Mathew F. Riley
Mathew F. Riley loves fiction: weird, horror, supernatural, swamp gothic and the like. He enjoys atmosphere and place, and is fascinated by the relationship between landscape and memory. He also reads the new wave of British nature writers, and loses himself reading anthropoligical studies of lost tribes. Mathew dabbles in the dark arts with 4 short stories published or forthcoming in All Hallows, Necrography, New Horizons and Dark Horizons. His story, Seems Only Right, won the British Fantasy Society’s Short Story Competition 2008. He is a member of the Ghost Story Society. He is also the Media Reviews Editor of the British Fantasy Society’s Prism newsletter. His website is at mathewfriley.com.
Simon Kurt Unsworth: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on September 26, 2010
One of my favourite short story writers, the very personable Simon Kurt Unsworth, gives us his Book To Be Buried With, in this, the twenty fourth instalment…
Allyson Bird: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on September 19, 2010
The twenty-third entry of Bury Me… and Allyson Bird, author of the British FantasyAward winning Bull Running for Girls, shares her Book To Be Buried With…
Weston Ochse: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on September 12, 2010
The twenty-second entry in the Bury Me… series features US-based Weston Ochse, aka El Elvis Rojo, a man who killed me off in one of his stories in a signed, slip-cased, leather bound, 26-copy edition of Scary Rednecks, co-authored with David Whitman.
Johnny Mains: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on September 5, 2010
The twenty first Bury Me… features young whippersnapper Johnny Mains, a man who has risen to notoriety in horror circles thanks to his enthusiastic resurrection of The Pan Book of Horror Stories.
Robert Lloyd Parry: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on August 29, 2010
This special twentieth Bury Me… features grand panjandrum and actor Robert Lloyd Parry, the man behind the Nunkie Theatre Company, responsible for many an uneasy evening with the master of English supernatural stories…
Stephen Graham Jones: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on August 22, 2010
The nineteenth entry in the Bury Me… series features US-based Stephen Graham Jones, author of Demon Theory among others, and by day Professor of English at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Gary Fry: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on August 15, 2010
Bury Me’s eighteenth instalment focuses upon the UK’s Gary Fry, whose short stories have graced my shelves since I encountered Both And way back in 2003′s seminal Gathering The Bones anthology…
Paul Kane: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on August 8, 2010
The seventeenth entry in the Bury Me With… series; Paul Kane, one of the nicest men in genre fiction I’ve met, offers up his choice of entombed reading matter.
James Cooper: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on August 1, 2010
Bury Me With’s sixteenth entry features the choice of UK writer and editor James Cooper…
David Wellington: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on July 25, 2010
The fifteenth entry in the Bury Me With… series features a genre author who has utilised the power of the internet with his free series fiction, garnering word-of-mouth recommendations like no other: David Wellington came to prominence with his Monster Island zombie series. He’s thought long and hard about his choice…
R.B. Russell: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on July 18, 2010
The fourteenth entry in the Bury Me With… series features a relative newcomer to the writing scene, R.B. Russell. However, those not yet familiar with his quiet unease might well recognise him due to his sterling work co-running the Tartarus Press.
Matt Cardin: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on July 11, 2010
The twelfth entry in the Bury Me With… series. This week, Matt Cardin, in my humble opinion a uniquely philosophical voice in horror and weird fiction…
Mark Samuels: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on July 4, 2010
The eleventh entry in the Bury Me With… series focuses on the London-based mystical urban miserablist Mark Samuels.
Laird Barron: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With
Reviewed on June 26, 2010
It’s the tenth instalment of Bury Me With… and the book dark cosmic speculist Laird Barron wants to be buried with is…
Thomas Ligotti: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With
Reviewed on June 13, 2010
Deep within Bury Me With’s… ninth one-book posthumous library lie insidious and whispering words from the doyen of cosmic hopelessness, Thomas Ligotti.
Mark Morris: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With
Reviewed on June 6, 2010
In the eighth instalment of Bury Me With… Mark Morris tells us about the book that has influenced him more than any, the book he’d like to take to his grave…
Brian Lumley: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on May 29, 2010
The seventh Bury Me With… and Devon-based, cosmically tentacled, blood sucking, mind-reading legend Brian Lumley explains his choice for his own literary-accompanied interment.
Reggie Oliver: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on May 22, 2010
The sixth Bury Me With… features the impeccable taste of Thespian and dark-scribe, Reggie Oliver.
Michael Marshall Smith: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With..
Reviewed on May 15, 2010
The fifth Bury Me With…, and we’re thankful to Michael Marshall Smith for providing an insight into the book that has influenced him more than any, the book he’d like to take with him to his grave…
The Whisperers, by John Connolly
Reviewed on May 13, 2010
Charlie Parker’s back in his ninth outing, and his own situation is in some sort of order for once. His personal life appears to have reached a plateau of consistency; the ghosts and memories of his past are still there, but muted with time after the devastating revelatory events of The Lovers. Importantly, he’s also [...]
