SHARKPUNK - Launching at Forbidden Planet, London

I am very proud to be able to announce that SHARKPUNK - the anthology of killer shark stories that I've put together - will be launching at Forbidden Planet, London, on Saturday 9th May at 1.00pm GMT.

I shall be there along with publisher Emma Barnes and twelve of the contributing authors...

David Lee Stone • Andrew Lane • Ian Whates • Al Ewing • Steven Savile • Toby Frost • Jonathan Oliver • Kim Lakin-Smith • Alec Worley • Jenni Hill • Laurel Sills • Robert Spalding 

...and you're all invited! So please share the Facebook event page, tell all your friends, and if you're in London on 9th May stop by the Shaftesbury Avenue store and say "Hi!" and (even better) buy the book! :-)

The Sharkpunk Interview - Jonathan Oliver

Jonathan Oliver is an award-winning editor and the man in charge of not one, but three publishing imprints - Solaris, Abaddon Books, and Ravenstone. However, for SHARKPUNK he has brought his skills as an author to bear.


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks? 
Jonathan Oliver: They feel very alien, despite the fact that they are earth-based creatures and I suppose, in many ways, they represents the mysteries of the sea, the draw of the depths.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story Peter and the Invisible Shark? 
JO: Short answer is: I have no idea. I just started writing and made it up as I went along. I knew that I didn’t want to have the story set in the sea, bizarre as that may sound, and I struck on the idea of it being a story about haunting early on. But mostly, I just made it up as I went along.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
JO: I suppose the main challenge was making the symbolic, real. To make the threat feel genuine and disturbing, when so much is about an individual who is disturbed. I think there’s enough ambiguity in the story that it allows for different readings.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
JO: Jaws. Though I realise that’s terribly boring. The original and the best.

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
JO: See above.

SP: Apart from your story in Sharkpunk, what's coming next from Jon Oliver? 
JO: I have a short story appearing in a Jurassic London publication at some point in the future, and I’ll be collaborating on a novel later in the year.

Thanks, Jon!

Jonathan Oliver is the award winning editor of The End of the Line, House of Fear, Magic, End of the Road and Dangerous Games. He is also the editor in chief of Solaris, Abaddon Books and Ravenstone, and the author of two fantasy novels. He lives in Abingdon with his wife, two daughters and their cat, Fudge.

You can find him online at www.jonoliverwriter.blogspot.co.uk 
and on Twitter as @JonOlivereditor.

The Sharkpunk Interview - Josh Reynolds

Josh Reynolds will be a familiar name to Black Library readers and fans of the Charles St. Cyprian Occult Detective stories. After all, as Josh puts it himself, he's a freelance writer, and good at it. Fortunately for SHARKPUNK, Josh has penned a brand new Occult Detective story for the anthology, entitled Deep Red Bells. Here are his thoughts on all things SHARKPUNK...


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks? 
Josh Reynolds: Can I say pants-wetting terror? No, but seriously, I'd guess its for the same reason that people are fascinated by wolves, bears, and any other animal big enough to eat us. There's a thin line between fear and fascination.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story, Deep Red Bells? 
JR: Mostly, I just really, really wanted to write about a ghost-shark... I'm a simple man, really.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
JR: The same as always, really. I know the beginning, I know the ending, but that bit in the middle? That bit's the annoying part of the whole deal.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
JR: I like hammerheads. They're just so freaky looking. Like, you know, one of those things... its a tool?... you use it to hammer things?...a wrench, that's it! They look like wrenches. Freaky.

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
JR: Hookjaw. Hookjaw is the best.

SP: What's coming next from Josh Reynolds? 
JR: The third Royal Occultist novel, The Infernal Express, will be out later this year. It finds St. Cyprian and Gallowglass (the protagonists from Deep Red Bells) aboard the Orient Express, fighting to keep the skull of the world's most infamous sanguinary aristocrat out of the hands of vampires, secret agents and a Satanic cult. If readers want to catch up on all of the occult action before then, they should feel free to check out the first two books in the series, The Whitechapel Demon and The Jade Suit of Death, both available on Amazon.com or from the online retailer of your choice!


