macleod