Mike Chinn interviewed

Alchemy Press author and editor Mike Chinn (The Paladin Mandates, Swords against the Millennium, The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes) is interviewed on WikiWorm (click here). He also writes a brief history of his love of all things pulp (here).

Pulp Heroes 2: contributors announced

Editor Mike Chinn has now announced the contents for The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 2:

• Cover art – Les Edwards
• Pandora’s Box – Chico Kidd
• The Flier – Bryn Fortey
• Griffon’s Gamble – Arch Whitehouse
• Night Hunter – Pauline E Dungate
• Meeting at the Silver Dollar – Marion Pitman
• The Monster of Gorgon – Ian Hunter
• Dragon’s Breath – Anne Nicholls
• The Law of Mars – Robert William Iveniuk
• The Penge Terror – William Meikle
• Ula and the Black Book of Leng – Andrew Coulthard
• The Sons of Crystal City – Martin Gately
• Kiss the Day Goodbye – Adrian Cole
• Do Not Go Gently – Stuart Young
• The Incarceration of Captain Nebula – Mike Resnik

Publication date and launch at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton.

Pulp Heroes now on Kindle

The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes, edited by Mike Chinn, is now available from the Kindle store on Amazon at $4.99 or equivalent. I can supply an ePub version, as well -- simply contact the alchemypress[at]gmail.com. A printed/paper copy is also available from Amazon and other online dealers.

To remind you, Pulp Heroes includes choice stories that take you to pulp worlds and heroic realms:

Mike Resnick – Origins

Robert William Iveniuk – House Name

Anne Nicholls – Eyes of Day, Eyes of Night

William Meikle – Ripples in the Ether

Chris Iovenko – The Perfect Murder

Bracken N MacLeod – Ivy's Secret Origin

Joshua Wolf – Crossing the Line

James Hartley – Jean Marie

Ian Gregory – Currier Dread and the Hair of Destruction

Amber L Husbands – The Going Rate

Michael Haynes – No Way but the Hard Way

Adrian Cole – The Vogue Prince

Joel Lane – Upon a Granite Wind

Milo James Fowler – The Last Laugh

Allen Ashley – In the Margins

Peter Crowther – Heroes and Villains

Peter Atkins – The Return of Boy Justice

Cover painting by Bob Covington

A Hot Time in the Old Town...

“Ty Oleson stepped out onto his porch, enjoying the bite of a desert winter. He searched his pants for a pipe, smiling just for the sheer hell of it. It sure was a glorious sunset: brilliant orange just on the horizon, shading to pink, then purple up into the higher sky. Nights like this, he reckoned it was easy to see why so many artsy folks came to Arizona. It was the light, they said – and most days he never could understand what was so special about it. But nights like this…

The flash was unexpected. Like summer lightning, but silent and a hell of a lot brighter. It came from towards the horizon – for a moment washing out all the other colours, leaving Ty blinking away a purple after-image. He lit his pipe, filling the cold evening air with deep fragrant smoke, giving himself time to think.

He hadn’t seen anything like that since the Great War: when the Krauts would waste days shelling the Allies’ trenches; turning the nights into endless, deafening, lurid flashes of high explosive. And even then, he’d seen nothing to compare; nothing so bright…

He stepped off the porch, favouring his left leg – a souvenir of the war. There were no more flashes; the night darkened as the orange slowly dimmed. Gradually the stars came out.

Ty waited a half hour or so, until it was full night and the thin scrape of moon didn’t offer up enough light to see as far as the first fence. Eventually he shrugged. Whatever it was, clearly it wasn’t going to happen again; and it was getting too cold to just sand around. He turned and began limping back to his shack.”

From “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”. Read more in the Kindle edition of Mike Chinn’s Paladin Mandates.

Pulp Heroes: ToC announced

Editor Mike Chinn has now announced the ToC for The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes. Now we're into the production stage. All good fun (and exacting work).

Mike Resnick -- Origins
Robert William Iveniuk -- House Name
Anne Nicholls -- Eyes of Day, Eyes of Night
William Meikle -- Ripples in the Ether
Chris Iovenko -- The Perfect Murder
Bracken N MacLeod -- Ivy's Secret Origin
Joshua Wolf -- Crossing the Line
James Hartley -- Jean Marie
Ian Gregory -- Currier Dread and the Hair of Destruction
Amber L Husbands -- The Going Rate
Michael Haynes -- No Way but the Hard Way
Adrian Cole -- The Vogue Prince
Joel Lane -- Upon a Granite Wind
Milo James Fowler -- The Last Laugh
Allen Ashley -- In the Margins
Peter Crowther -- Heroes and Villains
Peter Atkins -- The Return of Boy Justice

Pulp Heroes: cover artwork

Here is the cover for The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes, edited by Mike Chinn. The artwork is by Bob Covington.