Josh Reynolds is a freelance writer of moderate skill and exceptional confidence. He has written a bit, and some of it was even published. His work has appeared in anthologies such as Miskatonic River Press’ Horror for the Holidays, and in periodicals such as Innsmouth Magazine and Lovecraft eZine. In addition to his own work, a full list of which can be found at http://joshuamreynolds.wordpress.com/, Josh has written for several tie-in franchises, including Gold Eagle’s Executioner line as well as Black Library’s Warhammer Fantasy line. 

And if, after finishing Deep Red Bells, you’re interested in reading more about Charles St. Cyprian and the Royal Occultist, make sure to check out http://royaloccultist.wordpress.com/.

The Sharkpunk Interview - Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe

SHARKPUNK - the anthology of killer shark stories coming your way in May from Snowbooks - features a couple of stories written by, well, couples. One of those pairings is comics writer and novelist Al Ewing and comics creator Sarah Peploe.


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks?
Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe: Due to the anti-shark propaganda of Hollyweird, sharks are primarily known for their violent consumption of people. Like most people, we're fascinated with anything that wants to violently consume us or otherwise end our sweet lives. Hence our continuing interest in sharks, and also the Truckasaurus, which waits.

Sharkpunk: What was the inspiration behind your story 'YOU ARE THE SHARK'? 
AE: We were in the pub, discussing collaborating, and I remembered an arcade machine from the early days of video gaming in which YOU WERE THE SHARK, which I'd read about in The Winner's Book Of Video Games, a bizarre tome devoted to achieving the highest score possible in the games available back then. It was full of Pac-Man patterns, tips to win Space Invaders (shoot the aliens, shockingly) and other junk of the era. So we figured that might be a good angle to approach the shark element.
SP: I grew up in Norwich, so I spent a fair bit of the summers (and winters and autumns and springs) in the various resorts along the Norfolk coast. I’ve always loved the sea, and more specifically the seaside. The British seaside, nothing compares to it. The meeting of the sand and sea and sky, Victorian architecture and neon, the forces of nature and civilisation, the illuminations and the limitless, salted dark. Hale knew. Also where else you gonna get an ice cream donut? But there’s also poverty, xenophobia, economic uncertainty, the North f*cking Sea in January. You can’t romanticise or sugarcoat that. Anyway I suggested the seaside setting, as this arcade game sounded like it’d be at home in the amusement arcades I used to like trawling around. Then we got to thinking about the kind of child who’d be attracted to this game, to the control and certainty and departure from reality that its name promised. The kind who’d have the tenacity (and maybe a dearth of alternatives) to keep playing and playing...

Sharkpunk: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
AE: It was fun to collaborate in a way we hadn't before - we ended up doing chunks of writing separately and sending it to each other, which we think is how Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman did it. Then we'd mutually edit and offer suggestions until the piece was ready to send off. One thing I tried to do was give the arcade machine a sense of reality without veering too far into dull Winner's Book Of Video Games-style descriptions of how to win at it - only the reader will know if I succeeded there.
SP: As for challenges, I was at work at the time, so often I'd be working STEALTH!, sneakily writing while sitting at one of the work computers in between issuing books/organizing book groups/wishing a protracted death on anyone who ever had a hand in the Universal Jobsmatch website. Also, we were writing about a lonely, alienated young female character, but I reeeaally didn't want to go all Exceptional Girl with her. I was excruciatingly aware that the scene in the kiosk could easily be all "Aw, isn't our protagonist just so Interesting and Special and Ravenclaw compared to this other bint?" So I hope we invested the other characters with enough agency and humanity to avoid that, but not detract from the main character's feelings of isolation.

Sharkpunk: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
AE: I don't know if we have a favourite species. Hammerheads are fun.

