Rumours about Rumours... #3

To my delight and astonishment, Rumours of the Marvellous continues to get off lightly in its run-ins with the critics. A particularly generous review appeared a week or so ago, courtesy of the lovely Simon Marshall-Jones. More about Simon in a moment, but first here's this month's pull-quote:

              "A treasure-trove of unearthly delights ... consistently inventive ... the writing is contemporary and hip, yet beautifully lyrical"

The whole review can be found over at This is Horror (thisishorror.co.uk), a great website and one well worth visiting for many reasons over and above their kindness to your Uncle Pete.

As well as being one of the eminences grises at This is Horror, the tattooed magnificence known to his intimates as Simon Marshall-Jones is also the publisher and editor of Spectral Press (spectralpress.wordpress.com), where he is doing sterling work keeping the ghost story tradition alive in a series of beautifully produced chapbooks and novellas featuring the work of some excellent contemporary writers. Well worth your attention (and your money).

In other Rumours news, I'm thrilled to report that Steve Jones has selected the collection's closing story, "Dancing like we're Dumb", to appear in the latest edition of his award-winning series Best New Horror. This is volume 23 of BNH -- which means the series has now become the longest-running 'best horror' anthology in history, so congratulations to Steve and to all of us lucky enough to have appeared in it over the years.

And yes -- before you write in -- Steve Jones knows perfectly well how to spell Joan Aiken's name. The image above is a publisher's prelim, and the great lady's name will be fixed before publication.

Talking of Jonesy, here's another blast-from-the-past picture that he recently sent me, featuring me and him and a bunch of other reprobates at the 1992 launch of The Hellraiser Chronicles. Twenty years ago. My God.

From left to right, not counting the life-size Pinhead dummy, you've got Bob Keen, Mr. Jones (in the cool aviators), Ken Cranham, Doug Bradley (kneeling), moi, and Nick Vince. All still alive and well, I'm delighted to say, albeit not all quite as svelte as we once were...