Free stuff!

For this weekend only (Saturday the 21st of May and Sunday the 22nd of May), and to celebrate the impending release of "Scenes of Mild Peril", the Kindle versions of both my first two collection of short stories - "The Shadow Cast by the World" and "Forever and Ever, Armageddon" are available for free on Amazon.

Clicking on this handy link here will take you to my Amazon author page.

Read them, and if you enjoy either of them, I'd much appreciate you sticking a nice review on either Amazon or Goodreads.

You don't have to have a kindle to read them - the free Kindle App is available for all smartphones, and is also available for both PC and Mac Platforms (The VIC-20, Oric Atmos, V-Tech My First Laptop and the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A are currently not Kindle compatible).

Weird Ales

Come on in, take a pew, and have a glass of whatever you fancy. Mine host welcomes you to your own personal lock-in at the Tavern of Weird Ales. In this delightful tome of beer and pub-flavoured stories, you will find a wicked brew of eleven glorious tales guaranteed to make you shudder. From a low-calorie lager that might be one beer too many, to a tentacled tavern of terrifying tipples, it's all here, in round-after-round of weird and wonderful fiction. The spirits are with us and your time has been called.

The first volume of "Weird Ales" from Quantum Corsets, an anthology of alcohol related horror, is now available. My story "In Vino Veritas, In Vino Mors" (the tale of a most unusual Oenophile and his mysterious acquaintance) concludes this fine collection of eleven tales.

Topped off with a beautiful cover by the brilliant Luke Spooner, it's a great read, especially accompanied by a good pint and a bag or so of your favourite pub snacks.

Click here to be taken to the Amazon page for the book, available in both paperback and kindle formats. I'd love to know what you think of it.

Safety Record

My short story "Safety Record" is the featured story on today's front page of the Flash Fiction Press.

It's a rarity in that it's not related to horror of science fiction, but something altogether different...

I hope you enjoy it. Click here to be taken to the tale.

Strangely Funny III

Strangely Funny III, number four in the series (!) is now available on Kindle and shortly available in print.

As the promotional blurb says

"The fourth book in the Strangely Funny trilogy. Enjoy stories from some of the usual suspects, plus others from authors new to the series. Meet a man who wakes up as a cockroach - again. Learn why you shouldn't opt for a cut-rate mummification. And beware the perilous pinkie!"

My story "The Digit That Was Death" indeed features that very same perilous pinkie.  

Paul Wartenberg, one of the other contributors to the book, did a short (and sweet) little interview with me on his blog which can be found by clicking here.

If you've read my story, I'd love to know what you thought. It's a rare stab at more comedic horror, and I'm really rather pleased with it.

The Revengineers

"I glance over at the bedside clock and the bright red digital display passively informs me that it's approaching 5 a.m. The irony is that I've spent so long worrying about how little I've sleep I've had, that it's ending up keeping me awake – and at this bloody rate I know I still will be when my alarm goes off in around ninety minutes. Even now I know I'll be watching each of those minutes count down, the clawing feeling in my gut tightening as they tick by. (I know that strictly speaking digital clocks don't tick, but forgive me – I'm exhausted).

I’d count sheep but thanks to a traumatic incident in my childhood, they terrify me.

I've had a restless night with my still wide-awake brain dedicating its valuable processing time into either worrying about what time it was or mulling over what she'd said to me at the party last night. She wouldn't be lying awake angry and upset – of course she wouldn't. She'd be fast asleep now, probably smirking as she's dreaming of how she humiliated me at the party."

One of my short stories, The Revengineers, is the featured story for today on the Infective Ink website. It's a tale of break-up, revenge and a para-dimensional Captain Mainwaring . That old chestnut.

Click here to read the full story.

Let it Cry

My short story "Let it Cry" has been posted on the Stitched Smile Blog, and can be accessed by clicking here.  It's a slight deviation from the kind of story I usually do, but I'm really proud and fond of it - I hope you enjoy it.

Stitched Smile will be publishing my short story "Blasphemous Tumours" in their anthology collection "Unleashing the Voices Within", which will be available later this month.  For more information about them and the great stuff they do, click here.

