Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 8 is now available as a paperback and kindle eBook.
Pages
- News, Views, Reviews and Stuff
- Published Stories
- My Novels
- My Book Reviews
- Collection - The Lurkers in the Abyss and Other Tales of Terror
- Collection - Their Cramped Dark World and Other Tales
- Collection - His Own Mad Demons: Dark Tales from David A. Riley
- Beyond and Prism
- Interviews
- Audio Stories
- Parallel Universe Publications - direct orders
Thursday 2 May 2024
Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 8 is now available as a paperback and kindle eBook
Sunday 21 April 2024
Floating Free to be published in the September issue of Schlock! Webzine
My science fantasy story Floating Free will be published in the September issue of Schlock! Webzine.
I have a sword and sorcery story, Cyramon, scheduled to be published elsewhere during the summer months plus a collection of my Welgar the Northerner tales. More details of where and when these will be published will be revealed later.
New stories published or to be published this year so far are:
The Triptych of Hell - Lovecraftiana, Candlemas 2024
An Oddity - Schlock! Webzine January 2024
In His Father's Footsteps - Schlock! Webzine April 2024
Floating Free - Schlock Webzine September 2024
The Adventure of the Mouldy Book - Sherlock & Friends: Eldritch Investigations
Cyramon - Swords & Heroes: One Story at a Time
The Mask of a Mad God - story collection - untitled at the moment
with the following reprints:
The Storyteller of Koss - Schlock! Webzine October 2024
Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus - story collection - untitled at the moment
The Dark Priestdom - story collection - untitled at the moment
Welgar the Cursed - story collection - untitled at the moment
Saturday 20 April 2024
The Storyteller of Koss to be reprinted in Schlock! Webzine in October
My fantasy story The Storyteller of Koss, which introduced two of my recurring characters, Nadrain the Storyteller and Ossani the Healer, is to be reprinted in Schlock! Webzine in October.
This tale was first published in Summer of Sci-Fi & Fantasy in 2022.
Monday 1 April 2024
My Story 'In His Father's Footsteps' is in this month's issue of Schlock! Webzine
My horror story - voodoo and zombies in northern England - is in this month's issue of Schlock! Webzine. My story is called In His Father's Footsteps.
At the moment this can be read for free online here, though
I would heartly recommend buying the magazine either as a kindle eBook
or a paperback. It will definitely not break your pocket. To order a copy from Amazon UK click on this link. It's only £4.04.
Tuesday 26 March 2024
Latest advert for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 8
This is the monochrome version. The lettering has been changed from black to white so it will stand out better.
Tuesday 19 March 2024
Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 6
There was a great recent 5-star review on amazon for Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 6:
Monday 18 March 2024
Phantasmagoria Magazine Hellraiser Special
I received my contributor's copy of the Phantasmagoria Magazine Hellraiser Special this morning. My only contribution is a critical review of Hellraiser: Revelations (2011), which must surely rank as the worst entry in the whole franchise - at least I definitely hope so!
This is another beautufully produced issue, over 370 pages of stills, drawings, articles, interviews, reviews, etc., with entries by Trevor Kennedy, Peter Atkins, Adrian Baldwin, Simon Bamford, Clive Barker, Imogen Boorman, Tori Borne, Doug Bradley, David Brilliance, Mike Chinn, Malachy Coney, Con Connolly, Kenneth Cranham, Dean M. Drinkel, Kelly Dunn, Terry Farrell, Christopher Figg, John Gilbert, Christopher Gray, Anthony Hickox, Clare Higgins, Dave Jeffery, Carl R. Jennings, Stephen Jones, Paul Kane, Bob Keen, Ashley Laurence, Ivan McCann, Kim Newman, Barnaby Page, Evangelia Papanikou, Geoff Portass, Owen Quinn, Tony Randel, David A. Riley, Andrew Robinson, Helen Scott, Michael Marshall Smith, Jessica Stevens, Nicholas Vance, Nat Whiston, Cliff Wallace, Allison Weir, Sarah Graven Weir, Barbie Wilde, Ciaran Woods and Christopher Young, plus artists Clive Barker, Jonny Boyle, Randy Broecker, Dave Carson, Les Edwards, Graham Humphreys, Allen Koszowski, Ivan McCann, Jim Pitts, Steph Sciullo and Andrew Smith.
Sunday 17 March 2024
Day Thirty-Nine of Showcasing books published by Parallel Universe Publications: Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 7
And here we are at day thirty-nine of showcasing books published by Parallel Universe Publications with Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 7, which we published last November.
This is the final showcasing. We have published other books (The Winter Hunt & Other Stories by Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis; England 'B': Ninety Minutes of Hell by Richard Stains (Mark Samuels); Will Anyone Figure That This Is A Repackaged First Collection by Johnny Mains; A Distasteful Horror Story by Johnny Mains; and A Little Light Screaming by Johnny Mains) but all of these have been discontinued and are out of print.
