BY THE RIVER, FONTAINEBLEAU
Go to the Stories page to read this landmark tale, newly added to the site.
At the time of its original publication, a reader complained to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: "It was nothing but an excuse for gut-wrenching horror... after reading it I felt physically sick and was unable to sit down and face a family meal for the next three days."
When dramatised by the author for BBC Radio 4's FEAR ON FOUR anthology series, the story drew a similar complaint from Mary Whitehouse's Viewers and Listeners Association.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Study commissioned
Doctor Matthew Hills, of the University of Wales at Cardiff, has been commissioned by Manchester University Press to write a book-length study concentrating on Stephen Gallagher's TV work. The book will launch a new series alongside titles on Terry Nation and Andrew Davies.
The study will give special attention to the creative process behind WARRIORS' GATE and will draw upon hitherto unavailable sources. These include the original drafts of the script and the unpublished first version of the Target Books novelisation.
Matt Hills' latest book, FAN CULTURES, is published by Routledge. He is also editorially involved in Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, an academic but accessible online journal of cultural studies.
CULT TV 2002
The ninth annual Cult TV weekend, held from October 25th to 28th in Southport's Floral Hall, raised £3,500 for charity. Proceeds were split between UNICEF and The Southport Christmas Lights Appeal.
Plans for a tenth such event are already in hand for next year. Check out the Cult TV website for further details.
NEW COMMISSIONS
The main news this month (September 2002) is of a development commission for a one-hour, multi-episode science fiction TV series for one of the UK's major independent production companies. "I can't say too much about it yet but the intention is to make it hard-edged and realistic, a real alternative to all those rubber-nose sf shows. Apart from the pilot episode and the show bible I'm pressing to have an influence over the production machinery itself... the UK has some of the world's top sf talent and it would be nice, for once, to see this fact reflected on the screen."
SG is also working on an adaptation of a classic genre novel for television; watch this space for further details.
FESTIVAL OF FANTASTIC FILMS
This year's Festival runs from August 30th to September 1st at the Renaissance Hotel, Manchester, England. Guests include director John Hough (The Legend of Hell House, Twins of Evil, The Saint), composer John Scott (A Study in Terror, Greystoke) and writer Frederick Smith (633 Squadron, Devil Doll).
Stephen Gallagher will be MC'ing jointly with fellow-writer Stephen Laws, now fully recovered from his recent surgery.
Click here to go to the Festival website.
JOE R LANSDALE INTRO CONFIRMED
Unique storytelling voice and all-round genre megastar Joe Lansdale has delivered the introduction to WHITE BIZANGO, out from PS Publications in August 2002.
JAILBIRD FOR JESUS
A new 6,000 word story, completed June 2002. Watch this site for publication details.
DOCTOR HOOD
This 12,000 word novella has been bought by Ellen Datlow for an anthology of ghost stories titled The Dark, to be published by TOR Books in 2003.
A new short story, Little Angels, was completed at the end of May.
More information has been added to the CULT TV website about this year's festival.
The 9th Annual Cult TV Festival will take place from the 25th to the 28th October 2002, in the Southport Theatre and Floral Hall, Southport, Lancashire.
Click here for more information on SG's participation in this event. Other guests for 2002 include Terry Jones, Michael Jayston, Gangsters writer Philip Martin, Bond director John Glen, Brian (Lexx) Downey and Virginia (Farscape) Hey.
THE KINGDOM OF BONES in the US
PBS has scheduled the latest run of MURDER ROOMS episodes, including THE KINGDOM OF BONES, as part of the MYSTERY! series beginning in July 2002.
WHITE BIZANGO completed and delivered
With the middle classes adopting voodoo as a lifestyle fad, their doors are opened to a ruthless white male with a command of the religion's darker practical secrets. After an unusual and harrowing encounter, Louisiana detective John Lafcadio pursues the faceless man who now haunts his nightmares.
"When Pete Crowther and I first talked about this, it was going to be a novella of about 30,000 words. But then when I put my head down and got stuck in, it grew to almost twice that, novel length. When I submitted the manuscript I said to Pete, read it and then let's talk about any cuts you want to make. But his response was that the length would be no problem. So it would seem that we're looking at a new novel for August 2002."