Books, Films & Random Lunacy - an interview with George Bastow

At the start of the year, George Bastow, fellow Coventrian writer, asked if I'd do an interview for his blog. I did, it was a lot of fun, and is reprinted here with kind permission of George.  I urge you to check out his excellent blog which can be found here. So, without, further ado... 
For the debut instalment of ‘A Chat with,’ the newest segment to fill the virtual pages of Books, Films and Random Lunacy; I talk to the author of ‘The Shadow Cast by the World and ‘Forever and Ever Armageddon’ David Court.

Hello David, thanks for taking the time to chat with me here at the ink-stained headquarters of Books, Films and Random Lunacy. Could you tell the reader a bit more about yourself?

I’m a carbon-based life -orm who has thrown himself into the world of literature far later than he would have liked. By day I’m a mild mannered manager of a software department, and by night I’m typically scribbling the kind of stuff to make you laugh, think, or give you nightmares. All three, if I’m feeling particularly mischievous.

You have 2 published anthologies of short stories and another on the way, but where did it all start? When did the writing bug first sink its teeth in?

I’ve always been a keen writer, but have never been that confident in what I could produce. It was a few years back when I joined a site called “Readwave”, which is basically a place where you can submit stories and people can comment on them. I’d written a horror story for myself – “The Shadow Cast by the world” (my first published work) and it went down really well. I submitted more stuff, and people seemed to like it. It was only after a year or so that I realised I had enough stories to bung together into a reasonably sized anthology collection. Even though I’d always poo-pooed self-publishing, I did it to test the waters and people only went out and bloody spent money on it, the rotters.

Who would you say are your biggest literary influences?

I love reading, always have. I developed a Daredevil like sense of spatial perception as a child, able to walk with my head in a book whilst avoiding walking into people or walls. Because of my love for comics, I think my writing has a bit of a comic book sensibility to it – writers I’m heavily influenced by in that field are people such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman and Garth Ennis. With regards to your more traditional literature, I adore Stephen King and Kim Newman and the sweeping fantasy epics of Tolkien and Feist and they had to have influenced me somewhere along the line. Although my favourite book of all time is “Bad Wisdom”, a drugged up road trip about the escapades of Bill Drummond (formerly of KLF fame) and Zodiac Mindwarp. Go figure.

Let’s talk more about your anthologies, ‘The Shadow Cast by the World’ and ‘Forever and ever, Armageddon.’ How would you describe them to those who may not be familiar with your writing?

I’ll be brutally honest in that they’ve been hopelessly mislabelled on Amazon. Somehow they’ve both ended up categorised as fiction anthologies, whereas “The Shadow Cast by the World” is supposed to be an in-depth analysis of Northwestern Native American Cuisine (including my favourite part; a long lost traditional recipe for Psindamoakan, a foodstuff made from parched cornmeal and maple sugar). “Forever and ever, Armageddon” fared even worse, as that’s supposed to be a collection of sheet music designed for the Maori Nose flute, or nguru. In all seriousness though, both books are a collection of all my written work for the past few years. There’s no overall theme to either of them, but looking at them they’re predominantly science fiction and horror. There’s a bit of experimentation with poetry, and I’d like to think there’s a bit of dark humour in there as well. I’ve been compared to Neil Gaiman by a few people which is incredibly flattering, but I’m not sure I see it myself…

As well as those books you’ve also had your work featured in a number of other short story collections, the newest of which being a book entitled ‘Caped’. Would you be so kind as to tell us more about it?

I’ve always been a huge fan of superhero stories. When the fiction bug grabbed me a few years back one of the first stories I did was a superhero one, but as it featured a raft of DC characters I wrote it more for fun than to ever see it published (pssst.. drop me a line and I’ll let you read it). A little while back one of my friends saw a submission call for a superhero anthology by Local Hero Press LLC – an American publisher. I’d had an idea floating around for a little while, having wanted to play with the concept of the continuing rivalries of retired superheroes and supervillains way past their prime, and thought it’d be a nice fit. It was a story I thoroughly enjoyed fleshing out, and I sent it off. They wrote back to me a while later saying they liked the story, but with a few reservations – the ending didn’t work for them. After I’d done my petulant author stomping around, I realised that they were right. I developed a better ending, and they’ve printed it in that sweet spot of the final story in the anthology. (As an aside, and as a shameless plug, the story from Caped – “Sovereign’s Last Hurrah” – will be printed in my next anthology collection “Scenes of Mild Peril” which is tentatively scheduled for the middle of 2016. I’ll print this story as well as the one with the original ending, so the audience can decide which one they prefer. It’s like a Directors cut, or something. Personally, I think Local Hero Press were right in pushing me to write the one they eventually went with).

