News

The new decade gets off to a terrific start with Black Static magazine’s hugely respected book critic, the inestimable Peter Tennant, naming ‘Night of Demons’ as one of the Best Horror and Dark Fantasy novels of 2009. Read what he had to say here.

My new novella ‘Yuppieville’ from Screaming Dreams Publishing is at the printers, as is Dark Regions Press’ expanded reprint of my award-nominated 2007 collection ‘Going Back.’

A presentable draft of the third Raine’s Landing novel — ‘Midnight’s Angels’ — is now complete.

Happy Holidays to all my readers!

Just back from the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, CA. Did a reading from Night of Demons, signed a load of stuff — not just novels but magazines and anthologies I’ve appeared in — hooked up with some great old friends and made a load of new ones. You can read more about it on my blog.

The fantasy media website Fandomania is currently running an interview conducted between myself and reviewer Kelly Melcher, where we talk about my current novel and my work in general. You can read it here.

And — well — it happens to us all, sooner or later. I am now on Facebook. And I also have a Facebook Page — Tony Richards - Dark Fantasy Writer –with news of new developments.

A review of ‘Night of Demons’ on SF Revu has compared the new book to the works of Laurell K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris. Not bad!

You can now follow me on Twitter too — TonyRichardsdfw.

An article of mine has just been accepted for the forthcoming non-fiction collection Cinema Futura, edited by Mark Morris and due out next year from PS Publishing.

Night of Demons — the second novel in the Raine’s Landing saga — is now out from Eos/HarperCollins. You can read more about it on my Home Page, or by visiting my blog. It’s available from all good bookstores, on Amazon and such, and from both the Doubleday and Science Fiction Book Clubs. Or you can buy a copy right here.

It had to happen sooner or later … one of my short story collections is being reprinted by another publisher. 2007’s award-nominated Going Back — it originally came out from Elastic Press — is to be re-issued in the States by the excellent Dark Regions Press (see below), the same guys who did such a great job with Shadows and Other Tales. The cover art is already done — more about that later on my Welcome to Raine’s Landing blog, doubtless. And as an added bonus, it is going to be an expanded version of the original, with four new stories added, three of them from Black Static magazine.

The first two reviews of ‘Night of Demons’ — my second Raine’s Landing novel — have appeared on the Internet well in advance of the late October publication of the book. And they’re both excellent. I’ve received permission to reprint them on my Welcome to Raine’s Landing blog, and you can read them here and here.

Just back, by the way, from a literally flying three day visit to New York City to watch my wife’s baby cousin — now in her early forties and a trainee cardiologist — get hitched. But I did get the chance to have lunch with my Eos editor Diana Gill, and got taken around the HarperCollins offices to meet her assistant Will Hinton and the publicist assigned to me, Greg Shutack. A real pleasure, although far too brief.

I don’t just write the Raine’s Landing novels . A cursory glance at the bibliography at the bottom of my Home Page will tell you that I’ve penned an awful lot of shorter fiction in my time. And my American publisher of collections of such work is very fast becoming the superb Dark Regions Press. They’ve already brought out one marvellous looking bumper-sized collection, ‘Shadows and Other Tales,’ with more expected very soon. I’m very proud to be associated with them, and you can find out more about this top-notch independent house right here.

Just back from a visit to Sopot, Poland, by the way. Had a great time there. And you can read about one aspect of it on my blog, Welcome to Raine’s Landing.

As well as this website and my blog, I also now have a ‘microsite’ at HarperCollins.com. And it’s great fun. You can visit it by clicking here.

The advanced copies of ‘Night of Demons’ have been published. Eos, of course, have been sending them to reviewers. And I’ve been doing a little of that too. I only have a few copies left, but if you genuinely would like to review the book — and I can’t emphasise genuinely strongly enough — then get in touch through the contact button on my Home Page, letting me know what your land address is and what publication/site you are reviewing for.

I’ve long been an admirer of Screaming Dreams Press – see Links – the multi-format brainchild of the great and good Steve Upham. And now Steve has agreed to publish my latest novella ‘Yuppieville,’ set in a new town smack bang in the heart of the Nevada desert. It will be out in time for the World Horror Convention in Brighton next year.

The artwork for the forthcoming second Raine’s Landing novel — ‘Night of Demons’ (Eos/HarperCollins) — is now official. It’s a terrific piece of work by Don Sipley and can be viewed on my blog, Welcome to Raine’s Landing.

Hardback copies of RL #2 — ‘Night of Demons’ — are going to be available from both the Doubleday Book Club and the Science Fiction Book Club. And it appears that they like the new novel even more than Book #1.

The rough first draft of ‘Midnight’s Angels’ is now complete. It will be sitting on my desk for a month or so while I concentrate on other jobs I am committed to.

The cover artwork for Raine’s Landing book #2, ‘Night of Demons,’ has finally been approved. It’s by Don Sipley — who has been painting the covers for Jocelynn Drake’s bestselling ‘Dark Days’ series — and is just stunning. As soon as Eos put it on their website, I’ll be displaying the whole thing on my ‘Welcome to Raine’s Landing’ blog .

My Soho-based tale ‘Mr. Smyth’ was supposed to appear in Weird Tales. That isn’t going to happen now, but it has been accepted by Pan Book of Horror expert Johnny Mains for his new — untitled as yet — anthology, and will appear alongside fiction from Conrad Hill, Nicholas Royle, David A. Riley, Christopher Fowler, and Basil Copper. There’ll be more info when I have it.

I’ve just read and returned the page proofs of Raine’s Landing book #2, ‘Night of Demons.’ Which means the bound galleys should be out in the next few months. And I’m progressing with book #3, ‘Midnight’s Angels.’

Issue #12 of Midnight Street magazine is out, and includes my new story ‘The Crows.’ And it may sound from the title like a traditional horror tale … but it really isn’t.

Robert Morrish bought five stories of mine — ‘Yesterday, Upon The Stair,’ ‘Siafu,’ ‘A Place in the Country,’ ‘Misdirection’ and ‘Nine Rocks in a Row’ — during his editorship of Cemetery Dance, and I never once got to meet him. Now that he’s recently quit the magazine, I finally did. Bob was over in London on business from California, and we got together for drinks in Covent Garden before heading across for an Italian meal in Soho. Great guy … a real pleasure to spend time in his company.  Writing’s not all hard graft, I’m relieved to say.