See the PS Publishing website for further details.
Border Books, Cheshire Oaks, 23rd May 2002
A horror-themed evening with readings, discussion and questions from the audience; speakers confirmed include Stephen Gallagher, Ramsey Campbell and Mark Morris.
Cheshire Oaks is a business park between Liverpool and Chester, directly off Junction 10 of the M53 and well signposted.
TV ZONE Anniversary Special
The magazine devoted to cult and genre television is producing a celebratory special to mark 150 issues in thirteen years of publication. SG has contributed an appreciation of Season Four of The Avengers, 1965-66.
New story in WEIRD TALES
The short story LITTLE DEAD GIRL SINGING appears in the current issue of WEIRD TALES magazine, numbered 327 and featuring a cover by rising British artist Dominic Harman.
WEIRD TALES began publication in 1923. In its pulp-era days, largely under the editorship of Farnsworth Wright, the magazine was a home for such contributors as Clark Ashton-Smith, H P Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, Robert Bloch, and Ray Bradbury.
The publication's influence was way out of proportion to its circulation. Still styled as The Unique Magazine, WEIRD TALES is published by Warren Lapine and edited by George H Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer.
Chris Moore cover for WHITE BIZANGO
WHITE BIZANGO, scheduled for an August release in a limited edition from PS Publishing (scroll down this page for further details and a link), is to feature a jacket designed by top SF and Fantasy artist Chris Moore.
Gallagher supplied the text for the Paper Tiger publication JOURNEYMAN: THE ART OF CHRIS MOORE, a large-format hardcover reproducing selections from the artist's work alongside a long biographical interview (see the Books section for further details or click here for a review).
Material for the interview was gathered in the course of a number of head-to-head idea-swapping sessions in various public houses in East Lancashire. The same proven creative technique will no doubt be employed in the design process for the new jacket.
Click here to visit the Chris Moore website.
Interview
Issue 106 of ComputerActive magazine contains REALITY BYTES, an article on sf and technology by Dinah Greek including an SG sidebar interview and picture. The issue will be selling from the 7th to the 20th of March.
Gallagher at Cult TV
Stephen Gallagher has accepted an invitation to appear at this year's CULT TV festival. Guests already lined up include writer-performer-director Terry Jones, and actor Michael Jayston.
Along with roles that have included that of Tsar Nicholas in NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA and TV's QUILLER, Jayston starred in Gallagher's Saturday Night Theatre play AN ALTERNATIVE TO SUICIDE, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 back in 1979.
The 9th Annual Cult TV Festival will take place from the 25th to the 28th October 2002, in the Southport Theatre and Floral Hall, Southport, Lancashire.
LAST ROSE OF SUMMER trilogy pulled from eBay
A disc of mpeg files, containing all the episodes of Stephen Gallagher's LAST ROSE OF SUMMER sf radio trilogy of series, was withdrawn from sale on eBay before completion of the auction.
The material was described as having been sourced from the original studio master tapes. Piccadilly Radio's masters are stored in the North West Sound Archive in Clitheroe, Lancashire, but dupes were made for transmission by other radio stations throughout Britain and Australia.
Harry Nadler
Sad to report that Salford-born Harry Nadler, main organiser and tireless linchpin of Manchester's annual Festival of Fantastic Films, had a sudden heart attack and died on Friday March 1st.
"We go back to when I was about 15 - I didn't know him personally then but I bought a fanzine that was on sale in the ticket booth of my local cinema, and it was produced by Harry and the gang... it was a Ray Harryhausen interview special. And what changed in all of us over the next 30-odd years? Precious little, I'm happy to say... still loving the same stuff with the same passion, still interviewing Ray! And the great thing was, I got to join in."
It was with Harry as their binding force and dynamo that the same bunch of lifelong friends conceived an annual festival to celebrate the kind of films they'd always loved. The ethos of the Festival of Fantastic Films is rooted in the Universal and Hammer horrors, the Republic Serials, Ray Harryhausen movies, anything you might ever have seen in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, the Standard 8 one-reelers from Castle Films, B-movies of all kinds and from all nations, all coupled with a love of celluloid showmanship and the will to salute the surviving artists. If you wanted a snapshot of Harry, the Festival is, in part at least, a fair reflection of the man. Of course there was much, much more to him, and he will be sadly missed.