Email problems

Mike Chinn (editor of Pulp Heroes) is experiencing problems with his email. Until they are fixed please send manuscripts, etc, via alchemypress@gmail.com

The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes

The Alchemy Press is seeking submissions for THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF PULP HEROES. Edited by Mike Chinn.

The Shadow, The Bat, Doc Savage, The Spider; Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Detective Agency; Dusty Ayers & His Battle Birds; Sheena and Ka-Zar. Hard-boiled detectives, sinister vigilantes, bizarre villains – the staple of the Pulp tradition. We want fiction that celebrates (or subverts) that tradition – as well as taking a wild new look at it. Fiction set in the 1930s and 40s, the far future or mythical past, or the present day. Two-fisted heroes – and heroines – fighting for right and justice in the midnight city, foetid jungles or exotic, far-flung lands. Deranged villains for whom the world is never enough.

Sports stories, spy stories, aircraft & zeppelin stories, sea & pirate stories, Westerns, medieval romance, horror, science fiction and fantasy, movies and car racing – there’s no limit.

THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF PULP HEROES will be a paperback to be published in September 2012, to be followed by an eBook edition. Successful contributors will receive a copy of the book and a £10.00 advance against royalties on publication. We are after original fiction; but reprints will be considered if they are exceptional. No simultaneous or multiple submissions. We will only accept electronic submissions as email attachments in standard MS format, .rtf, .doc or .docx. Any submissions included in the body of the email will be rejected unread. The subject line should take the form “Title/author’s name/word count” (i.e. Mastermind of Mars/ ER Burroughs/3,000 words). Contributions must be in the range of 2,000-6,000 words firm, with full contact details on the front page. The submission period runs from April 1st to May 30th 2012. Do no submit outside those dates. No acceptances or rejections will be made until after the deadline; we will endeavour to report back to you six to eight weeks after that. If you have heard nothing after nine weeks you may query at the email address below.

Email all queries and submissions to pulpheroes[at]saladoth.com

THRILL US, SCARE US – MAKE US CARE.

The Paladin Mandates - revised edition

The updated edition of Mike Chinn's The Paladin Mandates is now available as an eBook – specifically as a Kindle book via Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

Mixing generous dollops of The Scorpion, The Shadow and Dominic Fortune, with a fascination for old airplanes, a taste for '30s detective fiction ... enter Damian Paladin, ghost hunter, supernatural sleuth. This revised edition features seven Paladin stories including a brand new tale, “There’ll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”.

ASIN: B007IJJQVO

Five star review for Sailors

Sailors of the Skies is available as a Kindle eBook. It's received a five star review: "I LOVED this story and can't wait for the authors to write more about Damian Paladin and his beautiful associate." Read the full review here. But of course, you can read more of Damian's adventures: check out The Paladin Mandates. 

Sailors of the Skies

The Alchemy Press's first eBook in Kindle format is "Sailors of the Skies" by Mike Chinn (originally published in Dark Horizons in 2009) -- a Damian Paladin adventure..

“Mix generous dollops of The Scorpion, The Shadow and Dominic Fortune, a taste for 1930s detective fiction, and the simple desire to tell a creepy tale…”

Available via Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Dark Horizons 37

After Chills, Peter Coleborn teamed up with Mike Chinn and Phil Williams to edit and produce the British Fantasy Society’s premier publication, Dark Horizons. Unfortunately, their first issue of DH took far too long to appear. The editorial note offers apologies but no excuses – and it’s too far in the past to remember all the details. Anyway, Dark Horizons 37, edited by the aforementioned team, with Joel Lane appointed as poetry editor, appeared in 1998.The cover price was £3.00.

DH37, although neatly produced, used a too-small font, which must have made it hard on the eyes. Dark Horizons included both fiction and non-fiction:

“The Lake” by Linda D Acaster
“Para Dice by the Landing Light” by G W Greenwood. Illustrated by Dallas Goffin
“Worms Feed on Hector: the Gothic Novels of Simon Raven” (NF) by Howard Watson
“A Fence in Rohgate” by D Harrigon
“Terminal” by Simon MacCulloch. Illustrated by Janet Morris
“Heart of the Machine” by Rick Cadger
“Scapegoat” by Alan Casey
“Queue” (verse) by Brian Maycock *
“Scraps” by Paul Finch. Illustrated by Alan Hunter
“Roots of a Writer” (NF) by Storm Constantine. Illustrated by Bob Covington
“Jenna’s Home” by Rick Kleffel
“Looking Through the Glass” (verse) by Steve Sneyd
“Horrorscopes: a Lover’s Guide” by Peter Tennant
“Kwaidan Revisited” (NF) by John Paul Catton
“A Rather Improbable God” by David Andreas
“Bio” (verse) by Mark McLaughlin
“The Last Story in the Book” by D F Lewis

Cover art was by Bob Covington with additional artwork by Alan Casey.

