The Spoons That Are My Ears!

I'm delighted to announce the official publication of Link Arms With Toads! This showcase of Romanti-Cynical stories features tales from the past 16 years of my writing career. It's available from various bookstores and here is the publisher's webpage devoted to the book. Chômu Press are also holding a prize draw: if you win you'll get a signed copy of Toads! plus a poem or story or drawing in which you are the main character: I'll do that by hand somewhere at the back. Details of the prize draw are here. Good luck! (Wishing "Good luck" to everybody is a bit silly really, as you can't all win, but it seems more courteous than not wishing it; I guess it becomes truly absurd when the person who spins the National Lottery wheel says it).

Already Toads! has received some great reviews. Some books catch the attention of reviewers; some don't. There doesn't seem to be a formula for this, or if there is one it's beyond my understanding. I was asked recently (by Ramsey Campbell) to explain the meaning of 'Romanti-Cynicism'. Well, it was originally designed for other people like me, who are naive and sceptical at the same time: it's a product of my earlier hope that it might be feasible to experiment rigorously with the chemistry of genres, blending them like elements in certain ways to create precise new story-molecules that have never been seen before. Pretentious? No, not really. Just ambitious and a bit daft. But that's the best way to be, in my view.