Screaming Dreams

Clinically Dead & Other Tales of the Supernatural by David A. Sutton

Welcome to the infernal realm… The walking dead, shape-shifters, precognition, dreams and spiritual journeys, subterranean creatures, possession, ancient survivals and ghostly revenge. Ten weird tales of supernatural transformation, myth and obsession.

Table of Contents

* The Holidaymakers
* Changing Tack
* Photo-Call
* Those of Rhenea
* How the Buckie was Saved
* Clinically Dead
* Tomb of the Janissaries
* La Serenissima
* In the Land of the Rainbow Snake
* Monkey Business

Introduction by Stephen Jones
Afterword by Joel Lane

Extract

Russell now knew for certain that it was the drugs that were causing the patients to rise up. There was too much unsupervised testing, too much willingness to inject and cut and excise. The painkillers and the narcotics were inside his mother, diluting her consciousness. No one would believe him, but he knew that, as with all the others, they had been slowly drawing off all her body fluids, in order to replace them with the secret substances that would animate her flesh once she was dead.

"The notion that NHS patients are guinea-pigs for experimental drugs may be partly satirical, but there’s no arguing with the grim emotional logic of this breathtakingly angry story" — Joel Lane

(click for larger view)

Cover art by Harry O. Morris

ISBN : 1-905100-18-3
Hardback : 234x156mm : 272pp

Published May 2009

£20.00 (+ postage)

About the Author

David A. Sutton (b. 1947) was recognised for his devotion to and achievement in the genre over many years, with the British Fantasy Society’s ‘Special Award’ in 1994. He has also received the World Fantasy Award, The International Horror Guild Award and twelve British Fantasy Awards since 1978. From producing his own small press magazine, Shadow Fantasy Literature Review and extensive editorial and administrative jobs for the British Fantasy Society and fantasy conventions during the 1970s, he has also been involved in editing and publishing a number of small press publications besides, including the multiple award-winning Fantasy Tales magazine, Dark Horizons and Fantasy Media.

More recently he compiled Voices from Shadow, a small non-fiction anthology celebrating the 20th anniversary of his first genre magazine, and an anthology of new ghost and horror tales, Phantoms of Venice. Earlier fiction anthologies under his editorship include, New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural (two volumes), The Satyr’s Head & Other Tales of Terror, and, jointly edited with Stephen Jones, The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales, The Anthology of Fantasy and the Supernatural, Dark Voices: The Pan Book of Horror Stories (five volumes) and the acclaimed Dark Terrors series from Gollancz.

His short stories have appeared in a number of periodicals and anthologies, including Skeleton Crew, Beyond, Kimota, Best New Horror 2 and 7, Final Shadows, Cold Fear, Taste of Fear, The Mammoth Book of Zombies, The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, The New Lovecraft Circle, Shadows Over Innsmouth, The Merlin Chronicles, Beneath the Ground and When Graveyards Yawn. Plus more recent short story appearances in the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 19, The Fisherman published as a chapbook by Gothic Press, and stories in The Fourth Black Book of Horror and Subtle Edens.

He lives in Birmingham from where he regularly rambles through the surrounding hills, woodland, countryside and mud. When not poring over Ordnance Survey maps he is working on a batch of new short stories. His debut collection, originally published by Crowswing Books (now re-issued by Screaming Dreams), is Clinically Dead & Other Tales of the Supernatural.

Author's Homepage : uk.geocities.com/david.sutton986@btinternet.com
Author's Blog : davidasutton.blogspot.com

About the Artist

Harry Morris lives in Albuquerque in a house everyone calls the Witch House. He lives with two cats and has several mannikins. Harry is a prolific artist whose work has been used on books by Clive Barker and Thomas Ligotti among others. He is also the editor of the remarkable fanzine from the 70s and 80s, Nyctalops.