Over the past twelve years, I have been writing longer stories that form a distinct group, different to my earlier occult detective or antiquarian tales and to the pieces set in real or imagined European cities and provinces.
These longer fictions are often located in particular English landscapes: in most cases the setting can be followed exactly on the map. They typically start from genuine historical or legendary mysteries that have interested me, and are also an attempted response to my enjoyment of interwar supernatural thrillers.
Now, Tartarus Press have just announced The Prospero Machine And Other Stories, which collects seven of these longer narratives. The title story depicts the strange incidents surrounding a fortune-telling machine at an out-of-season seaside resort, while other tales reveal sorcery and sanctity in the Malvern Hills, among Roman ruins on the Cumbrian coast and at a Templar preceptory in Lincolnshire.
In further offerings, the celebration of masques of the seasons at England’s third university seems to have occult significance; a young curator at a museum discovers the key to an ancient ritual; and even the historic curiosities of a town’s municipal boundaries prove to have ancient and mysterious properties.
All but one of the stories are now only available in print in this collection. The stories have previously appeared in limited edition volumes, with thanks to Sarob Press and Egaeus Press, but are collected here for the first time.
The Prospero Machine And Other Stories is in a limited hardback edition of 300 copies.
(Mark Valentine)
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