I don’t know about you, but 2018 has started off, as years often do, as dark and quite gloomy. My heating has broken down again. The snow is incoming here in Edinburgh, but there’s something quite exciting that’s countering my chill –
The first review of Mayhem & Death has been published, and, delighted with its positivity, 404 Ink have decided to launch pre-sales for the bundle of both the new Mayhem & Death and new release of On the Edges of Vision. On the Edges of Vision won the Saltire First Book of the Year back in 2015, and with the press that put it out shuttering, it had gone out of print until 404 zoomed in and saved it. You can get the sparkly new edition along with its sibling for just £15.
On the Edges of Vision
In On the Edges of Vision, unease sounds itself in the language of legend. Images call on memory, on the monstrous self. Throughout Helen McClory’s daring debut collection, the skin prickles against sweeps of light or darkness, the fantastic or the frightful; deep water, dark woods, or scattered flesh in desert sand. Whether telling of a boy cyclops or a pretty dead girl, drowned sailors or the devil himself, each story draws the reader towards not bleakness but a tale half-told, a truth half-true: that the monster is human, and only wants to reach out and take you by the hand.
Mayhem & Death
Helen McClory returns delving deeper into descriptively mythical yet recognisable stories woven from dark and light, human fear and fortune. Swimming and suffering. Spikes loom ever-threatening. A weight against the throat. Sea where the dead lie pressed into a layer of silt. A silent documentary through a terrible place. Mary Somerville, future Queen of Science. A coven of two. Mayhem & Death is the matured, darker companion to On the Edges of Vision and shows McClory’s ever expanding ability to envelop and entrance her readers with lyrical language of lore, stunning settings and curious characters. Mayhem & Death also introduces the brand new novella Powdered Milk, a tale for the lost.
Why should you pre-order? I mean, other than because you might want to make sure two books of uncanny, watery, flash fiction, short stories, prose poems and the like are in your hands as soon as they can be? Well, pre-ordering helps indie publishers immensely if you buy direct from them, avoiding the large online retailer who shall not be named, who frequently undercuts pricing to the point where no one (not even them) make a profit off sales of a book. Supporting via pre-sales allows indie publishers, who work on a hair-thin margin and reserves of passion, to keep the lights on. I’ve mentioned before, but Heather McDaid and Laura Jones, the founders of Award-winning 404, are two amazing young women. They take risks, work incredibly hard, and put out books that other publishers might not even think to pick. Buying from them, whether my book or others, puts your money in their capable hands. You can imagine in doing so you become a kind of minor Medici of the publishing world. All that, and you get books to keep you company on your (armchair) travels.
Pre-order here for delivery anywhere. Or use the link to browse the site. It’s Friday, it’s dark – why not buy a little gift for future you?
Schietree 