Adam Nevill: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on May 8, 2010
The fourth featured author is the truly scary Adam Nevill, who tells Mathew about the book that means everything to him…
David Moody: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on May 1, 2010
In the third in the series of Bury Me With…, I asked zombie-rage-master David Moody about the book that has influenced him more than any, the book he’d like to take with him to his grave.
Gary McMahon: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on April 24, 2010
In the second in the series of Bury Me With…, we asked scary Gary McMahon about the book that has influenced him more than any, the book he’d like to take with him to his grave.
Simon Strantzas: The Book I Would Like To Be Buried With…
Reviewed on April 17, 2010
In the first of what will be a regular series, we’ve asked genre authors about the book that has influenced them more than any, the book they’d like to take with them to their grave… first up is Canadian author and tundra-spook Simon Strantzas.
Apartment 16, by Adam Nevill
Reviewed on March 18, 2010
With the exception of a handful of short stories consistently high in quality and spookiness, Adam Nevill’s singular voice has been quiet in the six years since the publication of his debut novel Banquet for the Damned, which was released as a collectable slipcased hardback by PS Publishing, and more recently in paperback format through [...]
Tide of Souls, by Simon Bestwick
Reviewed on August 12, 2009
Seeing this on the shelves was a joy to behold, not only because it’s the latest in Abaddon’s Tomes of the Dead imprint, (the previous tome I read, Al Ewing’s I, Zombie was a successful if somewhat quirky amalgam of sf (alien invasion), noir crime (private investigator), horror (bucket loads of the gory stuff) and [...]
The Lovers, by John Connolly
Reviewed on July 2, 2009
My world stops for a John Connolly book. Everything else is put aside as the latest developments in the dark world of Charlie Parker unfold in beautifully plotted suspense. The Lovers is the seventh Charlie Parker book in what can be called a series to date, and the ninth to feature him; so that’s about [...]
The Forest of Hands & Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
Reviewed on June 29, 2009
What makes the zombie apocalypse so alluring to both readers and writers is not necessarily the zombies themselves, but the freedom such a scenario allows for the portrayal of human relationships. Against a gruesome backdrop of flesh eating automatons nothing else matters but the fight for survival. The lengths to which those ‘unfortunate’ enough to [...]
Red, by Paul Kane
Reviewed on June 5, 2009
Paul Kane’s an author I’ve kept my eye on ever since his short fiction began appearing regularly in the genre small press in the late 1990s. Over the last few years his output has been unnaturally prolific and of a very high standard. This is evidenced by a strong showing on the Long List of [...]
Filth Kiss, by C.J. Lines
Reviewed on April 28, 2009
C.J. Lines returns us to those gloriously gory days of the 1980s in tone and in setting with his debut novel, Filth Kiss, via the independent Hadesgate Publications. A brutal 190 page-turner readable in a couple of hours, Lines wastes no time immersing the reader in the lives of his main characters, the Davies brothers. [...]
Garbage Man, by Joseph D’Lacey
Reviewed on April 16, 2009
In 2008 Joseph D’Lacey unlocked the pen and set free MEAT, a dystopian and possibly post-apocalyptic novel that coupled religious cults and corrupt governance with unspeakable food production sources and techniques – authoritarian hierarchies and processes enabling the isolated town of Abyrne to survive without help from an outside world that might not even be [...]
The Absence, by Bill Hussey
Reviewed on March 23, 2009
Bill Hussey’s 2008 debut novel, Through a Glass, Darkly, was a convincing tale of supernatural terror with a compelling edge of contemporary darkness, brought forth from a mind deeply immersed in the Great British horror tradition, but with an imagination certainly not mired in its too-easily clichéd trappings – a fine combination indeed. Now it’s [...]
Patient Zero, by Jonathan Maberry
Reviewed on March 19, 2009
Jonathan Maberry‘s got a history. A history that involves zombies. His previous book, Zombie CSU, was an attempt to draw together all the factors that might cause and spread an undead outbreak, and examine said factors with a detached forensic magnifying glass, or more likely, a powerful electron microscope. This history has obviously contributed to [...]
My Work Is Not Yet Done, by Thomas Ligotti
Reviewed on February 13, 2009
Thomas Ligotti knows something we don’t, something so dark and indescribable that we might go insane should we encounter it first-hand. We should be thankful to him, then, that he merely hints at whatever he sees in his writing, but even toned down you’ll find it difficult to ignore or deny the profound black emotions [...]
Hater, by David Moody
Reviewed on January 12, 2009
David Moody’s been following his own path for several years now. Via his Infected Books, he self-published to relative acclaim, and impressive sales, whilst developing a deservedly healthy fan base. He’s arguably best known for his Autumn series – across five books, Moody involved the reader in a darkly raw and realistic, very British zombie [...]