THE KINGDOM OF BONES on DVD
The Region 2 DVD release of all four feature-length films in the MURDER ROOMS series, including THE KINGDOM OF BONES, has been announced for March 11th, 2002.
The series was first screened in 2001. Only limited information is available at this stage but it appears that the discs will carry no extras other than the usual menu and scene selection options.
Click here to buy a copy of the disc.
Although all four BBC Films productions were shot on Super-16 and broadcast in their full 16x9 widescreen format, one disappointing early indication is that the DVD will be presented in 'fullscreen' only.
WHITE BIZANGO in August 2002!
WHITE BIZANGO, an original 30,000 word novella by Stephen Gallagher, has been scheduled for stand-alone publication in both hard and softcover editions in August of this year.
The PS Publishing list includes novels and novellas by Michael Moorcock, Kim Newman, Michael Marshall-Smith, Peter F Hamilton, Stephen Baxter, Paul J McAuley, Ken MacLeod, Mark Morris, and Ramsey Campbell.
MURDER ROOMS series 3
Just before Christmas there was a rumour from within the BBC that, despite positive viewer reaction and the willingness of coproducers to extend their commitment, there would be no further episodes of MURDER ROOMS (scroll down for details on the Stephen Gallagher-scripted THE KINGDOM OF BONES). But now according to series creator David Pirie the outlook is positive for a third season (counting the original two-parter as Series One), although it's unlikely to reach British screens before late 2003.
The current talk is of a short series in a revised format. Right after the series aired, Gallagher was asked to propose another story; "But with three unmade scripts already in hand the BBC may not be commissioning any new material. They're saying that instead of single feature-length films, the stories in the next series may be two-parters with hour-long episodes. Apparently the reason for the delay in getting a firm decision has something to do with overcoming an inbuilt BBC aversion to period drama, despite its manifest popularity... that's how they lost John Sullivan and MICAWBER to ITV. OK, so period drama's expensive, but it's also timeless. There's contemporary stuff running on BBC Choice and ITV2 that's less than a couple of years old and already looks dated. I swear that if I see one more example of that faux-naif hosepiping camerawork, I'll probably chew the buttons off the remote."
Follow this link for a review of the series from Teletronic, the bimonthly ezine from the Television Heaven website.
New additions to the links on this site include Fantastic Victoriana, an exhilarating treasure-box of a site created by Jess Nevins and exploring the entertaining extremes of the Victorian imagination, and Alien Online, a British SF and horror site carrying reviews and interviews.
New featured short story!
The complete text of MAGPIE is now available to read on the short stories page.
Originally appearing in Charles L Grant's FINAL SHADOWS collection, MAGPIE went on to win Peeping Tom magazine's Scaremonger of the Year award.
Previously featured short stories can be still be accessed by clicking on the highlighted titles.
These include THE VISITORS' BOOK, originally published in Nicholas Royle's DARKLANDS collection and reprinted in both THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR (edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling) and THE YEAR'S BEST SHORT STORIES (edited by Giles Gordon and David Hughes).
Thanks for all responses and comments on FANCY THAT!, the Christmas short story that was available throughout December.
Watch here for upcoming news on VICTORIAN GOTHIC, DANZIGER and THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO.
Contact and Links menu revised and updated. New sites listed include Undead Remains, created by Kelly Rothenberg and containing fiction, articles, essays and reviews.
WRITTEN ON WATER? Archive television and the BFI has now been added to the Articles section. Taking as its starting point a review of the long-awaited DVD of Nigel Kneale's THE STONE TAPE, the article covers the BFI's plans for future classic British TV releases.
A boxed set of all four MURDER ROOMS episodes on VHS is on sale in the runup to Christmas.
