+ TENEBROUS TALES IN PAPERBACK +

A mere seven years after its original publication by Ex Occidente Press, my collection TENEBROUS TALES is finally available as a paperback.

[Coughs awkwardly. I've been rather busy.]

The book opens with the 50 page novella 'The Melancholy Haunting Of Nicholas Parkes' which is heavily drawn from the life, music & tragic early death of the brilliant Nick Drake. This is the story I have been expanding into a three-volume novel. It is for all intents and purposes finished but at 1,500 pages long requires very careful editing before I dare start inflicting it upon agents or publishers. Furthermore, the novel features a new poetry collection by a fictitious poet together with lyrics for a couple of imaginary concept albums, all of which are central to the plot of the book.

I am probably deluding myself but I think that this project will be something very special indeed, even if it does fly in the face of  the current vogue for short novels. In bygone years I often had to grind prose out at a tortured pace but ever since my liberating life-saving organ transplant in 2011 I have been able to write at a phenomenal rate. Any voice, any style, any format - bang, I just need to sit down at a computer and let fly, and out it pours. What's more, it has been a very pleasant surprise that I have been able to maintain the same brisk narrational pace in a 500,00 word novel that I strive for in a short story.

['Yes, Doctor, I haven't forgotten to take my pills. And no, I haven't been chewing the padding in my cell, that was my invisible musician friend, Nick. He keeps picking at the walls with his long dirty fingernails and scowling darkly at me from the shadows. He's very angry, you see, because I won't go with him - not yet at least. It's in his eyes, a filthy dark mordant smoulder.']

Anyway, TENEBROUS TALES received excellent reviews when it was first published, and received the weird accolade of having the longest review for a work of fiction ever published by the British Fantasy Society. My Nick Drake story was short-listed for Best Short Story of the year at the time but I requested it be withdrawn from consideration for reasons lost in the shadowy mists of time. Ellen Datlow, in her review of that year's best speculative fiction, singled out four of the stories for 'Honorable Mentions'. The book also features an excellent introduction by the incomparably talented Reggie Oliver.

Anyway, here endeth the tedious soft sell. Now chop chop - go buy the book!

UPDATE: Humble and sincere apologies to anyone who bought a copy between 8th - 9th March. Some of these featured several dropped indents. This issue has since been resolved. The book has also been scaled down in size from 'coffee-table' format to merely large paperback size. If having bought this version you would like a refund then please contact me. To add value to the new paperback edition the price has been lowered and two new stories have been added e.g. 'The Mine Field' and 'The She Queen Of Sif'.

Turns round to clip Igor's ear.

Igor (voice of Claude Rains): "Sorry, Master, I will not fail you again."

Me: "No Igor, you will not. Look behind you. I have appointed a new man-servant."

Igor (sharp intake of breath): "Jean Shrimpton? But Master, what does Jean Shrimpton have that Igor does not?"

Tenebrous Tales finally published as an e-book

My short-story collection "Tenebrous Tales" is now available on Amazon as a Kindle download.

Originally published in 2010, the book quickly sold out, partly because of the low print run, partly because of the popularity of books produced by the publisher Ex Occidente Press amongst connoisseurs of luxuriously bound books. Rather embarrassingly, on the rare occasions when copies do surface on Ebay, they fetch a couple of hundred quid even sans dustwrapper, which is probably as prohibitive to the reader as it is incomprehensible to the author.

The collection includes one novella and nine short stories. The book was highly praised by various critics and reviewers, and four of the stories received 'Honourable Mentions' by Ellen Datlow in her yearly round-up of the year's best fiction. The novella 'The Melancholy Haunting Of Nicholas Parkes' was nominated for a British Fantasy Award but [as is my curmudgeonly wont] I rather haughtily requested that it be removed from the list.

I am currently adapting 'The Melancholy Haunting Of Nicholas Parkes' into a mainstream novel. This story fictionalises the life, death and subsequent haunting of the ill-fated cult musician Nick Drake; or rather, it seeks to blur reality with fantasy, whether it be Drake's, mine or other people's. In the novel, I have created many new characters, including some fictional contemporary musicians, replete with concept albums and full discographies.

Pompously, I do not regard "Tenebrous Tales" as a collection of horror stories, I view it as a semi-autobiographical journey through various dreams, nightmares and obsessions. I try to explore serious themes such as loss, isolation, memory, suicide, mental disturbance and self-harm.

I deliberately set out to vary pace, style and perspective in each of my stories, and have hopefully created a series of psychological narratives which have been filtered through experience, along with a deep and passionate interest in literature, film and music.  

The contents comprise:

TALES

The Melancholy Haunting of Nicholas Parkes . . . . . . .9

Subtle Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

The Motiveless Pursuit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Snow Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 82

The Sinister Cupboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

The Man Who Fell Awake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

The Tableaux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

The Cliff Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Drill Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

The Thing in the Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142

Here endeth the sale pitch.

CB


"'Tenebrous Tales' by Christopher Barker is another fine debut collection that showcases the author’s talent for both the formality of the traditional gothic tale and for depicting disturbing graphic violence in more contemporary types of horror."
Ellen Datlow, 'The Best Horror Of The Year' [2011]

Grim Review of the book.

Des Lewis's 'Nemonymous' review of the book.