As you’ve mentioned, you have a great appreciation for the comic book medium, not only as a reader but a writer. You’ve recently worked with ‘Twisted Dark’ writer Neil Gibson of the indie comics imprint T Pub. As a result, one of your scripts is soon to be included in the first volume of the new ‘Twisted Sci-fi’ graphic novel from T Pub. Can you tell the reader about how that project came about?

I’m often being accused of not self-promoting enough and when a good friend of mine told me about Indies Day (an event originally organised by Neil Gaiman in which independent authors would help out a local bookshop) I decided to ask if I could tag along. Michael at the Big Comfy Bookshop at Fargo Village (Coventry) was good enough to let me take part – and it neatly coincided with the release of “Forever and Ever, Armageddon”. At the same event were Elizabeth Earle (a very good local writer), Mike Carey (of “The Girl with all the gifts” fame) and Neil Gibson from T Pub. I purchased a copy of all their books, and most of them purchased mine. I didn’t think anything more of it until I got an email out of the blue several months later from Neil. He liked my stuff, and wanted me to do something for Twisted Dark and their new title Twisted Sci-Fi. We chatted about it in London, and he now has an assortment of my scripts for both. I’ll let you know more as this gets closer to fruition, but it’s very exciting.

Aside from your prose and comics writing, you also have a blog, a very well-written one if I may say so, called FoldsFive. I would strongly urge you to check it out dear reader, it’s well worth a few minutes of your time. How long has FoldsFive been going, and what got you started on the highly addictive drug known as blogging?

You’re too kind. I’ll come here again. The FoldsFive blog has fallen by the wayside as I’ve been too busy, but back in 2008 I started the page just as a way of doing something slightly creative. It seemed to gain a bit of a following, and I found it particularly cathartic at certain traumatic periods of my life (the death of my mum, my own struggles with mental and physical illness) and other people seemed to like reading it. It became a kind of all-purpose notice board to throw anything I could think of at; rants, bits of satire, some of my earlier fiction. Every now and then a guest writer would come along and stick something on there, and it was just a nice collection of articles. It’s been superceded by the www.davidjcourt.co.uk stuff now though, and I might just have to officially retire the old foldsfive site

We’re both from the Midlands, an area of Britain that with the exception of Shakespeare, is not renowned for its writers. When I started writing my eccentric tales and creative ramblings, I was under the false impression that there were no outlets for creators in our region. However, when you look beneath the surface, there is a vibrant and eclectic scene in the Midlands. What are your thoughts on all the talented people doing big things in our home region?

I think there’s always been a surplus of home-grown talent in the Midlands. I blame the bleak weather and the difficulty of being distracted by the seaside. In the brief time I’ve been involved with the local literary scene, I’ve met an incredibly talented bunch of people – the writers from KnightWatch press, Elizabeth Earle. It’s always been there, you just need to look for it. Rees (Finlay) and his team are doing incredible stuff with the Indie Project, and I’ve heard rumour of this sneaky urchin called George Bastow who is writing some great stuff and is – apparently – a damned nice chap as well. He is clearly a threat and must be destroyed.

It’s been a pleasure talking to you David, before you go back to your keyboard and your highly intricate plan to take over the world, what new writings can the reader expect from you in the future?

I’ve halted work on the robot army, as it just wasn’t going anywhere. That sentient Artificial intelligence is a bugger to debug – So at the moment I’m putting the finishing touches to Scenes of Mild Peril, mainly working out what’s going in it and what isn’t. I’m also still sending my stories out to a variety of different anthologies and waiting for some of my already approved stuff to appear out there. I’ve got an inkling of a comic script idea, which a local illustrator (Simon Myers) and myself keep threatening to start working on – which will quite honestly be awesome. Anything to keep the Amazon Author page updated. So, more of the same basically – it seems to be working quite well so far.

Find out more about David and his work by clicking here: http://www.davidjcourt.blogspot.co.uk Follow David on Twitter: @FoldsFive