The Meandering Knight

The Meandering Knight (2020)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

An adventure story in verse form.

Bertie Random is an ordinary man and an unlucky traveller. While fleeing monsters on foot, he is accosted by an octopus on roller skates who gives him eight letters. These letters tell the tales of strange incidents across time and space. If Bertie learns the appropriate lessons from reading them, he will be knighted by Fate herself and his bad luck will turn into opportunity. Arise, Sir Random?

An epic poem (or a mock-epic or pseudo-mock-epic) that consists of a frame story and eight other odd and fantastical adventures that are related to the quest of the main protagonist.

Cover art by Selwyn Rodda.

Carrying Women Across Rivers

Carrying Women Across Rivers (2020)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

Quirky poetry in the light-hearted tradition of Richard Brautigan, Don Marquis, Hilaire Belloc, Blaise Cendrars and Edward Lear.

133 verses and prose poems ranging in length from one-sentence quips to absurdist ballads. Space, time, love, journeys, fruit, the thoughts and feelings of inanimate objects and monsters are among the themes covered.

From the back cover:

"Dear reader,please don't have great
expectations about this poetry collection
because you might be disappointed
and I don't wish to be hated by you.

So kindly remember, before you enter,
that although most of the book could
surely be better, all its unrhymed parts
could hardly be verse..."

The Dangerous Strangeness

The Dangerous Strangeness (2020)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

Fifteen one-act plays featuring robots, poets, cowboys, pirates, highwaymen, castaways, mad scientists, homunculi, vampires, ancient warriors, impossible gods, eccentric insults and much more.

Written for puppets and people, for dreamers and schemers, and intended for the page as well as the stage. Includes a collaboration with Mauritian author Vatsala Radhakeesoon.

Contents:

The Handbag Inquisitor * Dust or Human Jigsaws * I Boil the Statistic Overshoe * Fewer Not Less * Three Log Fire * As a Man Grows Colder * Yesferatu * The Letters of the Alphabet * Don't Shoot the Messenger * One Short * The God of Atheism * The Highwayman * A Big Hand * Good Morning! * All Things Nice

Note: 'A Big Hand' was written with Vatsala Radhakeesoon.

Crepuscularks and Phantomimes

Crepuscularks and Phantomimes (2020)
Raphus Press

A collection of thirteen ghostly, gothic, lovecraftian and weird fantasy stories in the ironic mode...

Tentacle telephones that span centuries, men grown in jars, rivers overflowing with the tears of ghosts, phantom twins, tunnels that are the guts of an extinct giant, grotesque antique shops...

All this and more will be found in the pages of this hilariously nightmarish book.

Contents:

Tender is the Tether * Confessions of a Medicated Lurker * The Sauce of the Guile * The Itchy Skin of Creepy Aplomb * Gut Road * Back to Back * Different Shadows * The Blunderbuss * The Partial Rapture * Jacques Inleboqs * The Babbling Brook * The Fangs of the Underworld * The Smoking Room

Note: Two of the stories ('Jacques Inleboqs' and 'The Smoking Room' are only available in the paperback and ebook editions).

Facets of Faraway

Facets of Faraway (2020)
Gloomy Seahorse Press

Stories about incompetent explorers in strange places; knights, goddesses and viscounts that don't exist (but who are stuck in trees anyway); castles that give birth to baby fortresses; anti-matter monsters that meet and greet their twins; time travellers, castaways and ledge nymphs; and a scientist who believes that all the energy in the universe is draining away through a hole in spacetime and who has a cunning plan to plug the leak!

Available from Amazon and other online bookstores.

Contents:

Knight on a Bear Mountain * The Bathing Bells * Small Freedom * The Impregnable Fortress * Little People, Inc. * The Hole Truth * The Stuffed Goddess * The Meltwater Republic * The Non-Existent Viscount in the Trees * The Ledge Nymphs * The Achilles Tendency * Hogwash and Bum Note * Early Morning Chocolate in Madrid * The Soft Landing * Entropy * Fighting Back * The Bubble Bursts * The Realisation of Vast Headgear * A Mirror in Moonville * When Clowns Collide * On What Grounds * Hooves of Ghosts * The Dusky Birron Returns * Cooking Soup on a Burning House * Bringing it Back

Note: The stories 'Knight on a Bear Mountain' is an expansion of the original, and 'A Mirror in Moonville' is a fusion of 'In Moonville' and 'The Mirror in the Looking Glass'. The original stories in both cases can be found in my other books.