Note: * denoted a reprint and NF is non-fiction.

Glancing through DH37’s pages, I note that the first Alchemy Press title, The Paladin Mandates, had just appeared. That year’s Fantasycon, FCXXII, was held at the Albany Posthouse Hotel in Birmingham over the weekend 11-13 September. The guests of honour were Freda Warrington and Jane Yolen. Ramsey Campbell was the master of ceremonies. Finally, about this time websites were becoming more popular, with the BFS’ first site appearing on the Geocities server.

The Return of the Barbarians!

Swords Against the Millennium, edited by Mike Chinn, was co-published by the Alchemy Press and Saladorth Productions in 2000. The anthology demonstrates that heroic fantasy fits the short story format as well as novel length -- Mike Chinn and I were thinking of Robert E Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock... writers and stories of that ilk. To this end, Mike collected together eleven stories (including just two reprints):

"An Embarrassment of Champions" by Chris Morgan

"Manslayer" by Simon R Green *

"The Stages of the God" by Ramsey Campbell *

"The Seventh Sigil" by Cherith Baldry

"Dark Destroyer" by Adrian Cole

"The Taking" by Stan Nicholls

"Demon Slayer" by Pauline E Dungate

"Act of Sacrifice" by Paul Lewis

"To Catch a Thief" by Lisanne Norman

"Nyalis and the Cloud Raiders" by Anne Gay

"The Hunger of the Leaves" by Joel Lane

*reprints

The cover painting was by Bob Covington, with interior artwork by David Bezzina, Alan Hunter and Jim Pitts.

The Joel Lane story was selected for the year's best anthologies for horror (edited by Stephen Jones) and fantasy (edited by David G Hartwell).

The anthology was published in paperback (£9.95) and as a hardcover, signed and limited to 200 copies (£25.00). The limited edition is signed by all the writers, artists and the editor -- a fabulous book. However, you can still get new copies of this book for £8 and £20 respectively including UK postage (alchemypress@gmail.com) or via Oldhaven Book's Abe Store: just put in the title and away you go. Or click here to go directly to the title.

The Paladin Mandates

Discover how Damian first met Leigh in the story "Good Evening, Princess". This and another five Paladin stories -- featuring monsters, heroics and biplanes -- are available in THE PALADIN MANDATES by Mike Chinn.

Mixing in generous dollops of The Scorpion, The Shadow and Dominic Fortune, with a childhood fascination for old airplanes, a taste for '30s detective fiction, and the simple desire to tell a creepy tale, resulted in the first Paladin story: "The Death-Wish Mandate" (revised in this book as "I've Got You Under My Skin"). Pulp heroics at its best!

The Paladin Mandates is now out of print from The Alchemy Press. Copies may still be available via third-party dealers. Or buy the Kindle version from Amazon -- details here.

"Ace in the Hole" (see our previous post) is a sample story from THE PALADIN MANDATES. Enjoy!

Cover and interior illustrations by Bob Covington.

ISBN 978-0-9532260-0-9

"Ace in the Hole" story by Mike Chinn

I froze as another trickle of dirt rattled somewhere near in the darkness. I strained my eyes, waiting for that first flicker that would tell me it had started.

There maybe?

No. Just another trick played by over-imaginative nerves and eyes that had already been seeing things for two hours. I slumped back into the corner of my cramped hiding place, pulling the stiff collar of my flying coat up around my ears, trying to sink deeper into the thick leather. God, but it was cold! Old gags aside, I’d never have believed it was going to be as bitter as this; past experiences notwithstanding.

I found my mind drifting back to The Palace, two thousand five hundred miles away in New York: to Leigh in her newest sequins, choreographing the waiters and customers with equal ease; to Franco, hashing up something special in the kitchens. The cosy, warm kitchens.

And here I was: Damian Paladin, restaurateur to the Manhattan rich on my good days, investigator of all the things that have no place in the heady world of High Society America, 1935. Crammed into a lightless, airless place in Seattle’s suburbs, on a cold and damp November night—this wasn’t a good day. I tried to shift my weight, to ease some of the creeping numbness growing happily in my butt, but only succeeded in hitting my head off the low roof.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” I muttered sourly, once I’d used up all the colourful invective I knew. It was a pip, all right.

