Simon Creasey: Coromandel (2005)Preface
'Talking against death'! yep that sums our craft up
in three brutal words ..."
- Tracey Slaughter. Email to Jack Ross (14/2/2024)
While I was in the early stages of compiling the pieces which would eventually turn into my latest book of stories, Haunts (2024), I decided to try to straighten out all the myriad drafts I'd accumulated by pasting them up online.
As it turned out, that didn't help me much (if at all), but it did provide the kernel for a larger Stories site which has now grown to include the texts of all my published short fiction to date - with the exception of my three novels, each of which already has one (or more) websites dedicated to it.
Like the earlier Poems site, then, to which this is intended as a companion,
contains the texts of all three novellas and four short fiction collections I've published so far. It's almost a year since Haunts was launched for sale online (well in advance of the actual physical booklaunch on Saturday, 5th October), so it seems like an appropriate time to share its contents with any of you who'd like to sample the text before buying a copy.
Before outlining the content of the site, though, I thought I'd better say some more about its structure.
The first thing you see, if you click on this link, will be the warning above.
After you've clicked on the orange "I understand and I wish to continue" button, you'll be taken to the following page:
This should give you full access to the site.
The reason for all this is because some of the stories do contain swear words and sexually explicit material, and I've found in the past that this tends to attract the attention of roving web editors, who red flag and - in some cases - simply take down any pages which offend in this way.
I've therefore decided to mark both this and my Poems site - as well with those devoted to the three novels in my R.E.M. trilogy - as containing "Adult content":
This "sensitive content" gateway will, unfortunately, have to be renegotiated every time you access any of these sites. No doubt this will have the effect of reducing the number of visits to each of them, but it also increases the level of dedication needed to get there - not in itself a bad thing. Bona fide readers are always welcome.
- Nights with Giordano Bruno. ISBN 0-9582225-0-9. Wellington: Bumper Books, 2000. [xii] + 224.
- The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis. ISBN 0-9582586-8-6 . Auckland: Titus Books, 2006. 164 pp.
- E M O. ISBN 978-1-877441-07-3. Auckland: Titus Books, 2008. [vi] + 258 pp.
Here, then, is a breakdown of the contents of my new fiction website. At present it contains 59 stories, ranging in length from novellas to flash fictions, taken from seven books:
- Monkey Miss Her Now & Everything a Teenage Girl Should Know. ISBN 0-476-00182-X. Auckland: Danger Publishing, 2004. 138 pp. [13 short stories]
- Trouble in Mind. ISBN 0-9582586-1-9. Auckland: Titus Books, 2005. [ii] + 102 pp. [single novella]
- Kingdom of Alt. ISBN 978-1-877441-15-8. Auckland: Titus Books, 2010. [iv] + 240 pp. [8 short stories]
- The Annotated Tree Worship: Draft Research Portfolio. ISBN 978-0-473-41328-6. Paper Table Novellas. Auckland: Paper Table, 2017. iv + 88 pp. [first of 2 novellas]
- The Annotated Tree Worship: List of Topoi. ISBN 978-0-473-41329-3. Paper Table Novellas. Auckland: Paper Table, 2017. iv + 94 pp. [second of 2 novellas]
- Ghost Stories. ISBN 978-0-9951165-5-9. 99% Press. Auckland: Lasavia Publishing, 2019. 140 pp. [12 short stories]
- Haunts. ISBN 978-1-991083-17-3. 99% Press. Auckland: Lasavia Publishing, 2024. 202 pp. [13 short stories]
Along with my Opinions site ("Essays, Interviews, Introductions & Reviews - 1987 to the present"), and the already available Poems, this showcases pretty much all of the work I've published to date. Enjoy!
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