Sharkpunk: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
AE: My favourite shark is Gums, the shark from the old kids comic Buster, who was a shark with false teeth who kept losing them, rendering him harmless. He was a figure of fun for cruel fish and was helped, or possibly hindered, by an octopus friend who I seem to remember wore a hat? I don't have a very good memory of this character considering he's supposed to be my favourite shark.
SP: Right Shark. He learns the choreography, turns up on time and discharges his duties to the best of his ability but does anyone turn him into a meme? There's no justice this side of Heaven.

Sharkpunk: Apart from your story in Sharkpunk, what's coming next from Al Ewing and Sarah Peploe? 
SP: I'm part of a small press comics co-op called Mindstain Comics. We'll be exhibiting our special blend of excoriating dystopian scifi, psychological thrillers and vegetable-based juvenilia at various conventions across the UK this year... Other than that I don't know. Keep firing stories off and see which stick. Just like always.
AE: I've got some stuff coming up for Marvel - probably the biggest thing is a trio of Avengers specials where various Avengers of the past fight Ultron in the future. It's called ULTRON FOREVER, and it should be about right for kids from eight to eighty. And above, centenarians!

Thanks, guys!



Al Ewing is best known as a comic-book writer, having worked on Mighty Avengers and Loki:Agent Of Asgard for Marvel Comics, and Zombo and Judge Dredd for 2000AD, among others. He's also known for his prose work, including a trio of Pax Britannia novels for Abaddon Books, and his critically-acclaimed novel The Fictional Man for Solaris.

Sarah Peploe was born and raised in Norwich. She has since headed West/North, working as a student, a librarian, a life model and various breeds of office and retail monkey in the process. Her short stories have appeared in Hic Dragones’ The Hauntings Anthology, Cassiopeia Magazine, Murky Depths, Flash, 330 Words and one of Tiny Owl Workshop’s Krampus-themed Christmas crackers. She illustrated the poetry collections Ghosts at the Dinner Table, He is in the Stars, Livid Among the Ghostings and SALT/LOVE for Manchester-based performance poet Anna Percy. She also produces comics as part of Mindstain Comics co-operative, including Celeriac: Vegetable Spawn of Cthulhu, Convention (with George Joy) and Grunt8790 (with Steven Burton). She lives in York. Sundry yatterings @peplovna.

The Sharkpunk Interview - David Tallerman

SHARKPUNK features a brand new shark-themed tale by novelist and prolific short story writer David Tallerman, creator of Angry Robot Books' Thief series.


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks?
David Tallerman: They make great pets.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story The Shark in the Heart? 
DT: See above. And more specifically the idea, apparently out of nowhere, of what would happen if a child got a shark as a pet instead of the usual puppy/kitty candidates - and just how badly that could go. It began as sort of a gangster story with kids, but ended up as something quite different.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
DT: The Shark in the Heart changed in tone a lot while I was writing it. It started out quite funny, and then suddenly it wasn't. Then it was again, but a different kind of funny. Also, writing a child protagonist is not at all easy, especially when they have to be sometimes childish and sometimes quite adult depending on the demands of the narrative. I think that kids are actually capable of making those switches, but that doesn't necessarily make it plausible for a reader, so you have to be careful.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
DT: I like hammerheads. Once upon a time, there must have been fish that were like little nails, right? But presumably those went extinct, and now those poor hammerheads are just floating around, feeling nostalgic about geological ages past. Also, they had to do all that hammering with their own eyeballs, which can't have been much fun.

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
DT: At the risk of cheating slightly, can I vote for Kevin Spacey in Swimming With Sharks? At any rate, that's my favourite shark-related movie.

SP: Apart from your story in Sharkpunk, what's coming next from David Tallerman? 
DT: I have a collection of short horror stories currently known as The War of the Rats and Other Tales due from Spectral Press in August. I've a novella, Patchwerk, coming out from Tor.com at the beginning of next year. And there are quite a lot more short stories on the way over the next few months.

Thanks, David!