More dirt fell nearby; but this time I was sure I felt some movement. Another handful of clods shifted grittily—and I knew something was moving out in the thick darkness. I heard a heavy dragging—as though all the worms this side the Atlantic had chosen to take their vacation here—a hollow knock, a thud followed by more dragging; and then a pallid, cold glow began to sift through the total blackness—almost blinding eyes grown accustomed to the complete lack of light, despite its thin, phosphorescent quality.

Then I was no longer alone. Something the colour of dead maggots, oozing with corpse-light, dragged itself to within three feet of where I crouched—and halted, rearing up as much as it could in the confined space.

It had a strangely conical head, totally devoid of features, spreading out from thin shoulders like a dope-addict’s dream of a tulip, and a scrawny torso that tapered off into the shadows. Arms that looked boneless ending in huge, spade-shaped hands which scraped nervously on the plain, wooden floor. The smooth planes of the cone twitched this way and that, finally orientating themselves in my direction; and I didn’t need the crawling in my gut to know that somehow it was watching me.

What? came a bubbling voice—a voice filled with mouldy clay, the seepings of stagnant ponds lost far underground. I couldn’t tell if the sound actually issued from the pallid shape quivering in front of me, or just sounded in my head—but the source was all too obvious.

What are you?

I snapped open one of the holsters hung from my belt, and felt the comforting weight of my Mauser as I pulled the automatic free. It was one of the Schnellfeurer models, able to loose off all 20 rounds in little more than a second. Totally inaccurate, and no use at all against the thing before me—but I’ve always been a traditionalist.

“Exactly what you see,” I replied, doubting the thing could see at all. The fleshy cone bobbed in a peculiar, somehow disturbing motion.

No, came the disgusting voice. There is something more...

“And what about you,” I butted in, keen to get the thing off the subject of yours truly. “What are you?”

Exactly what you see, echoed the glowing thing, shifting its position, digging trenches with its spatulate hands. Now it was my turn to shake my head.

“Uh-huh.” I waved the Mauser at the thin torso and pointed head. “My guess is there’s a damned sight more to you than meets the eye, scrawny.”

The thing reared up suddenly, and I tensed, sure it was about to rush me, and a lipless, black gap suddenly split the cone almost from base to peak. A stench I defy anyone to describe belched out of that obscene blossom, followed by a wailing hiss that left my eardrums whistling in protest. With a flailing of the boneless arms the glowing shape began to slip back into the darkness, alternately retching stench and howls at me as it fled. But I’d been ready for that particular move since sundown. I launched myself across the cramped space and clung onto the retreating flesh as though it was my childhood love returned after a lifetime of celibacy.

Somehow I managed to keep hold of both automatic and the disgusting skin, which squirmed and puckered against me. I felt myself dragged down an endless tunnel, filled with vengeful stones that I must have done some hurt in their previous lives. In moments I was encased in a dense layer of mud and slime, that smelled even worse than my unwilling guide; and I figured it too held a grudge—the way it continued to probe my battered nose.

I seemed to fall for an eternity, shaken like a doll that’s been found by a bored terrier. Eventually the endless tunnel gave out, and I was snapped loose of my disgusting hold by a none too gentle swat across the shoulders from one of the creature’s shovel-like hands. I tumbled briefly, before fetching up hard against a loose aggregation of gravel and earth strewn with little aesthetic regard across stale-smelling ground. Grateful that most of my limbs seemed to still be in place, and facing the right way, I got painfully to my feet, brushing vainly at the smelly coating that had turned me into a two-legged mudslide.

I was in a dimly-lit cavern, dotted here and there by the crumbling remnants of buildings that looked as though they’d been in storage since the Chicago fire: storefronts and grit-covered sidewalks, hotels and offices. Some of them even managed to make it to the roof of the cave—though it was a struggle that had left them weak and tottering.

And everywhere I looked, the walls and ceiling of the cavern were punctured with black holes—like a negative sky at night.

“Old Seattle,” I murmured, realising they were remnants of a great fire: the one of 1889 that had swept the town. Fires had been quite the fashion during the last decades of the 19th century. Only I couldn’t figure where the light was coming from.

