Stephen J. Clark

In post-War Britain, an artist finds a letter in a bookshop, and is drawn into the shadowy world of a group of war veterans in Newcastle, who are engaged in secretive rituals and games that seem to threaten the very structure of reality. The tale is told through letters, journal entries and the author's own hallucinatory illustrations, all of which conspire to draw the reader in, as events spiral to a climax. This is a beautifully designed book and an entirely original work of weird fiction.

The forties Newcastle of bomb sites and junk heaps is atmospherically evoked, and the mysterious portents arising out this chaos of broken clutter are a little reminiscent of the films of the Czech Surrealist Jan Svankmajer. The book does, in fact, draw heavily on Surrealist ideas, some of which will be familiar to anyone who has ever come across the journals of the group of which the author is a part, but it isn't necessary to know this, any more than Arthur Machen's work depends on a knowledge of his beliefs.

Clark's previous publications have quickly become collector's items, and this limited edition is his most lavish and powerful yet - if intrigued, don't delay!… (meer)