David Tallerman is the author of the comic fantasy novels Giant Thief, Crown Thief and Prince Thief and the absurdist steampunk graphic novel Endangered Weapon B: Mechanimal Science. His first short story collection, The War of the Rats and Other Tales is due for release in August from Spectral Press; his first novella, Patchwerk, will come out early in 2016 from Tor.com. 

David's short science fiction, fantasy and horror has appeared or is forthcoming in around seventy markets, including Clarkesworld, Nightmare, Lightspeedand Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He can be found online at www.davidtallerman.co.uk and www.davidtallerman.blogspot.com.

Sharkpunk at Edge-Lit 4

An essential day out for any writer or reader of science-fiction, fantasy or horror, Edge-Lit 4 brings together a superb range of UK writing talent for a heady blend of panels, readings, workshops and booksales.

Edge-Lit 4 is your chance to get an insight into the worlds of writing and publishing, hear from some of the biggest and most talented names in the field, gain inspiration and ideas in workshop sessions, and get yourself an incredible book haul to take home with our freebies, bookstalls and phenomenal prizes!

And SHARKPUNK will be there, at the Snowbooks table, and sponsoring a panel all about short stories, appropriately enough.

To find out more, follow this link.

The Sharkpunk Interview - David Lee Stone

In what has to be said was a bit of a coup, creator of the Illmoor Chronicles, Davey Swag, Gladiator Boy and Undead Ed, David Lee Stone agreed to write a story for SHARKPUNK. Here he reflects on the experience:


Sharkpunk: What, do you think, is the reason for people's enduring fascination with sharks? 
DLS: I think it's the sheer undiluted horror of something that is basically, as Billy Connolly once said, 'a row of teeth and an ar*ehole'. Sharks are plainly terrifying.

SP: What was the inspiration behind your story 'The Lickspittle Leviathan'? 
DLS: I hadn't written an Illmoor story for nearly a decade, and I loved the idea of doing something really horrific and yet trying to keep a trace element of humour. Hopefully, I succeeded in doing that.

SP: What challenges, or surprises, did you encounter in writing your story? 
DLS: I think the biggest surprise was that I vaguely appalled myself. I'm not a natural horror writer, and I assumed that dashing through the more gruesome scenes quickly would enable me to cope with them better on re-reading. I was wrong.

SP: If you had to pick a favourite shark, which would it be? 
DLS: The Hammerhead, because nothing that ugly should be able to come at you quite literally out of the blue... and because it's proof that there have to be at least five different gods who all loved to have a laugh at the creation table.

SP: Do you have a favourite fictional shark (in books, comics, films, or video games)? 
DLS: Jaws is the one I most remember, because I still have trouble watching that film. Richard Dreyfus always did a great job of making you believe he was terrified of losing a leg, when he really should have been more worried about losing his hair.

SP: Apart from your story in Sharkpunk, what's coming next from David Lee Stone? 
I'm writing a series provisionally called The Underdogs: Heroes of Destiny for Hodder. It's about a group of D&D players who find Pandora's Box and start to take on the powers of their characters. They will publish the first two books in 2016, and the third in 2017. I'm also putting together a new Illmoor collection.

Thanks, David!

David Lee Stone was born ‘David Cooke’ on 25th January, 1978 in Margate, Kent. He has produced series fiction (writing variously as David Lee Stone, David Grimstone and Rotterly Ghoulstone) for many publishers worldwide, including Disney, Hodder and Penguin. 

The Illmoor Chronicles, which have been translated into many different languages, are currently published in six volumes by Hodder in the UK and Open Road Integrated Media in the USA. They comprise three stand alone novels and a linked trilogy. Short stories from the series are currently published on Amazon by Dead Guys Shoe Ltd, including the original Illmoor short ‘Dullitch Assassins’, which first appeared alongside stories from Terry Pratchett and Tom Sharpe in Peter Haining’s comic fantasy anthology Knights of Madness, published by Orbit, Penguin and Souvenir Press. 

David lives in Ramsgate with his wife and two children. He writes a daily blog at www.blokecalleddave.co.uk.