But it didn’t take long for me to find out. Rounding one of the decaying corners, I came face to face with my monster’s granddaddy; or to be exact: the rest of it. It was like some huge white slug, curled smugly in the centre of of a burned-out square, emitting the corpse-light that was giving the cavern its thin illumination. A frill of tendrils blossomed grotesquely from one of its ends, each of the limbs ending in the tulip head and spatulate hands of the thing I had so rudely interrupted nearer ground level. Most of the tendrils were curled close to the body—like kittens snoozing close to mama—but the one I’d hitched a lift with and a new friend were swaying like disturbed cobras above the main bulk, conical heads swivelling insanely.

Who? came that gurgling voice again. Who? Who?

“You got owls down here, cuddles?” I said, returning my slime-covered Mauser to its holster. “Better take care, I hear they’re partial to nice juicy worms.”

A couple more of the squirming arms came to life and raised themselves into the airless gloom. What are you?

It was an odd sensation, hearing that one throatless voice seeming to come from four bobbing heads, but with no cavern-echo.

“Doesn’t matter at this late stage,” I replied, starting to walk towards the pale bulk, and slipping my hands into the pockets of my flying coat. “But I know what you are.”

Half of the remaining tendrils awoke and waved mesmerically in the air before me. I paused, knowing that one of those limbs alone could finish this interview prematurely—but now I could count eleven, and they were starting to ooze up and down on their fantastically extensible arms, beginning a hypnotic dance. I couldn’t afford to be distracted.

What am I?

“The Mayor of Seattle thinks you’re a ghoul—or rather a whole pack of them—since you began raiding fresh graves four months ago.” Now the thing was talking again, I resumed edging forward—but I continued to watch the weaving limbs. “He’s nervous: he couldn’t find a pat answer as to how the corpses got snatched from underneath for the newspapers—and he’s up for re-election next year. It doesn’t do to make a politician nervous. Or don’t they have them where you come from?”

I have slept long. I must feed.

“Sure, I understand that. Why, we’re both men of the world.” I stopped, judging I was close enough. I noticed that all the heads were up now—eighteen spade-armed tentacles that could move like—I didn’t know how fast they could move: hence the caution.

“But you see, a nervous politician is a desperate man; and desperate men will believe anything. Well, almost anything. Which is why he called me in: I deal with those anythings sane people never think about.”

I do not care. I must feed.

“So you said, brother; so you said.” I dug my hands deeper in my pockets, making sure I had a good hold on what I’d been hiding in there. “But you’ve had your day, chum. You’re washed up. I can’t guess how long you’ve been asleep under the earth, and I don’t care. This isn’t your world anymore—if it ever was. You’re finished!”

I tensed, sensing the moment was almost at hand. All eighteen limbs had stopped their weaving, and I could see they were poised to strike; and being trapped in this museum exhibit hacked half to pieces was not how I’d planned to take my hard-earned rest.

At the very instant I keyed myself up, something black and gellid opened where the tendrils met, and stared at me. It wasn’t good: an eye that ancient looking at me that hard—I felt it could see too much. So I acted.

“So long, turkey,” I muttered, pulling the two parcels from my pockets.

I leapt back as far and as fast as I could the moment I’d pitched the two hessian bags at the eye nestled in that glistening white mass. The heads began to strike—but as suddenly started to writhe chaotically. They flopped open and closed, foetid air whistling out, smashing themselves against the ground, stretching at the vaulted ceiling, and crashing through already crumbling brickwork as the contents of the bags began to do its work. A deafening howl that reverberated inside my skull tore bloody furrows in my poor grey matter. I ran for the tunnel through which I’d been dragged, suddenly eager to be out of this place. If they ever wanted to take people on tours of underground Seattle, this cavern would have to be taken off the guide-map.

In its agonies, the squirming bulk thrashed its limbs against building and rock alike. Chunks of the ceiling were already breaking loose, and I saw one smash into the oozing flesh and half-sink into the stuff that was already beginning to turn semi-liquid. It’s amazing the effect several pounds of salt can have on a body.

Crude? Maybe—but like I said: I’m a traditionalist.

It took more hours than I like to think to crawl back up that slimy tunnel; and all the time I could hear the crashing destruction of the cavern, and the scream of the dying thing writhing in the centre of it. When I was about half way up, a sudden gust of stale air rushed up the tunnel from behind me, carrying a load of dust and a familiar stench. At the same time, the screams that had been ripping apart my skull abruptly stopped. The rest of the climb was done in blessed silence.

Once back in my cramped hidey-hole, I emptied the whole clip from my Mauser into the lid, shattering the cheap wood into toothpicks. Pushing myself out and digging up through the loose soil was the easiest part of the evening—but I still didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to in that cemetery.

It was too much like old times.


(c) Mike Chinn. Originally published in THE PALADIN MANDATES, 1998