In 2024 we will be publishing two further volumes of Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy plus a trilogy of interlinked sword and sorcery collections by a veteran writer (further information to be issued later). All five books will be illustrated by Jim Pitts.
Saturday 16 March 2024
Day Thirty-Eight of Showcasing books published by Parallel Universe Publications: Lucilla - a novella by David A. Riley
Day thirty-eight of showcasing books published by Parallel Universe Publications and it's my own Lucilla - a novella, which was originally serialised in Bewildering Stories.
Lucilla - a novella by
David A. Riley is available in hardcover for £13.99, in paperback for
£5.50, and in kindle for £2.99. The cover artwork is by Jim Pitts.
It was just another standard day at the Women’s Refuge until the
arrival of Lucilla. Then Miranda’s world was never the same again.
Unaccountably
influenced by what the girl needed, her job, her friendships, even
freedom itself were of no importance. It was not until her niece’s life
was at risk that Miranda knew she had to act.
But what could she do against someone who had such a tight, insidious grip on her?
amazon UK £13.99 in hardcover, £5.50 in paperback, £2.99 in kindle
amazon.com $17.19 in hardcover, $6.70 in paperback, $3.70 in kindle
Friday 15 March 2024
Day Thirty-Seven of Showcasing books published by Parallel Universe Publications: Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 6
Thursday 14 March 2024
The Triptych of Hell in the latest issue of Lovecraftiana Magazine
It was good to see my story The Triptych of Hell in the latest issue of Lovecraftiana: the Magazine of Eldritch Horror, but it's a shame the picture referred to in the story wasn't able to be included. I was originally asked to write the story to accompany the illustration commissioned by a private buyer for a collaboration between Jim Pitts, Allen Koszowski and Dave Carson, renamed Johann Potts, Albertus Krakowski, and Desmond Cartier in the tale.
Day Thirty-Six of Showcasing books published by Parallel Universe Publications: Childe Rolande by Samantha Lee
For
day thirty-six of showcasing books published by Parallel Universe
Publications, it's Samantha Lee's amazing mix of sword & sorcery and
post apocalyptic science fantasy Childe Rolande.
Parallel Universe Publications is proud to announce that we have published Samantha Lee's groundbreaking post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel Childe Rolande as a paperback and kindle e-book.
Originally published by Futura Books in 1989, our new version includes an Introduction by the author and a brand-new cover by talented Scottish artist Paul Mudie, who will be familiar to many for the iconic covers he created for the Black Books of Horror. There is also the added bonus of interior chapter headings by award-winning artist Jim Pitts.
Childe Rolande has been optioned by Forlan Films for a proposed TV series and is currently in pre-production development.Wednesday 13 March 2024
Day Thirty-Five of Showcasing books published by Parallel Universe Publications: A Handful of Zombies: Tales of the Restless Dead
Day
thirty-five of showcasing books published by Parallel Universe
Publications and it's the turn of our first (and only) chapbook: A Handful of Zombies: Tales of the Restless Dead by David A. Riley, illustrated throughout by award-winning artist Jim Pitts.
What was intended as the start of a series of low-priced chapbooks, A Handful of Zombies: Tales of the Restless Dead included four previously published short stories by David A. Riley with illustrations by Jim Pitts.
All four stories in this collection cover a wide range of tropes within the zombie genre.
Dead Ronnie and I is a tale of high adventure by plane and sea, with an abortive escape by our protagonist to the as yet untainted Isles of Scotland. This was originally published in Sanitarium Magazine No 44 in 2016.
His Pale Blue Eyes is probably the most traditional take of zombie stories today, featuring a young girl’s determined search for her parents during a zombie apocalypse. It’s a story, though, about conditioning and how what someone is taught can radically affect their behaviour. Is the horror in this the shambling undead or the girl herself? See what you think. This first appeared in Bite-Sized Horror edited by Johnny Mains for Obverse Books in 2011.
By contrast Right For You Now, originally published in Weirdbook Zombie Annual No 3 in 2021, harks back to the original concept of the zombie in Voodoo-haunted Haiti, though this tale is set in present-day Britain. It’s a combination of a crime story, revenge, and a man’s obsessive fascination with age-old practices.
Our final tale, Romero’s Children, is more in the way of a science fiction story. The zombies here are certainly the most different. For a start off they are not dead but have been granted near immortality by a drug that swept the world with its promise to stop aging. Alas for those caught up in the frenzied demand to use it, though, its side effects were such that they would have been better off dead. This story appeared in 2010 in The Seventh Black Book of Horror edited by the late Charles Black and was subsequently picked up by American editor Paula Guran for her 2012 anthology Extreme Zombies.
Tuesday 12 March 2024
Phantasmagoria Magazine Hellraiser Special
Very pleased to have a review in the latest issue of Phantasmagoria Magazine, which is a Hellraiser Special. Ironically, my piece is on what is almost certainly the worst Hellraiser movie ever made: Hellraiser: Revelations.
To order it from amazon follow this link: Phantasmagoria Magazine Hellraiser Special