Bill and Joe’s Big Horror Adventure
Reviewed on October 14, 2008
In February 2008 Bloody Books published the first full length title in their brand new horror line. The book was MEAT. and Stephen King immediately endorsed the novel saying of its author “Joseph D’Lacey rocks!” and horror fans across the world have echoed his sentiments. Five months later, Bloody Books released their second horror novel, [...]
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19, edited by Stephen Jones
Reviewed on October 2, 2008
October can’t come around quick enough sometimes. Stephen Jones‘ 19th annual selection of some of the most accessible and harrowing genre fiction out there is the foremost reason for me, (as is the onset of what will hopefully be a glorious autumn, a time when we lovers of the spook can anticipate those long nights [...]
Flood, by Stephen Baxter
Reviewed on September 30, 2008
This is a damn scary book. Stephen Baxter‘s depiction of the rise of the sea across the planet over a period of thirty six years, from 2016 to 2052, has its roots in Spain in 2011, when five workers are kidnapped by religious extremists, the years of torture and abuse allowing them to form a [...]
The Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics, edited by David Kendall
Reviewed on September 8, 2008
David Kendall’s latest Mammoth project, (his previous was the The Mammoth Book of Best War Comics) sees him compiling an enjoyable selection of zombie comics from the last twenty five years, plus one bona-fide classic, the source material of which was first published in 1938. Kendall, (or the marketing crew at Constable and Robinson), posits [...]
Magazine Review: Black Static 5
Reviewed on August 19, 2008
I’m busy losing myself in David Moody‘s Autumn apocalypse, so expect a review of that series soon. In the meantime, and interspersed between my regrettably irregular reviews, I’m planning on popping up some comments and links to genre magazines I subscribe to, and refer to regularly, as well as a few web places that may [...]
The Angel Maker, by Stefan Brijs
Reviewed on July 28, 2008
The small Belgian village of Wolfheim turns out almost to a person to greet the returning Dr. Victor Hoppe after a spell of 20 years in academia. With him are his three baby sons, each one, (some might say), blighted with the physical characteristics of their father: hair-lipped and bright red hair. There’s no sign [...]
Read by Dawn, Volume 3
Reviewed on July 26, 2008
UK publishing is seeing a long overdue revival in horror anthologies at the moment. Humdrumming‘s First Book of Horror Stories will hopefully be the first of many; the Black Book of Horror from Mortbury Press is already at volume three; and, of course, we shouldn’t forget the always welcome Mammoth Book of Best New Horror [...]
Zombiemania, by Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg & Andrew Hershberger
Reviewed on July 8, 2008
Professor Cabal: ‘You’re saying the knights have returned? That’s great!’ Maria: ‘Look at you. Kind and soft like a porcupine.’ Roger (to Betty just before he dies): ‘Don’t speak. That’s the only way you’ll be safe.’ Tombs of the Blind Dead (Spanish version), 1971 A bit of an oldie this, but one of those seminal [...]
Through A Glass, Darkly, by Bill Hussey
Reviewed on June 4, 2008
Bloody Books return with their second title, a very different but equally memorable companion to Joseph D’Lacey’s Meat. Bill Hussey‘s debut novel, Through A Glass Darkly is an unnerving joy to read, dark words that demand a rainy afternoon with no distraction. Hussey’s obviously been brought up on that wonderfully nutritious diet of Hammer films, [...]
Day By Day Armageddon, by J.L. Bourne
Reviewed on April 6, 2008
J.L. Bourne’s vision of undead Armageddon was originally documented on his website, where he released the story in regular sections, gradually building up a decent readership, hooked by the convincing detail and logical thoughtfulness behind the unfolding events. Permuted Press was digging a twisted little fiction furrow all of its own; evolving organically, from mainly [...]
Meat, by Joseph D’Lacey
Reviewed on March 5, 2008
Bloody Books, publishers of the Read By Dawn anthology series, (itself related to the annual Scottish Dead by Dawn horror film festival through Adele Hartley’s curatorship of both ventures), ups the ante with their latest release, Meat, by Joseph D’Lacey. Back in the day, I remember losing myself in the visceral volumes of Clive Barker’s [...]
Deeper, by James A. Moore
Reviewed on February 25, 2008
This geek needs horror, lots of it, so does this blog. It especially needs it because yesterday there was a nice, long review of Deeper by James A. Moore in draft form. I was tinkering, adding the cover image. It was all ready to go, and then WordPress took it all away, forever. So I’m [...]
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The Bookgeeks Interview
Mark Oldfield
Mark Oldfield has worked in criminological research for over 20 years. He has a PhD in Criminology from the University of Kent and has carried out research in the areas of risk assessment and prediction and as well as evaluative research on policing, prisons and probation. He has also taught in various Universities on research, crime and criminal justice.
