We don’t often get parcels here in the caves. As soon as this one landed in my pit I tore it open with gusto. What did it contain? Food? Loo roll? Some kind of message of comfort from the outside world?

…No.

But this is a good t-shirt, I’ve got to admit. Fancy one yourself? Click your way to Genki Gear.

MEANWHILE: Are you – yes, you, reading this! – anywhere near Hackney or Colchester in the next day or so, by any happy chance? The monsters are letting me out for events! Click here for all the details.

Sam

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There’s a row of trees outside my studio that look like this. Except, with all those knobbly barks the faces seem to change every time I go past. Either that or they swap places when I’m not looking. My guess is they’re getting a bit fidgety, won’t be long before the leaves cover their more tender regions now that spring has finally arrived.

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Even trapped down here, in the dark recesses of the caves, we get to hear about good causes back in civilisation.  Today I discovered the monsters passing a crumpled letter between their miserable paws, claws and suckers – and to my shock, saw that it was for a good cause!  Amazingly, it was having an affect on them as they sobbed tears of slime, acid and wee…

If the miserable monsters down here were willing to dip into their pockets (or skin pouches), hopefully you can.  It was from Peter Murray, author of the superb MOKEE JOE books (although, now I come to think about it, Peter may very well be on the monsters’ side…)

Here’s what it said:

‘I couldn’t believe it when the Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice asked me to write a story about some animals. Me…the creator of the infamous seven-foot demon, Mokee Joe! Me…the creator of other terrifying monsters, such as the savage Bonebreaker, the devilish Dawn Demons and the feral boy werewolf – The Moonwailer! Me…the writer who’s ambition is to give all children of 7 years upwards nightmares!

So I said ‘Yes’!

How could I refuse to help our local children’s hospice…reknowned for its caring and fun-loving approach in supporting the children staying within its walls.  So I wrote a funny book…a hilarious book…about six animals who call themselves the ‘Bravehearts of Bluebell Wood’.

They defend their little wood against the villainous Foxmaster General and his Ratpack Army. It’s a story for the entire family to enjoy, right from little toddlers all the way up to Grandma and Grandad.

Michael Crawford OBE, the Phantom of the Opera himself, has written a lovely foreward for the book and Rob Barber has illustrated it beautifully.

But the best thing of all is that every time someone spends £6.99 on buying the book, all of the money goes to the hospice to help fund it and keep it running. That makes me feel very proud!

So watch out Mokee Joe and all those other scary creatures, because the Bravehearts of Bluebell Wood are a tough crowd…and no one should get in their way!

You can get a copy of the book by clicking here!

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We all know writers have strange working habits. So it pleases me to see some of them represented in the form of a diagram:

This is taken from: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/visual/charts-graphs/working-methods.php

and they appear to have forgotten about one of the most common places where a writer works: a cave. That is common, right? I mean, other writers round the world are also stuck in caves… aren’t they…? It’s not just… us?

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Joe Craig, study, writing

The competition to win a copy of William Hussey’s brilliant Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide is now well and truly closed. The book will soon be winging its way to lucky winner, Adam Cook, who was drawn at random from all the entries received.

Congratulations, Adam!

Don’t worry if you didn’t win, we’ll have a new competition very soon. In the meantime, to celebrate me reaching 250 posts on my own blog, I’m giving away a signed copy of Invisible Fiends: Mr Mumbles. You can also pick up an exclusive ebook I’ve written, Johnny B. Weeyerd and the Cosmic Annihilator. It’s a full length kids’ comedy sci-fi novel and it’s absolutely free.

To enter the Invisible Fiends competition, just head on over to this post on my blog. Good luck!

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I’ve been on the run from the caves for some time (more in another post shortly) and had a bit more time to read while I was hiding in hotel rooms, so I thought I’d share a few thoughts on some of the books I’ve been reading:

The Tree Devil by Elizabeth Kay

Rick is on his way home from school when he witnesses a strange creature attack his friend. The animal is the size of a grizzly bear, but looks more like a giant toad. Aside from its razor sharp teeth, it also has the chilling ability to camouflage itself against any background.

In The Tree Devil, Elizabeth Kay once again demonstrates her ability to produce a superb storyline whilst exploring issues that will offer great discussion material for the classroom. This high action, science fiction thriller is written in easy language that will engage even the most reluctant boy readers.

Using shades of Frankenstein, and Predator, Elizabeth introduces the scientific principle of dedicated predators and how human scientists use them as a natural pesticide. In this case, the mad professor considers mankind as the pest and has developed the perfect killing machine to eradicate the human race. As with all the best stories for young people, it falls to the two young heroes, Rick and Jack, to uncover the evil plot and thwart the villain before his plan reaches its final phase.

The Tree Devil is another fantastic story from a truly top class writer.

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Those of you who know me (and even many who don’t) are aware that I like my books dark, scary and utterly brilliant.  So you can imagine how excited I am about The Dead by David Gatward, coming in July.  Add this creepy new trailer to the mix, and I’m bouncing off the walls of my cave (without being thrown at them by Trewlop the Muscle-bound, for once…)

I can’t wait for this series!

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Here we try to review a range of books, including the occasional adult book – this one I would say is suitable for 15+, with a strong stomach…

You know a magical book when you’re in an enchanted place and the tome throws itself off the shelf and into your hands.  So it was when I found myself in the superb “Book Soup” store, on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, when I was struck by the cover of THE CHILD THIEF.  Closer examination revealed it was penned by an enigmatically named author named BROM.  The blurb informed me that is was a dark take on Peter Pan, and, with my head spinning with thoughts on my own Tarzan reboot, I spirited it back to the UK.