Worth noting: the current issue of TOTAL DVD magazine carries the classic indie horror movie CARNIVAL OF SOULS on a free disc. Pick up a copy, and see the film cited by Kim Newman as the reason why so many people drown in cars in Gallagher novels. True Soulheads will, of course, have tracked down the Criterion Collection double-DVD which includes two cuts of the film, an audio commentary, outtakes, interviews, a documentary on the spooky Saltair pavilion where the finale was filmed, and - for those whose enthusiasm shades into masochism - an hour of industrial movies from Herk Harvey's Centron Corporation.
In progress: "I've been commissioned to write the pilot and series bible for a new show aimed at a Saturday night, BBC1 slot, the working title for which is MICROBOTS. It's pacy adventure stuff with lots of effects and CGI and it's aimed at the widest possible audience. I just finished the opening episode and I'm aiming to have the whole thing delivered by the end of the year." MICROBOTS is developed from a concept by Mark Gorton and is being co-produced by BBC Scotland and the Manchester-based independent Multi Media Arts (MMA), with backing from BBC Worldwide.
Each entry on the books page of this site now carries a link to Amazon.co.uk which will deliver a search result for the relevant title. Out-of-print titles will be offered through Amazon's Z-Shops dealers.
To search internationally for Stephen Gallagher titles go to the Advanced Book Exchange (Abebooks) and enter the relevant keywords in the Author field. As of this posting there are 640 available titles listed.
A downloadable version of this site formatted for palmtop computers is in preparation.
THE KINGDOM OF BONES is now available to buy on VHS (See below for more details about the production).
The release date is November 5th and the catalogue number is IMC392, a release of IMC Vision Ltd. Picture format unknown, probably full-frame although the film was shot and shown in 16X9 widescreen. The entire MURDER ROOMS series has been made available on VHS remarkably quickly following transmission, but there's no word yet on any DVD release date.
(CHIMERA had a VHS release only in the inferior, cut-down 'telemovie' version, now deleted. To date there's been no announcement of OKTOBER on either VHS or DVD. Both WARRIORS GATE and TERMINUS have been released on VHS-only by BBC Video, and the two CHILLERS episodes were made available on a single tape (YTVE 71). Episodes from BUGS series one disappeared so quickly from the market that some doubt they ever even existed)
New novella, DOCTOR HOOD, completed.
An article/review titled WRITTEN ON WATER? ARCHIVE TELEVISION AND THE BFI appears in the November/December issue of THE WRITERS' BULLETIN.
New fiction sale: LITTLE DEAD GIRL SINGING to Weird Tales magazine. Publication date tba.
VICTORIAN GOTHIC is on ice at the moment; after two years in development at the BBC it fell foul of a change in channel controllers and found itself without a sponsor. A pity, because thanks to the development team of Jane Tranter, Pippa Harris and Julia Walsh the script was in formidable shape. The story features Tom Sayers, real-life boxing champion turned Victorian pulp hero.
I wouldn't hold my breath for THE BOAT HOUSE, either; script problems and the dispersal of the production team suggest a return to the drawing board on this one.
The summer months of 2001 were mostly taken up with two big screen projects. DESERT KNIGHTS is a four-hour miniseries about the formation of the SAS in the Western Desert, an epic and ambitious WWII piece commissioned by Carnival and out to broadcasters now. This was a new departure for me; factually-based and heavily researched, and a subject area that I've never tackled before. I approached it with some wariness, only to find the story irresistible.
Also for Carnival and even more ambitious is my original feature screenplay JOHN GABRIEL, a $25m action-adventure story set in Northern California. The storyline: an investigator joins forces with a fugitive when he realises that he's been implicated in a perversion of justice. I spent a good part of August in San Francisco and the Bay Area, scouting locations and making contacts before returning home to give the script a final polish. My deal with Carnival not only covers the film rights to this first John Gabriel story, but provides for the possibility of sequels as well. I've retained the publishing rights, so I control the future of the character in print.
My novel THE SPIRIT BOX is now in the hands of Howard Morhaim in New York; see the David Mathew interview elsewhere on this site for more information on this. For the immediate future I'm about to start work on WHITE BIZANGO for Peter Crowther's PS Publishing imprint, and I've been working on a novella-length ghost story titled DOCTOR HOOD. As soon as the development deal with Kudos Productions is finalised I'll be starting work on DANZIGER, a retro-modern detective series of my own devising."