But the blurb did not do this book justice.  This is not just a dark Peter Pan – this is a whole new approach to our beloved children’s hero.  As I get older, very few books seem to posses that “don’t put down” quality – a sad sign, I’m sure Peter would say, that I’m losing my inner magic.  However, THE CHILD THIEF remained glued to my hands as I followed in the footsteps of Nick, Peter’s latest recruit from the modern gritty streets of New York, into the magical world of Avalon… a world you think you know – but you’ll discover that you’re utterly wrong.

Brom succeeds in creating vibrant multi-faceted characters that made me power through the pages to discover their fate.  Avalon is a richly illustrated dark world; then again it’s a dark book – not one for children, not young children at any rate – with plenty of blood, decapitation coupled with enough swearing to keep the most ardent follower of THE WIRE satisfied.  This is no heavy handed trampling of the original story, instead it takes you on a completely different journey.  The plot relentlessly turns in unexpected directions and the pages are beautifully illustrated with Brom’s own artwork (which you can discover here).

This is, by far, one of the best books I’ve read this year.  THE CHILD THIEF rekindled my childhood magic… even if it is my darker side…

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THE UNSPEAKABLE HORROR!

a Trapped By Monsters story

with art by David Melling

Episode 3   by Ali Sparkes

Earlier on The Unspeakable Horror: Sam killed Grutler, his toenail obsessive jailer with some very small scissors and Andy accidentally slaughtered the multi-limbed Alan with a cheese grater – allowing both authors to escape into secret cave tunnels.

Could this really be it? The Great Author Escape?

(To read the story from the start click HERE.)

‘YESSS!’  I punched the air as I finished the very last paragraph of The Cola Files: LISA (Working title – the monsters were almost certain to change it, even before my editor did).

‘Sllirrruppgah,’ commented Looob the Seeper. His fifth slurper tube had been attached to my left ear for several days now and he still wasn’t done with trying to siphon my brains out. I wasn’t unduly bothered because there wasn’t much suction power in his slurpers; they were designed for collecting algae, tadpoles and that warm sludgy stuff at the bottom of school dinners used cutlery bowls – not frontal lobe extraction. It was a bit like being gummed by a persistent 10-week-old baby. I’d pretty much got used to it by now.

It did mess with my balance somewhat, but I had tried not to let it interfere with the pace of the closing chapters of my latest book. It’s amazing what you can ignore when you really have to. Once it would have been kids asking for food/a dog/PE kit/access to my bank accounts – now it was random monsters trying to convert my brain into soup. Not so very different.

Pwutck! Suddenly Looob the Seeper let the suction snap off and his slurper tube spun back into his blue face so fast it knocked him sideways. A noise like a cat being sawn in half with an elastic band suddenly plunged through the gloom of my cave section. My heart began to hammer in my chest. What now? What was going on? As Looob sped off between the stalactites to investigate I could make out Fackwittle in his eight foot high luminosity, his many hairy elbows swinging back and forth. He was sawing at least three cats in half with elastic bands – and making a pretty poor job of it because in no time at all three cats had clawed their way up over his boil-infested chest, catapulted off his shoulders and shot away into the tunnels, yowling with annoyance.

Shoving my finished manuscript down my jumper, I jumped to my feet and then heard ‘Pssssst!’  Something wet fell on my head and I looked up to see that Andy’s dribbling habit was still in place. ‘Sparkessss!’ he hissed, depositing another few globs on my face. ‘Quick! Sam and me are out! Up here! Up here!’

‘Sam and I are out,’ I corrected. ‘Not Sam and me!’ I believe in good grammar, even in times of great peril. Mark Robson was a fighter pilot in the Gulf War and I bet he never dropped an aitch even in the midst of a missile attack.

‘OK – Sam and I are out!’ snapped Andy. ‘And if you want me and him to get you out too, you’ll stop with the grammar correction and reach up!’

I didn’t want to seem ungrateful so I let the ‘me and him’ bit go and held up my hands. Sam and Andy reached down from the hole in the cave roof and hauled me up through it. A few seconds later I was crouched in a low tunnel alongside two of my fellow author captives. It was so dark I could hardly see them. I could smell them, though.

‘We need to work out where to go,’ whispered Sam. ‘I think this is a network of service tunnels which runs along all the caves we’ve been held in, helping to circulate the air. I can feel a strong breeze – can you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But which way? We’ve got to get David, Joe, Tommy, Mark and Baz too. It’s all of us or nothing.’

‘If only we could see properly,’ sighed Andy. He made a small trumpeting noise. ‘Sorry,’ he added. ‘I’m a little nervous.’

‘Wait!’  I rummaged in my jeans pocket and pulled out something I’d found a few days ago. A pair of spectacles. They seemed fairly ordinary at first, and one of the lenses was broken, but after I’d found them in a clump of cave spider nests I noticed that whenever I touch the frames there was a strange glow about the intact lens – like ultraviolet light. The glow shone out again now as I held the spectacles up. And at once all three of us let out a gasp.

Picked out in a bright glowing neon violet was a vast fresco of markings on the wall. Lettering – pictures – signs…

‘It’s…’ murmured Sam, running his hands through his short fluffy hair which had turned blue in the light. ‘It’s a blueprint… a map… instructions…’ He turned to grin at us with unnaturally blue-white teeth. ‘I think… this is the way OUT!’

Click here for Episode Four, by Barry Hutchison

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